Do narcissists have a spiritual purpose we can’t understand?

Posted on January 27, 2015 by luckyotter

This fascinating topic was raised in the comments section under The Man You Love to Hate…or Hate to Love.

The implications raised here are bound to be controversial to some, but I think Joan and CheriSunday may be onto something. In fact, I’ve sometimes wondered myself if narcissists exist for a good reason that only God can understand, but I always thought it sounded too crazy to write about and it was hard to formulate those feelings into words. I’m glad other people have had the same thoughts. It makes me feel less crazy. And it actually makes a type of sense.

CheriSunday says:
January 26, 2015 at 2:46 pm

As you wrote quote “Maybe when one chooses to become a narcissist…..you are drawn into darkness, and once you’ve entered you can’t ever escape.”
My response: I live in a darkness, however I know light shines through my being.
Why feel sorry, we like to suffer, for some , sufferance becomes their friend, that’s how we make peace with the darkness.
CheriSunday

Joan S says:
January 26, 2015 at 8:45 pm

That is very wow. I actually think that aware narcissists like Mr. Vaknin might be a gift. We can’t interpret that gift yet, but will remain till we can.

I like your point though that some like to suffer that it brings comfort. I just can’t believe that darkness can overcome the light though, that is impossible. Maybe if you felt that light long enough it will bring about the deliverance. They just have to want that deliverance. Have to want it. And that is where narcissists are stopped. JMHO of course. I like insightful things.

luckyotter says:
January 26, 2015 at 11:59 pm

Joan,
we don’t know what God’s reasons are or what his plan is. I have thought myself, that narcs may have been put here for a reason that only God knows. Maybe they are here to teach us valuable lessons about human nature and spirituality in general.

In thinking so much about narcissism, because it’s a mental disorder that most likely has a spiritual component, I have been brought much closer to God in the process and have found some semblance of joy and peace for the first time in my life. I have never been happier than I am now. So looking at it this way, narcissists may help us in our own spiritual journey.

I don’t think narcs are demons, I think they’re here for a reason and that reason is a teaching one, even if the lessons we learn from them are painful. Even Satan himself, was created by God and was initially God’s most beloved angel, and his purpose was to test our faith. His original name, Lucifer, means “light bringer.” He became too narcissistic for Heaven because he began to think he was greater than God so he couldn’t stay. (I don’t know whether or not this is a literal story or there is or ever was an entity called “Satan,” but it’s worth bringing it up in the context of this topic).

This doesn’t mean we have to (or should) associate with a known narc. But the ones we haven’t been able to escape from or those who raised us, at the end of the day (when we can finally see the forest for the trees), can make us stronger; their darkness can put our own light into sharp relief.

And in atypical narcissists like Sam, who have contributed so much good to the world (even if his motives were self serving), it could be that he (and those like him, if there are any others) are a special kind of gift, and that his darkness may be a necessary thing, both for himself and for us. We don’t know the reasons, but he may know, and although he suffers, he may have accepted this suffering as part of whatever his own mission on this earth is. He may not need deliverance, or maybe the deliverance will come at a later time or upon his death. We just don’t know. Only God does.

“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” — Kelly Clarkson

luckyotter says:
January 26, 2015 at 11:43 pm

CheriSunday, first of all, welcome to this blog! 🙂 I love to see new “faces” around here.

If you know light shines through your being, you are not hopeless. Maybe there are some people who need to suffer. We don’t know the reasons. In a way I can relate. I flirted with darkness for many years, out of choice. Fortunately I’m coming to a place of more light but there are still dark days. I accept them for what they are, and realize those dark days may have some enlightening lessons in them. “Without darkness, there can be no light.”

I am curious, though, since you say you choose suffering and you have never posted here before, are you an NPD sufferer or have another disorder, like BPD or depression? Forgive my presumptuousness, but because of the nature of this topic and this blog, I don’t think it’s stepping on your boundaries to ask. I hope you don’t mind.

I also think most narcissists have an inner light that does shine through sometimes, except maybe MNs and psychopaths/sociopaths. There is a lot of light in Sam and that’s why I think he is still able to help people and victims looks up to him even though he is exactly the sort of person we’re trying to get away from. I hope that makes sense.

My journey so far: a timeline of recovery

Posted on December 15, 2014 by luckyotter

Here I am going to show you my timeline in recovery from narcissistic abuse because I’m noticing some fascinating patterns and certain things are becoming much more clear from looking at it.

My Recovery Timeline

2006: Following my divorce, my father sent me a copy of M. Scott Peck’s book “People of the Lie.” While I was still deeply enmeshed with my psychopathic ex, and nowhere near recovery, this was the book that planted the seed for what was to start growing years later. I think this was a sign from God that I needed to make some serious changes but I didn’t recognize it at the time. But I was able, for the first time, to recognize the MNs in my life for what they truly were: evil people. Recognition is the first step in recovery, even if it takes a while to get the ball rolling.

February 2014: 8 years later, I finally had the catalyst I needed and the strength of will to get rid of my narc, who had been leeching off me, using me and manipulating me and our kids for 7 years. (I had allowed him to move back in with me in 2007, a huge mistake). This decision arose from Michael becoming violent toward our daughter. I wasn’t aware before that physical violence wasn’t necessary to obtain a restraining order–I could have obtained one at any time since we were no longer legally married. But maybe I wasn’t strong enough yet and it took an act of violence to inspire me to finally take some real action. I put up with a lot of his other shit, but violence was something I simply would not tolerate, even in my weakened state. Yes, it was scary as hell to do this, but I am so glad I did.

February – July 2014: I had to learn how to live alone again and become independent. There was a part of me that felt I actually needed him, even though he “needed” me far more. I wasn’t just afraid of what he might do if I made him leave, I was also afraid of living alone without him, though I can’t really fathom why since all he did was use and abuse me. This was a difficult and lonely time, but I began to feel a little like a person again.

July – September 2014: I began to educate myself about narcissistic personality disorder and the community of survivors of narcissistic abuse, particularly ACONs. The first blog I started to read was Dr. George K. Simon’s excellent blog, Manipulative People. I posted a few times there and “came out” there as an ACON and abuse survivor, but mostly I just read. I also ordered his excellent books, “In Sheeps Clothing” and “Character Disturbance.” (You can find the links for both his blog and the books in the Info and Support tab in the green header above.) I also found other good blogs written by survivors of narcissism and psychopathy, and among these settled on a few favorites, especially Five Hundred Pound Peep’s blog because she was Aspie like me and had a mother who sounded almost exactly like mine. (Her blog is also listed in Info and Support).

September 2014: Inspired mostly by FHPP’s blog (but others too–see Info and Support for a list of other blogs and resources I think stand out), I decided to start my own. The decision came from out of the blue–it wasn’t something I had to think about. Prior to that, I had always been afraid to start a blog–I thought it would be too hard. But on September 10th it was like I got struck by lightning and without even thinking about it I went to WordPress (after first trying Blogspot and finding it required me to use my real name because it’s connected to Google) and immediately started a blog. In retrospect, I think this action was actually inspired in me by God. I was finally strong enough to start my own course of self therapy (and unbenownst to me, help others in the process of helping myself).

September – November 2014: While my blog wasn’t an immediate hit and started off quite slowly, I had several “mentors” along the way, such as OM from Harsh Reality, who helped me make my blog more visible and got me more followers. At first writing seemed like a chore sometimes and I had to discipline myself to write a post a day (and sometimes I skipped a day or two). Sometimes I wrote two. After a while I found that I couldn’t stop writing (and now I write about 3-5 a day!)

My early posts were almost as likely to be about topics besides narcissism (music, religion, funny rants, photos, etc.). It was good practice, but sometimes I think I was trying to distract myself from the real issue I needed to confront. Posting fluff pieces allowed me to avoid that, but still gave me practice writing and blogging every day.

By November I was addicted and rather than blogging seeming like a chore or work, it was becoming a passion. I was a writing maniac! I couldn’t seem to stop writing, and if you look at “Archives,” every month I have more posts than the last. I realized with great relief and joy that I had never lost my writing ability and this is actually my strongest method of communication. I began to build a small following. I had never known how to use the writing gift God gave me and didn’t think I could ever help anyone using it, especially myself. But all that was being proven wrong again and again.

During the same period of time, I began to explore spirituality and religion. Many of my posts are about my spiritual journey from near-agnosticism and even a slight antagonism toward Christianity, but sometime in October, through a sequence of events (the posts are under “My Story” in the green header), I settled on becoming a Catholic. It’s Christianity (though I know some Christians disagree!) but doesn’t go against my deep love and respect for science and other beliefs I hold dear that I cannot let go of. I have never liked the hellfire and brimstone doctrine of fundamentalist Christianity; but Catholicism isn’t wimpy and wishy washy either, like some liberal Protestant churches. I also love the Eucharist and all the ritual (for aesthetic reasons–I know ritual isn’t important in salvation). While I don’t agree with all Catholic doctrine, much to my surprise I found myself agreeing with most of it. I signed up for RCIA classes (Rite of Christian Initiation) at the local Catholic church and have been attending those and weekly Bible studies regularly. I will be accepted into the Catholic church at their Easter mass. I am very excited!

I believe now there was a very good reason for my becoming a Christian and strengthening my belief in Jesus Christ as God and savior when I did. Never before in my life had I been able to understand the concept of the Trinity or the concept of Jesus as a tripartate person of One God, or why he would have sacrificed himself for us on the Cross. Suddenly I found myself understanding these concepts and beginning to internalize them. Yes, I still have doubts and I still have problems with the Bible, and have not had any sudden, earthshattering conversion like Saul/Paul, but from my agnosticism of a couple of months back, I have gradually come to accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and savior, and that prepared me for the next step in my journey, because I was about to enter a very dark and potentially dangerous place for anyone who does not have a strong faith. It could have been my undoing, but is proving to be anything but.

November – December 2014: In mid-November, I watched “I Psychopath” for the second time and became fascinated with its subject, self-proclaimed narcissist Sam Vaknin, whose excellent (if rather scholarly and ponderous) writings about narcissism and narcissistic abuse are exhaustive and highly available to anyone who wants to read them. I wrote an article about my observations about the film, and Sam himself not only commented several times on my post, he shared it on social media so that in a matter of a day or two, I saw a spike in my stats like I’d never seen before. It was unreal.

I wrote a followup a few days later; the same thing happened. I started to read his personal journals and diaries, and found myself deep inside his strange psyche. I wanted to write a biography about him. A narc who was that insightful and (inadvertently) helped so many people was such an oxymoron I had to find out as much as I could about why someone could be like that. But in reading his honest but highly emotional journals and the devastating abuse that led to him developing NPD, I was feeling myself starting to be drawn to a very dark place. I couldn’t explain it, but I began to feel like I was losing focus on my OWN recovery, and the recovery of fellow ACONs and focusing entirely too much attention on one man’s disorder, for which there is no known cure.

So I decided last week to put the book idea on the back burner, until I am stronger and have gone further in my recovery journey. While I’m still reading his writings, it’s for education, not to focus all my attention on a project about someone else that would eclipse my own recovery. I prayed about this and felt that God had gave me the answer: keep this idea in your mind but put it on the back burner until you’re emotionally and spiritually stronger. Delving too deeply into a disordered mind like Vaknin’s at this point in my journey without proper armor could be mentally and spiritually dangerous.

So I moved on, but have found within the past week or so that my blog posts have become much deeper, darker and more focused on the supernatural and “evil” nature of NPD. My posts have also become a lot more personal and confessional. I’m digging deeper into the disorders of those who raised me.

While this might seem like a negative thing, it isn’t. Because looking at narcissism this way is giving me clarity and more incentive than ever to fight against its evil. We can’t fight against something or really deal with it on a deeper level until we understand its true nature (without allowing ourselves to be exposed to it). I am very careful not to engage with real-life narcissists or only engage with them as often as I absolutely must. This way, I am removed from it while at the same time I can study it at close range the way an astronomer can study the stars under a high powered telescope: he is not out there in the stars, but can study them with with objectivity and distance.

In my last post I described a powerful nightmare that stuck with me all day today (I did wind up going to work after all). I won’t analyze it piece by piece, but I think it was both a warning and a revelation: to move forward but tread carefully into the study of malignant narcissism and how it’s infected my family, because to be too hasty and dive too deep too soon in my present still fairly weak spiritual state could be my undoing.

I could be entering dangerous territory where I myself could be taken over by evil (represented at the end of the dream–I believe the robot-like “host” was actually a demon or the devil himself, who controlled everything in that house; and my inability to escape (except through waking) because the car (that represented God and light) that was to take me away had left. I did have the presence of mind to tell the devil to “go fuck himself” but that may have enraged him too. But the fact that through my terror I still had a fighting spirit and was willing to take him proved I have some strength of will now that I never had before. I think this dream was a warning to take things slowly and only with God by my side as my protector and guide.
Because when we are dealing with the subject of malignant narcissism, we are dealing with evil itself. My growing relationship with God is important to help me resist those evils even while exploring them in more depth.

God makes all things happen only when we are ready.

The poem I wrote yesterday was similar to my dream and very much related to it. In it, I was told I “passed the test” which I think means my “primary education” (being raised and abused by MNs and psychopaths most of my life) is now no longer necessary and now I’m ready to begin the next level of self discovery.

Over these past few months I’ve become less depressed and much happier overall. I feel for the first time in my life like God has a clear plan for me, I have a future and everything that led up to this was a test and an education. I feel like I’m being called to eventually help other victims find their way out of the barbed wire jungle of psychopathy and narcissism.

Why making your own timeline is a good idea.

Making a timeline is an exercise you can do too. You can chart out your own timeline of recovery in a similar manner and it will become much clearer how far you’ve come and what patterns have developed. You can also see where you may need to shift your focus if you have become stuck or are finding yourself in a dark place.

Timelines can also give you some idea of the next steps you may need to take. You can learn a lot about yourself and your recovery from doing this. You don’t have to make it public like I’ve done; you can do it with pen and paper and just keep it for your own reference. Seeing any kind of physical representation of your journey to recovery can give you an amazing amount of clarity and focus. Making a recovery timeline can act like a good pair of glasses.

Staying Balanced.

I think lately I’ve been focusing a little too much on the dark side of narcissism (well, it IS dark) but there is a good reason for that right now.

Still, I think everyone (including me) needs an antidote to all this darkness. So my next post after this will be about something positive or practical instead of something dark. It might even be about another subject besides NPD. It might even be a fluff post!

I want this blog to remain interesting to the followers who are reading it for other reasons. Not all my followers are ACONS or victims of other psychopathic relationships. I used to post more about other things but a lot of things have been happening to me from blogging about it and that’s why I seem to post less now about other topics that are more “fun” than narcissism. But we all need a break from it sometimes.

We All Need a “Mother”

Posted on November 11, 2014 by luckyotter

This article is right in keeping with my own attendance at RCIA (the classes one takes to become Catholic) and what I am learning. As the child of a malignant narcissist mother, Mary is about as unlike my mother as it’s possible to be. I need a ever merciful Mary in my life! I’m also finding that, rather than the dogmatic, intolerant, bloated religion Catholicism has a reputation of being, that’s it’s actually one of the most loving and tolerant of all Christian religions–and probably the most authentic (being the oldest and apostolic church Jesus actually founded).

I’m also taken with this writer’s affinity for Buddhism, which I’ve dabbled in myself. Buddhism, rather than being a religion, is more of a philosophy. You can believe in one God or not. I don’t think reincarnation and karma are reconcilable with Catholicism (or any other form of Christianity), but these beliefs have a lot going for them and there are a lot of good arguments in their favor. I’m reblogging this article because it puts a lot of the thoughts I’ve been having into words much better than I can.

The Tree

Posted on November 1, 2014 by luckyotter

Until August 1999, I had a vague concept of God and if anyone had asked, would have told them I was agnostic, leaning toward atheist. I was very far away from God in those days–embroiled in a deteriorating marriage to a narcissistic psychopath, drinking and smoking pot in an attempt to “put up” with him, all while I was raising two young children. I also was an unfaithful wife (as was my husband) and handily made excuses about my infidelity based on his abusive treatment of me and the fact he was unfaithful too. I never darkened any church’s doorway, and thought prayer was useless and silly. God was an abstract and mostly irrelevant concept to me–of no further consequence to my personal life than an Ebola case in Africa. My theory back then was that if there was a God, then maybe he created the universe, but then he left it pretty much alone after that, and was probably too busy creating new universes to give a damn what happened in ours. After all, if God was so concerned about our little human corner of the universe, why did He allow so many bad things to happen?

My ex was drinking heavily back then, and frequently became violent. During one of these fights, he blackened my eye and I had other bruises too, so I called the police. Given that he had no marks on him, but I was in pretty bad shape, he was arrested and went to jail for 90 days. During the time he was in jail, we had a stick-shift pickup truck, which I had never learned to drive. Since it was our only vehicle back then, and I had a six and seven year old that I needed to transport to dental and doctor appointments, as well as getting them home from their after school program, I had no choice but to teach myself how to drive the stick.

At first it was hard knowing what gears to shift into and when. It was very difficult to get used to how totally different a feel driving a stick-shift was over the ease of an automatic, which you didn’t have to “think” about so much. Some people told me they liked stick-shifts better because they felt they had more control over the vehicle, but it never felt that way to me. Still, over time, I got better, and soon was able to drive the thing adequately. Or so I thought. Obviously I still had a lot to learn about what gear to use when.

At the time, we lived in a house that sat at the top of a steep hill, and I’d usually take the long way around, following a gravel easement that looped around the back of the house, and continued down into our driveway, where I’d park so the truck was facing toward the road, so the gas could run into the tank.

On this muggy August day in 1999, after I picked the kids up after their after-school program, we stopped at McDonalds, and the kids were excited about their new Happy Meal toys and were contentedly playing with them in the back seat. Molly, just six and small for her age, still used a booster seat. Ethan, seven going on eight, no longer used a booster or car seat, and wore the seatbelt, which was still pretty loose on him.

When I stopped at the bottom of the part of the hill that merged into the driveway, I put the gear in what I thought was the correct setting for a parked car (neutral). Nothing had ever happened before, and no one had told me this was wrong, so I thought nothing of it this time. I got out of the truck and went around to the back to let the kids out.

Suddenly the truck began to roll. Downhill. The hill was steep and bumpy since it was unpaved. I watched helplessly, as if in a dream, as the truck bumped and rolled its way downhill, picking up speed as it went. I saw my son’s little face in the window of the backseat, frozen in a scream of terror. I heard my daughter cry, “Mama!” Suddenly I was moving, and racing after the truck which had picked up speed as it headed for the road. I threw myself on the ground and tried to grab onto one of the tires, as if that would make it stop. The truck continued to roll, and I was dragged along with it, bloodying my knees and ripping my clothes in the process, but I didn’t even know I was bleeding until later. All I could see was my kids and I had to save them.

The truck barreled into the road, and straight across it was a tree. A very large oak tree with a thick trunk. The truck was headed directly for that tree. At this point I had lost my grip and was screaming and crying, blood from my knees soaking what was left of my jeans. My hands were bleeding too. I watched in horror as the truck got closer to the tree. A few neighbors had come out and were watching the drama unfold, but I was hardly aware of them. Everything was moving in slow motion; I felt like I was trapped in some kind of nightmare. Desperately, I prayed: “God, if you exist, please do something!” I didn’t believe anyone heard my prayer.

The road and the tree were on flat ground, and the truck seemed to slow a little, and then the most incredible thing happened. The truck swerved to the right, and went around the tree, before continuing its journey across the neighbor’s property, which ended in a fairly deep ditch.

The ditch wasn’t visible from where I stood, and neither was the truck when it dove into it. My neighbors from the house across the street ran down into the ditch to see if the kids were alright. My heart was slamming inside my chest like a hammer. I still feared the worst.

A few minutes later, my neighbor appeared–Molly and Ethan each holding one of his hands. Molly was crying; Ethan looked solemn and pale as a ghost. Both children were fine, save a scratch on Ethan’s head (it turned out he had already taken off his seatbelt before all this happened!) They were scared, but fine. Mama, not so much! EMS workers had come and taken us all to the hospital by ambulance. It was me who suffered the worst injuries–deep cuts on both knees and severely chafed hands.

The emotional injuries were much worse, and would last for years. For months, I had flashbacks to that moment of sheer terror, when the truck started to roll and I could hear my kids screaming. Over time, the flashbacks stopped, but I’ve had a phobia ever since about ever parking on a hill–or even having to drive up one.

But overriding the negative aftereffects, is a conviction that at that moment when the truck had veered to the right and safely went around the tree instead of crashing into it, I had seen the hand of God at work, through one or more of his angels. Whoever or whatever it was made sure my kids stayed safe. No longer could I believe God just doesn’t care. I realized that it was the very moment when I called out to him through my skepticism, that he stepped in.

Sometimes we just have to ask and God will show himself, even if we don’t believe.

Which religion is the One True Religion?

Posted on October 28, 2014 by luckyotter

I came across a fascinating post over at Godless Cranium’s blog. Although I’m not an atheist, I always find his posts thought-provoking and he raises a lot of great questions. This one really got me thinking.

Until recently I’ve been agnostic, and I still have a lot of agnostic views. I don’t expect those to all change any time soon. But this week I decided to become Catholic. I know, I know, a lot of you are thinking, WTF? Why would you choose such an ancient, archaic, bloated religion that has a violent past full of hypocrisy, bloodshed and immoral practices such as people being bilked out of their hard earned money to get someone out of Purgatory? I have my reasons. If you’re interested in why I chose this faith over others, you can read the two posts I wrote a few days ago.

That being said, do I think the Catholic church is the “right” religion? Not really. It may be all wrong for someone else, but for a number of reasons, I think it will work for me. Catholics actually believe all Christians are going to heaven, and some non-Christians who do good works are going there too. I like that. But they still have their doctrine that holds that it’s much, much better to be a Christian, even a non-Catholic one, so a non-Christian’s chances of getting to heaven still aren’t very good.

Muslims believe they are the only ones going to heaven. Allah will save a faithful Muslim but everyone else, including all Christians, will go to their version of hell. What if they are right? I mean, they could be, right? They are as convinced as any Christian that their Allah is the One True God and believing anything else is heresy.

Closer to home, many fundamentalist Protestant denominations think only members of their particular denomination will go to heaven. There are about 30,000 Protestant denominations. Which one is right? Then of course there are the offshoots of Christianity that don’t really fit into traditional Christianity–Jehovah’s Witnesses, Seventh Day Adventists and Mormons come to mind. Without exception, they all believe their faith is the one true religion and only their Bible is the correct one.

There are the non-Abrahamic religions too–Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism and other eastern religions, as well as Wicca and various forms of paganism and shamanism, not to mention Scientology and Santeria. Even though they don’t worship the western God and don’t use any version of the Bible, their adherents all think they’re right. Who is to say they aren’t?

Who is right? Is anyone right? Maybe the atheists are right and there is no God or afterlife at all.

None of us will know for certain what will happen until we die. If we are just annihilated at death we will never be surprised there is no God waiting for us at the pearly gates because there will be no consciousness to draw such a conclusion. Perhaps reincarnation is what will happen. I can imagine many evangelical Christians being gobsmacked when they realize the Buddhists were right all along. Who’s to say? There are some very good arguments in favor of reincarnation. There are even some Christians who don’t think the idea of reincarnation can’t be reconciled with Christianity.

My head is swimming.

Maybe what happens is whatever we believe will happen. If you’re a good Christian and believe you will go to heaven, then better start shining that halo. If you’re a miserable person who thinks you deserve fiery torture, then to hell you go. If you worship Allah and believe you have pleased that God, then expect Arabic to be spoken in heaven. If you’re a Jew you will find the promised land. If you’re a Buddhist get ready for Nirvana (but be ready for a few more thousand earthly lives first). If you’re a Scientologist, L.Ron Hubbard instead of Jesus will meet you at the gates. If you’re an atheist you may be surprised you aren’t annihilated after all, but what to do then? It might be nice to be free of an earthly body, but you’ll have to decide on some sort of afterlife for yourself. Maybe if you don’t believe in anything you’ll spend eternity floating around aimlessly here on earth. Maybe ghosts are really confused atheists who have passed on.

Is it possible everyone is right and there is no one true religion? Because if only one of them was right, wouldn’t there be a way for God to show us slow-witted humans which one was the One True Religion, while identifying the rest as false? Answering “The Bible answers this” doesn’t cut it, because so many groups of Christians can’t seem to agree. Even those that use the same Bible can’t agree on how to interpret many of the passages. Then of course there are different translations of the Bible and not all are exactly the same. Some even include extra books (Catholics and Mormoms) that are considered heretic by other Christians. And of course, the Muslims can counter any Christian argument by smugly stating, “It’s all here in the Q’uran.”

It’s enough to make my head explode.

So apparently God accepted my deal… (Part Two of Two)

Posted on October 25, 2014 by luckyotter

As far as Catholic mysticism goes, I never had a problem with it and don’t now. In fact, I always liked the idea of Mary and the saints, not for any theological reason, but simply because sometimes the saints and Mary are just easier for the average person to relate to. According to Catholic theology, in no way does Mary or the saints replace Jesus and God. They are venerated and honored, not worshipped. They act as intercessors and do not answer prayers themselves, but pray on behalf of the person who is addressing them and those prayers are offered to God. Of course, belief in Mary and the saints is not a requirement for Catholics, but is encouraged. Mary is particularly venerated because, as the woman chosen by God to give birth to the human incarnation of Himself (Jesus), she is held in high esteem by God and deserves such honor. I happen to agree with this. I always thought Mary was sort of cool, actually. As far as her physical assumption into Heaven, I have some problems with that, but it’s a minor point and I’m willing to let it go. Again, this doctrine is not a requirement to be a Catholic.

Although unscientific, I really like the idea of transubstantiation (the literal transformation of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Jesus Christ during Communion). Suspending scientific disbelief at the climax of the Catholic mass, Communion (which is considered a sacrament, not merely a symbolic ritual) becomes something very special and mysterious and seems an appropriate way to end such a solemn event as the Mass. I also like the “Peace be with you” ritual, where just before communion, parishioners turn to one another and offer this sentiment. If only this sentiment were more often followed in daily life! Throughout my life, I always felt a sense of great peace during this and the Communion rituals, something I never felt at any Protestant service.

In the Catholic faith, while we are saved by grace and Christ’s sacrifice for us on the cross, grace ALONE is not enough. Protestantism in part arose from Martin Luther’s idea that grace alone was enough to satisfy God, and works were not important. But works are very important. While works won’t give you salvation, they are important as a means to practice and use the grace Jesus gave us when he died on the cross. In evangelical Protestantism, you can be a murderer or a selfish, immoral person in life but will still get to heaven if you accept Jesus as your personal savior. There’s something wrong with that picture and it just seems very lazy to me. They get to have their cake and eat it too: say a few words in the “sinner’s prayer,” but not be required to show anything for it (although according to most evangelicals, accepting Jesus will change your heart so you won’t want to do bad things–of course this doesn’t always seem to play out in reality!).

I also found out that Catholics do NOT condemn other Christians (or even non-Christians who do good works in life) to eternal torment. (This is a sea change from what I understood the Vatican taught when I was in grammar school.) It seems the Vatican has changed their stance on this issue, and they now accept that ALL Christians who accept Jesus as their divine Savior will go to Heaven, regardless of denomination. (It’s okay to be Protestant!) Denomination is regarded as personal preference. It’s tragic how much bloodshed and misery has resulted between groups of Christians who couldn’t agree on the extraneous details of their religion, Catholics in the past having been one of the biggest perpretators (which the Church readily admits). Even if you’re not a Christian but are a good and moral person, you will not necessarily go to hell (although the greatest glories of Heaven may be barred to you). Hell itself is something Catholics can’t seem to agree on, and while some interpret it as a literal lake of fire, others do not (hell being merely a spiritual state of separation from God). However, there does seem to be a consensus that if you are a terrible person who spends most of your life deliberately hurting others, you will probably go to hell. And of course, there is also Purgatory, which is kind of a way station on the way to Heaven, for those who have been saved, but whose works don’t measure up. Purgatory has been one of the biggest bones of contention between Catholics and Protestants, but it makes sense to me, and it’s purpose has been misunderstood by many as one of temporary punishment rather than spiritual cleansing. According to fundamentalist Protestants, you are going to heaven or hell, with nothing in between. I just could never get on board with that because people aren’t all good or all bad. There are many shades of gray in between. In a nutshell, all that’s required to get to heaven is a belief that Jesus was born, lived and died on the cross to save us from our sins–something that evangelical Protestants also believe. All the other stuff (belief in the Bible as a literal document rather than allegory, evolution [divinely inspired] vs. creationism, veneration of Mary and the saints, participation in the sacraments, etc.) is basically window dressing that helps Catholics in their faith and their journey with God.

Getting back to my own journey these past few days, the thing that happened that made me realize that maybe God had seen my post and was taking me up on my challenge to Him, was that suddenly I understood the concept of the Trinity in a personal way. In the past, I never could wrap my mind around how God could be three persons in one, no matter how hard I tried or how many Bible verses born-agains tried to make me read. Out of the blue, it all made perfect sense. There is God the Father (the one who created the universe), God the Son (God presented himself in human form because that was the only way we could truly understand each other and because only God in human form could deliver us from sin) and the Holy Spirit (which is basically what you feel when a hymn, sermon or religious work of art makes you teary eyed or overcome with awe–I also think the holy spirit can get through via ANY transformative experience, be it a work of art or piece of music, nature, encounter, etc.). I know I’m not explaining my revelation very well, but I could see how this concept does not negate science or logic. It was also very comforting. After reading the personal stories of conversion on WhyImCatholic.com and explanation of Catholic theology on Catholic.com, I realized that perhaps I could be “saved” after all–as a Roman Catholic.

Why Catholic? After all, there are a few mainstream Protestant faiths that don’t preach about hell and Satan, and are more “liberal” than Catholicism and may be in keeping with a progressive worldview like mine, but honestly I always found those churches to be kind of wishy-washy, as if they were cherry-picking what they liked from traditional Christianity and chucking the rest. Their theology seems like a sort of copout, a man-made compromise that has nothing to do with God. I don’t get that feeling about the Catholic church, even though they have updated many of their traditional doctrines for modern times.

It also holds a great deal of weight for me that the Catholic church was the first organized Christian religion, and all other Christian faiths emerged or split off from that. In spite of their bloody history and many transgressions, I felt Catholicism as it stands today could be something I could accept with both my mind and heart. That being said, I do need to point out that I don’t agree with all Catholic doctrine and there are several problems I have with the Catholic church:

–Their highly heirarchical structure. While I realize this is due to tradition and is perhaps the only way to organize and administer such a huge worldwide religion, I need to find out if talking to God directly is really not a possibility, and a priest must always be a mediator between myself and the Divine.

–Their stance on abortion and contraception. While neither affects me directly (I’m no longer of childbearing age) and as I already said, their rationale does make a type of sense, it’s hard for a liberal, politically progressive woman to accept such strictures on women’s reproductive rights.

–I need to find out more about their stance on homosexuality. While the current Pope (who is pretty cool) does not condemn homosexuality and thinks too much emphasis has been put on the entire issue by evangelical Christians, it’s my understanding it’s still not acceptable according to the tenets of the Church. As a mother of a gay son, this is important for me to find out.

–Celibacy of the clergy. While on a theoretical level this actually makes a type of sense (clergy who are not married or don’t have the option to be involved in a sexual relationship are less likely to be distracted by those things and can turn their energies into a closer relationship to God), on a practical level it doesn’t seem to work: witness the recent publicization of sexual abuse cases perpetrated by Catholic clergy–it may be unrealistic to expect a human being, regardless of how pious they are, to completely divorce himself from his sexual urges and the Church’s refusal to acknowledge these physical needs may result in inappropriate sexual behavior to “whatever or whoever” is available.

–Women in the priesthood. A no brainer. Women should be allowed in the priesthood, period.

There are other problems as well, but these are the ones that bother me the most. All that being said, overall I feel that I may have finally found a spiritual “home” that works best for me–one that’s been staring me in the face my entire life but I always dismissed for one reason or another. There are a lot of negative stereotypes about Roman Catholicism and some of them are deserved, but to my surprise I realized that most are not. There are a lot of misconceptions. The Catholic church may be one of the most misunderstood religions, but it says something that it’s been around so long and continues to have so many adherents all over the world. I’ll have to dig a little deeper and make sure this is really something I’m willing and ready to embrace. Tomorrow I plan to attend Mass and talk to a priest about upcoming RCIA classes.

I’m completely blown away by everything that’s happened since I made that deal with God, and feel like he really is trying to get through to me. I haven’t accepted Christ yet, but I think maybe I could. One thing I have no doubt about is that God really does work in strange and mysterious ways. I’m on the quest of my life.

So apparently God accepted my deal…(Part One of Two)

Posted on October 25, 2014 by luckyotter

For the past couple of days, I haven’t posted anything, mostly because something has happened I’ve been burning to write about, but am reluctant to because I’m afraid of what my atheist and agnostic followers will think (my feelings get hurt easily LOL). I know that’s silly, but if I don’t write about this I feel like I might explode. And I want to keep this blog active. I dearly hope my atheist and agnostic followers can keep an open mind and realize that this is something personal that has happened to ME, and in no way affects anyone else or my views about other faiths including agnosticism and atheism. I have a deep respect for all belief systems (including the right not to have one at all) and atheists and agnostics do make a lot of rational sense and I can understand why they feel the way they do about God and religion. Hell, I more or less felt that way myself until just a couple of days ago, and I don’t see myself as a person who would ever shut my mind off from their all too often very valid viewpoints.

But still. I have to blog about this, so here goes.

When I wrote my post, “I made a little deal with God,” I really didn’t expect anything to come out of it, other than a lively discussion about God and religion, which is what happened and I am grateful to all those who participated, no matter whether they’re Christians, pagans, atheists, or anything else. So after I wrote that post, I put it in the back of my mind and moved on to other things. After a couple of days, I concluded that because nothing dramatic had happened and there was no Saul-to-Paul-like “miracle” or sudden, earth-shattering change of heart, that perhaps the atheists were right and there was no God at all, that He was just a comforting construct invented by humans to deal with the stresses and injustices in our lives. Perhaps Napoleon was onto something when he said, “religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich.”

But in spite of all that, I’ve always been a spiritual seeker and was never satisfied with the atheistic idea that we are just a random bunch of cells that happened to glom together and gradually shape-shift into our current form. I’ve always believed there was something more, much more, but never found a religion I was happy with. Apparently God saw my post and decided to take me up on my challenge. Because two days ago while browsing the web, I came across a Catholic website, called WhyImCatholic, which is basically a bunch of testimonials from people who converted to Catholicism from other faiths, ranging from born-again (Protestant) Christianity to hardcore atheism. I have no idea how I found this website or what I was looking for, but the subject matter was interesting so I started reading some of the testimonials. Why would anyone become a Catholic, of all things? So I started to read and I couldn’t stop reading. I found that, unlike the many born-again Christians who had tried and tried without avail to explain their faith to me, these stories ACTUALLY MADE SENSE! Imagine that.

More about that later, but let me give you a little background on my relationship with Catholicism. While I’m not Catholic myself, I was raised in northern New Jersey, where Catholics were as common as toadstools after a rainstorm. Almost all my neighbors were Catholic (with a sprinkling of Jews and atheists) and I was sent to Catholic schools (the one thing I’m really grateful to my parents for, due to the superior education Catholic schools usually provide) for most of my childhood. As a child, I remember envying my Catholic friends, because of all the cool stuff and rituals their Church had–such as rosary beads, incense, a new name they got at their confirmation, and statues and painting of Mary and the saints. The Methodist church my family sometimes went to (we were really an agnostic family, and while I was sent to Sunday school and was baptized by my paternal grandfather, who was a Methodist minister, my parents were never churchgoers) didn’t have any of those awesome tangibles and there was no “mystery” to Methodism (or any other Protestant church I ever attended) like there was at the Catholic masses I had the privilege to attend with my friends or at school. As I got older, and learned more about what Catholics actually believed, I found I didn’t agree with their doctrine and also had a number of problems with their stance on abortion, homosexuality, women in the clergy, the celibacy of the priesthood, etc. But despite my issues with their beliefs, and even with my ambivalence about God and Jesus, my attraction to the Catholic mass did not wane. From time to time throughout my adulthood, I’ve attended Catholic services, just because I like the ritual and the formality of the liturgy, the chanting and the hymns. There’s a lot to be said on an aesthetic level about Catholicism, but I never really embraced what they believed and in fact now realize I had closed my mind off to a lot and had developed a lot of preconceived notions (some which are simply not true).

In 2003 I attended a 5-day retreat sponsored by a local Catholic church that also happened to be extremely progressive on many issues. It was an amazing experience (and a lot of fun), and I was surprised that one of its leaders, a Cherokee Indian named Owl, was not even a Catholic. He taught us about Cherokee symbology and mysticism and we spent one golden August afternoon making stone carvings of a “totem animal” we had chosen to represent ourselves. This was Catholicism? It was all so New Age, even Pagan. Of course this was all balanced by a morning Mass, Bible readings and very personal and deep group discussions about spirituality and God. There were other non-Catholics attending the retreat, including another agnostic, two Protestants and a Jew. There was nothing about that retreat to offend the sensibilities of an agnostic like myself, and so I decided to take their RCIA classes (the classes you are required to take to become a Catholic). But in my current spiritual state and embroiled in an impending divorce, I quickly lost interest once the discussions in the classes became too Biblical and religious. I explained to Father Bill (the priest running the classes) that I’d learned a lot but I didn’t think I was ready. He was very understanding and told me he understood and to take my time finding my path. And so I moved on, chalking up this experience to one more thing I’d undertaken but eventually abandoned (my track record for sticking with anything to the end is embarrassing). Other than attending one Midnight Mass about 5 years ago, I never thought about Catholicism again until a few days ago.

So anyway. I was reading the above-mentioned website, and was riveted by the stories of people, many much like myself–intelligent, thoughtful, educated, forward-thinking people who were ambivalent or even opposed to the idea of religion and submission to God and Jesus–who had decided through various means that the Catholic Church was right for them. I found a link on that site to another website that explained Catholic theology in exhausting detail and is set up in encyclopedic form, so that you can type in anything you want to know about in the search bar, and get all the information you need about the Catholic stance on that topic. Sometimes there was just too much to read! But what surprised and shocked me more than anything is all the misunderstandings and preconceived notions I had about the Catholic church. It came as quite a shock to find I agreed with most of their views, or at least wasn’t particularly offended by them when I didn’t agree. For example, while abortion and artificial contraception is still unacceptable, unlike fundamentalists, who preach about sin and what the Bible says/doesn’t say on these issues, the Catholic stance on these things actually made rational sense! Imagine that. I won’t get into their stance on those things here, as it’s not my desire to convert anyone, but suffice to say that there is nothing about their reasoning that offends my rational mind. I’m not saying I agree with them on these things (I don’t), but simply that their stance does not offend me. Nor does it judge opposing viewpoints in the harsh way that fundamentalist Christianity does. Granted, there are a few Catholics who are also very harsh and judgmental (and a few in politics), but they are almost always evangelical Catholics, who are not really any different from other evangelical Christians. There are extremes in any religion. It also holds a great deal of weight for me that Catholics are opposed to killing in general (in spite of their bloody past, which they have publicly apologized for), and while against abortion (for sound reasons to my way of thinking), they are also against the death penalty.

Some of the explanations the site offered seemed to be a perfect reconcilation between spirituality and science. They spoke to ME. For example, their stance on evolution is one that I’ve held myself for a very long time: that evolution is most likely a fact, proved by science (as well as the 3.5 billion year timeframe for the age of the earth), but was divinely inspired by a higher intelligence we call God. Now, they don’t actually take an official stance on this, and there are some Catholics who do buy the Creation story in the Bible, but Catholic theology doesn’t dispute evolution and it is acceptable to believe in it, as long as God is given credit for being behind it all. As for Adam and Eve, you have the choice to think of them as a literal couple in the Bible, or a figurative story about early civilized humans falling from grace. They acknowledge that while humans have probably been around for several million years, and evolved from ape-like ancestors, that shortly after we became sentient, and developed the capacity for self-awareness and the idea there was something greater overseeing things (which happened about 10,000 years ago), we fell from grace (which I won’t get into here as that’s not my aim in this article and it would take too long). Adam and Eve represent tribes of ancient peoples in the near East, not actual persons. I won’t get into all the theology behind that now, but that’s the gist of it, and it actually made sense to my skeptical, science-loving brain. Taken this way, it was possible to read the Bible as truth but realize at the same time that the details in the stories were allegorical, not a literal account of historical events. I always wondered how so many of the world’s greatest scientists could also be devout Catholics, and this explained how that could be possible. The Church’s support of science and encouragement of scientific thought is cetainly impressive: a very high emphasis is put on education and this is shown by how many Catholic-run colleges and universities there are today.

This article is getting too long and unwieldy to contain in one post, so Part Two will be posted later today. I have to run a few errands first.

Next up: Catholic mysticism, the concepts of grace vs. works, the Trinity, Jesus as Savior, and more.

Note to my atheist and agnostic readers: I certainly you continue to read and follow my blog! I value your contributions, and am in no way attempting to convert anyone, just relating what has happened to me in the past few days. I hope you keep reading!

I made a little deal with God today

Posted on October 21, 2014 by luckyotter

In my post from a few days ago about my problems with Christianity, I discussed how lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about God and religion and how it all fits into my worldview.

I have a sort of dilemma though. I believe in God, and I want to be on his/her/its good side when I die, just in case there really is a hell, which I don’t think there is. But there’s still that niggling little voice in the back of my mind just the same: what if hell is real? What if the born again Christians are right and I am going there, no matter how moral a life I try to lead, because I have not accepted Jesus as my personal savior? I can’t accept their dogma (my brain and heart just can’t get on board with it). I have serious issues with biblical literalism and the divinity of Jesus, but…what if hell is real? I don’t want to go there!

Now, I’ve heard of Pascal’s wager, which basically means going ahead and getting “saved,” even if you have doubts, just in case they’re right. The logic goes like this: if they’re wrong, nothing’s lost but if they’re right then you’re safe from eternal torment. But my problem with Pascal’s wager is that I simply don’t believe in evangelical Christian doctrine. If my brain and heart don’t buy what they’re selling, then taking Pascal’s wager means I’d be living a lie, something I think is much worse (and probably more offensive to God) than being honest about my true feelings about evangelical Christianity. If God really is omnicient and knows what’s in my heart and mind, then he’d know I was being dishonest. It makes me wonder how many born-again Christians actually really believe the doctrine they’ve embraced–and how many of them converted only because they were afraid of what might happen if they didn’t. That alone is a huge problem for me. Religious fear tactics just seem so…wrong.

So I made a little deal with God. Not to challenge or test God or anything, but to help me out of this conundrum. Since I actually believe in God, this part wasn’t too hard. I told God I didn’t believe what fundamentalist Christians were selling, and that “praying for faith” in the past hadn’t worked. I told him that if in order to escape the fiery pit I had to embrace dogma I simply didn’t believe, then could he please give me some sort of concrete sign that would show me this was actually the truth. If I could believe it was real, maybe then I could accept it. I reminded him that conversions like this were performed all the time in the Bible–heathen Saul’s miraculous vision and subsequent conversion to Paul, for example–so if things like that happened so often back then, why couldn’t it happen today? I reminded him that sending me yet another person trying to save my soul or coming across some Bible tract in a laundromat or gas station would not work. It hasn’t worked before and it wouldn’t work now. I would need something more dramatic, much more dramatic than that. I would need an actual miracle, something like, oh, maybe Jesus himself talking to me (hey, some Christians say that’s happened to them). I told God that I was open to it, if it was his will for that to happen, but if nothing happened, I wouldn’t have any other choice than to go on assuming Jesus was just a man, heaven and hell are probably mythical places, and the Bible is nothing more than a collection of ancient fairy tales.

So far nothing’s happened. Maybe tomorrow.

My problem with Christianity

Posted on October 19, 2014 by luckyotter

I check my WP Reader almost every day, and always find fascinating viewpoints there. Of course, I don’t agree with all of them, but my mind is always opened and that’s a good thing.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the nature of God lately, and living in a Bible Belt state, I think a lot about who Jesus really was and where a belief in the Bible and God fits into my life. I happened across a couple of excellent and well written blogs about atheism here on WordPress, and I recommend both of them to Christians and those of other faiths as well as agnostics and atheists. The two websites I’m referring to are Godless Cranium and The Superstitious Naked Ape.

There’s a lot of negative stereotypes about atheists and how arrogant and intolerant they are toward religion, Christianity in particular, but I think this view is erroneous. I’m not denying there may be a few atheists out there who are arrogant and hostile toward the idea of religion, but from my readings, I don’t get that impression. I also want to clear up the idea that atheists “hate God.” How can you hate something you don’t believe exists? It’s like hating Santa Claus or unicorns.

Let me start out by saying I am not an atheist, nor do I believe I’ll ever become one. I believe in God, and I also pray. I also occasionally like to attend church services, mostly because I enjoy the aesthetics of the service and the music, particularly that of a Catholic high mass (I am not Catholic) or the joyful gospel singing of a black Baptist church. I believe there may be angels but I am not sure (or maybe I just want to believe in them). I believe Jesus provides a great example of how we should treat others. I also believe many other men and women throughout history provide examples that are just as beneficial to humanity.

But my faith, for lack of a better word, pretty much stops there. I won’t go into a long detailed account of why I think most of the Bible is bunk (especially the Old Testament), or why I don’t believe Jesus was actually the Son of God (in the divine sense), because plenty can be said about that on both of the named websites and elsewhere, by people who know a lot more about these things than I do.

I don’t believe after we die, we only have two options–Heaven or Hell. People run the gamut from nearly totally evil to very, very good, and I don’t think anyone is 100% one or the other. None of us is perfect of course, but on the other end of the spectrum, even Hitler had a couple of good points: he loved dogs and children (as long as they were blonde, blue eyed white children). To say we will either spend eternity in a place with streets of gold and lots of harps and winged beings OR in a place of fire and eternal torment by demons just seems silly and overly simplistic–why would a God of mercy and love send an average Joe or Jane, who just doesn’t happen to have accepted Jesus as their personal savior, to a place of eternal torment? It’s black or white (and to my mind, very toxic) thinking, with no shades of gray in between, and I can’t accept that way of thinking.

Here’s a laundry list of my problems with the idea of heaven and hell:

— If all that is required to get into Heaven is to accept Jesus as your savior, then a serial killer like Jeffrey Dahmer (who was “saved” before his execution) or another otherwise horrible person who got “saved” (and there are horrible Christians out there) would be accepted into heaven while a very good person of a faith other than Christianity, such as Gandhi or Buddha, would be burning in hell. It just doesn’t make sense, and any God who would allow such a state of affairs is no God I would want anything to do with. That God would be a sadist, a bigot, and a narcissist: basically the God of the Old Testament.

— While there is evidence of fire and brimstone under the earth (easily explained by geologic science), how is it possible that so many souls could fit into such a small space in the center of the earth? If most humans are hellbound, and even if humans have only populated the planet for 6,000 years (which I think is complete bunk), that’s a hell of a lot of souls crammed together (pun intended).

— Why would any God of mercy give Satan so much power? Is Satan God’s hatchetman, the supernatural equivalent of the good cop/bad cop meme or the company hatchetman or woman who does all the “nice” boss’s firing?

— Lots of people have never heard of Jesus Christ. If they’re all going to hell too, that’s a pretty unjust God.

— Are children who have never been baptized or told about Christianity all going to hell? That’s a cruel and sadistic God.

— What about people like me, who have tried and tried to believe in Jesus the way most Christians want us to, even praying for the gift of faith, but just can’t do it? God gave me a brain to think with, and to question things. Before I can believe Jesus Christ died on the cross for my sins and that the only way I can attain salvation is to accept Him, I need some sort of evidence proving this is so. If God didn’t want me to think and question, why would He have given me a brain?

— Most Christians (at least the evangelicals) think animals have no souls and won’t go to heaven. To me, heaven without animals would be hell. When I look into my dog’s or my cats’ eyes, I know there’s a soul there. Nothing can convince me otherwise.

–Any God who would allow the majority of human beings to suffer for all eternity just because their level of faith didn’t satisfy him, is a sadistic, evil, unempathetic narcissist. I can’t and won’t believe in a God like that. I also think threatening people with eternal damnation is a horrible way to get people to convert. If it works, then it’s a tactic based on fear and is very toxic and soul-damaging.

I’m not a Buddhist or any other eastern religion (I have problems with those religions too), but I actually like the idea of reincarnation. It makes more sense to me and takes into account why there’s so much suffering and injustice in the world. A difficult life may be a way of paying off karmic debt and our next life could be much easier if we pay off the debt sufficiently in this life. Or a more advanced soul could have a difficult life, because they’ve attained enough spiritual growth to be able to learn something valuable from their suffering or use it to help others. I don’t know, but it just seems much more like something a loving and merciful God would do than throw his creations into the Good Box or the Bad Box after they die, and that’s it for you for all eternity.

I take issue with any religion that only values what happens to you after you die, and fundamentalist Christianity seems to care much more about the afterlife than enjoying this life.

Christianity, as is all too often the case today, especially in America, has become very much tied up with conservative politics, and is turning off a lot of liberals who may otherwise be attracted to Christianity. I doubt if Jesus was around today, he would worship the free market economy, think helping the poor was “enabling” them, and be intolerant toward LGBT people, atheists, and women.

And that brings me to the evangelical Christian attitude toward women. According to the Bible, it was because of a woman (Eve) that man fell from grace, and because God made man first (with women being created as helpmates), the biblical view is that men have dominion over women and women should submit to their will, even when the man is abusing them. For that matter, the God of the Old Testament acted much like an abusive husband. I’m sorry, but that view is a total turnoff to me, and isn’t doing anything to win more women over to evangelical Christianity.

I know I said I wasn’t going to talk about the Bible here, but there’s something I need to get off my chest. When Christians can’t back up their arguments with reason and evidence (creationism vs. evolution is just one example), they almost always use the “But it’s in the Bible so it must be so” argument. If you try to pin them down as to why the Bible is right, all they can say is “it’s the word of God.” No. It’s the words of men, translated many times and from many different languages. The Bible can and has been interpreted differently by different Christian denominations, and even Christians can’t seem to agree among themselves what the Bible is actually saying in many cases–because it’s full of contradictions (which I won’t get into here because it would take way too long). What makes the Bible so special anyway? It’s a book. Homer’s Odyssey is a book too. Why isn’t Homer’s Odyssey taken as the word of God? For that matter, what makes one religious text right and another one wrong? Christians think Muslims are all going to hell and their Koran is the wrong holy book. Muslims think the same about Christians and the Bible. Mormons think only the Book of Mormon is the correct holy text. What makes one automatically right and the other ones wrong? If any of them were right, wouldn’t God somehow give us some sort of clue as to which text we should all be following?

There’s a lot more things I could say, but then this article would turn into a book, so let me just sum up here with what I personally believe.

I believe God exists, and that he created the universe, but I also very much believe in scientific evidence that the earth is several billion years old and that all life on earth evolved, and was not created in 6 literal days. I think a concept known as “divine intervention” is a possibility–that is, that evolution occurred, but was overseen by God or a higher intelligence and that the evolution of human beings may have been “helped along.” Some evolutionists actually believe this view is a watered down version of creationism, and perhaps it is. I don’t dispute the idea of random evolution, but human intelligence seemed to happen too fast for that to be the case although I could be wrong. Besides, I find the idea of no higher intelligence watching over things a little frightening and to me that would seem to make all our striving and suffering a little pointless. I like to think there is some higher purpose to this life than mere physical reality.

As for the afterlife, I believe some people may go to heaven, but I don’t believe in hell, unless it’s a hell created by our own minds during this life that continues into the afterlife. I actually find the idea of annihilation after death more attractive than one of eternal torment, but I think our souls live on. Perhaps hell exists but only for the truly evil and unrepentant. I think the rest of us–who are too good for hell but not good enough for heaven–probably get reincarnated after a time of contemplating and assimilating the lessons learned in this life. I believe God is merciful and loving, and loves all his children, even those who have no faith he exists, and he would never give an evil entity like Satan (who probably doesn’t exist anyway) dominion over the majority of human souls after they die. As for Jesus, I have a lot of trouble with both the concept of his divinity and the idea of the Trinity. The first seems like a fairy tale and there’s no evidence, and as for the concept of the Trinity, I just can’t wrap my brain around it. Is there one God or three? How can God be three persons in one? Believers take it on faith alone and don’t try to analyze it, but I just can’t do that because of my analytical nature. I need to know the why’s and hows of everything before I embrace it. However, I do think Jesus was an extremely evolved soul who showed us a lot about grace, mercy and love, and I wish more Christians actually tried to follow the example of Jesus Christ in their daily lives instead of only on Sundays.

I have no idea what “religion” my beliefs make me; I suppose it’s bits and pieces of a lot of things that fit in with my worldview. But I’m open to changing my mind about a lot given enough proof.

I like to read blogs and books by atheists, Christians, and everything in between, in an attempt to understand differing viewpoints, and it saddens me that so much hatred, violence and death has occurred in the name of religion. Why does it matter if you worship a different God than I do, or even no God at all? We can all be moral and decent people who bring good to the world and to others, no matter whether we’re Christians, Jews, Buddhists, agnostics, pagans, or atheists. I wish people with different belief systems would act the way this atheist and Christian pastor do in this video, in a civil and respectful manner. These two men have completely opposite beliefs, and yet have become good friends, and I find that very heartwarming and the video is extremely interesting.

I can’t embed the video, but here’s the link:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2013/07/08/video-from-the-megachurch-service/

Nuff said.

Interlude: a day filled with light

Posted on September 17, 2014 by luckyotter

Before I get started writing about the last part of my journey with my psychopathic ex, I wanted to share my experience today because it was such a mindblowing one. There’s been so much darkness in these posts and doing the emotional work required can be painful and exhausting. I really needed a respite from that and today I got it.

A week ago I was reading about a place called The Light Center, in Black Mountain, NC (which is close to my home), a prayer and meditation center that among other things, focuses on using colored light to help stimulate and align the chakras for improved physical, emotional and spiritual wellbeing. I know this sounds like an ad but it’s not. (If you’re interested though, I’ve linked their website above).
I’ve always been interested in the chakras and attracted to all things metaphysical so I was intrigued and thought I might benefit, especially after releasing so much negative energy while I was writing my blog post late last night. I needed something to offset all the negativity and recalibrate my chakras.

I mentioned I felt like I was dead inside for a long time. In a way I was. My chakras have been in a very sick overall state for a long time, particularly my lower chakras which I think were and are almost non-functioning. My root chakra (grounding–survival and security, animal instincts) is my weakest. I live inside my head, less so inside my heart (but I’m working on that) but I’m not grounded or in touch with physical reality much at all. Not long ago I took an online chakra test and scored highest in the Crown chakra (top of the head–spirituality, universal consciousness, release of karma) I don’t know exactly what all this means but it does tell me I have very poor survival instincts but a highly developed awareness of the spiritual. This does seem to fit my overall relationship to life.

The Light Center is a geodesic dome that sits near the top of a beautiful green mountain in North Carolina’s Black Mountains (part of the Blue Ridge). The highway to it is long and takes many sharp turns as it snakes its way up. As you begin to climb, a primeval silence takes over and you begin to feel disconnected from the hubbub of humanity and the mundane world of commerce and dysfunction that lies below. I was with my 21 year old daughter who felt she needed healing too (and had nothing else to do today). Finally, after what seemed an endless climb into the clouds, a sign for the center appeared. We turned onto a gravel road and the silence of very late summer closed in, the air cool and foggy with a hint of fall. The trees seemed to whisper. I got a great sense of the spiritual and when we turned a corner, we finally saw the top of the dome.

Inside we were met by a substantial woman in her late 50s or 60s who smiled and welcomed us. Something about her exuded serenity and love. She gave us a tour of the center, explaining its history and how it came to be. I liked the fact there’s no fee for their services, and the top of the dome, which serves as the meditation and prayer center, is open 24/7 except when the road is inaccessible.

Then she left us alone in the Light Room, which she had explained to us briefly. It was a silent sixteen sided chamber with completely white walls, and equipped with easy chairs and small blankets and pillows for comfort. The lights dimmed to darkness and ambient music began to play, and suddenly we were bathed in red light, which represents the root chakra. We spent five minutes under each of the colors, all the way up to purple (the crown chakra), with the lights dimming to blackness in between each for about a minute. My breath slowed and I tried to focus on each chakra as the corresponding colored light went on, and spent the moments of darkness in between thanking God for this experience, the beautiful day with my daughter, and for the mountains and beauty just outside. I thanked Him for helping me get back in touch with my creativity, my long-lost love of writing expressed through starting this blog.

But most amazing of all, I didn’t feel hatred for my psychopaths. This was a very new feeling for me. Unbelievably, I felt compassion for them. So I asked God to heal them, if not in this world or this lifetime then in the next. I realized that for psychopaths, all their chakras are closed off and disconnected from each other. Functioning chakras are necessary to utilize the life force and do good in the world. Psychopaths have them but they are so nonfunctioning they are really are almost dead inside. It’s like a 4 cylinder engine running on only one. The car won’t run.

If you could see the aura of a psychopath they would be very thin, dark, almost black. There’s nothing in the world we, as humans, can do to help the psychopaths in our lives. We have to let them go. Only God can help them, and only if they choose to let Him inside. I believe even the worst psychopath has moments, however rare, of clarity and truth and those are the moments God can heal them. In the meantime, we can pray for them, and pray for ourselves, and pray for a world that comes to know we are all connected and all equal in God’s eyes. I was humbled by this revelation.

On the drive back down the mountain, my daughter said she felt the same thing.