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Religion is a man made concept to control people and originally was used to explain natural phenomenon to ignorant people. I am the first to admit there’s comfort in the rituals. Jesus the myth may indeed be based on a real person. People with morals and values don’t need a mythical god to keep them from doing what’s wrong.
Thank you for sharing your story, Thrill. Sometimes it's not easy to put hard reality in writing. One of the most difficult things I ever did was work through my deconversion from a lifetime of Christianity. In the end, we believe what we believe or not, and no amount of wishing or will power will change what it is.
Which is why I always say, trobesmom, that Christians are Christians and sensible is sensible and never the twain shall meet. Christianity, like nearly all religions, relies on feeding a person a constant narrative about a mythical being who was real--from the time they suck their thumbs to adulthood. Rabid fanatical Christian parents are regularly bombarding their children with stories of Jesus and pictures of Jesus and movies of Jesus and constantly talking about Jesus as if he was a real person. The child hears this stuff over and over and over and over and over every day, sometimes every hour in one form or another. By the time they're adolescent they cannot conceive of Jesus being anything other than an honest to God real human who once lived on earth. It's brainwashing and mental and emotional programming to the -nth degree. I had seen thousands of pictures of Jesus by the time I reached early adulthood and they all--I mean every single one--looked EXACTLY like this guy:
even though no one has ever made a relief or bust or a coin or any kind of drawing of Jesus. When you see this face thousands and thousands of time from childhood and are told things like, "Jesus fed 5000 people with two fish and a couple of loaves of bread" and "Jesus loves you this you know" I mean you're 1000% convinced a person named Jesus actually lived.
Breaking decades and decades of programming like that is the hardest thing in the world to do, as you say. In my weaker moments I sometimes ask myself, "What if I'm wrong" but then I remind myself that's exactly what these crackpots want me to be doing and my indignation rises to such a point that I say, "To hell with them. I don't believe any of it."
I have deprogrammed myself over about 5-7 years just reading websites like the one below. It gives a mountain of evidence that proves Jesus was just a church contrivance designed to fool ignorant pagans into joining the Christian faith so men with evil intentions could rise to wealth and power.
Christians are oblivious to the fact there is a lot of money, power, and privilege invested in keeping their belief in Jesus alive--and let's not forget the sexual favors. Without belief in a person-- for which there isn't a nickel's worth of evidence, by the way--it all collapses like a house of cards and a lot--I mean a LOT of clergy are out of a job and out on the streets in breadlines with no way to earn a living. So they had better keep Jesus alive.
I had seen thousands of pictures of Jesus by the time I reached early adulthood and they all--I mean every single one--looked EXACTLY like this guy:
Ah, the so-called Sallman's Head painting. The painting was so successful in capturing everyone's projections about Jesus that miracles have been attributed to it:
Quote:
Warner Sallman believed that his initial sketch of The Head of Christ was the result of a "miraculous vision that he received late one night", stating that "the answer came at 2 A.M., January 1924" as "a vision in response to my prayer to God in a despairing situation."
The Head of Christ is also venerated in the Coptic Orthodox Church, following a 1991 report in which twelve-year-old Isaac Ayoub of Houston, Texas, who was diagnosed with leukaemia, saw the eyes of Jesus in the painting shedding tears; Fr. Ishaq Soliman of St. Mark's Coptic Church in Houston, on the same day, "testified to the miracles" and on the next day, "Dr. Atef Rizkalla, the family physician, examined the youth and certified that there were no traces of leukemia". With episcopal approval from Bishop Tadros of Port Said and Bishop Yuhanna of Cairo, "Sallman's Head of Christ was exhibited in the Coptic Church", with "more than fifty thousand people" visiting the church to see it.
In addition, several religious magazines have explained the "power of Sallman's picture" by documenting occurrences such as headhunters letting go of a businessman and fleeing after seeing a copy of the image on his person, a "thief who aborted his misdeed when he saw the Head of Christ on a living room wall", and deathbed conversions of non-believers to Christianity.
How many people knew that there's a hidden wine chalice on his temple and host on his forehead?
Ah, the so-called Sallman's Head painting. The painting was so successful in capturing everyone's projections about Jesus that miracles have been attributed to it:
How many people knew that there's a hidden wine chalice on his temple and host on his forehead?
You're absolutely right, mordant. There IS a chalice--half a one anyway--on his temple. I wonder if that was intentional. I find it fascinating to ponder that at the time he did this painting it wasn't common knowledge that Jews of the time did not wear their hair like a woman. They kept it short-cropped. Of course Sallman didn't know this and so in his so-called "vision" he naturally saw Jesus as Medieval painters painted Jesus. So much for veridical visions of Jesus.
I always think of this video on Youtube of people describing their NDE's and there was this one guy who said, "In my NDE I saw a mountain in the distance and there was a stream of people climbing the mountain around and around on a path up to the top like ants. And there was a man at the top with his arm outstretched at them. He looked a lot like Jesus.
And I thought, "How in the hell would you know it was Jesus???? Have you ever seen what the real Jesus looked like, or did you think Jesus really was some long-haired womanly-looking dude with wavy locks and a short neatly-clipped beard??"
You're absolutely right, mordant. There IS a chalice--half a one anyway--on his temple. I wonder if that was intentional. I find it fascinating to ponder that at the time he did this painting it wasn't common knowledge that Jews of the time did not wear their hair like a woman. They kept it short-cropped. Of course Sallman didn't know this and so in his so-called "vision" he naturally saw Jesus as Medieval painters painted Jesus. So much for veridical visions of Jesus.
I always think of this video on Youtube of people describing their NDE's and there was this one guy who said, "In my NDE I saw a mountain in the distance and there was a stream of people climbing the mountain around and around on a path up to the top like ants. And there was a man at the top with his arm outstretched at them. He looked a lot like Jesus.
And I thought, "How in the hell would you know it was Jesus???? Have you ever seen what the real Jesus looked like, or did you think Jesus really was some long-haired womanly-looking dude with wavy locks and a short neatly-clipped beard??"
The Wikipedia article I linked to about the painting claimed people like the depiction as "manly" but like you I always thought it was rather effeminate. But I also always understood it was just someone's creative license. It was weird to me that so many assumed it was somehow how Jesus actually looked.
Thanks much for the prayers, Boots. I don't believe they'll do me a bit of good and prayers never worked for me but I greatly appreciate the sentiment.
Here's how I see it:
Actually, "God" says and does lots of bad things to people who the Bible writers think are their enemies. Let me explain: way back before Abraham and the Hebrews came along Yahweh was a minor god who was part of the Canaanite collection of gods which included some 234 eternal gods of which Yahweh was the god of metals. Then the Hebrews moved into the Canaanite's neighborhood and the Hebrews began assimilating the Canaanite's gods like El (recognize him, "Elohim" and Asherah, El's consort and later Yahweh's consort.) Many centuries later the Hebrews adopted Yahweh as their main warrior god and went from polytheism to monotheism. Asherah is in the Bible in Judges 3:7, 6:28, 10:6. You can check. The Old Testament reflects Israel's polytheistic past.
That's the history lesson. Do I have children? No. But if I did I wouldn't encourage my children to lean on God because he will fail them every time just like he does millions of Christians now who are leaving Christianity. I've never seen a miracle and no scientific body has ever recorded a bonafide miracle, but Christians are free to believe miracles happen all they want. It's a free country. Will I be forgiven? Who knows? Maybe, maybe not. I'll cross that bridge when I take my last breath, but I certainly wont let such a thought worry me now after 60 years of worrying about such silly things for naught.
The word, "Elohim" is used about 2500 times in the Hebrew Old Testament. One example, "And Elohim said, 'Let US make man in OUR image after OUR likeness.' " You'll read all sorts of apologists trying to wallpaper over the fact the early Hebrews were polytheists who worshiped pagan Canaanite gods. Apologists will say, "That's God the Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit talking together" and other sundry nonsense. It's a sad thing that the Christians have to make up all sorts of lies to cover over their pagan heritage but such is life when there isn't a real God to set things straight and so humans have to rely on each other to ferret out some semblance of truth in all this man-made confusion.
Them are the facts, Boots. There isn't any God that gets involved with us. Whatever created us left us on our own to deal with our own myths and fables and try to make sense out of millennia and millennia that brought forth thousands of different gods. You could spend a whole 8 years PhD program just studying the true history religions and you'd still only comprehend about 50% of it. I'm done with trying to make heads or tails out of it all.
Please refer to paragraph 2, your own question "Will I be forgiven? Who knows?" "Maybe maybe not." Why would a non believer have the reasoning to ask that question, and answer it with a "maybe", unless deep down somewhere you do believe there is a 'possibility' of God. You just don't admit it.
I didn't ask if you had children because I wanted to know if you would raise them as Christians, I really was wondering if you had witnessed their birth? Miracles happen every day, everywhere. God did not fail anyone, and he never will. There are reasons (HIS will) why things happen, and HE knows the end result of everything. We lean on our friends and family for support, that's what God wants us to do in bad times. HE will carry us through all the things in our lives, good and bad. People that leave Christianity is because they want a Genie in a bottle to grant their every wish and things don't go their way so they change religions, hoping the next "idol" will. More childish than stupid, but definitely both.
Please refer to paragraph 2, your own question "Will I be forgiven? Who knows?" "Maybe maybe not." Why would a non believer have the reasoning to ask that question, and answer it with a "maybe", unless deep down somewhere you do believe there is a 'possibility' of God.You just don't admit it.
I didn't ask if you had children because I wanted to know if you would raise them as Christians, I really was wondering if you had witnessed their birth? Miracles happen every day, everywhere. God did not fail anyone, and he never will. There are reasons (HIS will) why things happen, and HE knows the end result of everything. We lean on our friends and family for support, that's what God wants us to do in bad times. HE will carry us through all the things in our lives, good and bad. People that leave Christianity is because they want a Genie in a bottle to grant their every wish and things don't go their way so they change religions, hoping the next "idol" will. More childish than stupid, but definitely both.
They have discussed this several times in the A&A forum. Almost all of the atheists admit that there is a possibility that God exists, and they do admit that. They usually put the chances at a low number, like 1% or .1%, and then say with odds that low, they don't believe God exists.
They really need to move this to the Psychology forum because there is some major mental illness going on here.
Just to clarify, are you saying that atheists are mentally ill?
Because if you are...
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