There is a book that I think may help you. "When God Becomes a Drug.By Bart Aikins. Please vdon't feel that this is a criticism of you. You are a victim- one of countless millions. I am rooting for you.On the comment page he says:
Joe, I read all of you post. I know you had a tough time. I'm glad you have that bgehind you. Bu god/jesus had nothing to do with it. Ple4ase Joe, read " When God Becomes a Drug." Joe this book w2as written for YOU. You have nothing to lose but your delusions. Join us at ExChristian.net. You will be as welcome as the flowers in May. Share your experiences & your thoughts with us. You may write as a Xian or a former Xian. Many people start with us as Xians, & are 'won over'. But you are very welcome to make posts as a Xian. It is POSSIBLE that you can make some4one revert to Xianity, thru reasoning, tho I haven't seen anyone who did that, to my knowledge. But I reaslly think it will give you the experiences & thoughts of other people who have suffered as you did.
So I looked for this book. I found that He got the author's name so totally wrong it makes me think he's putting me on. Instead Bart Aikins it's Leo Booth. Booth is an Episcopal priest who wrote this book not as a denouncement of all religon but as a warning against the kind of rigid fundamentalism we all know and hate. He is in no way saying that all religion is like this. As one book reviewer says:
"And yet he says that there is nothing in the nature of religion which makes it unhealthy in itself, and that it is possible for a neurotic to use a healthy belief system in an unhealthy way. Booth writes that it is not necessarily the contents of the belief that make a system addictive, but rather the personal rigidity of its purveyors who discourage any kind of questioning or disbelief."In spite of this we find the atheist having a field day in their propaganda using this book as though it totally disproves all religion. Shy David's Religion page, (there's a scholarly source for you) does a hack job on the book. Sky David is so balanced and fair minded he opens with the balanced and articulate statement:
--John A. Speyrer
Religion has always been used by evil men (and some times women) to inflict evil upon the world. The evil enacted is always either by design or by consequence. The latter generally has two causes: the person engaged in evil believes he is doing good, godly works, or another person or groups of people take the result of someone's good works and builds upon those works with evil acts. A specific example I can readily think of is Islam: when Mohammed founded his religion, he taught liberal reforms such as equality for females and tolerance for infidels. One problem, though: he was illiterate. When the Koran / Qur’an / Alcoran was written by his followers, Mohammed's teachings were drastically altered. Slavery of women became law; infidels were taken hostage and, upon threat of death, ordered to convert; women who did not sexually submit to their owners could be beaten, with the authority of law.
This book is being shamelessly exploited by unscrupulous hate group atheists who are merely using it for propaganda and taking it out of context. See my view in Atheist watch
3 comments:
Wow. Poor thinking in evangelical zeal doesn't fit irreligion any better than religion. And plenty of people have been reconverted with reason as a major element - but to a different perspective on religion, not back to fundamentalism.
Quite right, Metacrock.
Here's an Internet article on the same issue: "Spiritual Abuse: Addiction to God." It's from a website by Christians for Christians, helping people be healed from religious abuse.
http://www.spiritualabuse.com/?page_id=46
Jeff VanVonderan, the website's founder, is the author of "The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse." The idea is that it's not belief in God that's the problem-- it's coercive, controlling religious groups.
Saying that the problem is religion itself, or belief in God itself, is like saying that the cause of spousal abuse is marriage, so no one should get married.
you are both right. we have all three (or at least Kristen and I) in abusive groups. That is a reality and it's a bad reality. But it's not inherent in God belief at all.
of cousre those guys would never look positive belief groups.
what angers me is the use of the "addiction" model. Why addiction? why not disease? why not "delusion?" why a disease model at all? why not just a cult model or no model just say 'this is bad thinking?' they have no experts to back up the analogy.
it's because the onus of a drug addict to someone who can't control what he does, crave more, self destructive; of course they want to make people afraid to trust God or have faith. But they are just totally ignoring the vast body of scientific work that says they are full of crap.
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