Christian upbringing's the name, indoctrination's the game

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Christian upbringing's the name, indoctrination's the game
.: posted Sunday, September 19, 2004 ::: by .:webmaster:. ::: EmailThis! »

sent in by Simon

If we all get new resurrection bodies when we die as the bible states, why was the tomb empty? What need would the resurrected Jesus have had for his original body?

Oh, where to start? I was taken along to church by my parents. They did what they thought was right. To be honest, apart from the hypocrital, cliquey, gossipy, closed-minded, hermetic, blinkered, black-and-white, headlong, unquestioning, cultish nature of my church, it was OK. It taught me to 'care about poor people', though many church members (especially ones my age and younger) seemingly couldn't care less. So it wasn't all bad in fairness.

I really started to question things quite late on, my late-teens and early-twenties. I am studying maths and physics at university, so I am reasonably inquisitive and like some evidence to backup a viewpoint. It was at this point that I realised that I had never been offered the slightest evidence for God's existence. So I went on a quest to find it. Rejection of Christianity followed.

For me, the worst part about rejecting Christianity was the mineshaft which was left behind. Your whole life changes. People thought I was being melodramatic when I wondered what the point of making a cup of coffee was. Why? Everything in my entire life up to that point had been geared towards doing stuff to please God because he loved me. Everything. The people I spoke to, the way I'd speak to them, doing my schoolwork... you name it. Yes, I would be getting a lovely new life after this one and be spending eternity in perfecton with my friends and millions of others who I'd never met before - how exciting! No more evil. No more tears. No more suffering.

Now of course I realise that these things are laughable, but they also made me cry quite a bit. I realised also that morality is a joke. In simple morality terms, I may as well kill someone as hug them. There is no moral difference between the two actions. The only thing stopping me is the law, which comes back to good old majority rule. As someone else said, this doesn't mean chaos ensues. As an animal who wants to pass his genes on, I don't want to be locked up in prison for the rest of my life, so I wouldn't do it. That is how base my view on 'doing good' has become, at least on a theoretical level. On a practical level I have started helping out at homeless shelters, want to become a teacher in a poor country etc. etc. Was it David Hume who recommended 'carelessness and inattention'?

How transient and pointless everything has become. It matters for nothing what results I get in my degree, what job I get, who I marry. In sixty years I'll be dead; a few more and I'll be completely forgotten. I could write so much more: how my view of girls is completely screwed, how crushingly alone I feel most of the time, how these things cause bouts of depression... There's so much more I want to say.

But enough.

This site is a great idea - thanks to all who have contributed!

Yours depressed, abondoned and alone (well, that how it feels!)

Simon

City: London
Country: England
Became a Christian: 7? 8?
Ceased being a Christian: 22
Labels before: Charismatic, evangelical
Labels now: Atheist
Why I joined: Mum and dad took me to church
Why I left: I asked a few simple questions

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