tw:suicide

Sometimes the only reason I didn't go through with killing myself was because the idea of meeting God face-to-face was too revolting to endure. So congratulations to Christianity for both making me want to die and also preventing my death, I suppose.

Suicide and self

(Warning for suicide/self-harm-related content)

In the summer of 2005 I came the closest I had ever come to killing or permanently maiming myself, awakening one morning to one of my chronic untreated stomachaches and promptly marching outside to the railroad bridge near our house with the intent to jump off of it. I paced by the railing for a little while, then stood on the railing and played chicken with myself, leaning backwards and forwards in the hopes of getting myself to fall "by accident." This went on for some time before I became dimly aware that there was some commotion going on under me: A few cars had stopped and once in awhile someone would appear on the sidewalk and look at me. Someone might have shouted something to me but I didn't hear what they were saying. I only snapped out of my implosive trance when a police officer approached from the tracks and yelled at me to get away from the railing. After some back-and-forth with him and another cop, they agreed to not prosecute me for trespassing on the railroad tracks if I would agree to "talk to someone." I didn't want to be in trouble so I agreed.

They took me in a squad car to a see the family therapist at the hospital, who I immediately distrusted because I had been taught to. Still, I casually answered all of her questions, as she asked what my family situation was like, if I self-harmed (yes), if I felt better afterward (not really), what my hobbies were, how my boyfriend treated me, and whether I went to church. She wrote the things I was telling her on a clipboard. Her last question was something like this: "What would you say to a friend who was in your situation? Would you want her to hurt herself?"

"No."

"So why are you any different?"

I didn't answer. She would not understand because she was a liberal self-esteem shill. Put in the Christianese way I had grown up with:






In other words, it would be acceptable to persuade a friend not to kill herself because "others" are of some importance. There was no point in stopping myself from doing it, though, because the self is nothing. I was at the bottom of a God-ordained value pyramid. I had been ignoring "God" due to how upset the prayer closet made me feel, and I sometimes fucked up at treating others well, so the next logical progression was to violently punish myself so it all balanced out and I would be adhering to the pyramid. Right?

It would have been great if I had been given any kind of lifeline by my religious system to permit myself to value myself, but it was pretty one-sidedly skewed towards self-abasement. Work hard to improve your moral character (but why bother since good deeds are worthless rags?). You are created in God's image (but actually are hopelessly corrupt by your very nature). The overwhelming message was that true acceptability in God's eyes was obtained by denying all of your wants, ignoring all of your needs, and replacing your self-worth with God-worth. Really I was only given enough rope to hang myself.

Why having a tyrranical overlord in your head is a bad bad thing

[Warning for self-harm]

"God is Love" becomes meaningless when paired with doctrines that reinforce all your worst feelings about yourself and your place in the universe. God becomes another agent of the nightmare. You become a worshiper of and participant in the nightmare. Why wait for God to punish you when you can do it yourself? Wrap a seat belt around your neck and feel the love until your vision starts to black out.

When you mention how close you are to God

You may think you're sharing a happy little nugget about yourself, but what you're actually saying to me is "I'm so happy to be in a relationship with a superbeing who either tormented you or allowed you to be massively deceived about his character for years until you had to choose your own life over an ongoing relationship with him. He's so awesome! <3"

Friendly Reminder

Christianity does not own
truth
community
family
sex
ethics
joy
celebration
virtue
love
and happiness

"Why Are You a Christian?"

The more responses I hear from people answering this question, the more convinced I become that there are no good reasons to be a Christian. Not only are their factual claims very easy to refute, even fervent believers come up with "reasons" that honestly sound more like excuses, as if they're trying to convince themselves.

It all comes down to The Mega-Belief Web.

How can you say you know God?

Sometimes as part of a thought experiment, I will consider what a theoretical path back into theism would be like for me. This can be fun, since I know a lot more about religion and Christianity than I used to and can incorporate various new tidbits into my theoretical religion (Jesus: probe sent by emotionless cosmic space computer to help it understand humankind?). However, I tend to immediately run into a problem when I try to think of how to create a workable conception of God: There is absolutely no way to understand what any god is like without some kind of tangible evidence. Could I build a philosophical construction of a god that I think sounds plausible? Well, sure. I'm a writer. I invent plausible characters, including deities, all the time. But how would I jump the gap from theorizing to believing it as a truth? I can't believe in something when I don't even know what its characteristics are.

Are there many gods or just one? Can the gods be male, female, genderless? Are the gods part of the universe or outside it entirely, or are they what created the universe? Do they notice humans? Meddle in our affairs? Judge us? Talk to us? Love us? Prank us? Various religions will say different things and often present assorted "proofs" of their claims (none of which stand up to factual scrutiny, as far as I know). How can I know any of the answers to these questions in the absence of some kind of proof that doesn't disappear in a puff of "you must have faith" or "it was divinely revealed to XYZ" once examined? Claiming any knowledge of a god without proof is intellectual treason but religious people seem perfectly happy to do this and still insist that their version of god is 100% obvious and correct. It's bizarre.

I get extremely uneasy when I hear people saying they have a personal relationship with a god, or that the god talks to them. For such people I would ask them this: How often does your god tell you something you could not have known by yourself? Sure, once in awhile, thoughts that happen to be predictive cross our mind ("I wonder if my friend Jessica is feeling okay. I'll give her a call." And it turns out Jessica had been having a bad day). But if your god is really another person outside yourself, you should be hearing independently-confirmable new truths constantly, just as we do from other human beings who talk to us ("The identity of the smoke monster is revealed on tonight's episode of LOST." "The city is changing trash pickup day to Thursday." "Did you know Bob got a raise?"). Instead the sorts of things gods usually tell people are commands ("Invade Iraq." "Become a missionary in Ghana."), judgments ("You worthless sinner!"), or soothing platitudes ("You are forgiven." "Do not be afraid, my child"). Interestingly, these are all things people are perfectly capable of thinking up in their own heads. Why doesn't any god give us new information as a matter of course? They only tell us what we already know.

No one knows anything about god(s). That's why religions vary by culture. That's why religious groups splinter and splinter instead of converging on truth. That's why it's so damn frustrating trying to get theology to work. And that's why the gods people talk to are indistinguishable from invented characters, or, to use a worn-out comparison, imaginary friends. Someone, somewhere made up every god that there is. Simple as that.