I think the last couple of posts have touched on what just might be the root cause of the problems generated by our being children of the church: Apathy. We touched on it during our discussion about the future, and in the comments on the sex-and-pie post.

We have hit on a key here, if I may be so bold. Think about it. Why do we hang around the ex-member forums on the Internet? Why do we still have social problems/phobias/aversions to “the world”? Why do we feel like planning our own future is pointless, because we are so used to having our future planned out for us?

In a word? Apathy. It explains everything that’s wrong in my life, and has been wrong in my life, since the changes.

apathy
One entry found.

Main Entry:
Pronunciation:
\ˈa-pə-thē\
Function:
noun
Etymology:
Greek apatheia, from apathēs without feeling, from a- + pathos emotion — more at pathos
Date:
1594

1 : lack of feeling or emotion : impassiveness 2 : lack of interest or concern : indifference

impassiveness
One entry found.

Main Entry:
im·pas·sive
Pronunciation:
\(ˌ)im-ˈpa-siv\
Function:
adjective
Date:
1605

1 aarchaic : unsusceptible to pain b: unsusceptible to physical feeling : insensible c: unsusceptible to or destitute of emotion : apathetic2: giving no sign of feeling or emotion : expressionless

indifference
One entry found.

Main Entry:
Pronunciation:
\in-ˈdi-fərn(t)s, -f(ə-)rən(t)s\
Function:
noun
Date:
15th century

1: the quality, state, or fact of being indifferent2 aarchaic : lack of difference or distinction between two or more things b: absence of compulsion to or toward one thing or another

The church conditioned us towards impassiveness and indifference (if not outright revulsion) towards “the world”. The world is under Satan’s dominion, let the dead bury their own, time is short brethren, God’s Master Plan, our Incredible Human Potential! Who gave a shit what two-bit politician was mouthing off this week? Unless said politician was on one of the short-lists as a contender for being the Beast, of course.

Contrast our attitude towards the world, with our attitude towards the church, when we were still in. Hell, you can still see it demonstrated by the apologists on AW. We were not by any means psychopaths, devoid of human emotions! (Some of the ministry were, certainly, but let’s not go there.)

Our emotions were channeled entirely into the church.

The Feast of Tabernacles was the biggest buzz to be had, in the church, and I don’t mean just from all the booze that was ingested for eight days. Singing along with the satellite transmission, knowing that a hundred thousand others (give or take) were singing the same words, in praise of the same god, at exactly the same time you were, that felt important, worthy, useful, dare I say we truly would “make a joyful noise”?? We did. (That god isn’t what we thought it was. Again, not going to go there.)

What have you done, since you fell away, that has given you the same kind of feelings?

(Christians don’t need to answer that. We know, you pray to Jebus and your Sky Buddy gives you all the “joy” you will ever need. Bully for you. I’m talking about actions taken in the real world, not inside your own heads.)

We can’t go “home” again. Not least because the parallel universe we were born and raised in is closed off to us forever now, and even the pocket universes of the splinters aren’t the same; they have their own deviations, and are nothing like what we remember. For good or for ill. The joy and good feelings we had were a sham, a carrot to keep us in, and keep them beating us with the big stick of tithing and food laws and the Sabbath. But still.

All of the holy days hold the same kind of association for me. I never got dunked (the changes hit right around the time I would have been eligible for baptismal counseling, and we exited shortly thereafter), so I never kept Passover, but the rest of it, I bought hook, line, and sinker. God’s Master Plan. Pentecost was FirstFruits, Trumpets was a foreshadowing of the Kingdom come (three-quarters of a century, and that kingdom ain’t come yet), Unleavened Bread at least taught us how to spring-clean thoroughly, Atonement, well, Atonement did build character, even though building character by physically harming yourself is NOT a good thing.

The Feast, ah the Feast. That was what it was going to be like in the Kingdom. (Three-quarters of a century, and that kingdom ain’t come yet.) We took ourselves completely out of “the world”, we didn’t have to worry about neighbours or teachers or employers or even picketers. Opening night, there was a charge in the air, you could feel it, almost taste it. This, this was what it was like to be “called out of the world”!!

Every year, I used to pray that the Kingdom would come on the Last Great Day, just so I wouldn’t have to go back to “the world”.

Even the Sabbath was special, to us, after all that was what it was all about wasn’t it? We were the only true Christians, keeping god’s law the way we were supposed to. Sabbaths were holy, revered, etcetera. Sure, you had to sit and listen to a pastor scream fire and brimstone for two hours plus, but I remember getting to run around the rented hall, exploring all the nooks and crannies, hiding away with a copy of The Bible Story or going to YES lessons after services, or fellowshipping with friends and grown-ups alike.

Eating out after the Sabbath, breaking bread with YOU or singles or a couple families together, or even a couple of singles invited out to eat with our family. Sure, we drove the wait-staff to distraction, but for the most part, we just used discretion when reading the menus, and didn’t (for the most part) give them a hard time.

Visiting friends or other church members’ houses, and having them visit ours. Sure, the conversation was almost always apocalyptic, and had nothing whatsoever to do with current events (unless we were comparing current events to prophecy of course), and half the time was spent gossipping about and bashing other members anyway, but it still felt good, no matter how evil get-togethers like that actually were.

Bible studies during the week were like an informal mini-Sabbath. You still had to get dressed up, of course, but it wasn’t quite the same. No hymns, for one thing. Shorter fellowship, before and after. One verse expounded upon, instead of the usual string of Bible jigsaw pieces, fitted together to “explain” the theology the church told was the only truth available.

Laughing nervously with the rest of the YOU when the chaperone hadn’t fast-forwarded the movie quite far enough ahead, and wondering if we had accidentally been “defiled” because we heard a curse word we weren’t supposed to?

We have no pre-cult personalities. Everything we were, everything we are, is wrapped up in what we had, as wrong as it was, as repressive and oppressive and evil, that was it. That was all we ever had.

What we had is gone. It’s not coming back. Everything replaced with nothing. The church didn’t just tell us how to date, the church told us how to be. That’s what we have to discard, as children of the church. But how can you give up everything that you are?

Time isn’t short, but life sure as hell is, and mine ain’t getting any longer. And I don’t really want to know which particular death experience my brain is going to cough up for me, when I finally go. (I have my suspicions. They are not pleasant.)

Our emotions were channeled entirely into the church, but the church isn’t there anymore. I don’t know if I even have any of those emotions left. Certainly not the kind I remember having, when I was in. The world is all sunshine and springtime and coming out of the winter blahs, but I feel like I’m stuck out of phase. Everything’s kind of dull. Not that I want to try and relive the “interesting” times from when I was in. The points I make above should make that quite clear.

That kind of happiness, that joy, etcetera, was false anyway. Which was why it got destroyed when the parallel universe did. So maybe those emotions got left behind, in that other dimension, maybe we’ll never get them back. Or if we do, we’ll just be fooling ourselves with imaginary beings. (Yeah, not going there.)

Welcome to Holland.

We’re always going to be strangers in a strange land. Until the day we die.

“We read the Bible to engage in an ongoing adventure that holds a mirror up to reality, that challenges us to live justly, that directs us to realign our lives with the Good Spirit, that enables us to become authentic, free and compassionate people. If reading the Bible doesn’t do that, then we’re probably better off not reading it at all.” Ambassador Watch

Best quote in the history of the ex-CoG Internet ever.

National Geographic “Memory”.

The article is basically an ad for the author’s forthcoming book, but I found it fascinating. Some quotes that struck me:

What is a memory? The best that neuroscientists can do for the moment is this: A memory is a stored pattern of connections between neurons in the brain. There are about a hundred billion of those neurons, each of which can make perhaps 5,000 to 10,000 synaptic connections with other neurons, which makes a total of about five hundred trillion to a thousand trillion synapses in the average adult brain. By comparison there are only about 32 trillion bytes of information in the entire Library of Congress’s print collection. Every sensation we remember, every thought we think, alters the connections within that vast network. Synapses are strengthened or weakened or formed anew. Our physical substance changes. Indeed, it is always changing, every moment, even as we sleep.”

“Without a memory, EP has fallen completely out of time. He has no stream of consciousness, just droplets that immediately evaporate. If you were to take the watch off his wrist—or, more cruelly, change the time—he’d be completely lost. Trapped in this limbo of an eternal present, between a past he can’t remember and a future he can’t contemplate, he lives a sedentary life, completely free from worry. “He’s happy all the time. Very happy. I guess it’s because he doesn’t have any stress in his life,” says his daughter Carol, who lives nearby.”

This is what some Gnostics (and some Buddhists too, if I don’t miss my guess) strive for. It is definitely an approach that I personally find centering within praxis; ironically it helps me to deal with the consciousness of linear time that I always “return” to afterwards. Moderation in everything, I always say. Extremes are never good.

Nondeclarative memories are the things you know without consciously thinking about them, like how to ride a bike or how to draw a shape while looking at it in a mirror. Those unconscious memories don’t rely on the hippocampal region to be consolidated and stored. They happen in completely different parts of the brain. Motor skill learning takes place at the base of the brain in the cerebellum, perceptual learning in the neocortex, habit learning at the brain’s center.”

How much of religion, I wonder, happens at the brain’s centre? The redemptive experience promised by religion (which I can replicate in my own mind, without “belief”) may very well be the cerebral cortex sending signals more effectively between the paleocortex and the neocortex.

(Yeah, it’s a screwball theory, and I could be wrong.)

The whole point of our nervous system, from the sensory organs that feed information to the massive glob of neurons that interpret it, is to develop a sense of what is happening in the present and what is about to happen in the future, so that we can respond in the best possible way. Our brains are fundamentally prediction machines, and to work they have to find order in the chaos of possible memories. Most of the things that pass through our brains don’t need to be remembered any longer than they need to be thought about.

How much of what is stored in my brain about my childhood affects my unconscious actions and reactions in the present day? Which is another reason to work on and achieve mindfulness. IMO. The human brain has evolved to look for patterns. Based on our early environments and knowledge imparted to us, what patterns are we looking for, what patterns do we actually see, and why? And how does that affect our day-to-day lives?

We cross the street and I’m alone with EP for the first time. He doesn’t know who I am or what I’m doing at his side, although he seems to sense that I’m there for some good reason. He is trapped in the ultimate existential nightmare, blind to the reality in which he lives. The impulse strikes me to help him escape, at least for a second. I want to take him by the arm and shake him. “You have a rare and debilitating memory disorder,” I want to tell him. “The last 50 years have been lost to you. In less than a minute, you’re going to forget that this conversation ever even happened.” I imagine the sheer horror that would befall him, the momentary clarity, the gaping emptiness that would open up in front of him, and close just as quickly. And then the passing car or the singing bird that would snap him back into his oblivious bubble.

We turn around and walk back down the street whose name he’s forgotten, past the waving neighbors he doesn’t recognize, to a home he doesn’t know. In front of the house, there is a car parked with tinted windows. We turn to look at our reflections. I ask EP what he sees.

“An old man,” he says. “That’s all.”

Does letting go of memory or memories mean letting go of the emotions associated with them as well? (Positive or negative.) I would argue yes. Food for thought (heh heh) at least.

Fascinating article. I may even buy the book when it comes out — if I remember.

Aargh. Ever have one of those “stranger in a strange land” days?

Apparently it is a tradition, amongst the group I currently find myself, to wear a piece of red clothing for Valentine’s Day, or on the day closest to Valentine’s day that we find ourselves assembled together. Which just happened to be yesterday.

Now, see, I’ve always been respectful of the (silly, but will still get you mocked in some circles) superstition that one must never wear red on Friday the 13th. Needless to say, I never told anyone that was why I wasn’t wearing red yesterday, but still. It was one of those “Ah crap, I still don’t fit in very well, do I?!” moments. Those suck, by the way.

Hi, I’m AggieAtheist, and I’m a child of the church: Try my damnedest to fit in, but in the end I’m damned if I do, and damned if I don’t.

Anon Sun Feb 08, 05:31:00 PM NZDT (whoever you are),

I apologize for my part in our recent exchange. I regret what I said. I regret that I said anything at all.

I apologize that you find my non-belief so offensive, although I hope that I have demonstrated elsewhere that I do not view Christian believers, in and of themselves, as offensive. I know that might not have been too clear in our recent exchange.

Engaging in Christian belief would no doubt make my life easier, and would facilitate my interactions with believers (who make up a large percentage of the population) much more smoothly; but I can no more subscribe to a faith-based belief system, then you can unsubscribe from the one which you hold so dear.

I do not view believers as less than human, or delusional, or somehow inequal to non-believers. I apologize if my recent remarks came across that way.

We are each one of us human, we are all present in the here and the now, living this life, whatever it is and for whatever reason that we are here.

Thank you for your insight, and please know that I will try and see things a little more clearly from the other perspective, from this point forward.

Aggie

Hie thee on over to the Ex-Christadelphian and read The Greatest Man Who Never Was.

Because heavenly existence remained unknowable the handful of intellectuals who led the various bands of early proto-Christians spoke of their Christ by use of an allegorical human life. Set in times past, present and future, it was a device by which their Lord resolved ethical issues and uttered divine Wisdom. Each worthy tenet of a higher morality, every pithy statement of priestly wisdom, was coupled to the majestic name of Jesus the Christ to give sanction and assurance of its heavenly origin.”

Thanks, Corky, your post came at a time when I really needed it.

Confused?

If you haven’t already purchased John Morgan’s book Flying Free on Gavin’s recommendation, let me second Gavin’s positive review here, with a relevant quote from the introduction:

Flying Free is dedicated to:
—————————
A large group called “the Church kids” – past and present. People who were or are in this group know who they are. I am one, as are my stepsons Dean and Richard. To you, I pray that Flying Free will give you just a little bit more freedom than what you had when you first picked it up. If that is the case, I will consider the book a success.”

I’m working my way through it now. Ten bucks for a 360-page download? You really can’t go wrong.

And once again, Byker Bob opens mouth, and swallows foot. See the evidence here.

PH,

I believe you’ve got a real problem.”

Yeah, my problem is you, Bob. Denial much?

“…I’ve watched you demonize almost all Christians…”

I know at least three Christians who I have had dealings with over the past year, who would disagree with that.

“You went after Dwight Armstrong’s daughter or niece, whoever she was….

She fired the first shot. Best to get your facts straight, Bob. And, oh yes, please quote me exactly where I “went after” her — I added to the discussion on the Wiki webpage. If that’s your version of my “going after her”, then so be it.

“….and you took Monte to task for your nightmares that you feel were due to his father’s art.”

I never had nightmares. I actually believed that everything in TBC was true, and everything that was predicted in the Youth Bible Lessons, was going to come true as well.

“You are irrationally striking out at people and it is embarrassing to watch.”

Oh, pardon me, I wouldn’t want to embarrass your oh-so-holy self. If you’re so “embarrassed” by me, maybe you ought to examine why I say the things I do, to the people I say them to. And examine also why you are “embarrassed” by it. Perhaps because you’re feeling that “I’m-going-to-hell” patented Christian guilt for having once been a freethinker?

“The fact is, you don’t hear the prayers of those whom you are attacking.”

Please quote me chapter and verse on where I have “attacked” any of these people. Am I suing them? No. Am I stalking them, sending hate mail to their houses, leaving hang-up messages on their answering machines? No.

All I am doing, and all I have ever done, is point out how the church has impacted me, a fact which all of the people you claim I have “attacked” (please show me where I have attacked them) would like to whitewash, and pretend it wasn’t so bad.

“Get-over-it-itis” Bob? Really? Can’t you bring something a little more original to the table, after all we’ve been through?

“Being as anti-Christian as you portray yourself to be is just as ignorant and irrational as being a racist.”

I know at least three Christians who I have had dealings with over the past year, who would disagree with that.

“To speak of lynching, what’s the difference between you and our American KKK?”

I have no political power, I have no money, I don’t walk around shooting people or hanging people or burning crosses on people’s lawns, I don’t spread hate speech (I’m 100% certain you’re going to disagree with that last part, but really, I don’t.), would you like me to go on?

All I am doing is typing words on a computer screen, and sending them out to the Internet. Really, if you take that perspective on it, instead of viewing it from your goldfish-bowl-sized little bubble, I’m really not as evil as you’re trying to persuade everyone here that I am.

“I’ve had about 7 years now to watch people very similar to you.”

And aren’t you just so full of yourself and so far above the rest, hmmm?

“Your blind hatred makes you attack well intentioned people, and brand them as hypocrites, simply because they believe in Jesus Christ.”

“Blind hatred”? Oh, and please show evidence of my “attacks” on “well-intentioned” people. (Monte Wolverton is anything but well-intentioned, whitewashing TBC the way he is.)

“You want to shoot all of the ducks to get at the ones who were actually responsible for your pain.”

Nope. I just want the truth to exist, somewhere, even if it’s on as small a back-water dark corner of the Internet as the ex-Church of God websites, forums, and bulletin boards. That’s all my goal ever was, and ever will be.

“I’d like to see you get some healing, because it is very plain to me that you are in a world of serious hurt.”

LOL! On the contrary, my life is several orders of magnitude better than it was, when I was in. Sure, I may go through periods of “my life sucks”, but they are passing phases, because overall I have much more stability and confidence, living a life bordered only by freedom of thought.

“On the other hand, I’ve also watched self-righteous types tell folks of your viewpoint to “get over it”.”

Aaaaaaaaand you’re not saying the same thing at all, right? Noooo, you’re not saying that……

“….they fail to take into consideration that you have been hurt, and need healing if you are to enjoy any type of happy or productive life….”

All things considered, I actually do enjoy a happy and productive life, now that I think about it. Something hanging around these places doesn’t really highlight, given that we self-limit by and large to only one topic of discussion.

There’s a lesson in that.

“BTW, you’re really not hurting the Christians. Most of them will just pray, “Father, forgive her, for she knows not what she does.”

Nice one! You’re implying that I’m like the fictional Roman murderers of your fictional dying-rising-godman.

Yeah, that’s not hateful. Not at all.

Recognize anybody we know?

I’m really not sure what to say about this video. It’s either so comic it’s tragic, or so tragic it’s comic. Proof that, for at least a subset of ministers in the Worldwide Church of God, the changes were simply a matter of toeing the party line and staying onboard for some hope of a pension, when they reach retirement age.

Which is more than can be said for the tens of thousands of ex-members who still have no retirement savings of their own, because it all went to the church; in first tithe, “tithe of the tithe” of 2nd tithe, cash offerings on every one of the “seven annual sabbaths”, and then the “special offerings” at any other time, just because.

Looks like Neil’s going to get his slice of the pie.