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Post by Deleted on Jun 20, 2017 16:09:17 GMT -5
iamsaved leaving a belief system is a death to old way and it's hard at first. But if possible don't look at it as wasted time. It is an experience that has made you who you are today and it will serve you well if you let it. There are bad things about being in religion but there are also good things. Focus on the good things, the good memories and let go of the belief at the same time. In the end I have found so much peace and freedom from having to worry about having a faith strong enough to believe the unbelievable. The bible is a book written by men who like most of humanity, were just trying to figure out the meaning of life and it's based on their limited understanding of the world. I don't condemn that but rather see it as a journey mankind has made to this day when we can look at things written there and understand exactly what they are trying to do. All the best to you in your choices and your journey. I am sure anyone here that has gone through it into non belief would be willing to PM with you when you feel you need support. I have to confess that, for me, the legacy of 2x2ism doesn't include too many good things to focus on. It certainly hasn't bequeathed much that wouldn't also have been available from a different, less nutty, Christian denomination. However there are some good fruits that fell from the 2x2 tree. One is that my 2x2 sojourn helped me to realise that the entire Christian God thing is a myth, a place I may never have come to had I been raised in mainstream Christianity. Another is the deep knowledge of the bible I have acquired which comes as a surprise to a lot of people given my unbelief. This is certainly useful when discussing the true nature of the Christian God with Christians (who tend to be either ignorant or in denial of this). And of course a third thing is that unspoken and invisible bond that ex 2x2 members have. I now have little contact with anyone linked to 2x2 ism, past or present, but on the rare occasion when I do run into someone there is a warm, peculiar, slightly subconscious, feeling that you share something unique. A kind of 'there are no strangers here' feeling. I think that is a positive thing. I think I might even have that feeling now. Matt10
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Post by snow on Jun 21, 2017 13:07:14 GMT -5
iamsaved leaving a belief system is a death to old way and it's hard at first. But if possible don't look at it as wasted time. It is an experience that has made you who you are today and it will serve you well if you let it. There are bad things about being in religion but there are also good things. Focus on the good things, the good memories and let go of the belief at the same time. In the end I have found so much peace and freedom from having to worry about having a faith strong enough to believe the unbelievable. The bible is a book written by men who like most of humanity, were just trying to figure out the meaning of life and it's based on their limited understanding of the world. I don't condemn that but rather see it as a journey mankind has made to this day when we can look at things written there and understand exactly what they are trying to do. All the best to you in your choices and your journey. I am sure anyone here that has gone through it into non belief would be willing to PM with you when you feel you need support. I have to confess that, for me, the legacy of 2x2ism doesn't include too many good things to focus on. It certainly hasn't bequeathed much that wouldn't also have been available from a different, less nutty, Christian denomination. However there are some good fruits that fell from the 2x2 tree. One is that my 2x2 sojourn helped me to realise that the entire Christian God thing is a myth, a place I may never have come to had I been raised in mainstream Christianity. Another is the deep knowledge of the bible I have acquired which comes as a surprise to a lot of people given my unbelief. This is certainly useful when discussing the true nature of the Christian God with Christians (who tend to be either ignorant or in denial of this). And of course a third thing is that unspoken and invisible bond that ex 2x2 members have. I now have little contact with anyone linked to 2x2 ism, past or present, but on the rare occasion when I do run into someone there is a warm, peculiar, slightly subconscious, feeling that you share something unique. A kind of 'there are no strangers here' feeling. I think that is a positive thing. I think I might even have that feeling now. Matt10 I certainly understand there might not be a lot of positives, but I find that remembering the good things is healthier for me. I know about the bad things and I haven't forgotten them, I just don't want to give them any power by dwelling on them too much. I like to remember conventions and the food and waiting tables. I enjoyed that. I agree there is a link and although I don't have any one on one face to face with any 2x2's anymore, I do still have friends I keep in touch with by facebook or email. We do visit if I happen to be in their home town. I too like that I have a pretty good grasp of the bible. I'm not sure I would have freed myself from Christianity if I was part of a more traditional group either. Given it was the reading of the OT that had a great deal of influence on my decision I would hope it wouldn't have mattered and I would have been freed anyway. Part of it though was the response of the workers to my questions. Their hostility as if I was daring to question their authority and that just wasn't done. I was being genuine in my questions and they didn't seem to realize that but got quite hostile and defensive immediately which really hurt me at first and then just made me wonder after awhile. So I do thank my upbringing in many ways for the freedom and peace I now have.
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Post by stevie on Sept 10, 2017 10:11:57 GMT -5
Having just left meetings and believing they were the "only right ones" I am slowly beginning to realise I don't think I believe in the bible as literal fact, it's too far fetched. The loss of belief in meetings has hurt me and left scars of bitterness and anger, the friends aren't so friendly. I think I am done with church and religion. Mind you I would love a mate who could turn my glass of water into wine! All joking aside I am in a bad place The period between losing one's belief in 'the meetings' and losing one's belief in the bible can be very short indeed. My journey from 2x2 to complete non-believer only took a couple of weeks. At first I realised only that I had I been duped into believing the 2x2 malarkey but soon I realised that it wasn't just 2x2ism that I had been fooled into believing, but the bible itself. At first I was concerned only with the realisation that the 2x2 idea of apostolic succession was nothing but a complete fabrication but soon I also realised that parts of the bible itself were also a complete fabrication and in fact much of the bible was much more far fetched than the claims made by the 2x2 church. All that stuff about people turning into pillars of salt and dead people rising from graves after they'd been dead for days and dumb asses speaking and men ascending up into the sky actually made the workers' claims about their church's history seem little more than stretching the truth a bit. I'm almost beyond unbelief now and moving into disbelief that anyone can take the bible literally in the 21st century. And if these parts of the bible are so blatantly false, then how can we trust the rest of it? We can't. Of course once one starts to cast doubt on the reliability of the bible, one soon starts to doubt the reliability of what they've been taught about (the biblical) God. Without a belief in the bible it's very difficult to maintain one's belief in (the biblical) God. And once you start to lose your belief in (the biblical) God, your belief in other biblical things such as heaven and hell soon evaporate also ... which can be a bit of a relief really as you no longer have to worry about ending up in Satan's fiery pit. Indeed you soon realise that things such as the devil and the Islamic God and reincarnation and the only way and fairies and the Christian day of judgment only really exist if you believe in them. Once you quit believing in them they cease to be part of reality. And with unbelief comes a certain freedom in that one is no longer constrained by the need to fit the answers to difficult questions into a narrow religious narrative. If God really loves us why does he allow so much suffering in the world? Actually God doesn't really love you, in fact he doesn't give a hoot about you. That's why there was an Auschwitz. Why does God heal some people and not others? God doesn't actually heal anybody. Some people get healed as a result of nature or of modern medicine. Other people don't because of the nature of their condition or because they are unlucky or because their medical practitioner was hopeless. If the meetings really are the Only Way, why does God tend only to speak to the hearts of people who are related to existing 2x2 members? The 2x2 church is merely another man made church and most people only profess because of the conditioning they've been subject to during their upbringing. Without such conditioning one is very unlikely to sign up. Why can't the workers produce miracles as Jesus did? Workers are just regular blokes like the rest of us who happen to believe something rather peculiar. And it's questionable whether Jesus really did do any miracles or whether those who wrote the Gospels were just as easily duped as we were or simply made those things up. Why has Jesus not yet come back when he said he would return and 2000 years have now passed? Jesus isn't coming back. In fact he never actually went away. Why do some prayers work and some don't? Prayers don't work. This can easily be demonstrated by praying sincerely for your dog to come back to life after it's been cremated or for your arm to grow back after it's been wrenched off in a machinery accident. If your prayer ever seemed to have worked, this is because the event would have happened anyway whether you'd prayed or not. Welcome to the world of unbelief. Matt10 excellently put and my thoughts too.
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Post by snow on Sept 10, 2017 12:48:18 GMT -5
Having just left meetings and believing they were the "only right ones" I am slowly beginning to realise I don't think I believe in the bible as literal fact, it's too far fetched. The loss of belief in meetings has hurt me and left scars of bitterness and anger, the friends aren't so friendly. I think I am done with church and religion. Mind you I would love a mate who could turn my glass of water into wine! All joking aside I am in a bad place This is a good site if you are needing support. journeyfree.org/
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Post by xna on Sept 14, 2017 5:40:22 GMT -5
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