Debbie T

I was reading somewhere else Christians discussing mind battles they have.

The question began simply enough, "Is it normal to sometimes feel like you have a batttle going on inside your head? "

The answers were everything from: "Thoughts can come from 3 places. You, the Holy Spirit or Satan" ; "I struggle with a lot of self doubt. And i guess guilt and definitly laziness too. I know I should pray but I would rather play my computer games. I know it's wrong, I know prayer is more important." ; "Mine battles some times are the product of what you feed thru your eyes! Especially when is not godly! " "If a thought doesn't line up with the Word of God, you knw it's either your own stinking thinking or the devil. Want peace? Ask God for Deliverance. "

I hear claims from Christians that God gives them peace, yet reading a thread like the one these quotes are from doesn't sound like they have peace. More like they have a lot of guilt going on. Some guilt seemed ridiculous such as feeling guilty for playing computer games instead of praying. Or guilt for even thinking differently than the word of god.

Isn't it simply they are being indoctrinated to always have these mind battles going on? Can a Christian ever live up to the unrealistic standards of their dogma? It seems to me that Christians are not allowed to think and solve problems. If their minds are battling that much wouldn't that point to something they are not dealing with thus they are in a constant battle with themselves?

happyboy

when i was a christian, i used to have those kinds of "mind battles" all the time. now that i've given up my faith, i have a lot more inner peace, let me assure you.

thebeave

I had the same "mind battles" too, as a youth. Trying to decide if evolution was the truth, or if the Bible was the truth. Trying to understand how God could be everywhere at once, as I was taught. Why God did not answer my prayers, yet the convention was to continue praying and pretending there was something to it. Why God allows bad people to get away with doing bad things, and why really good people can be victims of truly heinous, mind numbingly horrible acts against them.

There is true freedom from these "mind battles" when you embrace atheism. Of course, they don't all go away. I'm still trying to figure out how my thermos knows to keep hot stuff hot, and cold stuff cold.

mecca777

I used to feel the same when I was at school. In fact, that was the thing that eventually made me an atheist. I used to stay awake at night, wondering why I couldn't "understand" God or the Bible as well as my teachers or the school priest, who never seemed to have these doubts. Once I realised that I didn't believe in God, the voices went away, and they've never been back.

It's doubt, really. People spend so much time telling themself that they're impure, a sinner, unworthy, evil, that Satan is trying to claim them, that they don't deserve God's love... how can that lead to inner peace?

Debbie T

HappyBoy: when i was a christian, i used to have those kinds of "mind battles" all the time. now that i've given up my faith, i have a lot more inner peace, let me assure you.

Happy Boy what do you think made the change to where you found inner peace? I too found much more peace because I found my true nature was not in opposition to my faith anymore. Having tools to solve problems instead of being in opposition, a higher self-esteem and letting go of the Christian self criticism made many of the battles disappear. Also realizing that I was a good person instead of beating myself up constantly that I was a sinner and not worthy made inner peace possible. Plus realizing there was no boogey-man (devil) outside myself tempting me to be a bad person.

thebeave:There is true freedom from these "mind battles" when you embrace atheism. Of course, they don't all go away. I'm still trying to figure out how my thermos knows to keep hot stuff hot, and cold stuff cold.

thebeave Too funny, but seriously are they really battles or just a period of time to work out a problem?

Mecca777: It's doubt, really. People spend so much time telling themself that they're impure, a sinner, unworthy, evil, that Satan is trying to claim them, that they don't deserve God's love... how can that lead to inner peace?

Exactly! Now would it be safe to say that this is not mentally healthy to feel constantly at war with oneself? Constantly belittling oneself and having to call on something outside yourself let alone worship, does not sound healthy. Or that this can result in arrested development especially for a child growing up in such a system?

happyboy

debbie, i am a homosexual. for years and years i hated myself because some book written by backwards goat herders told me i was impure. now the bible never exactly states WHY homosexuality is a sin; it just says, "it's evil in the eyes of God." that stance has led to quite a bit of pain and suffering, as gay men and women like me feel self-hate, self-doubt, and often end up getting into situations they shouldn't get into because of that self-hate and self-doubt.

when i gave up christianity (and religion, period), it felt like a weight had lifted. i no longer had a reason to hate myself. i no longer had to reason to beat myself up. i could get on with being happy and getting a partner i could settle down with and be happy with.

christians love to paint homosexuals as lust-filled abominations. they love to paint in stereotypes. i am not an overly effeminate man; i am not passive in the least; and i am MORE than capable of falling in love, just like the straight people can.

at long last, i am happy being me.

Straight Hate

As an atheist, my 'mind battles' are there front and center, just not of a religious nature.

I remember posing the question awhile back about whether or not some Christians could be suffering the Stockholm Syndrome. Things I had read on the internet and heard in person seemed to suggest a tortured soul reacked with guilt, shame and self-hate, but with a strange, meek willingness to allow those feelings to control their entire state of mind.

If there is indeed a God, well hell, fine. But he's one cruel bastard. If there isn't... well, I don't think it needs to be pointed out that these people are just putting themselves through needless suffering. Try as I might, however, I don't feel much sympathy for someone who is not willing to pull themselves out of such a mess.

Debbie T

HappyBoy, I can only imagine the inner turmoil you must have gone through when you was a Christian. I am glad to hear that you left it and doing better now.

I have been looking for studies about this, if a rigid religious upbringing affects one's mental health, but so far I haven't been able to find any on the web. There is a lot of shame in the Christian religions. That you are basically bad (and in your case HB even more shame brought down on you). Children who make innocent mistakes (because they do not know better) are shamed with thinking they are sinful. The normal process of growing up where teenage rebellion is considered part of the normal process is instead seen as sinful. And the constant threat of Jesus can see you or the threat of hell damnation if a child doesn't repent. I personally know the mind battles this can create in a young mind.

Does the person strive to be perfect for god, yet can not, so must constantly beat themselves up for their human imperfections? It seems that striving to go to heaven means we have to give up our humanity!

When we have to give up our independant thinking because the religion has all the answers and anything outside it is a pathway to hell or seperation from the christ. Even problem solving independantly is frowned upon. Every decision must be run by the big guy upstairs.

Emotions have to constantly be kept in check. They have to be constantly kept in line with god or the bible. So when one is experiencing a normal emotion, than guilt is added to the equation. Even sadness can be considered that you aren't right with god otherwise you wouldn't be experiencing sadness.

Loving feelings towards fellow human beings is considered inferior to that of the god. Loving your child and spouse more than god is considered a sin. God has to come first.

I am sure there are more reasons for this inner turmoil. Any thoughts on these?

Edited to add some commas.

Debbie T

I think we all have battles from time to time but I know for me they are fewer between and usually the problem comes from old programming wanting to come back. Usually a guilt thing. (Guilt: the gift that keeps on giving.)

I would agree the guilt and shame is a part of that. The bible teaches it strongly. How else can you control others - guilt and shame are great tools for control.

Oxymoron

When you stop to notice it, there's a continuous commentary going on between our ears about life, the universe and everything. Most of it is subliminal and (oddly) much of it is garbage, or even malicious. One can then say that the 'mind battles' are the result of promotion of our internal cross-talk to conscious status and the rational - or otherwise - evaluation of what it's actually saying.

The nature of the commentary is simple: it's the interpretation of events in the world. It's fundamental to the way we model certain things as a series of rules. Our memories are associative storage: when events happen, our minds dredge up a bucketload of related data that has some similarity to the event, and we use this to attempt to classify the event. In doing so, we create new associations, enforce and modify rules and our world model alters.

What happens, you might ask, when an event happens that really can't be classified via our internal ruleset? This probably never happens because associations are not dictated by rationality, only by temporal and/or spatial proximity, or some metric of similarity. In other words, we can easily and happily build garbage into our rulesets. Also, remember that we are more than just cognitive computers: emotions (provided by other parts of our brains) and a central nervous system with an agenda of its own get mixed in with the input events and certainly strongly influence the association process.

The challenge for all humans, I would suggest, is to sort out this mess on a daily basis. What we think of as 'me', the voice in our heads, is not the definitive take on the world, we need our higher conscious minds to impose order on it all. The challenge for xians and theists is to realise that the nice voices in their heads are not 'Me' or 'God', the bad ones are not 'Satan', they are just aspects of our cognitive processes, which on the face of it is pretty obvious, but hey, some people just have to make things difficult