A prison for your mind...

All my life I've been trying to piece together this wildly confusing and inconsistent puzzle of a worldview called Christianity. I see now it will never fit together well enough for me to fully accept it as the ultimate truth, at least not in the dogma drenched warped form it's taken on in western culture. I was handed all these varying pieces and told that I should trust that they were a part of the big picture, but the truth is no one has the big picture, perhaps a 'big picture' doesn't even exist and that's OK.

It's taken me the better part of 30 years to reclaim my mind and find my voice. I've always known better deep inside, The doubts, the questions the suspicions, they were always there, but until you separate yourself from the peer pressure cooker of modern day Christianity and the 'group think' mentality of the Church it's hard to see the absurdity, arrogance and air of entitlement this religion lays claims to. I say it is a religion and not a 'relationship' as I had previously been conditioned into thinking, because I now see that that phrasing was only a clever disguise to appeal to younger generations and distract from its true identity of another cultish brainwashing religion. It's hard to accept that you will be alone, one of our deepest instinctual desires as human beings is to belong and feel apart of a community and finding out your true identity and what you truly believe can be a lonely journey, but I have never felt more free and at peace as I do after letting go of my fear based theologies and being truly open to seeking, finding and committing myself to my highest truths, which do not now include a conventional christian worldview.

It's taken me the better part of a year to finally let go of the idea that I am being a rebellious back-slider if I reject Christianity. I knew that I would be prayed over, have disapproving heads shook at me and finally dismissed from those I had once desperately wanted to call my friends. It took me this long to finally realize that losing myself to a belief system and playing along to be accepted wasn't something I could do for the rest of my life, For years I felt skeptical of the doctrines I was suppose to accept to be a 'Christian' but my fear of being an outcast kept me from speaking up. That's how much of a hold it has on the mind of an individual steeped in this rigid judgemental mindset. Modern day fundamentalist Christianity looks to me like a cancer of the mind, it eats away at the rhythm and logic it takes to sustain a healthy intellect.

I have realized over the past few years that science and nature are at odds with the guilt producing reward and punishment system of sin and redemption It is a religion that functions solely as a control mechanism amongst humans. Religion knows that if you train a people to believe they are intrinsically shameful, sinful, bad and in need of correction you can keep them in a childish state of submission and obedience, deminishing their purpose and desire to evolve spiritually, emotionally and mentally. Nature operates in cause and effect and choice and consequence. A tribal deity that serves to cushion man's ancient fear of mortality is all christianity is and it is nothing new. It's sponsoring thought is fear disguised as reverence. It takes an exhausting amount of mental gymnastics to ignore the contradictions in the various interpretations and dogmas laid over top of the bible and even more brain bending to rationalize the frightening oddities of the egocentric bipolar tyrannical god of Christianity. There is a quote by Robert Green Ingersol that I find appropriate " The Inspiration of the bible depends greatly upon the ignorance of the gentleman who reads it." No wonder Christians are among the most stressed out people in America! Letting go of the archaic notion of heaven and hell was something I did even before i dismissed the fantastical notion that we can predict the afterlife, even in high school I realised I couldn't believe in a god who would create a thing like 'hell' and claim at the same time to be all loving.

While I now see much of this cultish, group think, pack mentality world of Christianity to be poisonous to a persons mental, emotional, spiritual and intellectual health I must clarify that I do not think all Christians are knowingly apart of this 'prison for your mind' way of life, I certainly wasn't (yes that is a matrix reference) and it is my greatest wish that more of the sweet, well intentioned loving people I know to be 'Christians' someday awaken to the beautiful world of reason and free thinking that has no boundaries or fear of hell, no core beliefs of shame and guilt, but of intrinsic dignity and empowerment and enlightenment. I would challenge my fellow seekers of truth to redefine everything, break it all down, take nothing on authority but take authority on everything and have a mind that is truely open and fearless. Religion teaches us to believe and live by the mandates and thoughts of others, True spirituality requires us to form our own original thoughts about life and live by our own highest truths, radical I know, but oh so Freeing! I maintain that Jesus was probably centuries ahead of his time in his evolved ways of thinking and teaching and the innovation and revolution of who he was is lost in the dogma and traditions of this religion he never intended to build.

I guess I am only writing this as an outlet for the revelations and epiphanies that have been burning inside me for over a year now, and I'm still just figuring things out, I'm on this journey where beliefs are pliable and open to change given new and better information and experiences I like it this way and I truly hope that this soul bearing entry may encourage others to be brave and continue in their own journey for truth and freedom. We are ALL in this together and the collective consciousness of aware and awakened minds can truely change the world.