Brainwash Laundries

               
              Recently, Ross wrote on the #ChurchCrimes facebook page about what cutting children off from real, solid, scientific, and factual knowledge can do. His post was so outstanding and true, I wanted to put it here as a short piece. He was referencing a link in which children who had been homeschooled for Jesus were spouting propagandizing lies and called "cute" or "sweet" for it. Just like I was. Christian "schools" and "homeschooling for Jesus," need to be seen as the crime against children it is. Here is his most amazing post.
               "I think by now nearly everyone has heard of the physical and sexual abuse that has been going on for decades in the Catholic church and other religious institutions, and the vast majority of us find it deplorable. But is it not also deplorable to teach children lies and misinformation, instilling ideological propaganda in the place of real knowledge about the world they live in, and at an age before they have the critical reasoning ability to tell the difference? I think, unquestionably, yes. It not only teaches them falsehoods, it effectively blocks the path to true understanding creating a state of enforced ignorance. Strategies like this, which come straight from the cultists playbook, serve a purpose which has nothing to do with educating children to understand the world they live in, and everything to do with social and psychological control.

               When a cult uses the strategy of indoctrinating its initiates into accepting beliefs which would be considered ludicrous and outrageous by society in general outside the cult, the initiate's mind becomes more tightly bound up with the church and increasingly detached from society at large. The division between in-group and out-group is thus increased, and the initiate becomes more easily controlled and manipulated. The penalty for rejecting such beliefs can extend to a complete loss of family and community, and the regret of having wasted so much time and energy on behalf of a delusion. Contemplating the idea that such beliefs may not be true results in massive cognitive dissonance, and the resulting sense of panic puts enormous pressure on the initiate to restore their sense of normalcy and equilibrium by accepting the belief. Eventually they learn to instinctively avoid such questioning in the first place. Instilling this habit of reflexive, uncritical acceptance of cult ideology opens a pathway for further indoctrination, moving the initiate ever closer to the state where they can be easily and effectively programmed to believe anything. The story below from the Friendly Atheist gives an example of this strategy in action: the teaching of evangelical Christian propaganda masquerading as scientific truth, extending the doctrine of creationism beyond its customary domain of biology into the realm of mathematics. It is nothing less than the early stages of the process of turning children into well-behaved drones.

               Let us speak plainly about this: evangelical Christianity is a cult, what it teaches to children are lies, it does it for the purposes of brainwashing, it does it for social, political and financial gain, and it does it under the cover of a social acceptability that other cults like Scientology can only dream of: a result of the millennia old social dominance of the Christian religion."

Link to the Friendly Atheist blog that inspired his words. He has also been inspired to interest and anger by my life story being raised in Christian Evangelical Fundamentalist schools.

Critical thinking is Crucial

                   I was slow in leaving the church and the faith because I was blinded by faith and discouraged to ask for evidence. This line of brainwashing caused me to just eschew doubt and accept nonsense without question. Things did start to needle me, however, and I just could no longer believe that which had no proof and insulted my soul. I started to learn. I started to let my own mind take the helm and stop squashing my intuition. In the journey, it became apparent that there were necessary steps to take to be free from nonsense. After I left the church there were very many people ready to just make me another member of another stupid religion even if it was just vague spiritual woo woo, I wasn’t having it if it didn’t meet up to snuff of these criteria. The first step I took was to question all I had been taught. The questions needed answers that would finally satisfy my mind so I looked at what I needed to accept for evidence. Then I realized that I did not have time to learn all the science and math necessary to learn my own evidence so I had to learn which of the authorities out there were the ones I could trust. I did not want to be taken in again. It is terribly important to know the rules of logic. I wanted to know when someone was presenting something not based on sound reasoning the logical fallacies were the starting point of Christianity’s undoing in my mind. Because my mind is my own and it will never be fleeced again, I learned to test my thoughts and assumptions on a regular basis. On my one year anniversary of official deconversion, I reassessed.

          The first step in walking away from the cult of Christianity was constant questions. Socrates taught that once one had all the answers, their growth stopped. The only way to keep learning, keep growing was to constantly ask questions. This way, we are constantly improving. The people who started the most important fields of study weren’t satisfied with answers. They were the greatest scientists and philosophers. Firm answers are easy. It I hard to have nagging questions with crazy curiosity. However, answers are stultifying and breed ignorance. We could still be satisfied with the answer that the world is flat and where would we be? This article says it perfectly, “Questions define tasks, express problems and delineate issues. Answers on the other hand, often signal a full stop in thought. Only when an answer generates a further question does thought continue its life as such. This is why it is true that only students who have questions are really thinking and learning. Moreover, the quality of the questions students ask determines the quality of the thinking they are doing. It is possible to give students an examination on any subject by just asking them to list all of the questions that they have about a subject, including all questions generated by their first list of questions. That we do not test students by asking them to list questions and explain their significance is again evidence of the privileged status we give to answers isolated from questions. That is, we ask questions only to get thought-stopping answers, not to generate further questions.” Socrates is right we need to keep asking and keep growing.

          Adopting a new world view was not simple and it took me forever to figure out what I needed to change my view on my deep faith. The missing piece after I asked all of those questions was evidence. I needed more than the tired refrain, “Your faith is all you need to believe. It is faith that saves.” No. I needed records of Jesus, dates to match up, stories to match up, a census from the year that would have been anywhere near the supposed time Jesus was born, proof that people had to go their birth homes to register (there is none), and an originality about the story. The story has no proof and is not original. Much of it was copied from mythologies of other people from that time. The Mithra tradition one of them. There is not one shred of evidence that any of the Jesus story happened or any that he was an extraordinary man. Because there was no empirical evidence for a real Jesus, I saw the Bible as no more than creative fiction based on an already existing mythology of the time and started to look for what real evidence is. I learned about observable, reliable, repeatable. It was overwhelming to think about all that I needed to learn. I had questions. I needed more thought provoking answers and questions! I did not have any time to learn about all the underlying knowledge to be able to perform experiments at that level. Trustworthy teachers were what I needed.

          Demagogues and smooth talkers were my past. Reliable leaders needed to be my future. Looking into what “peer review” was I learned that the respected names of science—Einstein, Krauss, Hawking, etc..—were respected because they had been proven correct over and over again by their intellectual peers. These were the question askers, thinkers, seekers, and scientists I was looking for. I purchased the book, The Universe in a Nutshell, by Hawking, and was blown away by how simple it was to read and understand. Mr. Hawking is really, very funny, too. I could trust his conclusions over say, Ken Ham’s because Mr. Hawking had been so completely tested and his ideas keep coming up accurate. Ken Ham however has been reviewed by several superiors and peers and keeps coming up lacking. Ken just does not have any proof for any of the declarations he makes. The difference is the bias they place on the evidence. Ken completely denies that which contradicts his faith in Genesis. With such a heavy bias, Ken could not be trusted. A true scientist of the caliber that deserves my trust, is one that will dismiss all he thought before if a better, proven, repeatable truth is found. If it meets the evidence above, a true scientist will adopt it over the previous assumptions and thinking. A faithful believer will reject prove-able truth if it contradicts with his faith, making him unreliable, untrustworthy, and not much better than a third-rate charlatan. If we all still clung to religious assumptions, we would all think that the Earth is the center of our galaxy and the sun rotates around it.

          Next up, I learned in college that if a logical fallacy was present in an argument, it weakened the premise and pointed to the fact that the entire premise is flawed. All critical thinkers have lived this moment on the internet. Our critically thinking friend has made a supported, reviewed, thoughtful post to her facebook page. She is then met with someone yelling at her that she is wrong. She then politely asks her accuser for reasons that she is wrong because critical thinkers are always ready to admit that they might be. Her accuser comes at her with, “You’re a doody head and we all know that doody heads don’t think good thoughts,” or “Well, you failed to include religious reasoning from Xenu the great god of us all! I can’t accept any idea that does not bow to Xenu!” or “Well, that is just ludicrous. I can’t believe you would think that because the idea is ridiculous to me.” These three are the three most common fallacies I see every day. The first is Ad hominem. Instead of speaking to my argument or idea, this person wants to discredit me personally to attempt to render what I say as invalid. When the truth is I could be a raving lunatic, but if my assertion is sound, it is sound. For example, my assertion could be, “My candidate is experienced at diplomacy. The other candidates are not and this scares me.” My support is that over the course of history, diplomacy skills have saved nations from wars, protected peace, and improved the lives of women. Without the experience needed to attend stressful meetings with egomaniacal dictators, I fear the other candidates would not be able to avoid war. I may very well be a “doody head,” but it does not diminish my argument’s veracity. The second fallacy is made from the flawed, “moral high ground” fallacy. It simply states, “I believe in Xenu, you don’t. Therefore, I am better than you.” Which is again, not addressing my original assertion. The last is simply put, “Your idea offends me, so therefore it can’t be true.” It is the fallacy of incredulity. This person just gave up thinking years ago and only goes with what “feels right.” It does not matter how an idea makes you feel. What matters is whether the idea is supported by evidence, true, and solidly made. A really great list of fallacies is over on this Wikipedia page.

          Last and most importantly, do not grow comfortable in your own thoughts, challenge them often. Get thinking friends together just to discuss ideas. Be like Socrates, ask questions about your own ideas and beliefs. Make sure often they are supported by sound thinking, if not, ask why. When we stop thinking and rest on faith alone, we mentally die

The Grief of Being Shamed and/or Shunned

          Dear Blog readers, the following is a real letter from my mother’s cousin. I looked up to her as a role model, I treated her like an aunt to me, I included her in a family vacation, I was never once mean to her because I had deconverted. In short, I continued to respect and admire her. This is how she repaid my kindness. This week we are talking about the loss and grief that comes when your friends and family abandon you wholesale for being who you are. If this has not happened to you, you are blessed beyond measure with good friends and family. This is what happens to so many of us and is one of the biggest church crimes out there. “shunning” or in this case, “Shaming." I am writing out my responses to her for your benefit.

Dear Karen Elizabeth:

The last time you heard from me was when I wrote and thanked you for the beautiful Afghan you made and sent to me and I keep on my bed at all times.

*****What a lovely thing to say. I did agonize over colors and choose that which I thought would please you.

I am asking you as your Aunt and you being my Name Sake to please read the entire letter and not throw it down

*****I ask the same favor of you. I read every single scarring and horrifying line of your letter and am asking you to sit there and do the exact same thing. Please note the commanding tone. I am given no right to look away and no grounds to say that this is abuse and I do not have to hear it anymore.

but please hear me out as someone who loves you dearly and wants to very best for you and your beautiful family that God has created through you and Peter's genes and the Lord created inside your womb.

****How on earth could you possibly know what is best for my family? Did you know that Peter had a lying issue through our entire relationship? Did you know when I found evidence he became really mean? Did you know that he said of every single blog I have ever written whether it was Christian or not, “I ‘have’ to listen to you all day long. Why am I going to go to the effort to READ what your thoughts are online? No. I am not reading that I am tired of being bombarded by your ideas.” Did you know that as I would try to speak to him he would categorically ignore me? As if I was not even in the room at all. The last time he did this to me, he was reading the Bible as he did it and he knows how excruciatingly painful that is for me. I tried counseling, but that is a no go, he put all the fault on me. But boy does he love Jesus.

Right now you are very very angry and you feel that the way to get even is to put yourself first and Ross second.

*****Here you are just making stuff up out of thin air. I do not even know what you are talking about. If that were the case, I would already be permanently moved to England as neither of us want to live in this accursed state. His home in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire is lovely and 20 minutes outside of London. You know, the most amazing town in the ENTIRE WORLD? But please tell me how you know for a fact that Ross is second and my children don’t feature. I promise you, if that were the case, I would not be here at all, but already in his arms happily married and in England. VERY HAPPILY. But I’m not. He knows he comes third and has said time and time again that this makes him love me more. As I look over the history books of our family, it is you that put the needs of a really abusive man over your daughters and one of them bears addiction issues from it. But go ahead and tell me how I am so selfish. Tell me how I am failing my children.

Karen, you will not admit it but Satan has filled your mind with lies about Christians and your family.

*****No. My family has done and said EXCRUCIATINGLY, EXQUISITELY painful things like writing letters filled with really nasty assumptions that make me sound like a raving unloving whore. Thanks for that. I have evidence that this is not lies, but indeed the actual verifiable truth. You’re reading it.

You Don't know Ross Balmer except what he wants you to know.

*****Yup. Apparently, he does not want me to know what color his poos are because that is about the only topic we haven’t covered. I know his history, his life, his addictions, his fears, his damage, his brilliance and his preferred underpants. To be honest, he asks me to not bother loving him because he fears that it is all too much for me to handle right now as I am coming off a divorce. There is a bit of computer software called Skype. It enables us to sit and talk while looking at each other like we were in the same room. We sit and look at each other and bare every part of our broken hurting lives. You would say souls. The man is far from perfect but what he has going for him is he is terrifically kind, gentle, loving, peaceful, even tempered, patient, and intelligent.

If you would be willing to take the time and do research you will learn that men in England

******I did an extensive web crawl as you suggested and using bing, google, and yahoo found no such story of this being a thing **Englishmen** do. Nigerians have been trying this but there is no such record or known, established trend in the lives of English people. They actually love their home and see America as a tantrummy child. Especially now that Trump might actually become president.

and other countries are using American women to marry so that they can get to the United States, steal their bank accounts and then desert them leaving the boken [hoc] and destroyed.

*****Again, that is what my family has done about the destroyed part. But as to money. Peter is a really rich doctor. I have no job. No money. And I have very honestly stated I will be getting a meager 450$ a week in child support. Right now I have all of .40$ in my bank account. Peter cut me off completely and I have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. If he is looking for money, there isn’t any. Even if I were in Mom and Dad’s will, they have nothing. NOTHING. There is not even a promise of inheritance. SO, again, you are making things up OUT OF THE AIR.

Karen,
The Lord has blessed you and Peter with three beautiful children, Joey, Sarah and Ellanor who will blame themselves for your divorce and ask themselves down the road what they did to cause their Mommy and Daddy to unlove each other.

*****No. They don’t. You know who struggles with not blaming her mother for all the damage she still must process and the abuse from afore mentioned bully? YOUR daughters. I made a point of asking my kids if they felt to blame. All of them answered, “No.” I said, “Who is to blame for Mommy and Daddy’s divorce?” They all said, in unison, “Mommy and Daddy.” “That is right kids. You were not even alive when I decided to marry him and you have no part in our relationship or in the ending of it. You are loved and actually you make sure that Mommy and Daddy will always stay friends so that you know you are loved.”

I know that there are always two sides to every story in a divorce but ((The conjunction there tells us that she is completely disregarding my side as valid)) Karen the Lord can perform miracles in both you and Peter's hearts if you will give the Lord the chance.

*****I prayed for 5 years that God would heal our marriage and fix me and fix him. What if the miracle provided to change Peter’s cold heart is this divorce? He works in really really strange ways.

I know you are angry with God and blaming Him for a lot right now but the Lord has spared you a lot of problems; but my prayer is that you will wake up and realize that there is more to life than material things that you are wanting.

****Peter has all the material things. I have no idea what you are referencing. I will have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. I will be working a job and hoping to make ends meet as I live pay check the paycheck. This was preferable to living any more with his ridiculous anger and silent treatment. Peter just inherited an island. Yes. A private island. Would have been mine too if I stayed. I don’t want a ridiculous island and this world’s wealth. I want to be emotionally safe and loved. WHO ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT BECAUSE IT ISN’T ME! I have no idea where on earth you are getting your really really wrong information.

I am not angry with you but love you enough to sit down and through the guidance of the Holy Spirit write to you ((This absolves her of any abuse in the letter. It isn’t she that is saying all of these horrendous things, OH NO it is under the guidance of the Holy Spirit)) and pray you will read this and let the Holy Spirit open your eyes and your heart before you do anything more to destroy yourself and the precious family that the Lord has lent to you and can take away at any time and you then cannot go back and undo. 

*******This is my very favorite part. If I do not do as you suggest, God will take my family away from me because he loves me. Really? You are threatening me. If you have to explain how your letter is loving so very much and so very hard, IT ISN’T LOVE AT ALL. And if God is willing to do that to me and my family after all I have been through, He is an asshole. Do not contact me again.

I love you and Jesus loves you more.
Love Aunt Karen Durr Crogan.

              

          I will let you, the dear reader judge between us. This experience is so common to so many of you out there. I have found love, I am healing, I have found a way to cope. I wrote these responses out in July. I have come a long way since then and am willing to admit that I was a part of the problem. The cycle of toxicity had to be broken. I have ended it with my Aunt Karen as well for that very reason. She may be able to believe that nonsense, but I can’t. I love myself, my children, Ross, and you dear reader, more than that. If you need help with family that shun or shame you, please contact me today.

Wasn't Ready for Westworld.

     

   
       Ok, so I have seen the first two shows in the new hit series, “Westworld,” by HBO. This blog contains information about the plot, so if you are interested in watching the show, please make note of this. I have basically responded to the simple premise, so there are not as many spoilers as you would think. Westworld caused a neurotic crying response to my mother and a full night of nightmares that I was back in the church. When I woke up and ate copious amounts of sugar, coffee on its way, I clearly understood why.

          The show’s premise is that there is an adult play land where anyone can pay to come and interact with regenerative robots. These robots can be killed, raped, beaten, and ill-used and they are sewn up, memory erased, and the very next day, they are back to the way they were before the visitor destroyed them. If the visitor wants to, he or she can destroy the robot all over again. All along, the managers of the park program and reprogram the robots to have certain personality traits and to behave in prescribed and scripted ways. One series of reprogramming scenes undid me. There is a character named Maeve from England. She is a robot programmed to be an English woman who immigrated to the US and became a prostitute, a madam as well as continuing to work. However, the people who run the park started to notice that she wasn’t being hired out anymore. They were quite perplexed because she is exotic with her accent, her biracial looks, and her fiery personality. In the first reprogramming session, they “up her aggression by 20%.” When she is placed back in the park, she says her lines with a forcefulness that is creepy. Nobody hires her. Then another programmer takes the robot back and reprograms her without “all that aggression and this time with emotional intuition upped 1.5%.” She goes back in the park and delivers her lines with such a moving grace, she almost makes the people fall in love with her. Nobody hires her. She is seen as defective. They talk about decommissioning her, but she was so expensive to make.

          I started to cry. I felt anxiety. I had an autistic emotional meltdown and huge tears about things that had happened in my childhood. As I calmed down and fell asleep, I dreamed all night long that I was the black, English prostitute sitting in a reprogramming room with blank eyes as not programmers from the show, but pastors from my past show up. “Raise her submissiveness. Lower her intelligence. Raise her dependence. Increase responses to peer pressure. Increase her ability to be satisfied with cliché and pat answers. For goodness sake, DO SOMETHING WITH HER STRIDENT, POWERFUL, LOUD PERSONALITY.” I woke up at 2:30 am feeling battered. I tossed and turned in almost a fever like state. I ate crackers. I drank water. I tossed and turned. I turned the fan on then off .. then on again. I was disturbed. I drifted off at 5 am and went right back into the same dream. “Why isn’t she responding? Why isn’t she like the others in our fold? Why can she just not conform?” I woke up two hours later completely unrested and ill at ease.

          Church, you do not want free spirits. You do not want free thinkers with questions and big ideas. You want robots you can control, manipulate and get to conform. I am calling you out. Church leaders, if you truly believe God made me, accept me as I am. Church members, be yourselves and do not let bullies in cheap suits tell you who they think you should be and I implore you, do not become what they want you to be if it causes you stress and pain to be so. Run away from anyone whose emphasis is on conformity.  

Community

          When I left the church, the feelings of aloneness started to come down on me. As I have stated on this blog multiple times, friends left wholesale. It was a time filled with tears. I had lost my community. I started reaching out to friends and trying to keep my friendships, but most all were done. Loss of community is the biggest fear that people who are losing faith have. I have spoken to many now about how that very issue is the one keeping them in the abusive situations at the churches they now attend. They would rather be abused and/or pretend they still believe than be alone. I understand.

          Last week we talked about how spirituality was something you could create yourself as an atheist. One of the key components to spirituality is mental health. With a solid healthy mind, we can make the choices we need to make with clear, rational thought. One of the key components of mental health is connection to community. Over the centuries, churches have cornered the market on a grand false dichotomy: “There is no connection to others outside of the church.” Your choices were, a ready-made set of people willing to be your insta-family or nothing. I see it in the faces of people who can’t stay in church but who also won’t leave. I had one lady point blank ask me, “How do you make friends? How do you know that you will have your needs met if you get sick and go to the hospital?” I will answer by saying, “You say hi to people and treat them nicely.” Ok, there are some other things, too, but that is a good starting place.

          In December of 2015 I was completely alone. My old church small group were doing Christmas parties and my marriage was crumbling. A friend suggested that I look on Meet-up.com to find a local atheist group. I did. I found the Lafayette Tippecanoe Atheist and Secular Humanists. I am really starting to enjoy their company. Yesterday, they came over to my house to do a crochet/knitting/fellowshipping “Stitch and Bitch” for charity. I had inherited a stash of yarn and some knitted squares that needed to be sown together into afghans. We sat around, talked, laughed, and spoke about ideas for future charity works. Two of my mental health needs were met. I had a great time with my friends and we are reaching out to help meet the needs of others in our community. A healthy mind is a connected and charitable mind. It was a lovely day and it felt spiritual without all of the baggage of a belief system of false guilt.

          There are many ways the ex-churched community can reach out and connect with each other, with those of like convictions or hobbies. Meetup.com is a great place to start but honestly, it is as easy as just saying hi!

          This week’s theme comes with exciting news! I am starting an ex-church facebook group. Membership includes access to the group, extra content from me, one weekly group coaching session on zoom, and the ability to make new friends. Cost is $10.00 USD a month for the first 3 months. Message me today if you are interested!  

Spirituality is Hard.

            Spirituality is an amorphous word that means so much to so many people, it is hard to pin down, especially for those who have been spiritually abused. Because of this, the simple act of asking, “How is your spiritual life,” is such a loaded question it is nearly impossible to answer without first asking, “In what sense do you mean ‘spiritual?'”
        This has engendered in many ex-church people an avoidance of thinking about any spirituality. However, whether or not we care to think about it, we have an internal life that needs to be nurtured. Here at DLC, we take a more logical approach. As with all things that delve into our minds, there is a sense of freedom in figuring out how it actually works. Before we can move forward, it is important to take a glance at what we have been through.

          In the past, we were told that Spirituality is  “Access to a higher power or the metaphysical plane by way of a set of rituals or secret knowledge.” In other words, religion. Whether it be Christianity, New Age, Islam, Paganism, or Sikh the idea is that if we read the right book, believe the correct narratives, and or perform the correct rituals, the metaphysical agent in question will respond with a higher awareness or understanding. This is not a definition that wraps up the entire experience. For me, it leaves entire chunks out of the process. Yet, many people see spirituality only as a quest for gods. I dismiss this thought. There is more to it.

          Another prevalent definition is an experience or understanding that evokes emotional euphoria or “The chills" or an emotional response. “The feels.” Statements along these lines usually also include allusions to the metaphysical, “I was at retreat weekend at my church and I felt the Holy Spirit indwell me. I got chills and started to weep.” Or “I just felt so moved when I heard the guru speak it was as if he were imparting the ‘wisdom of the Universe’ into my mind!” These are powerful experiences and need careful treatment. Misappropriating them can lead to disappointment or frustration when the follower finds out that what they believed was incorrect or no longer evokes these chills. This can lead to a period of disillusionment during which the participant is “experiencing a dry spell,” or is “having a desert experience,” or “needs to perform one of the above rituals to restore balance.” 
           Saying that spirituality is a string of experiences or emotions that need manipulating is also missing the mark. I was raised with a combination of these two definitions all smashed up. I was taught that spirituality is only the quest for the metaphysical and you know you are on the right track when you have just the right emotional experiences. Again, an external search for confirmation that the unprovable is real just doesn't work anymore. 

          These common definitions are laden with confirmation bias. “I felt something so therefore it is my pet belief.” “Something amazing and good happened in my life, it must be God working.” Even without the belief or deity, these things may have happened in the believer’s life anyway. It may very well be just coincidence. Another shortcoming of these systems is that they put the strength outside of you. 
           I personally have come to the conclusion that the best way to look at it is the old saying, “The mind is the seat of the soul.” (If a soul even exists.) If we take it to mean that the mind is the center of our internal experience it becomes our highest calling to care for it. Seeking out mental health therapies, life coaching, and, if needed, medication are all requirements for a healthy spirituality. Our minds are physical and real. The best way to maintain our inner thought life is to protect mental health. 
           Meditation can become a very powerful way to connect our internal life with our outer reality making solutions to problems very clear. We can use ritual and practice to calm our emotional lives and help us to function in a more responsible way. Lighting candles and listening to quiet music can really help us to meditate. Also, great understanding about the way that we function best as humans can be had in the practice of centered meditation. Learning to be the master of our minds and emotions is the highest spiritual calling we have.

          I carry this calling out to making sure that those around me are mentally as strong as they can be and advocating for the homeless and downtrodden that may not have access to the expensive mental health care coverage. 
          On the topic of altruism, a healthy mind is one that understands our place on this earth. For me, speaking of spirituality cannot be done without speaking about the responses we have to these moments of enlightenment. If we are not reaching out to our fellow man at some capacity, even if only to help one person, I would question our emotional and mental health. Once we have the solid footing of a healthy mind, we can see and react to the needs around us.

            This is just a start. It is by no means a definitive answer. Having said that, it is where I will place my emphasis this week. A mind clouded by the baggage of too many hurts and destructive emotions is one that cannot reason clearly.

Bigger and BETTER

               It was the most terrifying moment of my life. I was alone. I was in my chair at my last church. I was crying. I realized I hated hell. I hated the idea. I hated the smug way the young pastor at the front of the church was stating how, “Indeed an eternal, permanent hell was something that the unbeliever had to look forward to.” He was making the point out of every part of the Bible. John 3:18 and Matthew 24 made appearances and they were used to prove the point that Jesus approved of eternal damnation and there was no escape for the non-believer because of the love that Jesus has for all people. My brain broke. I then watched Christians support discrimination against gays in the form of seeking legislation that would keep Christian wedding service providers from doing gay weddings. I was then drawn into arguments with fellow believers who called me sinful or misguided as I sought to secure civil rights for all people in the US, not just the ones that look and act like we do. As the abuse and the illogical beliefs piled onto my head, I came to a terrifying realization. **I could not ever go back to church again.** I was profoundly done.

               This was, as I said, terrifying. First, I lost most of my friends. Each friend was like a mini betrayal. I could only be a true friend if I supported the church. But that was nothing compared to what started to happen next. The illogical beliefs started to just burn holes into my brain. I desperately flailed about trying to find my god. I prayed I begged for more. I wanted answers to my soul burning questions so badly I lay awake shaking and crying each night. Finally I awoke to the reality that not only could I not go to church anymore, I could not Bible, I could not Jesus, I could not Hell. I. Could. Not. The Bible was the foundation of my faith the very center. It crumbled in a flurry of textual criticism and good old fashion logical thinking. With tears pouring down my face, I told my then husband, a devout believer, that I could not believe anymore. I desperately flailed about for my lover. For a few short weeks, I thought I still could have a relationship with him. He then told me he had been told by my dad that my uncle had seen my facebook posts about my pain from my past and present in the church. My lover told me that he thought I was mentally ill and should be seen again. My world shattered and we just started to pull apart. Two doctors with MD after their names said that I was not at all mentally ill.

               Speaking of my Daddy, he likened my lack of faith with a porn addiction and that I was a marriage vow breaker for it. My mother awkwardly tried to say she felt she was losing me and all she could come up with was, “I don’t know how to even spend time with you, we have nothing of importance in common.” I desperately flailed around for my parents. I was then reminded that my brother had died at birth by their god’s good grace so that I could exist. If he had lived, I would not have been born so I should ever be grateful to their god for allowing me to exist. I vaguely remember trying very hard just to get my father out of my house. My father who was up until that point my daddy. I was his girl. I was quirky, masculine, silly, and loved 60’s music because of him. He had been my hero and one of my best friends. All I could think as he hugged me and left was, “leave. Just fucking leave.” My entire foundation had shattered.

               I had to rebuild. My marriage had just turned co-dependently mega toxic and I had to leave. In that moment of death, I found life. I found me. I looked at my mirror and with all the power and brilliance of my own strength and said to myself in the full glory of the moment, “I AM THAT I AM.” I filed for divorce and found love. I started to train as a life coach and found that I could replace “I am a Christian,” with “I am Karen who is her own creation from this point out.” I found a group of fantastic friends in an atheist group, Lafayette Tippecanoe Atheists and Secular Humanists and they have come to mean a great deal to me. The friends who are still Christians and still love me without fighting with me feel like family.

               You might resonate with some or all of this. Whether you keep your faith in God or not, leaving the church is TERRIFYING. It isn’t easy, you need to completely destroy and then find the strength to rebuild. 18 months after deconversion, I am happy, fulfilled, and optimistic for the future. I am engaged to my lover, Ross Balmer, and we are building this business and ideas hand in hand. I feel tremendously hopeful and would love to show you that there is life, joy, charity, fulfillment, and connection with peers after leaving the church. I would love to get you started on your journey to the grace, hope, and joy I have found.

Pastor Vlog 3

Pastor Blog 2.

            I love the dictionary. In my long years attending Bible Study Fellowship, I was taught that the dictionary could help us start with a clear understanding of what words mean so that we can speak about them cogently. It is a habit that I have come to love as an atheist. My skeptical mind wants you to notice what is NOT referenced in that definition. There is not one mention of sexual behavior or any appeal to a deity or ancient tome. In fact, there is only a communal understanding of what right and wrong and agreed upon. The implication is that each person knows and can see what is right and wrong and that the society at large in the form of social constructs and laws have agreed together what is morality. My personal definition, and one that agreed upon by very many, is that moral behavior is that which seeks the improvement of my life along with the improvement of the lives of those around me. The improvement of my life will not impair the improvement of the lives of those around me. My pastor friend has chosen the second of my questions to answer. He has written a blog about it here. 

            In this question, I wanted to know why Christians are really obsessed with behaviors that DO NOT impact society at large, least of all them INSTEAD of focusing PRIMARILY on the sheer number of people starving in our society, let alone ENTIRE GLOBE, every single day. Social ills in the world that actually are causing harm are copiously absent from the majority of the average believer’s timeline. (I have some really lovely notable exceptions to that rule and I love you people.) The average Christian these days is posting about the horror that is women using the women’s room in Target. Here is his response to that. I had to sit and stare in wonder at the levels of ignorance and pride in this answer. I’ll let you see what I saw,

            Why do Christians care about which bathroom a transgender person uses?

I can think of a few answers to this one:

1. Christians and other religious people tend to be more concerned with privacy and modesty than the general population. This comes from our emphasis on sexual purity. Granted, Christians have done a terrible job of consistently upholding the lessons of the faith regarding sexual purity. Our hypocrisy on this topic is great.
2. Christians highly value submitting to the will of God. Many Christians believe that a person who embraces a gender other than their biological sex has chosen a path of rebellion against the created order. The conservative Christian opposition to the LGBTQ worldview is partially based on a commitment to biblical sexual ethics, but it is also based upon a commitment to the “natural order” of creation.
3. Christians in America are frightened by a world that is growing increasingly secular particularly because the past 400+ years of life in North America has been very favorable to the Christian worldview, and the prospect of losing the privileged status of Christianity is threatening. There is a religious reason for this fear, and I will address it below as well.
4. Most of all, Christians believe that the morality taught in the Bible is not just commanded by God but beneficial for humans. Therefore, Christians draw the conclusion that when a society displays biblical morality, everyone wins overall. However, this attitude has caused two related problems. First, Christians often feel as if we must act as the moral police in our world. Secondly, Christians have failed to treat all moral issues equally, and have put undue emphasis on certain moral issues ignoring others.

As a result of these four things, Christians feel that normalizing transgenderism violates God’s created order, blurs the lines of modesty and privacy, threatens religious freedom, and will cause societal harm that must be spoken against.

            So far, I have some lovely reasons for why Christians should not engage in these behaviors, but has offered no reason why a non-Christian should act like Christians. He has said that Christians fear consequences and that there is societal harm. He fails miserably at saying what those consequences are and what He makes vague allusion to the “created” or what he means is “natural” order. He does not say what societal harm or privacy violations there are when women use the women’s bathroom. But boy there are some wide open barn doors in even this reasoning. The Christian might be able to swallow this pile of fecal matter from the great almighty, but I have lost the capacity. I will start with the natural order of this world. I love how Christians talk about the animal kingdom and the peg and hole designs of our bodies as proof that their god has shown us how to behave and what is good. When this argument appears in my life, it is like Saturnalia has come early and that lovely pagan god dressed in red, has gifted me with a big yummy present under my penis praising Saturnalia tree. Here is a link to 12 animal species that change sex in the absence of a certain sex. It just happens to them. In the course of their lives they are born either male or female and because life happened to them, they found themselves the opposite of where they started. According to nature, this is absolutely normal and not anything to be startled about. Or how about these 1,500, yes ONE THOUSAND FIVE HUNDREND, species that practice same sex acts to resolve disputes and because they seem to like each other. The article states that pairs of male dolphins can staytogether for years. Of course what you do not see very often in the animal kingdom is straight, life-long monogamy. This article states that only 3-5% of all animals practice life-long monogamy. It seems that if we look to the natural order, sex is something that is dependent on each individual and not a group dynamic. Apparently, giraffes love to be gay and exhibit more homosexual behaviors than hetero ones. So, that whole, “natural” or (gags on this term) “created” order of things is pretty much empty hollering. In fact males do have holes for other males to interact with and ALSO a known fact that there are some Christian women that LOVE anal penetration, but seeing as their anuses  are more… ahem…. “holy” ….. (snort) the godly spouse can penetrate that without fear he likes anuses…. I mean, men.

            But when have Christians been concerned with reality? He goes on. There is a lot of Bible verse quoting and apologizing for not being loving and the fact that Christians break these rules a lot but he ends here (Do remember I posted a link to the entire article.) Skipping a bit, I pick up here with his conclusion:

            So to conclude this point about modesty, privacy and sexual purity, Christians give these issues a great deal of attention because sexual immorality is a grievous sin for those who would follow Christ, and living in a modest society will be a spiritual benefit to everyone in it. However, Christians are at fault for giving these issues too much airtime while ignoring other sins like greed and slander and for judging the unbelieving world by a standard that was only supposed to apply to other believers.

This all helps to explain why Christians are opposed to transgenderism, but it doesn’t give an excuse for how they have opposed it.

The concern for submitting to the will of God is another key motivator for Christians opposing transgenderism and the sexual ethics of the LGBTQ worldview. Granted, there are some church traditions that embrace the entire LGBTQ worldview, but conservative Christians still reject it on the grounds that (1) the Bible opposes it and (2) natural law opposes it. Nevertheless, both of these grounds are actually the same at heart: the desire to submit to the will of the Creator God. The only reason to obey the Bible is to submit to God’s will, and the only reason to value natural law is to honor the Creator.

Christians therefore oppose the LGBTQ worldview because it is incompatible with submission to our Creator.

            Apparently our “Creator” wants us to be gay and polyamorous, but that is me actually looking at real nature. Not the nature that came off of the fairy land Noah’s ark boat in Kentucky. I need proof that living in a modest society is a spiritual benefit. The proof that I see is that the strict adherence to Judeo-Christian sexual standards is completely really bad for people. More on this later.

            He then talks about how “bad” “secularist” governments are. See, he is very confused. I will cut and paste:

            The fear of a secularized society is another motivation for Christians to oppose the current culture shift. Christians who are committed to the sexual ethics of the Bible are growing more and more aware that living in a secular society will demand they compromise their beliefs in public life or face ostracism when they hold their convictions in public life. So far, North American Christianity has experienced a level of religious freedom unmatched in the history of the world. There has been no moral command in the Bible opposed by American society until recently. Now, though, the society is embracing a sexual ethic that is directly opposed to the teaching of the Bible, and Christians are scared of the consequences.

As I said before, there are real reasons for this fear. One reason for this fear is that religious persecution has been around for nearly forever, but historically, it has been the worst in those societies that fully embraced secularism. Whether you are talking about Soviet Russia, North Korea, or China in our modern day or Rome of old (Yes, despite the Roman Pantheon, Rome was a very secularized society), Christians have always faced intense persecution in secularized societies. Another reason for this fear is that it will make difficult what Christians consider their “Great Commission” the spreading of the good news of Jesus to others. Yes, in a fully secularized society, Christians are afraid that it will be more difficult to share their faith.

            Oh this is just adorable. He is correct in that these governments are “secular,” but what he also fails to notice or see is that they are mainly “Authoritarian.” Authoritarian dictatorship was done by Christians first and best during the middle ages. Catholic Queen Isabela was the best example Authoritarian leadership. If you did not like or agree with her Catholic only rules, you could go enjoy the comfort of her Spanish Inquisition. The issue with those evil governments was not that they were secularist, (Dear Jeff, America is a secularist government) but rather that they were Authoritarian and did not allow for other points of view. Secular atheist governments like the ones found in Scandinavia are reporting high numbers of health and happiness and very low numbers in crime and despair. This quote underscores that separation of church and state is not new, but rather it was the cornerstone of our government. Here is a litany of quotes about how secular America is supposed to be:

“The Government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion.” ~1797 Treaty of Tripoli signed by Founding Father John Adams”

“I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibit the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between church and state.” ~Founding Father Thomas Jefferson, letter to the Baptists of Danbury, Connecticut, 1802”

“In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own. It is error alone that needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.” ~Founding Father Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to Horatio Spofford, 1814

“Every new and successful example of a perfect separation between ecclesiastical and civil matters is of importance.” ~Founding Father James Madison, letter, 1822

“When a religion is good, I conceive it will support itself; and when it does not support itself, and God does not take care to support it so that its professors are obligated to call for help of the civil power, it’s a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one.” ~Founding Father Benjamin Franklin, letter to Richard Price, October 9, 1780

            I don't want an "atheist government". I'm not even sure what that would look like. I want a *secular* government. I want my government to keep the hospitals running, the roads in good condition, make sure the garbage is collected, govern economic policy, implement law and order, and when they set laws and pursue social policy I want them to do it based on solid evidence, not on a faith I do not share or reference to scriptures which, when not viewed through the lens of that faith seem archaic and scarcely relevant. I want a government that doesn't see it as their business to tell people what they can and cannot believe. That is not, nor should be, what government is for.

            This is, as far as I know, what pretty much every atheist I have ever met wants out of their government too. When Christians cherry pick Stalin or Pol Pot as their examples of "atheist" government, I take that as a slight to my character. It would be far easier to take Christian critiques of atheism seriously is they addressed atheists as they actually are instead of demonizing and othering them and turning them into childish bogeymen.

            If they want to know what kind of government atheists want, even if it's only for the purpose of criticizing it, perhaps they should try researching atheists' writings on the matter (of which there are plenty) and engaging with them and asking pertinent questions instead of uncritically accepting the frankly insulting propaganda preached to them from the pulpit.

            In fact, in all cases, a secular government is absolutely the best option. The fear that Christians have in finding out other people’s values are as important to them as Christians values are to Christians is they losing the special privileges they had heretofore enjoyed. Christians are not losing any rights at all. Authoritarian systems are completely broken and need to stop. I can’t help but to think that Christian families and on too many levels, conservative churches are run just like little authoritarian governments. Authoritarian leaders are damaging leaders. The fact that he thinks that a secular government lead by people who did not inject their religion into everything would be an evil government is a personal insult not only to me as an atheist, it is an insult to the high American ideal of a completely free civil government that meets the needs of the people so that they could be free to worship or not worship as they chose. Dear Christians, women using the women’s restroom is not an issue that takes away any of your access to any restroom you choose, metaphorically and literally.

            I would now like to speak out the unending damage done by Christians and churches, divorce and marriage, and the mind raping “Purity culture.” But first, a word from our pastor friend,

            Okay, you caught us. North American Christians are selfish. We are hypocrites, and we haven’t solved the biggest problems in the world, nor have we spoken out as loudly about global poverty as we have about homeland sexual ethics. But do not conclude that Christians don’t care about the big problems in the world. In fact, a great argument can be made that Christians are almost always the first to care about the big problems in our world. 

            Now, I do not want to down play the list of nice things Christians have done through the ages and are doing today. I just wonder where all that charitable taxable money is going. Right now, this article, is saying that $30 billion a year is needed to end world hunger. This link says that in 2014 $114 billion was donated to churches. So, it is true that Christians are leading the charge on donating money, but where in the useless name of their ridiculous god is it going? We are talking about less than 30% of their annual budget eradicating WORLD HUNGER. I see that Clear River built a new church they are in debt to the bank to finish, Faith Church is planning yet another church building improvement, and what do these pastors actually make a year anyways? But don’t worry, while this incorporeal god needs a fancy pants house whose doors are locked to the down trodden, people are starving in the streets. It is all good. Thank you Christians for all that tithing you do! I can see the difference every time I drive past your ridiculous edifices.

            But you are correct. Atheists do need to donate more money. These famous people can’t carry us all, but they are the most famous philanthropists of our times. They are also atheists. Also in our very heavily “everyone claims Christian on their stupid census paper,” country, finding people who claim Christianity and donate isn’t hard. The question is where is the money going?

            Back to the harm done by this OVERFOCUSING on sexual morality versus morality. A word from Jeff:

            Conclusion

Therefore, the best way to answer the question is this:

1. Christians have legitimate biblical and moral reasons for opposing the societal acceptance of the LGBTQ worldview. (That word legitimate. I do not think it means what YOU think it means.)
2. Christians have frequently done so in an improper fashion, offering more judgment than love and overemphasizing sexual morals. (I am going to address the ridiculous damage that has done next.)
3. Nevertheless, Christians have not allowed that issue to distract them from the humanitarian causes that have been at the core of Christianity for centuries. (Numbers do not lie. Where is the money going Jeff? They give a LOT OF MONEY and you listed charities. But you and I both know that the money is going to the care and keeping of church houses and… well… you.)
4. Still, they tend to get the most vocal over societal moral issues which leads people in the non-Christian world into thinking that we care more about people’s morality than about their dignity. (It is the shrill screaming and the RFRA discrimination laws that keep getting passed. Also our illustrious Christian governor took away money from preschools and women’s health. Far be it from me to get confused.)

Christians have at times failed to speak about what is most important, but we have, with a few exceptions, led the way in almost every area of humanitarian concern.

            I left Christianity. My mother told me that she and I had nothing of importance in common anymore and because I had slept with my now fiancé Ross Balmer and am also an atheist, I “have no morals to speak of.” She yelled that last bit to my face in the door of my ex’s house where she lives. She yelled that to me in front of and in the hearing of my children. “Mommy what does Nanny mean by that?” Oh nothing kids, it is grown up stuff. I have morals, Nanny is struggling right now. Abuse and PTSD. I spend a lot of time in the groups that cater to ex-churched people. Some of these people are still trying to cling to Jesus and some are walking away. I have left mythologies completely behind.

            Christians are so completely out of touch with what morality is and isn’t they go around like pious children asking questions like these “Is a husband selfish for having sex with his wife when she is not in the mood?” and getting the answer that “….a Christian wife should never give her husband a flat no, BUT she can humbly and gently ask for a delay. There may be legitimate physical or mental issues that might prompt your wife to ask you for a delay.  But this must be done humbly and respectfully, and always with the attitude in mind that her body does belong to her husband.” All of this is taught from pulpits and makes women completely powerless in their lives. A Christian woman’s no does not mean no. Which leads to this mess: 

“’Rape culture,’ as young feminists now call this, isn’t limited to India. It lives anywhere that has a “traditional” vision of women’s sexuality. A culture in which women are expected to remain virgins until marriage is a rape culture. In that vision, women’s bodies are for use primarily for procreation or male pleasure. They must be kept pure. While cultural conservatives would disagree, this attitude gives men license to patrol—in some cases with violence—women's hopes for controlling their lives and bodies. In October, responding to Richard Mourdock's incredible comment about rape, I mentioned an absolutely essential piece by The Nation's Jessica Valenti in a way I want to reprise here, if you'll excuse the self-quotation:  

            As Tennessee Senator Douglas Henry said in 2008, “Rape, ladies and gentlemen, is not today what rape was. Rape, when I was learning these things, was the violation of a chaste woman, against her will, by some party not her spouse.” In other words, only virgins can be raped—sweetly white-gloved, white-skinned virgins. Any woman who ever wanted sex—yes, that includes married women who unconditionally give permission when they put on that ring—deserves what she gets." 

            This is the ugliest side of the Christian Authoritarian movement. If we follow that Christians’ “legitimate” concerns for a society being run opposite to what they see as important in terms of stopping LGBTQ and focusing on Christian marriages looks a lot like an agenda that is known to be psychologically scarring and permanently damaging. Religion prohibits things that people are going to do anyways like eat certain foods and have sex, then when they break these prohibitions, they need to go back to the religion for forgiveness. when we step outside of religion and embrace normal, healthy, clearly natural, human sexuality we are confident and no longer in need of going back and groveling to the religion for forgiveness. Purity culture keeps people in shackles of fake sins and thus keeps the religion alive while killing the members in psychological torment and self-doubt. This obsession with who is sinning and who isn't inculcates a cycle of obsession through false piety (IF I follow this rule, I am pious), the guilty, thrilling pleasure of breaking this rule (I think I can get away with keeping this secret); and finally the release of false guilt by admitting the fake sin to the church (I can be free from my addiction.) When you remove the prohibitions on normal, healthy, sexual behaviors, you remove this weird addictive pattern. We see this is mostly Christian states where churches are the loudest groups and marriages all have god in them. This article talks about the church’s embarrassing porn issues. That link is from Christianity Today, not "Atheists are us." Seems those Christian marriages are not as happy as they report on surveys. You see, Christians are taught to lie because if they do not lie, they have to go through reprogramming in the form of counseling with the pastor. Lying about the reality of the situation lead to this child keeping her sexual abuse a secret because she felt guilt and shame. When she finally did step forward with what was happening, she was scorned as a temptress and it was further rubbed in that her stepfather was blameless in these moments. Now, at this point, you are saying how rare and awful this is, how unheard of in our church circles. I tell you that isn’t at all true. In 1998, when I was 21 and about to marry my fiancé, Don Whipple of Kossuth Street Baptist church in Lafayette, Indiana told me in his office, “Now Karen, there is no such thing as rape in marriage.” I have told that story many many many times, everyone plays it off or ignores it. That man gave that advice out for decades and did not stop. In 2016, when a friend I’d had for years, wanted to tell me about her divorce in 2014 and how Don Whipple had counselled her and her ex in his office, he looked at her and said, “Now ‘Ana’ (name changed), you know there is no such thing as rape in marriage.” How many women do you think suffered in silent hell repeating his words over and over in their minds? How many men got a free pass to just ill use their wives and rape them whenever the mood hit? This is not in some place we don’t know with people we can’t ask, what crimes does Don Whipple have on his hands, personally? Rape in marriage is not some fringe outer Christian fundamentalist view, it is the NORM. I turn to you Jeff Mikels and say, “As a secular humanist with the best interests of actual people on my heart, what are the Christian’s legitimate concerns for homosexuals to openly marry? My attention is now taken up with all manner of legitimate concerns for Christian women in Christian marriages.”

            My sexual morality focuses on consent. Please refer to my definition of general morality. My life improving should not impede or damage the improvement of other people. So, I will never rape another living soul whether I am married to him or her. I will always seek consent and what happens between consenting adults who are happy and enjoying themselves has absolutely no consequences on my life at all. I do not understand what you mean by, “Christians fear the consequences of a society that accepts the LGBTQ community.” I fear the consequences of having women I work with broken down by nightly raping from their godly husbands. My fears are validated as it seems that depression and mental illness seems to be on the rise in the Christian culture. This article sites a study that was conducted thusly: “Entitled ‘Spiritual and religious beliefs as risk factors for the onset of major depression: an international cohort study’, the relationship with religious and spiritual belief was investigated in depth by researchers led by Professor Michael King from University College London. Over 8,000 people visiting general practices across seven countries were followed up at six and 12 months. The general practices were in the UK, Spain, Slovenia, Estonia, the Netherlands, Portugal and Chile. These general practices covered urban and rural populations with considerable socio-economic variation.” And that found this: “People who held a religious or spiritual understanding of life had a higher incidence of depression than those with a secular life view. However, this finding varied by country; in particular, people in the UK who had a spiritual understanding of life were the most vulnerable to the onset of major depression.” 

               So, after digging through all of these articles and statistics, Jeff, my concerns are more founded and real than yours. There again, you never really said what your concerns were about happily married people living in your neighborhood and walking their dogs, did you?