7. TOXIC RELIGION

Religious Trauma Syndrome (RTS)… it’s a thing!

I’m no fan of diagnoses (their potential to make me a victim and seduce me into their mold makes me wary) but these symptoms help spell out my hangover that I got from drinking too much fundamentalism:

Symptoms of Religious Trauma Syndrome:

COGNITIVE
– Severe confusion
– Identity issues
– Strong black & white thinking
– Poor critical thinking ability
– Crippled self-worth, self trust & self belief
– Difficulty with decision-making
– Feeling powerless to run own life
– Feelings of not fully existing without God

EMOTIONAL
– Self-anger
– Self loathing
– Difficulty embracing emotions
– Feeling undeserving
– Damage to normal thinking and feeling abilities
– Fear of self-pride (humility complex)
– Anxious of eternal consequences from inability to believe theology
– Grief for ‘believed-world’ and missed ‘real-world’ years
– Shame and guilt

SOCIAL/CULTURAL
– Fear in ability to connect with non-believers
– “Fish out of water” feelings to real world
– Difficulty belonging
– Information/educational gaps (e.g. science, wider issues)
– Tendency to submit to authoritarian figures without thought

(More RTS info and help here)

Some hangover, right! Makes you see how much religious indoctrination can potentially take from a person. But don’t paint all Christians with my brush because anything taken without balance is damaging, and I drank the hard stuff from birth with no other ‘self’ to refer to and back me up.

‘So why the frig didn’t you get back on your religious potion then, girl!?’

Because I tasted truth potion and realised I wasn’t actually sober before, which is the problem with fundamentalists: they don’t know they’re fundamentalists. What they believe is nothing short of spot-on. It’s everyone else who’s wrong.

It’s hard to see your own house when you’re stood in it.

So I’ve stepped out of the church doors and trying to make sense of the ocean. I’ve had help from great educators, like: Lawrence Krauss, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Sam Harris, Brian Cox, Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Mark Twain, James Randi, The Atheist Experience show, a bunch of neuroscientists, cosmologists and psychologists, even Louis Theroux and Tim Minchin — all offering solid, non-god explanations to my primal wonders, like:

How can such fine-tuning behind our existence not suggest a great designer?

How can you explain the amazing design and beauty in nature and biology outside of an ultimate designer?

How can the universe begin from nothing rather than something?

Why are we not still evolving or seeing half monkeys out there?

Where did all the people BC go if they missed out on the Jesus-pass to dodge Hell!?

…etc.

I’ll admit, at the beginning of this I had hoped that God might steal the show along the way somehow or that I might be the sequel to the prodigal son, but the more I read and the more I learned about the world outside my bubble, the more I thought ‘Shit – I’m becoming an atheist!’ Because things were operating just fine without the God assumption.

The air pocket for belief was shrinking in the rising waters of science and reason. God was on the endangered species list.

But in finding new explanations that didn’t exhaust my belief tank, I stumbled upon a wealth of personal-development that I never knew was there waiting to grow.

Here’s what…

THE GREAT “I AM”

I AM COMPLETE

Since serving my brain more than my creed, I feel at one with myself, kinder to myself, licensed to learn wider, fervid to see me in full-colour (no dulling required to meet tall belief orders), and the big one…I feel valid. Like I’m actually worthy, likeable and good without God, without grace, and without the sanction of Jesus. Just me alone. (Still working on this one!)

Those feelings of wholeness can be felt inside Christianity, but for me, in letting God complete my undeveloped areas I was only ever really half a person.

That killer line ‘He must increase and I must decrease’ literally killed me. It’s why this photo really upsets me: 

‘Less of Me, More of You’ [John 3:30]

I AM MY OWN

There’s this kind of circular logic in Christian thinking: God is the answer to the question but to question the answer is the Devil. The same old arguments will just keep spinning if you claim the blank space with a God flag and the opposing space with a Devil flag. With that rationale, any wacky ideology can pass as reasonable to the believer…although it takes some amount of wilful amnesia to keep the cycle going. And you do it because it’s strangely satisfying. It’s also a defence though too because our beliefs carry our identity. So get your pitch forks out on those little (Brian Cox) foxes!

Decades of reinforcing external beliefs to quieten my inner doubts has carved an unhelpful pattern in my brain. It’s meant that finding my own voice and trusting in my own powers of reasoning has often felt as impossible as a T-Rex trying to take a selfie. I’ve felt too far behind, too un-rescuable, too damaged to ever develop things like well-formed critical thinking.

But with time, new friends, a lot of self-love, a pinch of rebellion and a respect for my black-sheep mind, I began to grow a little taller. Goodbye, Proverbs 3:5: ‘Trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not on your own intelligence.’ Hello, wonder of owning your own head!

I AM YOURS

Since de-programming, I’ve felt more connected to humanity, in a way I never realised I wasn’t. Religion can implant the belief that you’re set apart, special, correct and (if taken too literally) above anyone who’s not in the cult…I mean…religion. We’re tribal beings so it’s almost natural to fall into that.

My beliefs prohibited me from really feeling a shared destiny of death and shared need of life with humanity. We were divorced. My life on earth was a stepping stone on the way to Heaven and people had a ‘soul for sale’ sign on their forehead. I was even once taught to ‘Go to the throne instead of the phone’ and other self-isolating advice.

It stopped me from seeing that I belong to you, and you to me.

I AM THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD!

Without dependency on a cosmic saviour to safety-net a global crisis (like world hunger, environmental damage, and other things humans cause in ignorance, greed and laziness), you’re left touching a nerve that it’s actually all down to us.

We can only save ourselves!!

It’s a healthy panic. One that brings meaning and purpose: in that my life matters because of how my choices affect others and this planet.

That co-dependent line, ‘Do your best and God will do the rest’, was actually removing my full commitment to a whole host of things. Funny how you tend to find more environmentally conscious people outside of the church. Maybe because God is expected to rapture us up before we suffer the consequences of our own mess. Oh save us now!

I AM MY OWN LUCK

‘Waiting on God’ sounds noble, but for me it was damaging. I’m not a pawn, I’m a person! ‘You’re an active agent in the universe’ – my token atheist friend Red would often remind me. Whilst die-hard Christians are praying on their knees, the others are on their feet making their own luck. The Christian bird catches the rotting worm (?)

Now in needing no peace, purpose, prayer or confirmation to purchase a ticket for an idea, dream or desire, I feel opportunity buzzing in my hands like never before. I’ll admit, feeling 100% responsible for a potential bad move is frightening, but I’m more fearful of my own flat-line!

So with death as my motivator, I’ve wiped my dusty prayer knee and got running to grab life by the cojones before I black out. There’s so much I want to experience!

I AM IN AWE

Scientists are continually unraveling the backstage mysteries of this universe and our existence. Sure, you can claim each breakthrough as a missing page from God’s design manual if you want to, but isn’t that getting a bit exhausting with having to re-fit it into his other book? The Bible?

Christian apologists appear to be constantly upgrading Christianity in order to rationalise their claims. But to me, that kinda feels like we’re giving the Christian God a slow death.

What can be more awe-inspiring than the idea of the Universe forming by natural, impersonal forces and evolving into this magnificent, unfathomable place, and that the chances were so slim that we would get to experience it all so richly through our senses and whatever else our wondrous brains bestow – but we did. You can say that’s proof of Gods grace (because we all like to think we’re special and chosen), but if we’d never made it here we’d not be claiming that. The Universe is full of happy accidents and coincidences that mean nothing, but as pattern-seeking creatures we like to add our own reason and meaning to it. Sure that makes for a nicer view, doesn’t mean it’s true though.

So there’s at least two ways of seeing this thing and I can see both. I just never thought I’d find the same measure of awe outside of God-belief…but I did.

I AM DAMN LUCKY

Believing I’m here by chance and not because I was pre-planned has made me deeply grateful for owning a life: because one tiny tweak to the conditions and my opportunity to exist would have been overthrown. Frightening! But that’s what makes me feel I better do something good on this planet for making it here! We should be shaking hands in the street, saying: ‘Well done!! Yeah you made it too!’

One downside is that this reality suggests that I am actually completely pointless. Uh! But how cool is it that I can make a point of me by giving my life away.

*maintains heroic pose whilst slowly sliding Xbox under sofa*

————-

In accepting this detox into my life I now have a personal relationship with reality.

I’ve lost a lot, but I’d pay those RTS symptoms twice-over to have gained this elevated appreciation for my current life and feeling in full attendance of it. Sure, having God in my vision made for a really beautiful view, but for me, right now, this one life is best drunk neat. No bubbly mixers to sweeten my senses to reality. I’m finding that sweetness in raw human and earthly connection.

So, what now?

Well, having had my personal philosophies disrupted daily for this long, I think I might be addicted! But what a great habit to keep. I’ve cashed in enough reality-cheques to know I can only be certain of uncertainty.

If I keep the cameras rolling, who knows what I’ll find. Exploring is an endless pursuit.

Till next time, adventurers!

6. TOUCHDOWN

Happy New Year!

2014 was the most challenging, heartbreaking, depressing, angering, confusing, yet eye-opening, exciting and unforgettable year of my life. The hurricane was all worth it because as Nietzsche said…

‘No price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.’ 

…and I’m looking forward to living in the freedom that comes with reclaiming myself in 2015.

I thought I’d spare you a few blogs-worth of what’s been months of reactionary bungee-rope coiling between heavenly highs and foundational facts. Certain environments revealed my very impressionable state, which I realise came from my desperation to belong or grab hold of anything that made some sense in the wild river of confusion I was spinning in.

A friend asked me to perform Amazing Grace at a charity ball one evening. I was barely able to stand or blink back the gathering tears as I connected to the lullabies of my birth-tribe, desperate for any of it to have been true and not just psychological or anthropological tricks.

It was that desperate desire to believe again that began handing out hall passes to my remaining Christian hang ups, luring me to re-enter faith camp, but my mind soon yelled, ‘Oy! Integrity please! I’ve been waiting on that ignorance bench your whole life. Give me a chance!’ So I coldly put myself back on door duty and made sure I was leaving my biases at the door in this exploration. Shame, but there’s not much I find of interest inside comfort anyway.

Still, whenever my feet touched the atheistic ground, sadness and fearful reactions would fling me back up that bungee rope towards my old comforts. But as it goes with bungee ropes, the bounces become less erratic and soon settle – as did my view.

Eventually I was able to open my mind enough to feed my brutal questions with new knowledge, which helped me cleanse my system, separate perspectives from facts, see beliefs more as ideas, accept the new with no defenses, and all until my feet could touch the new ground below me, long enough to really view the world as a non-believer and embody and experience life as an atheist.

Turns out reason really can get you everywhere, because guys – I ruddy made it…Detox Touchdown!

I may sound chirpy, but you know it’s not been easy, straight-forward, instant or pleasant getting here. It’s been soul-ripping, world-shattering, confusing and costly; but a worthy price. In fact, this has been one of the best things I’ve done in my life. I even panic at the thought of never having done this actually. If I wasn’t trying to keep these short, I’d share all the Googling and fascinating/heartbreaking information that’s helped me get here, but I trust your questions will lead you to a place of personal resonance.

Steven Weinberg said:

‘Science doesn’t make it impossible to believe in God, it just makes it possible to not believe in God.’

We have the freedom to choose and the option to believe. There were two trees in the garden of Eden, right? And if we never had the option to really choose faith in the first place, doesn’t that make it a bit bland? Like an arranged marriage. Choice is power.

Without fear there’s no courage, and maybe without doubt there’s no faith. I still have doubt on both sides, especially when I hear stumping stories of ‘God works’ from sound minded people. Add to that the neuroscientists who speak of the psychological benefits from having a belief in a good God, it all offers reason to choose Christian beliefs again.

But for me, right now, I’m resonating more right where I am. I’ve currently found more solid ground to not believe than to believe. I feel happy here, healthy, awake, sane, respectful of my mind, my peace, my heart and my essence, and I feel in touch with my truest self like never before. I can almost taste it: there’s so much growing here in this garden I’m in that I need to feed on and strengthen as part of my basic human development.

However, as much as I’m flourishing here, with faith gone, I do feel a lot of emptiness. I suppose that’s a natural result of separation. So whilst I’ve been trying to get used to the shapes changing within me, I still felt the need to find a place that would embrace me just as I was, which led my feet to the door of an atheist church! The Sunday Assembly – a global movement with the tag line: Live better. Help often. Wonder more. 

I took sermon notes for you:

The Christmas Service – 21st December 2014

The act of gathering, singing, laughing, supporting, strengthening, crying, wondering, and sharing with one another (with a sober mind) is what’s lacking from outside religion. My leftover need for unity, connection and community is why I’m here today.

I’m sat under a flurry of Smart-Price festive decorations and looking out to a small sea of Christmas jumpers (I didn’t get the memo). A festive goth welcomed me at the door with a name sticker and a cup of tea. I don’t drink tea but I took it anyway. The worship is Slade. THE WORSHIP IS SLADE! And sung as reluctantly as any traditional British congregation: glum faced with eyes glued to hymn sheets whilst stood in rigid rows, and yet we’re singing: ‘So here it is merry Xmas, Everybody’s having fun!’ I stare into the bottom of my teacup and laugh like a mad man with a comb-over. But then enters a saviour – The Pogues have come to deliver us! What man can resist the heartwarming, uniting, tear jerking power of their Christmas hit. Good lord, did someone really just pull out a tambourine!? And did that mans antlers just light up? Things are hotting up…steady!

‘You scumbag you maggot!!’ I shout-sing with my de-icing neighbour. The CD gets stuck but we can’t stop singing ‘And the bells are ringing out for Christmas day’ over and over. We’re sober. We’re idiots. Am I home? With notices passionately read by a man in an inflatable robin hat, saying: ‘We’re gonna buuurrrn something outside soon!’ —Yes, yes I think I’m home. (burning explained later)

Everyone’s loosened up for Rudolf The Red Nose Reindeer. Children are dancing with their parents, the gay couple next to me just slapped each other’s asses on ‘Ho!’, the old man in a flashing LED waistcoat just used his fingers as antlers and… LOOK! Robin-hatted man can DANCE! There’s so much diversity and acceptance here. Isn’t this what heaven should look like? Or at least Earth. All kinds getting along with all kinds, celebrating differences and… oh enough of this, I’m putting my pen down to get my hand-horns out to sing: ‘You go down in Hisss-tooor-eeeeee’ a semi-tone flat with the rest of my comrades.

Happy people are infectious. Fact.

A Latvian woman is on stage talking about her culture of dancing, drinking, singing folk songs round the table and their passion for setting things on fire, finishing on a photo of a Viking boat. I think I’m in love.

Ok she’s just asked us to go outside to set this something on fire. Back soon…

We’re British so we’ve returned EXACTLY to our same seats.

The burn victim was a Yule log. Latvian lady asked us to write all our troubles from the year on a piece of paper (I ran out of room) to throw into the fire. Singing ‘Oh Tannenbaum’ with mostly made-up words, we cast our worries into the fire together and quietly watched them turn to smoke. It was sublime.

We’ve just done the offering – an opportunity to give to a local charity doing a homeless food drive. Probably the most cheerful offering I’ve ever given because I didn’t have to do mental gymnastics to feel 100% integral and right in myself to give generously. The preach is about finding gratefulness. It’s inspiring, wise, practical, and you don’t need belief-membership to access it’s benefits.

We close on ‘Deck The Halls’ and not on atmospheric, Holy-Spirit music that psychologically puts someone in a less rational state to encourage (aka persuade) the unsaved to come to Christ. I often thought I’d feel better if people made their faith leap in stark light.

The service is over. We’re offered Christmas cake, more tea, and a chance to meet each other. The leader (inflatable robin hat man) came to say hello, which brought to my attention a very ugly behaviour of mine – a hangover from religious compliance – an addiction for the leaders approval so they see how proud God would be of a girl like me. YAK! I caught it quick and even told robin-man about it so to explain my sudden behavioural switch, which sent us on a riveting conversation about mind-abuse.

I bludgeoned him with more desperately honest questions and got answers that felt like ‘me’, bringing me to that place of full resonance again and making my insides feel like Christmas – and I’d not even touched the cake. Robin-man had what I was looking for: a perspective based on solid truth but with an awareness that his brain was the size of a multi-seed boule. An appetite for wonder and mystery that didn’t ignore science. A steady relationship with uncertainty. A gratefulness for being alive. A drive to help others for the sake of nothing more than to leave the world a better place for being here.

That last point struck a massive chord with me. Here’s a man who’s doing good deeds, not out of pleasing God, but out of a personal desire to just do good. To make another person smile just because it’ll make their day better. To help someone in need just because they simply need help and because we’re all running the same human race together. To be a kind person just because the world is better for it and it’s a good example for the next learning generation. It all just seems more ‘authentically good’ when it’s away from religious motives like gaining heavenly brownie points or to feel God smile down on you. All that Daddy-pleasing seems a bit childish and gross to me now, what feels more genuine, mature and profound is in choosing to love and do good because you just wanna help a fellow human in this stretch of time we share together. To be simply kind.

Okay I’m back in the car. I’m not feeling compelled to spend more time reading my Bible or pray more, but rather to give myself away to mankind in this short spark of consciousness I have. No feeling of us and them and no dividing lines of tribes and religion, but more that we’re all just in the same boat, trying to figure out how to sail as best we can.

Do we really need ancient books to tell us how to keep our primal, animalistic natures in order when we have brains, compassion, empathy and education to help us figure out how to get along with others? Christianity sure helps align us there but it’s definitely not the only way to live a good and moral life. Meeting these people today has been proof of that.

And here’s a shocker – that ‘God-shaped hole’ inside non-believers isn’t true! I’ve heard so many good things that these people have found a connection to that fulfills them.

The visit was a worthy expedition, but I have to say: I felt it lacked depth. Maybe I’ve attached that Sunday morning format to the spiritual, transcendental experience that I was weened on since birth, reminding me too much of the setting where I’d meet a higher power and get a feeling of elevation from that supernatural union with other heaven-bound heirs: things I could now probably explain with psychology and neuroscience, but still, it remains to me that there is clearly something valuable buried inside transcendence for the human experience. Especially in accessing the arena of higher conscious thinking. I wonder if there’s such a thing as rational spirituality – no tie-die needed. Maybe then I can just get my goosebumps from shared experiences with people, with nature and musical and artistic experiences etc.

For now though, I’m just going to enjoy the views and explorations of what I think may be: atheist until proven otherwise.

 

3. BE TRANSFORMED BY THE RENEWING OF YOUR MIND

BE TRANSFORMED BY THE RENEWING OF YOUR MIND…

So said the Apostle Paul in Romans 12: 2. 

Well…

My faulty-healing sparked the Opening of my mind,
Allowing new information in for Renewing my mind,
Which, sure enough, lead me to Be Transformed.
…The Bible is too true! Paul – you nailed it!

Here’s how that looked in practice:

What grinds my gears about religion is that it’s so decided. The fat lady has sung and has carved her hymn in stone. Yet each religious camp claim THEY are the ones with the truth; that everyone else is deluded and on their way to hell, limbo, or returning to earth as a woodlouse.

Václav Havel warns us: 

‘Follow the man who seeks the truth; run from the man who has found it.’

My hands are up. I grew into an ignorant patriot of my religious camp. Inside, the volume is loud and the current is strong; because where there’s thousands of passionate patriots all incubating under one roof in unity and agreement, there’s power. The environment is surged with it. I found it all-consuming and addictive, and I felt fueled with a sense of cosmic purpose and satisfied by a feeling of otherworldly significance.

Yes, otherworldly. Those raised hands may look like they’re summoning down the mothership, but actually everyone’s already inside it. I even heard some Christians refer to themselves as aliens. I used to say: In the world but not of the world, and I used to sing: Heaven is my Home with more gusto than a glee kid. But when the show is loud it’s natural to dance. Especially if like me you were born into it, knowing no other voice. Not even your own.

Until now.

Since my failed healing, I’ve become like a magnet to anything that doubts the validity of Christianity. What’s new is that I really listen. I don’t defend. And apologies to the Apostle Paul for selectively picking my own truth from his verse earlier ^ but it appears that’s what I’ve been doing all along: selecting only the information that confirms my beliefs and disregarding the rest as Satan! My confirmation bias has been such a satisfying keyhole to look through for processing information, that I’d not realised I wasn’t actually thinking for myself. I was scoring goals. It made it hard to see something as basic as this:

Belief is subjective.

Like the child who undoubtingly believes in Santa Claus, their belief makes him exist. Believing it makes it so. 

Although it has all felt entirely real to me as a believer, it’s not actual truth. It’s personal truth – perspective – A lens I’ve used to try make sense of the world and the powers that I believed were controlling it. This may seem obvious to some, but not to a fort-holding believer.

So when this did penetrate my religious cladding, enter: The Renewing Of Your Mind!

DIARY ENTRY :

‘Questioning and doubting is one thing, but this has really got to my roots. I’ve clearly been too holy to have walked through life without seriously considering that what’s felt 100% real to me might not be the actual truth. How can I trust myself now if I thought this was all so unquestionably true? I feel pretty confused, disoriented and I don’t know what to believe right now. It’s like the old record I was zealously dancing to has suddenly cut silent and I’m awkwardly looking around. I feel like a bit of a fool… but a fool who’s awake.’

 

2. THE DAY I TOOK EVE’S APPLE

Before I take you on my travels, I should fill you in on the origins of this quest.

Now, before you say: “Great Merlin’s beard! Look at that brave heroine. That warrior of faith on her mission horse. Her raven hair flying in the wind. What courage to test her beliefs with such fire!” Yes, before you say that…I have a confession:

I’m reacting to a knock.

Many Christians have endured and overcome (< hit christian word) such knocks. But maybe I’m just too curious. Scripture-bandaging on my past knocks has certainly kept me walking another 500 miles with hope, strength, and a positive mind. Many times. But now… well, here’s the back-story:

The first step in getting here was moving city, leaving my charismatic church hive and landing into a little church of weird and wonderful people – including a man who cremated corpses but there was free cake so I stuck around. And I loved it.

I allowed myself to be provoked by those honest questions. Except the new information became harder to integrate. Layer upon layer, I was gaining a different perspective. I was left with a lot less to be sure of, but I was still Christian-strong.

Years later, I return to my old church hive. My mother wants me to go to a Christian concert with her. I go. We dance to Jesus’ very own brand of rock and roll. I sing. I smile. I sit.

The healing big-shot guest springs up on stage to ask any asthma sufferers (hello!) to run laps around the car park and see what happens. Besides sounding like fun, I was feeling experimental; or more so, prepared to see a miracle. Inhaler-less, I surrendered my life to the ridiculous, in sureness that I’d not suffocate as I otherwise would, and as my Grandmother did.

A few laps of running like a gazelle with a pack of wheezy, giddy strangers and I was doing okay. In fact, with each running step, I was being convinced. We were called back in. No tight chest. My fellow gazelles leapt onto the platform declaring they’d been healed. I snaked back to my seat thinking ‘nah…’ and other skeptical thoughts.

Except, not only could all those turned heads see my lungs were wide open, I could too. All the ingrained teachings on ‘The Power of Confession’ I’d once heard, re-surfaced. A dreaded whisper: ‘To fully receive and secure your healing, you must step out in faith and declare OUT LOUD that you are healed.’ (Oh shut it atheists. This was my mother-tongue.) So, I did. I walked under those flashy stage lights, and upon telling the sea of people that I’d been healed, felt like Spiderman receiving a bravery badge at city hall; and even punched the air in excitement. Yes I did.

Glory moment over, lungs still as springy as a Cocker Spaniel, I decided to ‘check’ my healing a little further. I peg it up and down the main road. I’m still fine. I’m convinced.

So, the next day I go for a run, and with the returned bravery of Spiderman taking his first webby leap off a skyscraper, I leave my inhaler at home. Except, there’s a twinge in my lungs. So, as a good power-Christian is taught, I put my hands on my chest and prayed out loud with passion. Even telling Satan to ‘jog on’. Even running a little harder to demonstrate I had no doubt.

In my mind, God had watched over me for so long – as He was then. So why wasn’t He helping me? I knew the faith ropes, and I couldn’t have done any more. My own lungs start crushing me and I collapse on the floor, furiously shouting, ‘Look at me! This is so easy for you!’ My prayers were intense, but I couldn’t beat the darkening clouds. I was panicking. Flashes of my Grandma didn’t help. I was at the bottom of a hill. No phone. No one around. God was leaving me to wriggle on the floor.

There had been times before where I’d not seen God pull through, but this time my mind seemed to skip that stepping stone of ‘Maybe God is using it to build your character’, or ‘Maybe it wasn’t the right time for you’, or ‘Maybe God just let you down’. Because the God I’d come to know, read about, believe in, the God that did all those miracles in the Bible, wouldn’t have let me down in that moment. Call it naivety or call it faith, but I whole-heartedly trusted God. It’s maybe why, instead, my mind leapt right over those stepping stones, across the river, and land on the only conclusion it could find: that none of this was actually real.

I wasn’t even angry at God. Because if He doesn’t exist in your mind, He’s not there to get mad at.

Everything looked different. Stark. With no outline to reason things with. My mind raced in a fence-less field. My hand chased after it, taking the minutes. And I suddenly felt ravenous for new thinking, knowledge and information, as if I’d been hibernating for decades. I felt terrified, dangerous, but alive.

I didn’t hide my lapsed healing results from the Christian folk who asked in the days following (even though it felt like shooting a puppy with a shiny rainbow smile.) Their responses were the usual: ‘Keep believing, receiving, and praising; Job was tested too. God is probably doing a greater work in you through this.’

But no longer could I take that medicine. Or this one: ‘Maybe you doubted too much? Peter began sinking in the water when his faith turned to doubt.’

Oh rack off! My faith was textbook.

So there you go. It’s worth me saying that as much of a bitch as not getting healed was, I’m not reacting out of anger, disappointment, or revenge. Anger only distorts vision and I want a clear view if I’m to undergo this journey whilst staying true to myself.

No. I come in peace, as a balanced, curious, open-minded guinea pig (give me straw). And as much as my wheezy, drama queen, victim self wants to jump into bed with Dawkins (no sexy stuff), I’m not going to suffocate Christianity’s airtime on healing just yet. I’ve seen too many things and heard of too many miracles to not observe that.

Plus, I want to explore, not decide… just yet. I’ve lived long enough being decided.

 

1. IN THE BEGINNING

“If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt as far as possible, all things.” – René Descartes.

Raised within the bosom of Christian culture, I often felt that to doubt, or to think outside of the Christian syllabus, would invite an attack of the enemy on my unguarded mind.

Well, guardians of the straight and narrow, if God was God, he wouldn’t need protecting, right? Real truth will stand all fire. Even doubt-fire. And if God Almighty who has all power and dominon over darkness really does live within us, then why fear grabbing a coffee with that pathetic dark-side? See what Lucifer-Vader has to say. See where the doubting questions he plants in our unguarded minds really take us… because what if Lucifer’s voice is actually mine?

I once heard this:

“The greatest advantage of speaking the truth is that you don’t have to remember what to say”

This might resonate with many Christians because a lot of us tend to borrow the truth straight from the pulpit. We’re given some great pre-packaged defense arguments and tag-lines and they can become our personal mantra – our truth – except we didn’t ask the questions to carve the journey there ourselves.

We can end up sounding like robots – repeating the same things – but robots with conviction! Good lord, how couldn’t you take your hat off to Christian conviction? Look at the wild stories we have to plug: Adam and Eve, Jonah and the Whale, the Easter story! In all my life, why have I not heard any Christian say: ‘Hang on, this sounds absolutely ridiculous. It’s really hard to believe. I’ll dig deeper to see if I really DO believe this for myself.’ But no. Instead, most pull out the pre-made evangelical lines. There’s some good ones out there too. From C.S.Lewis, to J.John, to the witty sign-makers at churches around the world.

But what’s my line?

I’m Red Raven. I’ve been a born-again Christian my whole life. ‘Sold out for Christ’ was a trophy term I earned in my youth. My family, friends, and other people of influence around me have all been loud followers of the faith. I was born into a large, charismatic, vibrant and strong-cultured (especially for young people) church in the UK. It became my greenhouse where I grew a hard-wired Christian code to live by, and call me big-headed but I’ve been a damn fine vegetable of that greenhouse.

My life has been spotless and wholesome. I’ve made sacrifices and offerings, volunteering for most of my life, even being involved with some of the big names and rock stars of the Christian world (show-off). But behind all that, I’ve had a deep and personal relationship with God too. Heck, I’ve even cracked jokes to Him whilst running for the bus, or shouted up “Dang! Good job!” when dazzled by a classy leaf, a glittery bug, or starstruck beneath the stars.

So, Christianity is at my core. It’s my default framework. I’ve channeled life through its system – and it’s worked. It’s successful, incredibly fulfilling, and in its own way liberating. But it’s time for a little experiment. I’m a good been-there-done-that Christian candidate, because my heart has been in it 100%. But I have a mind too. And one I’m no longer willing to re-align or ‘protect’ with the use of the usual Christian-jargon condom when it strays to the dark side.

My aim: to break out of my default system and conditioning and see things from life on the other side. No holding back. I just need to know I’m not living this life out of default or obedience to something I’ve not really tested. I’m not setting any hard rules as to how I will detox – those practicalities will fall where my mind leads. I’ll be flinging the doors wide open, exposing myself to other opinions, faiths, perspectives, philosophies and, of course, science. If I reach the atheistic bottom and bounce back, then I’ve only gained. If I reach the bottom and stay there, well, as long as I’m being authentic and true to myself, I’ve still only gained.

I’ll admit, I’m scared. Stepping outside the flock won’t be an easy ride. What about my supernatural-power identity, my disciplined emotions, my God-pleasing values, my heaven-high perspective, my destiny-based security, my peace? Those, along with every other goodie, will surely be rocked. Who knows if detaching from my God-code will turn me into an unbalanced, raging Hulk, or if swatting the God-fly on the wall will make me as unconcerned for good as was Hitler. I don’t know! I don’t know how I’m going to react, or what I’m going to find, or more honestly: who I really am apart from God.

I hope I’m a good soul.

For now, my only focus is to go in search of truth. Real, untarnished, non-poetic, original, truth. But I’m no scientist, intellect, philosopher, writer, religious expert… dammit, I’ve not even read that many books outside of the Bible or other Christian material (just yet). For now, all I’ve got is my life, my experiences as a born-again Christian, my honesty, my questions, and my willingness to ‘go there’. 

So, here I go. My road to Damascus. Along the way, I hope this inspires the religious to chew their own food instead of pointing fingers or believing anything blindly, and to encourage others to free your naturally questioning mind.

It’s not the ‘enemy’, it’s probably just you.

I’d rather live with questions that can never be answered, than answers that can never be questioned.

Truth chasers – Welcome to the blog.