The Breakthrough Which Freed Me from Abrahamic Religious Enslavement

I have matured my being evincing during separate periods in my days both the path of an academic skeptic and as well a committed Christian. In each life phase, I adorned myself with an ardent certainty, that within my cosmological grasp lay all the tools necessary to develop a sufficiently rich and robust understanding of the true nature of our being. Each time I felt that I held a penultimate set of knowledge, inside of which the gaps in my knowing, were materially insignificant. An endowment of sufficient reason, or lack thereof, for our presence on this planet, and hopefully my purpose inside that reality.

But as the Bob Seger song Against the Wind reflects, "I began to find myself searching, searching for shelter again and again." Sunday morning pep rallies began to leave me flat, and were not enough to assuage the growing dissatisfaction with the answers I had been handed at a younger age. Science was right, they had proven their case. Later, the incumbent reactionary retreat into reliance upon solely the repeatable, measurable and observable material world, comprising a constrained set of acceptable hypotheses which I was handed, began to ride on my conscience as lacking in ethics. As constituting a cowardly surrender.

The first tenet of Ethical Skepticism states: "First and foremost the Ethical Skeptic scrutinizes and maintains caution around his own assumptions, regardless of where they are obtained; discriminating with discipline, religious cosmologies from actual science."

I gained this ethic by finally crystallizing in my heart, and understanding the nature and psychology of abuse. Understanding that enslavement entailed in the error, the psychology imparted from my Abrahamic religious upbringing. At a certain point my heart could no longer stomach the trick which was being foisted upon it. This same staunch demand for an ethical integrity of thought was also the same stance which would later compel me to set aside nihilist materialist philosophies as well. But that is another story.

It was my final grasp, the observing of the nature of abuse - the cycle and relationship between the abuser (man standing behind the curtain pretending to be the punishing Oz), and the victim (man also), which finally allowed my religious manifestation of self, to see himself for who he really was. To stand up and - say:

"I have been tricked. No more."

Below I have outlined the core error and facets of abuse, which I had to reject in order to break free from my Abrahamic Religious prison. A prison into which I was innocently inserted at age 7.

I have to tell you it is addictive. Once you rigorously demand integrity in your thinking, you find that you cannot tolerate BS much any longer. Golf and football bore you to tears. A thirst and passion for the REAL story begin to overtake your soul. You find people with no fresh ideas, only possessing the ability to critique and correct, to be of the most common and useless order. No manner of derision nor correctness can dissuade you from your path.

The Realization That I was Wrong in The Understanding I had been Handed

Huh.
I never took much truck with religion myself. Abrahamic or otherwise.

Good on ya, mate.

Originally posted by Phage
Huh.
I never took much truck with religion myself. Abrahamic or otherwise.

Good on ya, mate.

Thanks Phage. Everything takes me a bit longer.

If true , then they have been very wisely planned in more than 1400 years ago by Muhammad pbuh (a trade man -uneducated) , by Jesus pbuh (a and by Moses pbuh (a shepherd).

Too much conspiracy , imo.

I don't understand.

But as long as rigorous thought and logic are the basis for your current thinking, that's all you can ask for.

Personally I cannot understand how in this day and age religion can still have so much impact on humanity and this planet. It really does make me think we're only fooling ourselves that we're intelligent beings.

Like that guy on the tight rope recently. praying for god to steady the cable. hearing him scares me It's one thing to say "Oh GOD don't let me fall!" but it's something else to repeatedly go on about "Jesus is lord and master and god will ra ra blah blah"..

ehh but what do I know, I'm a sinner.

reply to post by TheEthicalSkeptic


Your Venn diagram is confusing to me.

If an abuser takes delight in cruelty, it can only happen as long as the victim is obviously suffering. If the abuser is numb to that suffering, he/she no longer takes delight in it. Therefore you don't have two fields that overlap, but, by necessity, an ever-escalating arms race of sadism, which isn't really best shown by this kind of diagram. The inclusion of the third field doesn't help. The victim accepting the blame also reduces the level of delight of the sadist, and makes his/her numbness irrelevant. So rather than a self-sustaining balanced model, you have a paradox.

All of Christ's commands are based on love. If you crafted some kind of sado-masochistic fear and guilt mechanism out of that, I'm certainly glad you left it.

The breakthrough Which Freed Me From Abrahamic Religious Enslavement
The Realization That I was Wrong in The Understanding I had been Handed

Your problems are in bold. Faulty conclusions are reached by faulty premises. Address whether or not "the understanding that you had been given" was wrong to begin with, because if you did, you'd see that your image included in your thread reflected it.

reply to post by TheEthicalSkeptic


No one can truly prove beyond a shadow of a doubt what happens to you once you die, not Christians, not Muslims, not Mormons, not Buddhists, NO ONE. Everyone dies. This is the control mechanism that ALL religions have at their core...telling their followers what happens to them when they die.

The one thing we do know for certain is that there are humans on this planet...some good, some evil, some a bit of both...in fact, you can find humans that have done deeds that span the entire good/bad spectrum.

No one has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that angels/demons/aliens are real and interacting with us humans on this planet in our reality.

People have begun to wake up to these realizations every day but the sad thing is that many, many have not. And you can see what has happened to us humans because of this throughout history.

You have a choice of what to believe. Everyone has a choice. You can choose to believe whatever you want, don't let others force you, coerce you, or convince you what they believe is "right" and "true" because even they cannot prove it. Faith is a control mechanism.

I am glad you have decided to be free.

Welcome to freedom, human, now step in line and pay your monetary slavery taxes with the rest of us lol!

reply to post by TheEthicalSkeptic




By the terminology you use it is apparent that whilst you no longer accept what the Sons of Abraham offer with the right hand you happily take what they offer with the left, that is to say Jewish atheistic cultural Marxism and their emphasis on the keyword of 'abuse' as a means of indoctrination toward 'political correctness...both hands serve the same cause.

Originally posted by mideast

If true , then they have been very wisely planned in more than 1400 years ago by Muhammad pbuh (a trade man -uneducated) , by Jesus pbuh (a and by Moses pbuh (a shepherd).

Too much conspiracy , imo.

That is one facet of humanity which we sometimes miss. Many things do not require a conspiracy - they develop via means of a Social Zeitgeist. That way, as a group we can commit things which a reasonable single person would never do ethically, were they offered the moral choice at face value. This is how thousands of moral people, can inhabit a company which commits immoral acts. Billions can inhabit a religion which does the same thing, and never fully grasp what it is they actually do.

Wars then, by nature - constitute a conspiracy theory - yet they do happen. Often, maybe perpetually.

Malicious and destructive things are not necessarily always the outcome of a fiendish objective plot. A social mind can 'evolve' naturally over time, in this way constituting a great method of keeping people in check.

I am a partner in two fashion consumer good companies. Watch fashion trends in New York and LA. These trends are not always push planned, many times they wander on their own, but you would swear it looks like it was planned.

Our power to exercise the unconscious collective is strong. Never underestimate it.

But it also must be watched.

Originally posted by winofiend
Personally I cannot understand how in this day and age religion can still have so much impact on humanity and this planet. It really does make me think we're only fooling ourselves that we're intelligent beings.

When we take little kids and teach them - before an age of accountability inside reason - we can convince them of almost anything. When a religion survives mainly by forcing people to indoctrinate their children into it before they can think for themselves, this is not a good sign on the long term survivability of that religion.

But I agree winofiend, your fount of outstanding insight continues unabated - we are fooling ourselves - we have along way to go yet.

Originally posted by Snsoc
reply to post by TheEthicalSkeptic

 

Your Venn diagram is confusing to me.

If an abuser takes delight in cruelty, it can only happen as long as the victim is obviously suffering. If the abuser is numb to that suffering, he/she no longer takes delight in it. Therefore you don't have two fields that overlap, but, by necessity, an ever-escalating arms race of sadism, which isn't really best shown by this kind of diagram. The inclusion of the third field doesn't help. The victim accepting the blame also reduces the level of delight of the sadist, and makes his/her numbness irrelevant. So rather than a self-sustaining balanced model, you have a paradox.

All of Christ's commands are based on love. If you crafted some kind of sado-masochistic fear and guilt mechanism out of that, I'm certainly glad you left it.

The 'love' stuff was a candy coating which can deceive and opiate for a while yes, but the core message remains the same. If we truly loved, we would have held ourselves accountable and changed this core message 2800 years ago. And its negative manifestation on this planet comes out eventually, no matter how many times we claim love. As in the Stockholm syndrome, many times the abused begins to find affinity in some sordid way with the abuser. One has to take a deep breath, step back and be circumspect in order to break this cycle.

Circles on a chart do not automatically mean one is drawing a Venn Diagram, which this is not; rather a faceted roll-up of three features enacted by the zeitgeist we have collectively manifested. I contend that the numbness to suffering is a self loathing of sorts on the part of mankind - bearing a personality proxy we have filled in an in 'whom' we can justify the horrid outcomes we create:

1. An abdication of accountability or one's responsibility
2. A refusal to act to correct one's handiwork or alleviate suffering
3. An aloofness which allows both to skirt the conscience.

This is actually the characteristic features of many governments on the planet. Were it actually embodied into the person proxy inside a god-based religion, it would constitute a horrible indictment of that person. This is the reason we eventually got rid of 'kings;' as we could no longer stomach the atrocities which they seemed to accept at face value.

I would sincerely hope that such a person did not exist, but because 'love' would not be enough of an excuse.

Originally posted by WhoKnows100

The breakthrough Which Freed Me From Abrahamic Religious Enslavement
The Realization That I was Wrong in The Understanding I had been Handed

Your problems are in bold. Faulty conclusions are reached by faulty premises. Address whether or not "the understanding that you had been given" was wrong to begin with, because if you did, you'd see that your image included in your thread reflected it.

edit on 25-6-2013 by WhoKnows100 because: (no reason given)

This is a sound advisement. I did do that. And yes, after I got through the smoke screens, I found this core abuse message of sin, penalty and aloofness to responsibility to be the core message of the religion triad which has failed for over 4000 years.

Today this abject terror over what happens after we die, our guilt, and the desperate need to achieve our life goals in a very very short lifespan before we are mature enough to know what a legitimate goal even is, all serve to manifest in much suffering. I witness this directly in my profession.

Originally posted by Madrusa
reply to post by TheEthicalSkeptic

 

By the terminology you use it is apparent that whilst you no longer accept what the Sons of Abraham offer with the right hand you happily take what they offer with the left, that is to say Jewish atheistic cultural Marxism and their emphasis on the keyword of 'abuse' as a means of indoctrination toward 'political correctness...both hands serve the same cause.

Fair enough Madrusa and for a time I did, no doubt. Just because I have identified one form of abuse which creates suffering in my client countries, does not mean that there are no other forms of enslavement abuse perpetrated by mankind. This is correct - and part of the reason I stepped back from jumping with both feet into the cultural Marxism as you describe it.

But heavens no - political correctness is another form of abuse. I may not have knee-jerked in the direction you are presuming.

S/F OP!!

You might (or might not) be interested in a rather short book called The God Virus, written by Dr Darrell Ray.

In a cogent and highly readable analysis, Dr. Ray traces the contagion course of religion as it enters the lives of countless individuals, beginning in childhood and infecting their behavior, professions, sex lives, and virtually every aspect of living.

And Dr. Ray knows whereof he speaks, for he is the child of fundamentalist, evangelical parents, who frequently took their young son to Bible thumping religious revival meetings.

“At the time that my parents began taking me to hear ministers, I was just old enough to understand the words that they preached at us,” said Dr. Ray. “From those experiences, I learned who was good and who was bad: people of other religions or of no religions were sinners who would wind up in Hell. Such teachings infected my young mind and had a profound effect on my life, at least until I outgrew my impressionable teenage years and was sufficiently determined to think for myself.

The degrees that I earned in religion and psychology immeasurably helped me to see through prejudice, myth, and superstition. My situation is not uncommon, but my book is. And I believe that people who want to think intelligently and rationally about religion, whether they are believers or non-believers, will find my book a useful resource.”

The God Virus carefully details the practical consequences of fundamentalist religious beliefs, infecting personalities, families, and cultures.

I met this man over the winter at a conference on Ethics and Morality put on by the Secular Student org at the Univ of Kansas. I bought his book - and have mentioned it here before.

Whether you are a believer, an atheist, or an agnostic, you will find The God Virus an exciting and challenging experience, especially if you are not frightened or timid about being a being a rational, thoughtful, and compassionate human being. One has nothing to lose but the mental chains of superstition and intolerance that can keep one in a perpetual state of fear.
“By writing The God Virus,” stated Dr. Ray, “I have attempted to inoculate my readers against a viral infection that results in terminal ignorance and fear.” Many grateful readers agree.

Originally posted by TheEthicalSkeptic
I have matured my being evincing during separate periods in my days both the path of an academic skeptic and as well a committed Christian. In each life phase, I adorned myself with an ardent certainty, that within my cosmological grasp lay all the tools necessary to develop a sufficiently rich and robust understanding of the true nature of our being. Each time I felt that I held a penultimate set of knowledge, inside of which the gaps in my knowing, were materially insignificant. An endowment of sufficient reason, or lack thereof, for our presence on this planet, and hopefully my purpose inside that reality.

But as the Bob Seger song Against the Wind reflects, "I began to find myself searching, searching for shelter again and again." Sunday morning pep rallies began to leave me flat, and were not enough to assuage the growing dissatisfaction with the answers I had been handed at a younger age. Science was right, they had proven their case. Later, the incumbent reactionary retreat into reliance upon solely the repeatable, measurable and observable material world, comprising a constrained set of acceptable hypotheses which I was handed, began to ride on my conscience as lacking in ethics. As constituting a cowardly surrender.

The first tenet of Ethical Skepticism states: "First and foremost the Ethical Skeptic scrutinizes and maintains caution around his own assumptions, regardless of where they are obtained; discriminating with discipline, religious cosmologies from actual science."

I gained this ethic by finally crystallizing in my heart, and understanding the nature and psychology of abuse. Understanding that enslavement entailed in the error, the psychology imparted from my Abrahamic religious upbringing. At a certain point my heart could no longer stomach the trick which was being foisted upon it. This same staunch demand for an ethical integrity of thought was also the same stance which would later compel me to set aside nihilist materialist philosophies as well. But that is another story.

It was my final grasp, the observing of the nature of abuse - the cycle and relationship between the abuser (man standing behind the curtain pretending to be the punishing Oz), and the victim (man also), which finally allowed my religious manifestation of self, to see himself for who he really was. To stand up and - say:

"I have been tricked. No more."

Below I have outlined the core error and facets of abuse, which I had to reject in order to break free from my Abrahamic Religious prison. A prison into which I was innocently inserted at age 7.

I have to tell you it is addictive. Once you rigorously demand integrity in your thinking, you find that you cannot tolerate BS much any longer. Golf and football bore you to tears. A thirst and passion for the REAL story begin to overtake your soul. You find people with no fresh ideas, only possessing the ability to critique and correct, to be of the most common and useless order. No manner of derision nor correctness can dissuade you from your path.

The Realization That I was Wrong in The Understanding I had been Handed

edit on 25-6-2013 by TheEthicalSkeptic because: (no reason given)

Obviously, you have no concept of God, Jesus, or Abraham. All that you are doing is saying that as a man you have no sin. That not only are you not responsible for your bad actions, but that you shouldn't be faulted for them. This has no basis in logic or reason.

For instance, if I hit you in the face with a rock for no reason, should I suffer no guilt, no blame. nor any consequence? Yes, I should, but in order to ease your mind towards an accountable and Holy God, you say no, you should just be able to do as you please without guilt or penalty for your actions.

Originally posted by wildtimes
S/F OP!!

You might (or might not) be interested in a rather short book called The God Virus, written by Dr Darrell Ray.

In a cogent and highly readable analysis, Dr. Ray traces the contagion course of religion as it enters the lives of countless individuals, beginning in childhood and infecting their behavior, professions, sex lives, and virtually every aspect of living.

Thanks wildtimes, and yes I will be interested in reading this. Every aspect of my life was impacted by this religious mis-teaching from early on. But that was not the only thing.

I have read Dawkins' "The God Delusion" and while I am a Dawkins fan, I did not find his grasp to be founded upon the true nature of what is occurring inside this 'virus' as Dr. Ray apparently expresses such. Many people do not get the confluence chart I posted, AND that is a good thing. Congratulations to them. But there is also a valuable lesson of utility in the process of freeing one's self, which the fortunate does not possess. "What the winner don't know, the gambler understands."

As I took my first trips to some of the most disease and famine ridden population centers on the planet, I found one fateful night myself falling on my knees, almost throwing up - witness of the abject suffering, the enormous cost in humanity that we derive by inserting this proxy of "he is holy and we earned this through sin" into the collective mind of those who could otherwise change and make a difference in the malady.

This as much as anything else we do, constitutes even moreso a condemning declaration on mankind. The visceral horrors of war, pale in comparison to the delusion driven pandemic of suffering under presumption driven religious self loathing.

I walked through a village which my company was surveying for agricultural potential, and came upon a young woman with three children, skin and bones. The scant trees around them were leaf-less, lifeless - relics of the acid precipitation which fell from the putrid sky permeated with smoke. A smoke emanating from embers in man's dying soul; desperately clinging to ways to feed himself daily, and not be miserable through malnutrition and disease.

But there was not just 4 of them. There were millions upon millions.

It was then that my fever broke and turned the corner on this sickness which haunts and constrains the soul of mankind.

Originally posted by Fromabove
Obviously, you have no concept of God, Jesus, or Abraham. All that you are doing is saying that as a man you have no sin. That not only are you not responsible for your bad actions, but that you shouldn't be faulted for them. This has no basis in logic or reason.

For instance, if I hit you in the face with a rock for no reason, should I suffer no guilt, no blame. nor any consequence? Yes, I should, but in order to ease your mind towards an accountable and Holy God, you say no, you should just be able to do as you please without guilt or penalty for your actions.

Incorrect.

For me it wasn't anything but a few simple facts that I understand natural on earth, and within my heart.

Animals have souls and therefor wouldn't be kept from humans in heaven, since most are like family anyways, how could that even be heaven without your beloved pet?

The fact that you can goto Hell without even knowing it existed? ( so the poor, the misguided, misused all just get dumped into hell? sounds like a hell promoting religion to me. Everything damns you to hell, only following the MASTER gives you devine light.

Brings me to this, Just because you are not easily swayed into believing something you are lost as a soul? What a way to go, if we were supposed to be there it would be natural, freewill is freewill but deception is evil.

Look around, I have morals so do you, yet we have suffered more than most people we know with lower morals? That is because people who give a damn about others are normally used by others to get something they want. Not saying morals should all be lowered, but am saying why make so many suffer who regardless of reward or not they keep going strong and keep having bad things happen to them even though they were tested time and time again.

Many of these things as well as others lead me to believe I was being used and forced to think a certain way to try to control me and have me behave a certain way. I did not like this idea nor felt a part of it no longer, this was around a young age too, high school I believe.


Any Dictator not look too far then most organized religions for examples of mass brainwashing and control.

reply to post by TheEthicalSkeptic

I think you've chosen to only look at one side of the coin, that of enslavement and abuse, something that is done in the name of EVERYTHING ......religion, gender, race, power, government, sex, drugs, gun, parenthood, relationships, and on and on and on......

So by that same argument, we can say that we reject gender, race, government, the army, parenthood, relationships, and so on because they all breed abuse and enslavement...... I know plenty of women who rejected me and went with abusive douche-baggy tattooed drill seargeant type bikers, who now abuse them emotionally, sexually, and physically ......and yet they stay with those men ......so according to your argument, we need to get rid of those type of men....

The first tenet of Ethical Skepticism states: "First and foremost the Ethical Skeptic scrutinizes and maintains caution around his own assumptions, regardless of where they are obtained; discriminating with discipline, religious cosmologies from actual science."

Science deals with the physical realms, experiments, physicality, etc..... God is beyond all of those things and science does not look for God ....nor does it understand Human Consciousness ...one of the most important tenants to figure out before they move on to God.

I gained this ethic by finally crystallizing in my heart, and understanding the nature and psychology of abuse. Understanding that enslavement entailed in the error, the psychology imparted from my Abrahamic religious upbringing.

I agree, religion sucks and and is now a tool use for abuse and enslavement. Jesus himself was killed by the religious jews himself......

The thing is .....there is a schism between the head and the heart. The head is used to understand logic, reason, science, math, the world at a mental level.

The heart/Intuition is used to directly experience that God is real and exists infinitely everywhere and within all.

I have since come to find out that the deepest and most subtle level of abuse and enslavement is the individual ego/mind within each human being, which creates a bias bubble of suffering & illusion.

That was the whole reason for the majority of religions. The Esoteric inner core is meant to be blueprints for spiritual enlightenment and freedom from all systems, ensavement, abuse, and illusion.