Talulah

On a theist board that I frequent, recently there was this quote. I was struck by the emotionalism of it. The feelings that she describes are the feelings that I often wondered why were absent in my own Xtianity. My own feelings seemed dull and originating in resigned acceptance of Xtain doctrine. I never experianced any joy, or feeling of love from God. The most overpowering feeling I had was oppression and a vague feeling of being fettered. For a time I tried to find this joy and love that I heard about but when confronted with those who seemed to have it, I felt little more than amused disgust and skepticism, and I wondered why. Do you think that it is possible to delude yourself enough to have these powerful emotional responses or do some just lack the potential?


excerpted from a later quote,

I wonder, why at such a young age, was I tempted to smirk at stories like this, while still clinging to my own Xtain beliefs as sound?

Talulah

Mad Kally

We are all just stupid sheep

I'm glad my parents told me it was a sin to think too much or ask questions. I did it anyway!!

Of course they were the bizarre Charismatic/Pentecostal types. They made it kind of easy to think outside of their stupid little box.

Talulah

Kally,

So you decided anything they told you was a sin was potentially good and fulfilling? How nice to have a clear set of anti-morals!!!!

Mad Kally

Yes I was a dirty filthy sinner for thinking! I'm still waiting for an answer on who Cain married. My worst sin was learning TOO much. I was SO bad!

I've never in my life felt that god did anything at all for anyone. My spirtual type feelings happen every time I look at the ocean. I wonder if it's because I came from there??

I'm proud to be considered the black sheep now.

[ June 27, 2002: Message edited by: Mad Kally ]</p>

diana

I wonder, why at such a young age, was I tempted to smirk at stories like this, while still clinging to my own Xtain beliefs as sound?

Hm. Good question.

Stories like that are invariably so dramatic. Or, um, melodramatic. Melodrama reeks of emotional manipulation, and varies between amusing me and irritating the piss out of me.

It's no small wonder that the elder she spoke with requested that she share her story with the congregation. Such melodramatic silliness is inspirational, after all.

I remember being faintly disgusted with such stories, and the only reason I can imagine for that is that I never really believed them. You'd think this would clue me in that maybe I didn't believe the rest, too, huh?

Never underestimate the power of indoctrination.

d

Perchance

I think that it's possible for almost anyone, though someone who is either very rationally controlled most of the time or not very imaginative might have a harder time.

I've had what I think of as very powerful emotional experiences, though:

1) I've never attributed them to a religious source;

and

2) I've never been able to explain to others what was so great about them, exactly .

One of the advantages of using a religious approach to explain these experiences, I think, is that it provides ready-made metaphors. "Jesus in my heart" or "a vision of Paradise" or something similar perhaps gives people the words to explain what would otherwise remain incoherent. Maybe those words aren't even the best ones, but they're the ones some people, especially people raised in a particular religious context, are the most familiar with.


Of course, even if those metaphors give some explanation, I still couldn't use them because my reason would be waking up in the middle of the emotional experience saying, "Wait a minute..." .

-Perchance.

Talulah

Well sure, I have had intense emotional responses; they just had nothing to do with religion. I have also had intense epiphanies related to religion, they just weren't of the 'feeling the love of God' or 'thankfulness for forgiveness' nature. Most of the time in the back of my mind I was thinking 'You know, why should I be repentant of this anyway?' A lot of times, when I bothered to repent that is, I would only do so because I thought I was supposed to, not for actual guilt.

Perchance

I guess I don't really understand. Was the religious content 'non-emotional' because you conceived of it in religious terms?

I had always understood some religious experiences (especially intense ones like 'feeling the presence of God' or speaking in tongues) to have as much to do with emotional content as religion, and had decided that they are of the same variety as experiences that happen to other people, just turned in a different direction by the metaphors. Do you think there is something truly different, and not related to ordinary emotions, about them?

I would be interested in your opinion.

-Perchance.