From: cobb@alexia.lis.uiuc.edu (Mike Cobb)
Subject: Re: THE MIND OF THE BIBLE BELIEVER
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Distribution: world,public
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 20:56:16 GMT

In <1993Jan6.224900.10780@netcom.com> madhaus@netcom.com (Maddi Hausmann) 
writes:

>mlee@post.RoyalRoads.ca (Malcolm Lee) writes: >
>madhaus@netcom.com (Maddi Hausmann) writes: >|>
>mlee@post.RoyalRoads.ca (Malcolm Lee) writes: >|> >
>>|> 
>>|> This is my major objection to Xianity.  It's a double-bind.
>>|> Psychologically, it offers both condemnation and salvation.
>>|> It tells you you're damned, but on the other hand, here's
>>|> the way out.  This is POISON, pure and simple.  Everything
>>|> we know about mental health says that this is an unhealthy
>>|> belief system.
>>|> 
Why is this poison, pure and simple?  Argue one way or the other.  If we are 
actually condemned, and there is a way out, that's great!!  If we are not 
condemned, and yet there is this "way out", then so what?

>>|> A system offers redemption that is *external*, then it
>>|> can maintain control over its adherents.  And that is
>>|> the intention.  Good psychological health requires the
>>|> ability to accept oneself by oneself.
>>|> 
>>|> Read some Jung or Joseph Campbell.  Any religion that
>>|> externalizes a godhead is at a primative stage in
>>|> human development, including literal (fundamentalist
>>|> and evangelical) Christianity.
>>|> 
>>|> >    I welcome your response.
>>|> 
>>|> Here it is.  Read some of the books others have referred
>>|> to here, such as Cohen's book, and let us know if it made
>>|> any impact.
>>
>>I thank you for your response.
>>Understand that I do not speak from ignorance but rather, from experience.  I
>>was a very avid, non-believer for 25 years of my life.  I had everything I 
had
>>hoped to achieve in life (education and steady employment) and yet, there was
>>still something missing.  I cannot begin to tell you how empty my life 
felt.  I
>>had believed in all the things that we were taught would make us happy in 
this
>>world . . . money, money and more money.  But I was NOT happy.  That was 
somthing
>>wrong.

>But here you set up a false dichotomy.  You claim because you were a
>non-believer and were not happy that is was your non-belief that made
>you unhappy.  I do not deny your feeling that something was missing,
>as I myself have felt this and so have many other people I have
>known.  What I object to is your assertion that only Christianity
>could have changed this.  You see, I am not longer feeling that
>something is missing, yet I am still not a believer.

>>I'm not a Psych major and I can't fully explain it.  It was not until I came 
to
>>know my Lord and Saviour that I gained a sense of purpose and fulfillment in 
my
>>life.  I had friends around me but it was not the same as having the family 
of
>>Christ around me.

>But here I have given you some suggestions on how to explain it.
>Don't just sit there and say you can't explain it; do some reading
>and learn to understand it.  It won't be easy, but then again,
>using your mind rarely is.

C'mon, you can do a lot better than that worn-out response.  How about using 
the other ones, such as:  "boy, you guys must really be so stupid!"; or "What 
kind of idiots you must be!"; or "Brainless Christians"; or "Illogical 
Christains".  I mean there's a lot to choose from.


>>This is my testimony, not just my opinion.  I don't worship a religion.  I 
worship
>>the one and only God.  If my church should burn down or my pastor move away, 
I
>>still have my faith in Christ Jesus.  I am still Christian.  He gives me the
>>strength to continue on when my strength is gone.  I need Him and I love 
Him.  

>I did not say you worshipped a religion.  I said you relied on something
>external to yourself to validate your self-worth and that this is very
>harmful to your mental health.  In this case the external validation
>rests with Jesus, not with you.  The church or the pastor do not
>matter as much because you can find another.  But if you were to stop
>going to church and Bible study and the Christian fellowshop, you
>would find your doubts re-emerging.  Please read the Cohen book.

Boy, that's a strange idea.  Why is it that when Christianity is most 
repressed, it flourishes?  Why is it that when people can't find a pastor or a
church, because if one existed the people would be thrown into prison, they 
remain Christians, and can still convert others?  May be it's because it's a 
belief in the eternal not the temporal that they hold on to.  They know that 
death is not a mystery, but a union with Christ in heaven.  Why do others fear
death?  Is it because they don't know what's out there?


>>I don't see how you can find fault with this.

>I find fault with a system that leads to:
>   - Sexual dysfuction due to a body/mind duality
>   - Sexual repression leading to high rates of child abuse
>   - A refusal to use one's gifts as given, in this case your mind

Wow.  The very things that Christianity condemns as wrong are being assigned to
it as though it caused it.  If your mind was not created by a good being, 
someone who would not make it with errors, then how can you trust that your 
conclusions are true?  If you were travelling in a train and saw a sign, 
etched in the rock that said "Wales, ten miles", but you were in 
Arizona, you'd probably think wow, what a cool wind design.  But, if 
you saw a sign in England that said "wales, ten miles" you might 
believe that Wales was in ten miles, because the sign was made by a 
trustworthy human.  If the creation of our brains weren't by something 
trustworthy, then how can we trust the messages they are giving to 
us.  Also, why is anything good.  Is there a standard?  Why are things 
good and better and best?  Is there some sort of ideal that they are 
being created against?  Why are we rightly repulsed by Jeffrey Dahmer, 
and Wesley Alan Dodd, and Ted Bundy, if they're just doing whatever 
they want to do?  



>>God loves, Man kills.

>This is another dangerous poison in the Xian ethos.  All the evil
>is assigned to Man, inotherwords, to you as a member of the family
>of Man.  All the good is external; it is assigned to God and
>Christ.  You are scum, they are holy.  They can save you, you
>cannot save yourself.  This is dangerous because it sets you up
>as self-hating and needing spiritual cleansing from Christ, or
>actually, from a representative such as the church or your study
>group.  Self-loathing leads to psychological problems.

>You do not have to be a Psych major to learn about Psychology.
>I strongly suggest you look into it.  

>-- 
>Maddi Hausmann                       |  The Truth is still The Truth, 
forsooth 
>madhaus@netcom.com                   |  Even if believing It you refuse
>Centigram Communications Corp        |  Complete disproof's uncouth and moot
>San Jose California  408/428-3553    |  A Fundie's brain is dead.

Xref: sparky alt.atheism:24902 talk.religion.misc:25094