how much do you know about religions that aren't christianity
I know a pretty good amount about both Islam and Critical Constructivism. And a smattering about Scientology, Mormonism and Judaism.
"The 'God of Abraham' and his followers have had apx. 3,800 years to demonstrate 'His' existence… Judaism has had about 3,800 years; Christianity, about 2,000 years; Islam, about 1,400 gears and Mormonism, about 200 years. Thousands of years, billions of followers and millions killed in 'His' name, yet NOT ONE has demonstrated the existence of the Abrahamic god. It is time for humanity as a whole to reject the 'god of Abraham hypothesis', altogether."
Long past time. It is a hypothesis that has reliably failed every single test, from the stars to viruses and everything in between.
Anyone putting their trust into something with a 100% failure rate wants to be disappointed.
"Back in 1826, a New York court convicted 21 year old Joseph Smith for being a disorderly person and con artist who tricked folks out of their money by claiming to find lost treasures with his magic seer stones…
And, less than a year later, he founded Mormonism by discovering some gold tablets that only he could read with his magic seer stones…
In a hat…"
By: Jedidajah Otte and Clea Skopeliti
Published: Dec 2, 2022
Diana, 44, a retail worker from Yorkshire, was raised in a Christian fundamentalist home and always struggled with her faith; concepts such as predestination and creationism “never made sense” to her.
“Losing my faith was a process of gradual disengagement,” she says. “At some point, I didn’t think that I, as a woman, was made to submit to a man. But the final straw was watching my father die of cancer and trying to do so without pain relief as it was ‘God’s will’, while waiting to be healed. I finally admitted to myself that I didn’t believe in a supernatural being, and couldn’t pretend any more.”
Today, Diana is an atheist, like many other people who got in touch with the Guardian to share why they no longer identified as Christians, after the census found that England and Wales were now minority Christian countries.
Various people cited similar experiences. Some were able to point to specific events in their lives that suddenly made clear their values were no longer congruent with Christian teachings, while others distanced themselves more gradually and gently from their faith.
‘The teachings began feeling like a fairytale’
For James, a programme manager from Birmingham, it was more of a creeping realisation as he got older that certain aspects of Christian dogma were incompatible with critical thinking.
“I was raised as a Christian: church every Sunday, C of E [Church of England] school, taught to say grace before dinner.
“At some point in my late teens the stuff that provided comfort, such as the idea of an omnipotent, omniscient god, suddenly started to feel more like a fairytale you tell kids to help them sleep, and posed questions. And then I thought: ‘If God knows exactly what I’m going to do, and lets it happen, then I no longer have a free will’,” the 44-year-old says.
Although James describes himself as an atheist now and sees religion as “the old approach to controlling the masses and providing public health advice”, he enrolled his two daughters in a C of E primary school.
“I can see the value of spirituality and religion, and I wanted to give my children the opportunity to figure things out for themselves.”
The result? “When my seven-year-old daughter was told at school that God created everything, she asked her teacher: ‘Well, who created God?’ My children have both decided these teachings don’t stack up.”
‘The church hasn’t moved with the times’
Pauline, 54, who is retired and lives in Bristol, says certain Christian teachings became irreconcilable with her values over time.
“I probably stopped calling myself a Christian in my 30s. I was brought up as a strict Roman Catholic with Irish parents. We always went to church on Sunday, and for most of my childhood it was a ritual that was nice and comforting,” she says.
But as she got older she began to have doubts. “I felt that if God made everyone in his image, then why were people who were gay so hated by the church? It felt as if they were saying: ‘Jesus loves everybody but only if they’re like us’. The church was peddling a form of hate, and it didn’t sit right with me.
“All of the hell and damnation stuff as well, plus the amount of money the Catholic church has, it led me to be totally disillusioned by the whole thing.”
Although there are times she misses her Christian faith, Pauline says, she feels certain she will not return to it. “I’ve decided to have a direct cremation when I die, no religious service at all. The church simply hasn’t moved with the times, people don’t recognise their own views in it any more.”
‘I feel a lot more at peace’
During the Covid lockdowns, Stephen Hunsaker, 28, had time to step back and found he felt “so much better” when no longer practising his religion. Raised in the Church of Latter Day Saints in the US, the London-based researcher says he realised it was no longer something he identified with.
“I had been very devout my entire life, but when lockdown happened and I just stepped back, that made me realise there was so much that I no longer identified with. I felt like I had to justify it at every turn and it was bringing me an immense amount of guilt and hurt,” Hunsaker says, explaining that he also felt alienated by some Christians’ treatment of minorities and LGBTQ+ people. “Religion is meant to help you be a better person, but I felt like it was holding me back.”
Hunsaker says leaving his faith was the hardest decision he ever made. “I was very fearful that my relationship with my family and friends would be affected – my world was so wrapped up in it. [But] it went better than I thought.
“Guilt is an incredibly powerful emotion,” he says. “But as I lived without religion and found other people in solidarity it allowed for me to figure out who I am. I feel a lot more at peace.”
Source: theguardian.com
Think about that for a moment. There are very few states where a single religious tradition holds a majority.
Source: twitter.com
By: Valerie Tarico
Published: Nov 28, 2021
At age sixteen I began what would be a four year struggle with bulimia. When the symptoms started, I turned in desperation to adults who knew more than I did about how to stop shameful behavior—my Bible study leader and a visiting youth minister. "If you ask anything in faith, believing," they said. "It will be done." I knew they were quoting the Word of God. We prayed together, and I went home confident that God had heard my prayers.
But my horrible compulsions didn't go away. By the fall of my sophomore year in college, I was desperate and depressed enough that I made a suicide attempt. The problem wasn't just the bulimia. I was convinced by then that I was a complete spiritual failure. My college counseling department had offered to get me real help (which they later did). But to my mind, at that point, such help couldn't fix the core problem: I was a failure in the eyes of God. It would be years before I understood that my inability to heal bulimia through the mechanisms offered by biblical Christianity was not a function of my own spiritual deficiency but deficiencies in Evangelical religion itself.
Dr. Marlene Winell is a human development consultant in the San Francisco Area. She is also the daughter of Pentecostal missionaries. This combination has given her work an unusual focus. For the past twenty years she has counseled men and women in recovery from various forms of fundamentalist religion including the Assemblies of God denomination in which she was raised. Winell is the author of Leaving the Fold – A Guide for Former Fundamentalists and Others Leaving their Religion, written during her years of private practice in psychology. Over the years, Winell has provided assistance to clients whose religious experiences were even more damaging than mine. Some of them are people whose psychological symptoms weren't just exacerbated by their religion, but actually caused by it.
Two years ago, Winell made waves by formally labeling what she calls "Religious Trauma Syndrome" (RTS) and beginning to write and speak on the subject for professional audiences. When the British Association of Behavioral and Cognitive Psychologists published a series of articles on the topic, members of a Christian counseling association protested what they called excessive attention to a "relatively niche topic." One commenter said, "A religion, faith or book cannot be abuse but the people interpreting can make anything abusive."
Is toxic religion simply misinterpretation? What is religious trauma? Why does Winell believe religious trauma merits its own diagnostic label? I asked her.
Let's start this interview with the basics. What exactly is religious trauma syndrome?
Winell: Religious trauma syndrome (RTS) is a set of symptoms and characteristics that tend to go together and which are related to harmful experiences with religion. They are the result of two things: immersion in a controlling religion and the secondary impact of leaving a religious group. The RTS label provides a name and description that affected people often recognize immediately. Many other people are surprised by the idea of RTS, because in our culture it is generally assumed that religion is benign or good for you. Just like telling kids about Santa Claus and letting them work out their beliefs later, people see no harm in teaching religion to children.
But in reality, religious teachings and practices sometimes cause serious mental health damage. The public is somewhat familiar with sexual and physical abuse in a religious context. As Journalist Janet Heimlich has documented in, Breaking Their Will, Bible-based religious groups that emphasize patriarchal authority in family structure and use harsh parenting methods can be destructive.
But the problem isn't just physical and sexual abuse. Emotional and mental treatment in authoritarian religious groups also can be damaging because of 1) toxic teachings like eternal damnation or original sin 2) religious practices or mindset, such as punishment, black and white thinking, or sexual guilt, and 3) neglect that prevents a person from having the information or opportunities to develop normally.
Can you give me an example of RTS from your consulting practice?
Winell: I can give you many. One of the symptom clusters is around fear and anxiety. People indoctrinated into fundamentalist Christianity as small children sometimes have memories of being terrified by images of hell and apocalypse before their brains could begin to make sense of such ideas. Some survivors, who I prefer to call "reclaimers," have flashbacks, panic attacks, or nightmares in adulthood even when they intellectually no longer believe the theology. One client of mine, who during the day functioned well as a professional, struggled with intense fear many nights. She said,
I was afraid I was going to hell. I was afraid I was doing something really wrong. I was completely out of control. I sometimes would wake up in the night and start screaming, thrashing my arms, trying to rid myself of what I was feeling. I'd walk around the house trying to think and calm myself down, in the middle of the night, trying to do some self-talk, but I felt like it was just something that – the fear and anxiety was taking over my life.
Or consider this comment, which refers to a film used by Evangelicals to warn about the horrors of the "end times" for nonbelievers.
I was taken to see the film "A Thief In The Night". WOW. I am in shock to learn that many other people suffered the same traumas I lived with because of this film. A few days or weeks after the film viewing, I came into the house and mom wasn't there. I stood there screaming in terror. When I stopped screaming, I began making my plan: Who my Christian neighbors were, who's house to break into to get money and food. I was 12 yrs old and was preparing for Armageddon alone.
In addition to anxiety, RTS can include depression, cognitive difficulties, and problems with social functioning. In fundamentalist Christianity, the individual is considered depraved and in need of salvation. A core message is "You are bad and wrong and deserve to die." (The wages of sin is death.) This gets taught to millions of children through organizations like Child Evangelism Fellowship, and there is a group organized to oppose their incursion into public schools. I've had clients who remember being distraught when given a vivid bloody image of Jesus paying the ultimate price for their sins. Decades later they sit telling me that they can't manage to find any self-worth.
After twenty-seven years of trying to live a perfect life, I failed. . . I was ashamed of myself all day long. My mind battling with itself with no relief. . . I always believed everything that I was taught but I thought that I was not approved by God. I thought that basically I, too, would die at Armageddon. I've spent literally years injuring myself, cutting and burning my arms, taking overdoses and starving myself, to punish myself so that God doesn't have to punish me. It's taken me years to feel deserving of anything good.
Born-again Christianity and devout Catholicism tell people they are weak and dependent, calling on phrases like "lean not unto your own understanding" or "trust and obey." People who internalize these messages can suffer from learned helplessness. I'll give you an example from a client who had little decision-making ability after living his entire life devoted to following the "will of God." The words here don't convey the depth of his despair.
I have an awful time making decisions in general. Like I can't, you know, wake up in the morning, "What am I going to do today? Like I don't even know where to start. You know all the things I thought I might be doing are gone and I'm not sure I should even try to have a career; essentially I babysit my four-year-old all day.
Authoritarian religious groups are subcultures where conformity is required in order to belong. Thus if you dare to leave the religion, you risk losing your entire support system as well.
I lost all my friends. I lost my close ties to family. Now I'm losing my country. I've lost so much because of this malignant religion and I am angry and sad to my very core. . . I have tried hard to make new friends, but I have failed miserably. . . I am very lonely.
Leaving a religion, after total immersion, can cause a complete upheaval of a person's construction of reality, including the self, other people, life, and the future. People unfamiliar with this situation, including therapists, have trouble appreciating the sheer terror it can create.
My form of religion was very strongly entrenched and anchored deeply in my heart. It is hard to describe how fully my religion informed, infused, and influenced my entire worldview. My first steps out of fundamentalism were profoundly frightening and I had frequent thoughts of suicide. Now I'm way past that but I still haven't quite found "my place in the universe.
Even for a person who was not so entrenched, leaving one's religion can be a stressful and significant transition.
Many people seem to walk away from their religion easily, without really looking back. What is different about the clientele you work with?
Winell: Religious groups that are highly controlling, teach fear about the world, and keep members sheltered and ill-equipped to function in society are harder to leave easily. The difficulty seems to be greater if the person was born and raised in the religion rather than joining as an adult convert. This is because they have no frame of reference – no other "self" or way of "being in the world." A common personality type is a person who is deeply emotional and thoughtful and who tends to throw themselves wholeheartedly into their endeavors. "True believers" who then lose their faith feel more anger and depression and grief than those who simply went to church on Sunday.
Aren't these just people who would be depressed, anxious, or obsessive anyways?
Winell: Not at all. If my observation is correct, these are people who are intense and involved and caring. They hang on to the religion longer than those who simply "walk away" because they try to make it work even when they have doubts. Sometime this is out of fear, but often it is out of devotion. These are people for whom ethics, integrity and compassion matter a great deal. I find that when they get better and rebuild their lives, they are wonderfully creative and energetic about new things.
In your mind, how is RTS different from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder?
Winell: RTS is a specific set of symptoms and characteristics that are connected with harmful religious experience, not just any trauma. This is crucial to understanding the condition and any kind of self-help or treatment. (More details about this can be found on my Journey Free website and discussed in my talk at the Texas Freethought Convention.)
Another difference is the social context, which is extremely different from other traumas or forms of abuse. When someone is recovering from domestic abuse, for example, other people understand and support the need to leave and recover. They don't question it as a matter of interpretation, and they don't send the person back for more. But this is exactly what happens to many former believers who seek counseling. If a provider doesn't understand the source of the symptoms, he or she may send a client for pastoral counseling, or to AA, or even to another church. One reclaimer expressed her frustration this way:
Include physically-abusive parents who quote "Spare the rod and spoil the child" as literally as you can imagine and you have one fucked-up soul: an unloved, rejected, traumatized toddler in the body of an adult. I'm simply a broken spirit in an empty shell. But wait…That's not enough!? There's also the expectation by everyone in society that we victims should celebrate this with our perpetrators every Christmas and Easter!!
Just like disorders such as autism or bulimia, giving RTS a real name has important advantages. People who are suffering find that having a label for their experience helps them feel less alone and guilty. Some have written to me to express their relief:
There's actually a name for it! I was brainwashed from birth and wasted 25 years of my life serving Him! I've since been out of my religion for several years now, but i cannot shake the haunting fear of hell and feel absolutely doomed. I'm now socially inept, unemployable, and the only way i can have sex is to pay for it.
Labeling RTS encourages professionals to study it more carefully, develop treatments, and offer training. Hopefully, we can even work on prevention.
What do you see as the difference between religion that causes trauma and religion that doesn't?
Winell: Religion causes trauma when it is highly controlling and prevents people from thinking for themselves and trusting their own feelings. Groups that demand obedience and conformity produce fear, not love and growth. With constant judgment of self and others, people become alienated from themselves, each other, and the world. Religion in its worst forms causes separation.
Conversely, groups that connect people and promote self-knowledge and personal growth can be said to be healthy. The book, Healthy Religion, describes these traits. Such groups put high value on respecting differences, and members feel empowered as individuals. They provide social support, a place for events and rites of passage, exchange of ideas, inspiration, opportunities for service, and connection to social causes. They encourage spiritual practices that promote health like meditation or principles for living like the golden rule. More and more, nontheists are asking how they can create similar spiritual communities without the supernaturalism. An atheist congregation in London launched this year and has received over 200 inquiries from people wanting to replicate their model.
Some people say that terms like "recovery from religion" and "religious trauma syndrome" are just atheist attempts to pathologize religious belief.
Winell: Mental health professionals have enough to do without going out looking for new pathology. I never set out looking for a "niche topic," and certainly not religious trauma syndrome. I originally wrote a paper for a conference of the American Psychological Association and thought that would be the end of it. Since then, I have tried to move on to other things several times, but this work has simply grown.
In my opinion, we are simply, as a culture, becoming aware of religious trauma. More and more people are leaving religion, as seen by polls showing that the "religiously unaffiliated" have increased in the last five years from just over 15% to just under 20% of all U.S. adults. It's no wonder the internet is exploding with websites for former believers from all religions, providing forums for people to support each other. The huge population of people "leaving the fold" includes a subset at risk for RTS, and more people are talking about it and seeking help. For example, there are thousands of former Mormons, and I was asked to speak about RTS at an Exmormon Foundation conference. I facilitate an international support group online called Release and Reclaim which has monthly conference calls. An organization called Recovery from Religion, helps people start self-help meet-up groups
Saying that someone is trying to pathologize authoritarian religion is like saying someone pathologized eating disorders by naming them. Before that, they were healthy? No, before that we weren't noticing. People were suffering, thought they were alone, and blamed themselves. Professionals had no awareness or training. This is the situation of RTS today. Authoritarian religion is already pathological, and leaving a high-control group can be traumatic. People are already suffering. They need to be recognized and helped.
—- Dr. Marlene Winell is a human development consultant in the San Francisco Bay Area and the author of Leaving the Fold – A Guide for Former Fundamentalists and Others Leaving their Religion. More information about Marlene Winell and resources for getting help with RTS may be found at Journey Free. Valerie Tarico is a psychologist and writer in Seattle, Washington. She is the author of Trusting Doubt: A Former Evangelical Looks at Old Beliefs in a New Light and Deas and Other Imaginings, and the founder of www.WisdomCommons.org. Her articles can be found at Awaypoint.Wordpress.com.
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Thanks to @tupolevblog for the tip.
Source: salon.com
#Marlene Winell#Leaving The Fold#Religious Trauma Syndrome#recovering from religion#leaving religion#trauma#religious trauma#christianity#islam#mormonism#judaism#hinduism#jehovah's witnesses#ex christians#ex muslims#ex jws#ex jehovah's witnesses#ex mormons#ex hindus#religion#mental health#human psychology#psychology#religion is a mental illness#long post
This is completely real.
Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) and certain Mormon fundamentalists wear ceremonial robes to perform the endowment and sealing portions of their temple ceremonies. The ceremonial robes are modeled after those described in the Bible according to latter-day revelation. The clothing includes a robe that fits over one shoulder, a sash, an apron, a veil (for women), and a cap (for men). All of the clothing is white, including shoes and neckties, except for the apron, which is green. It is common for Latter-day Saints to be buried with the body dressed in their temple clothes.
Joseph Smith would be laughing his ass off in his grave.
“I have a hard time with historians because they idolize the truth. The truth is not uplifting; it destroys. I could tell most of the secretaries in the church office building that they are ugly and fat. That would be the truth, but it would hurt and destroy them. Historians should tell only that part of the truth that is inspiring and uplifting."
-- Elder Boyd K. Packer, “Faithful History: Essays On Writing Mormon History”
Source: instagram.com
What do you think about the Mormon church? I’m ex-Mormon, I find it quite annoying when they send missionaries and free book of Mormons over.
I think it’s as bat-crap crazy as Scientology, and as obvious the scam of a conman/self-appointed "prophet” as Islam.
Which is to say, it’s about on par with pretty much every other religion, with the flying monkeys, talking donkeys, and endless parade of fantasy characters and silly, self-refuting fables.
They’re all derived from the notion that “magic” is a better explanation than a natural one, even a natural one they don’t yet understand, or never looked for in the first place.
Religion requires ignorance to flourish.
Source: twitter.com