creating sickness | recovering from religion [cc]

As I grew up I was taught that there was a "hole in my heart" shaped for God.

What they neglected to mention was they carved out that hole , straight out of my self esteem, then stuffed God in there so my sense of self worth would form around it. I've had mental issues ever since. It's been a very slow heal.

I keep this in my watch later list even though ive listened toover and over as a refresher.

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Thanks for saying the quiet part out loud! So many inconsistencies in Christianity. I grew up Christian and the older I got the less sense it made and the more betrayed and grossed out I felt by god and the church. Taking a philosophy of religion class in college helped me open my mind completely to the abundant fallacies, lies, and insidious manipulation I had endured and accepted as truth for years. It was liberating and I'm never going back. I'm proud to say I think for myself now and feel more empowered. I'm not inherently broken. The church is.

The problem here is that too many really dont understand religion. Modern theism is very often conflated with classical theism and the different sects of Christianity are often lumped together as if there are no fundamental differences between them.

I love waking up everyday knowing how much God loves me

Psalms 118:8

Y'all were traumatized by your fellow men and the beliefs you have internalized in relation to the idea of God.

Find your own way to have a relationship with the Creator in an authentic way.

It's beautiful to learn to trust the Universe, release the need for control, and become more comfortable with uncertainty. Bye anxiety, hello inner peace... I dont know any of you but I wish that for y'all.

Having been a Christian for decades before getting out, I think I merely traded feeling degraded by sin for feeling degraded for not being spiritual enough. One untruth swapped for the next. Have neither now that I'm out. I'm now personally responsible for any self degradation needed.

Now that it's been a few years since I left religion, I can appreciate these videos much more. Your analogy of religion being an abusive relationship is really insightful and helpful. Religion hurt me in a lot of ways but I want to one day get to a place where it doesn't live rent free in my head and I can completely move on.

I wonder what it is about abrahamic religions that lends itself so heavily to narcissistic abuse. Like, obviously there isn’t a big enough sample size, but you never hear about Norse pagan religious trauma 🤷‍♂️

Most likely, this facial recognition of characters of likeability and competence ARE, evolutionary and statustically speaking, more often correct than not! It sure is prejudice, but there may be a factual basis for this prejudice, where psychological and anatomical development may go hand in hand, for various different survival/reproduction strategies. Of course this is not perfect, both for statistic reasons (some minorities of people may be exceptions to the correlations of the majority), and for manipulative reasons (it may be an evolutionary advantage for some leader types to present themselves as likeable though in reality being cruel, or as competent though in reality being selfish, while it may be an adaptive evolutionary advantage for some follower types to believe in cruelty-as-likeability and selfishness-as-competence, in order to save themselves from suffering and death by showing obedience to the manipulative leaders).
Nonetheless, lacking intelligence of enough development, statistically sound prejudices (and emotional reactions) ARE the next best thing, and instead of unthinkingly shunning all prejudices as "bad" or "immoral" (however revolting they may be TO US, those of us humans who are more evolutionarily developed than many other humans), we should learn to rationally investigate their potential benefits as well as their potential caveats.

Actually "god" (which is not omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent or omnipresent, and is also not one individual but an "organic" yet mostly non-physical collective, yet extending to physical matter and physical consciousness as well) DOES interfere in human and other life, but not through miracles but always in subtle ways bound by Natural Laws. This "God" is the same as Nature, and it does allow suffering for us as an opportunity to overcome ignorance (inherent to all individual during their beginning, including those who are now divine), but it also provides the means of reducing suffering through learning, love growth, change and subconscious or conscious evolution (just as its own constituent, exalted but imperfect, divine individual members, have in their turn went through suffering, learning, growth of love, and evolution, during their pre-divine life in earlier natural kingdoms). It also provides the means for us to cause more rather than less suffering through the intelligence and resourcefulness (yet possible lack of love) we evolve, but this is balanced through slow, regulatory processes such as "karma", also called "sowing and reaping", or "cause and effect", existing not only on the physical level of consciousness and matter, but also on the non-physical, emotional and mental levels of consciousness and matter, and on the higher ones as well, those beyond all merely human experience, experienced only by those few highly soul developed humans (in healthy, well functioning bodies) that are nearing transmigration to the superhuman adept natural state.
The world is not perfect in any human sense, nor could it ever be, but from a divine stance, it is as nearly "perfect" as an evolutionary scheme from ignorance to omniscience can ever be, where ALL its powers and beings are evolving from relative imperfection to relative perfection. Needless to say, most of our human conceptions of "god" (all the exoteric ones) are utterly false, and even the much better conceptions that do exist but are less well known (the esoteric ones) are prone to some faults, and in any case to misunderstandings.

Actually we DO hear about divine guilt, regret and lamentation in the Gnostic religious myth about the Aeon Goddess Sophia, who creates an imperfect, flawed child, Ialdabaoth (often equated with Yahweh), without the participation of her Divine partner God, Teleos.
Ialdabaoth then in his ignorance, insecurity and megalomania goes on to create the flawed, suffering world with humans and everything, setting himself up as its Tyrant, through the mediation of his Archons (angels and demons).
Sophia is neither evil nor insecure, but She is imperfect in her wisdom. The Gnostic creation myth is a story about successive emanations from the more abstract and perfect to the more concrete and imperfect. This actually makes a lot of sense, although i would never take it literally, just like i would never take any other religious myth worth its name literally, the only interpretations that make sense are highly allegorical, showing us the path from exoteric belief (hypotheses) to esoteric knowledge (experience).

If we are made in gods image, why are we not like invisible?

Thank you, i grew up in a pentecostal church and even though I believe in God, i dont believe in religion and have seen how much religion has hurt my family and I.

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I really appreciate that you call it 'Christian mythology' and 'Christian Jesus' 'Christian God' etc. It's helpful to specify and the phrasing reminds me that my religious upbringing was cultural, not necessarily the "truth" or "reality"

i call myself an agnostic when asked, because i’m honestly too afraid to call myself atheist; it would feel like ‘such a sin.’ most of my relatives are religious, and i’d be lying if i said their thoughts on blasphemy, eternal punishment and non-believers haven’t begun to seep into my brain.

that’s why i immensely appreciate channels like these — definitely helps to make me feel less alone, and less guilty about my own beliefs.

Indeed. And if we just payed farmers and truck drivers more, and ceos less, we wouldn't need to compete for resources to survive.

"The meager consulation offered to us was that all abuse would eventually be punished" which is SO not true. In the video, Machiavellis advice for nice guys, the truth is spoken: "the wicked tend to win". The only way for good to win is to be as violent, underhanded, and charismatic as those who are malevolent and sadistic.

denials are human. Say atheist without saying theist. please.

People need to know someones skill level and gauge if their actions have the results we want when electing politicians. It's ridiculous to judge people by their appearance although I consider being able to control your physical form intelligent. Even if someone is intelligent doesn't mean they'll do something that will benefit you as well. look for words that match results.

The guilt reflex you describe in the beginning of the video is getting me thinking about how people behave in political communities online. Very insightful.

Ive always questioned religion but it wasn't until I started to brood more on what nothingness is after we die that I accepted why people turn to it. I try to imagine it will be exactly how it was before I was born. That that deer on the side of the road and my grandmother both took their last breaths the same way and ceased to exist. We are animals, just like them, who have been granted the blessing and curse of being concious to our own mortality. So humanity tries to cope because the thought that this one chance at life is the only chance we will have to ever expeience anything is too much to bare. And when we are gone it will actually be the very end & there will not be blackness, heaven, or hell. Only nothing, just as it was before you made your first memory. You pop in and out of existence once & i think that thought is too scary for some people to cope with. Even holding this belief, it still scares me from time to time, but it also pushes me to live my short life for myself and with people I love so I can say me being put on this planet was worth it in the end.

The christian story of the fall is similar to the story of Pandora in Greek mythology. They both balance on choices and curiosity both Eve and Pandora were given an order to not disobey, left alone, and their disobedience of the higher being led to evil being out in to the world. This is a simplified version, but it's interesting how when we were taught Greek mythology in school we see Zeus as idiotic or mean for orchestrating that but we hear about the Christian story and see the Christian god as justified for kicking Adam and Eve out of the garden and blameless for orchestrating such a situation. It makes no sence.

God, I had wary fears initially about this video in particular but it is to my personal relief that this video wasn't too challenging or confronting to my faith. There were some fruit for thought, thank you Lord :)

G-d did not create the god image that lies deep in the unconscious psyche of humanity. Humans created god in their own image. The god images are anthropomorphic projections and are utterly destructive.

Yesterday, I had an argument with my mother, her sister, and her mother as well. They all started calling me a blasphemer after I simply started questioning the validity of their faith and their claims. There's no turning back now, they're far too gone into their indoctrination to see reason. As flawed as we humans are, there's no excuse for choosing to be blind and deaf to reason, to obey to outlandish dogmas that crumble at the slightest amount of doubt applied to it. We were not only created defective, some of us were further broken, damaged beyond repair by the doctrine that is enforced by the followers of a supposed creator. I don't feel bad for what I said to them, I feel bad that they treat me so horribly because of my doubts about their faith.

What you said about two gods being only able to stalemate reminds me of Mistborn where the two gods are equal and opposite and so they create life to bring create inequality and imbalance.

As someone who was raised Atheist, I feel terrible for everyone who has converted from Theism and had to go through all of this. I've never had abusive or unrespectful religious parents, been estranged from family and friends, gone through complete upending of my beliefs, and manipulative indoctrination, and I feel immensely privileged to have not. I have a loving family and friends who share and respect my beliefs when I know many Atheists do not. Anyone who has or still is going through this is a stronger person than me.

With a god like this, one does not need Satan. With hateful believers, one does not need demons.

I am not discounting what you're saying but the wings argument seems like reaching. It was a renaissance way of painting creatures passed down through folklore or poorly translated/transcribed texts. If beings like this existed, the likely live in a place suited for them to have them. that's all I'll say.

Meanwhile in every piece of media, there is entire organizations devoted to slaying gods.
Surely, if anyone believed it was real, they'd unite to slay it somehow? A true villain to unite us all against it?

I had to stop trying to be so close to God i wanted to be walking with him already. Every emotion i had was so extreme and potent and had so much philosophical relgious meaning.
I hurt myself attempting to release bad entities from my spirit. I dont want to burn in hell forever.


I saw every action and every word come out of peoples mouths as an action of God.
I could not connect properly to non believers because i saw them as filthy, i become a recluse in a way.

Taking religion to the extreme i think literally turns you into a schizophrenic and im deadly serious when i say this.

I just hope i can heal, and live life again, and make sense of things the way i use to, before i fell into religion.

Monotheistic dogma is mostly Religious Rhetoric and Empty Platitudes. "Love the Sinner; Hate the Sin." Okay, "Love the Christian; Hate the Christ." See? Empty Platitudes. - j q t -

I remember when they pulled the exact steel columns out of the rubble known as "The Pile" at Ground Zero at the World Trade Center, those that held together Floor 82, where my beloved had perished shortly after talking on the phone with his three children on September 11, 2001. The stocky steel worker with the bulging arms filled with faded tattoos said it was a miracle, not just that these specific girders that had held up our loved one's office floor for so many years had been recovered mostly intact, but that these now most miraculously formed that most recognizable all religious symbols known to mankind throughout the world for many, many centuries. They felt it was so significant of a recovery, that the workers spent much overtime cleaning and polishing the conglomeration of newly-resurrected steel, that our entire surviving family waiting until a sort of unveiling ceremony, dedicated to not just the father of these children, but to the recovery workers themselves, and surly they deserved this much. With subdued music playing very quietly, at a respectable volume, we were all led into an anticipatory-charged gathering where the conjoined, once-joined, now bent-and-severed articulations of once-formed metal buttresses were being in essence, reassembled in their present state, in front of our eyes, and all eyes in fact, for the very first time , because it wasn't like the occupants of those who walked through these buildings, even if every day, had ever seen what was responsible for holding them all together and up, and soon the maroon-colored, velvet shroud that had been placed over them would be whisked away, but would it be to tears, or smiles, or resoluteness, nobody could begin to know. Everyone was seated finally, and a woman who was definitely one of the survivors, probably from a lower floor, was ready to pull the main cord, the one that had been intricately linked to all of the other ropes and pulleys that would cause the shroud to drop in one-fell-swoop, and during the prescribed, more quiet passage of the ambient music, she tugged it effortlessly, and all worked smoothly, as planned, to reveal those rigid, steel beams, all ensconced with one another, forming a stunning, striking, bent-so-perfectly, visibly and recognizably revealing a visage of the Star of David. - j q t -

I was free
Had no god.
Logic myself to suicide.
Knowing ill never will achieve my dreams.
Still wanted to kill myself.

Until i learned more about Christianity. One thing i learned. People lack the knowledge of the word in Bible.

Gave me hope. And gained strength to keep moving forward and learnd to help others and bare others.

But my question is why should i let go. On something that gave me a reason to live. Im already happy. And i know to that i can't live others to struggle materially and spiritually without helping them??

So i shouldn't help others in need since that's just supporting a cult

Should i not repact others since that's also something i learned and taught in the Bible.

But God our God already knows suffering since he saved us in FLESH.

Still question but not just my religion but others and everything i see. Like u

Im not agnorant to the teachings. And im aware of the downside. But those can be simply avoided with more knowledge.

But im no materialist
But im not gonna prantand the society i know in were i am is crumbling.
Since the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

Eather religios or athisam isn't gonna save us all if our society school teach us to be mindless workers and consom and don't question. And everything we do out side of that will us closer to poverty.

You should question our society and our how that govern us. And i don't mean god.

It's been some years since I've watched your videos, but on rewatching this what stood out to me was your bit around 34m. While years ago I recall nodded along to it, it stands out to me now as I've seen it so often in so many forms that nothing we see simply is what it is anymore but must instead be immediately distrusted and reevaluated by someone else. For example, our ancestors diets in ages past consisted of high fats and meats, but in recent times this has been declared unhealthy and we are led to assume there must have been ills that plagued them without any evidence to suggest this whatsoever, yet we eat things we've proven in our own time are the cause of many major illnesses today such as the connection between heart disease and seed oils; I understand you're making a point on religion, but for what reason do you presume these hard-wired functions to be incorrect?

Put another way: Why would a system, life, which hard filters a population for adequate survival, select for wholly inaccurate information across the board? Food, medicine, exercise, social ques, economics, morality, and so many more things today we are taught to believe aren't as they seem, and that we need an expert to explain the secret of the thing rather than actually getting hands on and practical with anything. I believe it's far more likely that these automatic responses are accurate, intended to help you survive, because they were baked in by the last few hundred ancestors that experienced a similar situation. It's strange that this is all fine and dandy when we talk about human eyesight and snakes, but god forbid we discuss it with people.

If we have a limited capacity to understand perfect morals because it is grounded in knowledge and we are capable of being deceived, wouldn't that mean that we are not in a position to judge whether an omniscient being could have reasons for allowing suffering? Isn't this the end conclusion to the book of Job, that we are to trust God's wisdom?

What a terrible idea of god this person has!

the free choice argument obothers me because what if an authority projected that dichotomy to its subjects. it sounds cruel but this argument vould be seen as divine justification

I never bought into this kind of God. It is such a torment and sickness.

This is my absolute favorite post. The comparison of god and AI is spot on.

It is fun to pull religious zealots through the dirt, but not having something to fall on in case of a crisis of belief may lead to atheists punishing themselves more my several times over. The sense of regret is hard to cope when there'e no experience gained from life besides religion. Doing "the crime" you no longer have a deity to blame, surely nonsensical but morally you're all to blame on taking risk on a judgement and taking all the blame can be quite a burden. Religious fall back to belief in doubt, non-religious find it in their selves, take more risk spiraling out of control making it quite difficult to describe besides "becoming your own god and punisher" which gets lethal rather quickly.
Myself I never got the sense of family importance, they seemed like enforcers from experience. I assume now they weren't good teachers and I wasn't the best to read myself so they kept trying to out-wit ultinatively ending in a competition inevitably leading in a spiral of conflict. I wonder if non religious families naturally have to adopt some sort of comprimise to have healthy relationships even in close family ties, I've yet to see it function well and these days it's probaby not going to get better either. Ah well, ego is quite nice to have too, reason is satisfactory around the failthful when specating them licking stones.

I've never been able to be an athiest. The best I can seem to do is "there probably are gods and we have a moral responsibility to kill them off." I feel like your videos are still helpful for me. I'm always scared of becoming an abuser because I was scapegoated and I reflexively go into fight whenever I'm triggered rather than flight or freeze or fawn.