Reply #75: I felt that my faith had not been of help to me in enabling me to deal with personal issues

[MikeH]

I am sorry to hear about your marital troubles and your divorce, k4d. I am glad that your faith is of help to you. Hugs to you.

I myself used to be a Christian; I no longer am because I came to the realization that being a Christian, and supposedly having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, had been of no help to me in enabling me to deal with anything that was a source of personal pain, frustration, or unhappiness in my life.

The biggest problem I had for which I found Christianity to be totally unhelpful was my relationship with my father. My dad did some very good things, and was far from being the worst father anybody ever had. However he was often very judgmental, and sometimes bordered on being abusive, especially emotionally and psychologically (though I did get my share of spankings when I was a kid). He often decided in Godlike fashion that I needed to be yelled at like I had committed a crime when I had honestly forgotten something, made an honest mistake, or something was not according to his standards. And he would always say he was doing it “for my own good”. And he was often especially poor at understanding, or even trying to understand, from my point of view, some difficult or sensitive personal issue which was causing me to be unhappy, upset, or frustrated.

I went to church and Sunday school at a Lutheran church as a kid and as a teenager, and to a confirmation class when I was in 7th and 8th grades; however I think I “really” became a Christian and started taking Christianity seriously when I was about 20. I was very unhappy and had many problems as a youth, and it made sense that I should give God (and Jesus) a try, as I had heard that doing so might just make the difference in my life, and fill a “God-shaped void”, as I had sometimes heard.

I briefly became involved with the fundamentalist Christian organization Campus Crusade for Christ at my college campus (San Diego State University). At first glance they seemed like a wholesome, happy bunch of people who had found something very important, and I needed to meet people. However I came to find that I had some serious problems with some things that they believed, preached, taught, and advocated doing.

For instance, I realized I just could not accept the belief that people who did not "accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior", for whatever reason, were going to be condemned to hell. And I could not accept the duty and obligation to approach other people, or share with them Campus Crusade's Four Spiritual Laws , motivated by the above concern, so that they might come to accept Christ and become "saved".

The idea of hell was something that especially bothered me. It was not just the fear or worry about going to hell myself. I was especially bothered by the idea of other people supposedly going to hell if they do not “accept Christ” or are not “saved” in this present life, and the resulting duty and obligation to tell others about Christ with that thought in the back of my mind -- something for which I felt complete and utter distaste, and absolutely no joy or enthusiasm about doing.

It eventually occurred to me that one of the conclusions of the fundamentalist belief about heaven and hell, and being “saved”, is that an “unsaved” murder victim goes to hell, while if the murderer later “repents”, and “accepts Christ”, the murder is let into heaven. Even though I was still a Christian after that thought had occurred to me, I realized that from then on I completely rejected any fundamentalist approach or understanding of Christianity.

I went to some "mainline", non-fundamentalist churches, specifically Presbyterian, Methodist, and Lutheran churches at different times. Even if I did not accept the fundamentalist approach or understanding, and did not believe that those who, for whatever reason, did not “accept Christ” during this lifetime were going to go to hell, I wanted to believe that having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ might be of help to me and make a difference in my life.

All during the time I was going to church and taking Christianity seriously I had been having some problems, including problems at some of my early jobs, and especially problems in my relationship with my dad.

My dad died in 1985, shortly before my 35th birthday. I came to realize, in early 1987, a little over a year after my dad died, how angry I still was at him. I came to realize that he actually had been abusive, or at least borderline so, at times. I.e. it was not just something wrong (or “sinful”) with me that I had problems with him, and was often angry with and resented him and things he said or did, which anger and resentment spilled to other people and to other areas of my life.

Coming to the realization that my dad had actually been abusive at times was a healthy milestone in my life, though I had a lot of anger for a long time, and was in therapy, both individual and group therapy, over a period of years.

Along with the realization that my dad had actually been abusive at times, I also came to the realization that being a Christian, and supposedly having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, had not been of any help to me in enabling me to deal with my dad those times he was difficult or obnoxious, and had also not been of help to me in dealing with other problems and issues in my life. In fact there were some particular passages in the Bible which aggravated my problems with my dad; notably the commandment to unconditionally “honor your father and mother” (which in the biblical text does not make exceptions if a parent is abusive, neglectful, or otherwise does not deserve honor), and a passage in Hebrews 12 which says to gladly accept the chastening of the Lord, like that of a “good” father.

After a long struggle I eventually came to realize that I needed to part company with the Christian faith, and I am as certain as I am of anything that doing so was the right and healthy thing for me to do.

As a Christian I had wanted to accept the assurance and certainty of a life after this present life; that was one of the hard things to let go of. The question of life after this present life is presently an open question for me.

I consider the Bible, having been written by fallible human beings, to exhibit human fallibility and human prejudice just like anything else that has ever been written. As a result of my problems with my father, and feeling the way I do about him, I specifically think that the commandment to unconditionally “honor your father and mother” is an example of something in the Bible that is definitely wrong, and a mistake.

We hear of those who want to display the Ten Commandments in public places. Anybody who favors displaying the Ten Commandments in public places might just as well tell me to my face that it was my duty and obligation to meekly submit to and gratefully accept the abuse from my dad which came in the guise of “loving” rebukes and scoldings.

If anything there should be a commandment for parents to treat their children with dignity and respect, so that the children might come to treat others with dignity and respect.

Even though I am not a Christian any more, I am also not an atheist. I feel that there are reasons for considering that the idea of a God or Creator, or some reality or intelligence higher and greater than ourselves, while not necessarily a foregone conclusion, is at least not absurd or ridiculous. I would consider myself to be a Deist, and just on the believing side of agnostic. Deists do not accept any alleged revelations from God, such as the Bible or the Koran, to actually be such, and I am with them about that.