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Are we really open

Trackdayguy

Speed doesn't kill, it's hitting the wall
As an ex christian fundamentalist, thank God i'm free from that bondage I have often wondered why it took me 30 years to see the light and finally escape the deception of Biblical Literalism.

Most of us talk about being open and teachable, but are we really, are we really OK with placing our beliefs under the microscope. It my case I would have said, yes, but in reality it was probably no. Why? because to have ones core values challenged sends us spiraling into Cognitive Dissonance, not a nice place to be.

So are we really open to having our beliefs challenged or do we like most hang on to what we believe even when there is clear evidence that it would be wise for us to take a second look.
 

YmirGF

Bodhisattva in Recovery
I would say that it depends on the level of emotional capital they have invested in various beliefs that will be the deciding factor.
 

SalixIncendium

अग्निविलोवनन्दः
Staff member
Premium Member
I won't speak for anyone else, but I like having my worldview challenged. That's one of the reasons I joined the forum. It's helped me to evolve and solidify my views.



ETA: You created this thread under the Sexuality forum. Is there something related to sexuality you would like to discuss that I'm missing?
 

Trackdayguy

Speed doesn't kill, it's hitting the wall
I won't speak for anyone else, but I like having my worldview challenged. That's one of the reasons I joined the forum.

ETA: You created this thread under the Sexuality forum. Is there something related to sexuality you would like to discuss that I'm missing?

That's very brave of you.
 

YmirGF

Bodhisattva in Recovery
I won't speak for anyone else, but I like having my worldview challenged. That's one of the reasons I joined the forum. It's helped me to evolve and solidify my views
That is pretty much my story too. I LOVE to have my wacky ideas challenged. One does not evolve in a vacuum or a an echo chamber.
 
As an ex christian fundamentalist, thank God i'm free from that bondage I have often wondered why it took me 30 years to see the light and finally escape the deception of Biblical Literalism.

Most of us talk about being open and teachable, but are we really, are we really OK with placing our beliefs under the microscope. It my case I would have said, yes, but in reality it was probably no. Why? because to have ones core values challenged sends us spiraling into Cognitive Dissonance, not a nice place to be.

So are we really open to having our beliefs challenged or do we like most hang on to what we believe even when there is clear evidence that it would be wise for us to take a second look.

A very great question. I think this thread deserves much attention.

In my case, i do believe the bible. Some parts i believe are symbolic, some parts history, depending on context.

However, in some debates in the past i have had some say i had cognitive dissonance take place in me.

However, to this day, i maintain i have been completely honest and open. Now, IF thats not the case, then i certainly would not KNOW MYSELF then, lol.

Its also worth mentioning too that no matter what spectrum of belief one is on, no matter what, both or all views will have there reasons, logics and "evidences". The key is to tediously figure out where the weight of argument and evidence TIPS most. And that can be a daunting task.

However, where it could be made much easyer, alot of time the process of time is wasted when people dance around bashing eachother and eachothers views rather then just going through that tedious process.

I think to alot of folks dont like that process cause its "boring". But, boring is necessary.
 

Trackdayguy

Speed doesn't kill, it's hitting the wall
That's very brave of you.

Living in a Poly relationship with 3 other people has caused me to take a macro look at what I originally believed (or should I say was told to believe) over the years my study has lead me to jettison much of the Christian Evangelical Gospel that I now see as a shame based system particularly in the area of sexuality
 
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PureX

Veteran Member
As an ex christian fundamentalist, thank God i'm free from that bondage I have often wondered why it took me 30 years to see the light and finally escape the deception of Biblical Literalism.

Most of us talk about being open and teachable, but are we really, are we really OK with placing our beliefs under the microscope. It my case I would have said, yes, but in reality it was probably no. Why? because to have ones core values challenged sends us spiraling into Cognitive Dissonance, not a nice place to be.

So are we really open to having our beliefs challenged or do we like most hang on to what we believe even when there is clear evidence that it would be wise for us to take a second look.
I think it's more than just the cognitive dissonance. I think it's the ego doing what the ego does: that is protecting one's idea of "self", and self-worth (no matter how wrong or absurd that idea might be).

I think the reason people have difficulty extricating themselves from religious cultism is that the religious cults play to that ego. They tell you that being a member of their cult makes you special, makes you more righteous, more holy, and more important to God and God's plan that others. And our egos eat that stuff up, and seek to protect it at all cost. The inerrant Bible gives the "believer" access to God's own mind and authority. Making the believer an extension of God, Himself. And the ego adopts that idea happily, and uses it to enable it's own invincibility.

I think it's breaking through and subjugating one's own ego that creates all that "cognitive dissonance". The dissonance is the difference between what the ego is telling us about ourselves and our place in the world, and what reality and reason are telling us about these.
 
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icehorse

......unaffiliated...... anti-dogmatist
Premium Member
I'd be interested in having you list your values, and then list your religious (ex?) beliefs. Some might overlap, but others probably wouldn't. I think those two lists ought to be kept separate.
 

Trackdayguy

Speed doesn't kill, it's hitting the wall
I'd be interested in having you list your values, and then list your religious (ex?) beliefs. Some might overlap, but others probably wouldn't. I think those two lists ought to be kept separate.

Honesty
Humility
Openness
Teachable
Forgiving
Tolerant (working on that one)



The Bible must be taken literally (That's gone). Total unsubstantiated nonsense......
I'm a sinner that's going to hell without Jesus (That's gone)
That we are separated from God by our sin (That's gone)
Jesus was born a virgin (Also gone)
Jesus is returning through the clouds (also gone)
That the Bible teaches sexual exclusiveness (Gone no evidence)

Replaced with

God is way bigger than mans rules
His ways are known through a variety of voices
 
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Unveiled Artist

Veteran Member
As an ex christian fundamentalist, thank God i'm free from that bondage I have often wondered why it took me 30 years to see the light and finally escape the deception of Biblical Literalism.

Most of us talk about being open and teachable, but are we really, are we really OK with placing our beliefs under the microscope. It my case I would have said, yes, but in reality it was probably no. Why? because to have ones core values challenged sends us spiraling into Cognitive Dissonance, not a nice place to be.

So are we really open to having our beliefs challenged or do we like most hang on to what we believe even when there is clear evidence that it would be wise for us to take a second look.

I would like to see once in a blue moon if we are open enough, we can accept correction on facts to where our beliefs are challenged to whether what we believe actually applies to the topic they disagree with. If their opposition is based on facts or what they pierce as facts. Being open can help you have better perspective, challenging your understanding on a given topic, accept that you may be wrong, and develop your disagreement on facts or perspective corrected.
 

David T

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
Why? because to have ones core values challenged sends us spiraling into Cognitive Dissonance, not a nice place to be
BINGO!

interestingly i had an experience and went into church to get answers. What was generated was Cognitive Dissonance for me. A bit like, i couldnt deny the experience and yet what i was hearing was confusing. It eventually forced me out of church and back into the forests and wilder spots away. Out of culture, intellectualizing etc. I got rebalanced and now see things way way more clearly.

Church is screwy its filled with normal folk. The text is not normal folk writing, there in lays the rub. Its also not just church its larger than just church.

Believers? Normal. Non believers? Normal. Agnostic? Normal. Three who agree, truth starts in their head. They just disagree and battle over the details is all.....why so many atheists on RF? Religious folk are kindred spirits.
 
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David T

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
I won't speak for anyone else, but I like having my worldview challenged. That's one of the reasons I joined the forum. It's helped me to evolve and solidify my views.



ETA: You created this thread under the Sexuality forum. Is there something related to sexuality you would like to discuss that I'm missing?
Freud said yes totally valid forum. Infact in freud world, there is but one forum.
 

David T

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
One does not evolve in a vacuum or a an echo chamber.
Dont we call that Culture? I mean church can be, and tend strongly to be that, but its simply "normal" folk being normal. There is no vacuum echo chamber in the wilder parts of the forests and the wilder parts of the ocean. Whats to believe? Or not to believe, or agnostic about when you hike? That all seems wierd as hell to me and normal.
400px-NeahkahnieVP1.jpg
 

Salvador

RF's Swedenborgian
Since this is posted in the sexuality section, I'll presume the author of the OP's left fundamentalist Christianity, because the OP's author has a sexual orientation not generally accepted among Christian fundamentalist.

Firstly, I'd like to say I personally as well as many others nowadays find nothing wrong with homosexuality. Jesus Christ himself never condemned homosexuality. This is condemned in the New Testament written by Paul who was very homophobic and lived decades after Jesus Christ whom he never may have had actually known.

Secondly, I've repeatedly proven Christianity being wrong.

As I've noted elsewhere in some other discussions about Christianity, Jesus's family tree has a time span of 77 generations listed between his generation and Adam whom the Bible claims was the "first man". Reference: (Luke 3:23-38)

However, the Australian aborigines have evidently been in Australia for over a thousand consecutive generations. Reference: Aboriginal Australians - Wikipedia

There have been hundreds of generations of Native Americans between the time their common ancestry migrated from Asia until the time of Christ.
Reference: Native Americans in the United States - Wikipedia

The Bible falsely claims there were only 77 generations between Christ and the first man; when people have indeed actually existed for thousands of generations, which proves the Bible and Christianity as being false.

Adam as being the first man and perpetrator of "original sin" is an important premise of Christianity. If Adam wasn't the first man, then there isn't actually any "origin sin". Jesus supposedly died on the Cross to save humankind from "original sin". If there isn't any "original sin" from which to be saved, then Jesus Christ's death on the Cross is pretty pointless and meaningless. Evidently, there were many generations of people prior to the 76th generation before Christ spawned by Adam. So then, Adam, Eve and original sin are mythological. There is neither any "first man" nor "original sin" throughout human evolution. Thus, Jesus Christ having died on the cross to save mankind from "original sin" is not reality but is rather quite mythological.

The first individual of the genus Homo-species formed from a couple of Australopithecus hetero zygotes, each of whom had the same type of chromosome rearrangements formed by fusion of the whole long arms of two acrocentric chromosomes, mated together and reproduced viable and fertile offspring with 46 chromosomes.

This first generation of Homo-habilis then incestuously bred with each other and reproduced the next subsequent generation of Homo-habilis.

References:
  1. J. Tjio and A. Levan. 1956. The chromosome number of Man. Hereditas, 42( 1-2): 1-6.
  2. W. Ijdo et al.1991. Origin of human chromosome 2: an ancestral telomere-telomere fusión. PNAS, 88: 9051-9056.
  3. Meyer et al. 2012 A high-coverage genome sequence from an archaic Denisovan individual. Science, 338:222-226.; K. H. Miga. 2016. Chromosome-specific Centromere sequences provide an estímate of the Ancestral Chromosome 2 Fusion event in Hominin Genome.Journ. of Heredity. 1-8. Doi:10.1093/jhered/esw039.

_70292064_e4380163-homo_georgicus_family-spl.jpg




chromosome_fusion2.png



Therefore, the first living breathing human being was never directly formed out of dirt by God as the Bible falsely claims.

Former Christians, who have this understanding of how humans precisely evolved , know the Biblical tales of Creation are mythological rather than factual.
:)

These myths are the made-up stories of ancient nomadic tribesmen rather than God's word.
 

Ellen Brown

Well-Known Member
I would have been considered a Fundamentalist Christian from 1974 to 2003, when it all became too nutty for me. A major issue for me was the way many Christians acted after 9/11.
 

Trackdayguy

Speed doesn't kill, it's hitting the wall
I would have been considered a Fundamentalist Christian from 1974 to 2003, when it all became too nutty for me. A major issue for me was the way many Christians acted after 9/11.

I have tried most of my life to to be open to new ideas and concepts, even when I was a part of evangelical fundamentalism from 81- 98, I thought I was open, but the lights all came on for me when when I started seeing the massive contradictions and that most of my faith, was in my faith, along with that living in a Poly family didn't go down that well at church. It's interesting how understanding is progressive. I figured out years before I left Christianity that institutional religion had shammed peoples sexuality and its concepts of attraction, sex and monogamy were all man made traditions. One of the main tragedies for me was speaking to people who claimed to be open, but in reality where closed books.

It was time to take stock and move on.

No regrets.
 
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Twilight Hue

Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
As an ex christian fundamentalist, thank God i'm free from that bondage I have often wondered why it took me 30 years to see the light and finally escape the deception of Biblical Literalism.

Most of us talk about being open and teachable, but are we really, are we really OK with placing our beliefs under the microscope. It my case I would have said, yes, but in reality it was probably no. Why? because to have ones core values challenged sends us spiraling into Cognitive Dissonance, not a nice place to be.

So are we really open to having our beliefs challenged or do we like most hang on to what we believe even when there is clear evidence that it would be wise for us to take a second look.
One quote I took with me from the Christian days is, "The truth will set you free". Every religion and belief should be put through the crucible with extreme prejudice as you would be a lot better off with what you end with, although sometimes I question as to whether that even matters a whole lot , given our mortality. Suffice to say I think it's better to keep the boots on the ground all the same.
 
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