HelenM

JLP I respect your experience. I hope you can respect mine.

(I still don't like assertions, though )

It seems that - or am I making too many assumptions? - we agree in hoping that x-xian and his wife will find effective counseling help. I respect that your comments are intended to help him in the search. So were mine. I apologize if I was overly confrontational.

Helen

BadBadBad

You're not just posting what is consistent with your experiences. You are acting as a christian moderator on an atheist discusssion board. You are jumping in to correct and argue with folks like Jagged Little Pill. A statement of opinion was made that x-xian would be better off with professional trained therapists than untrained pastors. What's wrong with that statement? Where was the condemnation that "all" pastors are untrained? What gives you the authority to correct JLP even if that were indeed her opinion?

I've seen a number of topics where you've tried to straighten us all out on christians. This time you've started an unprovoked argument promoting christian counselling again. Your spin now is to promote the idea that a pastor with a Bible in his hand and God in his heart is a better choice than a trained therapist. You think that's good advice for Darren?

If you want to participate in an atheist board try to have a little more understanding of atheist viewpoints. Understand that atheists don't want to go to church period much less to get "counselling" from the pastor. Understand that atheists have negative viewpoints towards christians and christianity not because they are angry miserable people. They are negative and angry towards christians because of how we get treated by christians every day.

We're told we're going to Hell and that we deserve it. We're insulted and ridiculed. We're told by the president of our country that we're not patriots. We're threatened with the loss of our jobs. Our children are ruthlessly insulted and tormented. Our wives threaten us with divorce and taking our kids away. Don't kid yourself in believing real christians don't act this way. They do every day and they most definitely act that way in the church and from the pulpit. This is what real christianity is to us! Don't try to tell us it just isn't so.

pescifish

My mistake, HelenM, I should have specifically made that post a moderating one. Agreed, please check your PM.

To x-xian and others, I apologize for not adequately moderating this morning's incipient debate. Please let's bring the thread back to x-xian's situation.

Thank you,
pescifish, moderator SL&S

Aerion

I'm an atheist but I agree with Helen on this particular issue. A pastor who is open-minded about x-xian's lack of faith would be in a better position to influence x-xian's wife to be more tolerant.

I must also rise to Helen's defense in this regard as well. I've a lot of her posts on this forum and I have to say she has always adhered to the "Secular" point of view in her posts. I also have to say that in my experience ministers usual are good councellors and many are even trained in psycology.

Keep up the great advice, Helen! *HUGS*

HelenM

pescifish I did get the PM, thanks, and I e-mailed you a reply.

Even if anyone did like what I wrote today (thanks Aerion ) I will endeavor not to be so inflammatory in my future posts since it's not my intention to aggravate people here. My apologies to brettc and anyone else I upset today

Helen

Goliath

Helen,

Whoopty-doo. When this forum becomes the "BOW-DOWN-TO-YOUR-LORD-JESUS-CHRIST-OR-I-WILL-RIP-OUT-YOUR-ICHOR-FILLED-HEART-AND-WATCH-YOU-BURNING-IN-HELL-FOREVER-AND-EVER-AMEN!!" Lifestyle and Support forum instead of the Secular Lifestyle and Support forum, then your experiences will be relevant.

Until then, however....

Sincerely,

Goliath

Edited to say: I will say nothing more in this thread of Helen's self-righteous attempt at moderating this thread. I apologize to x-xian for contributing to the derailment of this thread, as well.

[ November 25, 2002: Message edited by: Goliath ]</p>

agapeo

My apologies to the moderators of this forum if I'm out of line with this post. It is my opinion only and if you deem it inappropriate then please feel free to delete it.

Good grief! What has happened to this thread? I have been somewhat following this rather lengthy discussion up until recently and when returning to it it seemed to turn into a "let's gang up on Helen" thread perpetrated by certain individuals. So I started to re-read the whole topic and IMO the trouble seemed to start on page 2. I won't bother to re-post the particulars but it is my opinion that Helen was reacting to a comment which I happen to agree was not very considerate, nor supportive of x-xian's position. Her objection to the remark was met with a slam from the poster and she attempted to get the subject of discussion back on track and yet was continued to be needled. Then I saw where another poster attacked her for something that was said on another topic and the thread herein was somewhat highjacked and a moderator needed to step in. But so what.

Here is my questions. Has x-xian complained about Helen's advice? If not why all the fuss? After all the purpose of this forum is to provide support (secular of course)and evidently Helen has done just that according to x-xian and I quote:
It seems to me that x-xian welcomes the support that Helen has given herein.

It's a tightrope walk for theists who sincerely wish to offer support and to respect the rules of this forum. IMO Helen, has done quite well in keeping in line.

Whether others have complained about Helen's advice being too theiastic is unwarranted IMO. Ask x-xian what he thinks. It's his topic, is it not? It's he that is seeking support is it not? If he feels that the support Helen has provided is out of bounds with the rules of this forum let him speak up. Or did I miss where he already has?

Vicar Philip

Hey, no offense taken by ANYBODY'S posts. I find the civility and self-control exercised by most of us here remarkable, especially when one considers how inflammatory a subject we're dealing with.

My wife and I had a spat tonight over something stupid, which is so often the case. We didn't speak for several hours, and finally she broke down and called me when I was on the way to my side job.

She asked if we were ever going to get back to normal. I said, if normal requires me to believe everything you say, then no, we won't. And she said she didn't expect me to believe everything, but then again she didn't say how much I was supposed to believe. After the fight and my brain turning this over and over, I feel like, why in the HELL should I allow her to DICTATE what exactly I believe? I impose no such requirements on HER!!

I told her that even if we go to our old pastor, it really wasn't going to change anything, was it? She said, not unless I change. HA! And how does she expect THAT to happen? The only way I would change my mind is if god came up to me and introduced himself. And we all know THAT isn't gonna happen.

She says she feels that there is now a wedge between us. I told her if there was, she put it there. My feelings towards her haven't changed one iota. Is it totally unreasonable of me to even hope she'll accept my non-belief? Why or why not? Unreasonable.... what was I thinking, using "reason" in a religious disagreement.

I don't know if we're ever going to resolve this. Just when I think things might be looking up, down we go again. My thoughts on seeing the pastor are that this will show her that I am more than willing to seek help that SHE approves. Whether this makes a difference or not we have yet to see. From her comments earlier tonight, the pastor has his work cut out for him.

Take care..

Darren

agapeo

Hi Darren,
I'm glad to hear that. And may I say that I sincerely wish you the best. The best IMHO is that you and your wife are able to work things out to the mutual satisfaction of both of you.

I am not here to offer you advice, because quite honestly I think you have received some excellent advice from many of the posters to this topic. I don't feel I can really add much to what they have already offered and so I've elected to keep my two cents out of it.

But, again, I hope to hear that things have worked out as you wish.

Edited to correct some grammatical mistakes.

[ November 25, 2002: Message edited by: agapeo ]</p>

HelenM

It seems to me that this 'wedge' is her feelings about your deconversion rather than your deconversion per se.

I suppose she is upset with you, as if you 'chose' to deconvert and are 'refusing' to return to belief. And she is blaming that for the current difficulties in your relationship.

And you are upset with her as if she 'chose' to be upset about your deconversion and is refusing to set that aside. And blaming that for the current difficulties in your relationship.

It's very frustrating dealing with someone who is not being rational. Still, if you know certain things help, it might be worth doing them. If you know that this 'wedge' mysteriously vanishes when you do things together as a family maybe you can be intentional about planning such things, making sure they stay part of your family life.

Perhaps that might help your wife come to see the wedge is more in her head than in the reality of who you are. After all, it doesn't seem that you're doing things very differently because of your deconversion. Or, most of what is different is initiated by her being upset - so the cause is her upset rather than your deconversion per se. Although she probably sees that as one and the same. Which is extremely frustrating - because she has a choice, actually,

I hope the pastor will agree that you can't just 'make' yourself believe again and also that whether the marriage works is up to both of you - just as it always way - that deconversion doesn't have to mean you must separate. I won't assume he will but I hope he does. Btw if he's like the pastors at my church - and I won't assume he is - then he's likely to have one or more professional counselors he'd recommend. They may well all be Christians though.

I went to one with my husband who was recommended by my church. On the phone I told him my husband was an atheist so I wanted him to be considerate of that and not to pray etc. And he was very decent about not saying 'religious' things. He gave us practical advice about how we communicated with one another and how we negotiated tricky things. And it did help. I know my husband listened because even though that counselor moved out of state and we aren't going now, my husband still will say to me on occasion, when I say something, "That's not how [the counselor] would have told you to say it, is it?"

Even if my experiences are irrelevant, my atheist husband's experiences surely aren't. And his experience was that this Christian counselor was helpful to us in our marriage.

But I think just living our lives has helped too. Each day that goes by when nothing freaky happens, helps.

I didn't say anything against anyone else's comments in this post so I hope it can stay.

Helen