fatpie42

If anything has misled him, it sounds like it is Christianity. He has experienced Christianity as the guilt-trip it often inevitably becomes, and I think it's good that he is getting over it....

EthnAlln

And it always surprises me that so many Catholics think they are the guilt-free ones, with their sacrament of confession followed by absolution. They look down on Protestants and Jews who, they think, have no way of getting rid of their guilt. That is not my experience. As with the Calvinists (who also should theoretically have no guilt, since their election is unconditional), they still strive mightily to earn heaven by their own efforts and feel shame when they fail.

hasselhoff

The residual guilt and fear will go away. Find some other hobbies and pastimes to occupy you, something you really enjoy. In time maybe you'll look back on your religious years with more amusement than bitterness.

hasselhoff

Must every thread be about you?

garrisonjj

Good observaton. Yes, I have guilt. I am tryng to assuage that guilt by reading about the pagan origins of xtianity and the fallicies of the babble. How could it have been god inspired?
The biggest "sin" you could do ,almost, in catholicism is sacarliage. That is by receiving communion in the state of "mortal sin". I have done it twice and guess what?
It feels so liberating to exercise my will at being an atheist. No more counting the number and severity of my sins for retelling to a man. Supposedly he becomes god's ear in the confessional!
Therefore, I am working on the guilt by abandoning and blasphemy wherever possible.
Aside that, I believe in the golden rule and try to lead a riteous life. As far as gods,babble,religion and rituals,,,,,,,,,,all fairytales to "keep us in line" Does this explanation help? Thanks

aegis

The guilt will diminish with time. When I first deconverted I initially felt a lot of guilt after doing things that were officially sins. I had fear too. And inside I honestly thought the things that were sinful were bad.

I could feel my mind gradually get deprogrammed and I stopped thinking that things were inhernetly evil (this mostly applies to sexual stuff).

EthnAlln

In The Mind of the Bible Believer Edmund Cohen describes his own deconversion, which occurred while he was enrolled in an evangelical seminary. Being a Protestant, he wasn't worried about sacrilege. For him the big hurdle to get over was the unforgivable sin of "blasphemy against the Holy Spirit," which Jesus himself said would not be forgiven in this world or the next. Since nobody knew what it actually meant, it was the perfect anxiety-producing control mechanism for what Cohen called the evangelical mind-control system. He finally exorcised the last bit of supernatural garbage in his mind by simply trying to imagine what this sin might be and then committing it.

For general information: I assume that the word comes from the Greek verbs blapto, meaning harm, and phemi, meaning speak. To blaspheme against the Holy Spirit is to speak ill of it. Probably the theologians have gotten to this topic and come up with an explanation of what it means. Since the Spirit is supposed to guide us into all truth, blaspheming against the Spirit would seem to mean asserting that it guides us into error. The only trouble with that view is its exclusiveness. Given the multiplicity of Christian sects, one is forced to believe either that the Spirit is guiding most of the world's Christians into error, or that only one's own sect is actually being guided by it.