#religious friends trying to teach an agnostic about bible things

[katherine-villyard]

What is the Meaning of Life?

- 42, of course! - Eat well, try to get exercise, make some friends. - Something else? You know. The unanswerable question. Fun for the whole family! It's something that I've always been interested in. In college, I signed up for a freshman English course called "The Search for Self." They gave us a Myers-Briggs on the first day and discovered that the class title had attracted a statistically unlikely number of INFPs... including me. (Do people still "believe" in the Myers-Brigggs? I've heard some backlash. Does it matter for the purposes of this story?) My parents were badly matched on matters of religion. My mother was a "Don't tell me what the Bible says, young man, I've read it cover to cover!" Christian. My father was a bitter atheist who followed my mother's instructions to keep his mouth shut at home. Our religious instruction was.... illogical and Disneyfied and failed to stick. My sister is an atheist, and I... pondered a lot. Like, a lot. People who've read my work can probably tell. Even as a mythology-loving agnostic, I had a soft spot for stories about what it means to be a person. I was curious upon reading an article that the propensity towards religion might have a genetic component. (Don't worry, I'm probably not headed where you think I am.) Is it genes? Or are my sister and I so different on the topic of religion because Mom dragged her to an awful church after our parents divorced, and I was treated to nightly lectures on how religion proves that P.T. Barnum was right that there's a sucker born every minute? I went to that same church after I moved in with my mother. My sister and I had an amazing rebellion, where we would put our heads together and sing poorly. I would go up or down the way you're "supposed" to for the song but at the wrong interval, and she would sing a half or quarter tone off from me. Our mother, a former Opera singer, stopped making us attend. BWAHAHAHA! For what it's worth, this is my official position on atheism:   A Rabbi is teaching his student the Talmud and explains God created everything in this world to be appreciated, since everything is here to teach us a lesson. The clever student asks “What lesson can we learn from atheists? Why did God create them?” The Rabbi responds “God created atheists to teach us the most important lesson of them all – the lesson of true compassion. You see, when an atheist performs an act of charity, visits someone who is sick, helps someone who is in need, and cares for the world, he is not doing so because of some religious teaching. He does not believe that God commanded him to perform this act. In fact, he does not believe in God at all, so his acts are based on an inner sense of morality. And look at the kindness he can bestow upon others simply because he feels it to be right.” “This means” the Rabbi continued “that when someone reaches out to you for help, you should never say ‘I pray that God will help you.’ instead for the moment, you should become an atheist, imagine that there is no God who can help, and say ‘I will help you.'”   Anyway. What makes a robot or a string of code a person or not? What is the ineffible thing that makes something alive? Do vampires have souls? What about cats? My mother told me that "Good kitties go to heaven and bad kitties go to hell" and it completely destroyed my faith in what she had taught. Parents, I hear lots of people say they lost their faith when they asked Mom and Dad if Rover and Fluffy went to heaven, so answer that question wisely. But in my case, I spent wayyyy too long analyzing what a cat could do that would merit eternal damnation. Eating a mouse? that's dinner. Pooping on the floor instead of the box? clearly lake of fire material (NOT). It just led me to believe, as a precocious 11 or 12 year old, that hell is dumb. So, what is consciousness, anyway? There's clearly some kind of gestalt where the chemical processes become more than the sum of their parts, and this process breaks apart on death. Is that a soul? I don't know! Does it matter, when whether it's a soul or not breaking down the process is a Humpty-Dumpty thing where you can't put it back together? I'm not sure having the answer is what's important. I think the freedom to ask the question (or choose not to) is. Read the full article

#meaningoflife

[automatismoateo]

How seeking God led me to (almost) true atheism. via /r/atheism

How seeking God led me to (almost) true atheism.

Earlier today I posted this in a smaller sub because this one was still private; I'm reposting it here and I hope it's OK. This is my first post and I'm still getting the hang of reddit, so apologies if I mess up!

Hello fellow atheists, I'd like to share my personal experience with religion and atheism. If you wish to skip this bulk of text (totally understandable!) there's a brief and concise TLDR at the bottom of this post. I was born in an agnostic family and my parents always allowed me to choose for myself whether to believe in the supernatural or not at all. I chose to go to catechism when I was a child, mostly because I wanted to be around my friends; I wasn't certainly making a conscious choice. That was a mistake that, in my opinion, it cost me dearly. The Catholic Church is no joke, the way they inculcated that religious nonsense into my head still has its repercussions to this day, 20 years later. I was effectively indoctrinated, brainwashed into believing in a lot of unhealthy things - the worst of all? an unrelenting gnawing feeling of guilt whenever I would do something that the Catholic Church would deem 'sinful'. In spite of what I said above, I somehow managed to snap out of it (partly, at least) after Communion. I stopped going to Church at 11 yo and my parents didn't object - in fact, they looked relieved. However, the damage was done. My psyche had been effectively moulded by the Church's teachings and the fear of the supernatural was there, like a beast lurking in the shadows, ready to pounce at me whenever I was at my weakest. Fast-forwarding 15 years into the future, I've managed to live my life mostly without the so called fear of God, but never completely. The worst came during the Pandemic, when loneliness and sadness took the better of me and I started to read the Bible again - as if trying to find some solace in that collection of nonsensical books. Alas, I seemed to have found it, solace, albeit at the time I didn't know it was false, as every word found within those pages. I began to 'see' signs of God everywhere - living in the homeland of the Catholic Church didn't help either, as there's a bloody church every 20 meters round here, and people always ready to brainwash you with their faith. I won't go into detail in regard of what went on into my head, as you can well imagine what did, but I'll tell you that I swayed my own self into believing I was being called to serve God - I nearly joined a convent, that's how serious this all was getting; and day by day, I felt the growing weight of the shackles of religion weighing me down.

But then, and I thank my parents for this, who taught me to always take things with a grain of salt and use that fantastic thing called critical thinking, I started reading the Bible again - TRULY reading it this time, cover to cover. By this time, I was already in contact with a local deacon, with whom I would meet weekly to discuss my discernment, which was going rather well, till I began to bring up the ugly, uncomfortable questions that not even the enlightened deacon could answer. I had began doing serious research, borrowing old and new texts alike on the history of Christianity and Judaism from various libraries here in Rome, as well as scouring the net of course. I even read several suras from the Quran and compared the two holy books, and the so called apocryphal gospels, parts of which can be found in the Quran. After weeks of intense reading, I realised that the whole holy scripture, upon which Christians base their doctrine and dogmas, made absolutely no sense to me. There was so much incoherence, from historical and theological point of views alike! Not even the most skilled apologetic could've changed my mind about this at that point. After that, I left the Church behind, hoping that this time around it would be for good. Alas, it was not. The 'spiritual' need returned a couple of times, but it was never as strong as that crisis I had during the pandemic, thankfully. Gradually, I've drifted towards atheism and nowadays I feel like I'm mostly healed of the religious sickness. However, despite dismissing most supernatural nonsense as just fiction, I feel there's a small part of me which wants those stories to be true. I would really want to get rid of this subtle, inner desire but I don't know if I will ever be able to. TLDR: I struggled my whole life with religious teachings I was brainwashed with as a child. During the pandemic, overcome with loneliness and sadness, I grew extremely close to the Church again and have even thought to join a convent. I never did, because through reading and research I came to the conclusion that these holy scriptures and the religions based upon them, are just complete nonsense. I'm now an atheist, who, however, is still struggling with supernatural beliefs, at times. I've got a couple of questions for you: 1) did any of you go through anything similar? 2) if so, did you manage to become fully atheists after that? How did you do it? Thank you for taking the time to read this post. I needed to share this experience with someone, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on this matter.

Submitted June 14, 2023 at 02:51PM by nihilisticbliss4u (From Reddit https://ift.tt/XckdZSy)

#reddit

[urlnotfound-404]

I haven’t even read TOA yet, but apparently Nico is Catholic (cool, he’s born in italy in the 1930s, so that was very likely) and a lot of people seem to be projecting american catholicism onto him.

So i feel I should make a few clarifications. It seems my impression that Catholics and chatolic schools in the US are actually much more strict than in Italy.

I am from Italy, I was baptized as a child, I even had a communion and a confirmation. I’ve always gone to chatolic school (most private schools are). I now (since I was maybe 13/14) consider myself an atheist. Some people seem to think it must be some kind of trauma. I’m not talking about the american catholic experience of course, but about the Italian one, as in Nico’s case.

Catholic school (yes even back then, I can ask my grandparents) didn’t brainwash children or force them to speak latin. Latin is learned from middle school to high school, in every school, so there is no need to learn it in primary school or on different lessons. Also they teach roman latin, not liturgic. Mass is in Italian, has been for over a century, to make it more accessible. At most you might have a few songs in latin.

When you had to take your communion, you would have a preparation course for 6months\1 year where they would teach you about the bible. You would read it, and discuss it. Then you would do your communion, get a lot of gold as a gift and have a huge party. Same goes for confirmation. It is as much a cultural experience as much as religious. Even nowadays most people, even non religious ones still do it, just for tradition. Even though I’m an atheist now, those are still fond memories of time spent with family , the religious aspect was actually a very small part of it. Especially since at that age, you don’t have a too deep conscience of what it means, you just know you are going to have a party with friends and family and many gifts.

Yes, you are baptized as a child, which is why Italy is still nowadays considered predominantly catholic, even though there are plenty of atheists, agnostics, and most religious people don’t actually practice or identify with the church but rather consider their faith as a personal and private thing.

Also our baptism name is the same as our legal name.

I’m not trying to deny anyone’s experience with this, and I’m sure even in italy, some people will have had a better or worse experience, but I’m trying to give a mostly american (or non italian in general) public a view of what catholicism is like in italy.

It depends also on the family you are born into. I doubt Maria Di Angelo, who had two kids from a greek god, who she knew to be a god, would be a strict catholic imposing religion on her children.

So when Rick says Nico was raised catholic, i believe he means he was raised under catholic tradition, as most italians are, especially in that time.

#nico di angelo #percy jackson #hoo #trials of apollo #toa apollo #tower of nero #tower of nero spoilers #toa spoilers #ton spoilers #catholic nico

[ursie]

Any Nico hcs?

hmmm I’m trying to think of ones I haven’t stated before uhh 

I have a lot of feelings about practicing Catholic Nico actually I know in the solo Rick is gonna make him an atheist or something because he’s gay because being religious is seen as mutually exclusive to having a lgbt+ identity but I have a lot of feelings about practicing Nico 

Religious demigods is a complicated subject and many better writings have been done (esp on Jewish and Muslim ones) but as a Christian there’s really no reason like Christian ones can’t exist like if you think to be a demigod you need to be an atheist or agnostic you’re boring and don’t understand the actual point of faith dgdhdgg like of course different religious demigods exist?? They believe. They believe in not in spite of what they see but in awe of what they see like. So like Maria when seeing Hades wouldn’t lose faith-she knew god had angels or other miracles-it would only enhance it after all your beliefs are only stronger after thinking critically on them. Also like in was the 30s in Italy and her dad was an ambassador this woman probably knew the pope she’s probably highly religious especially because she’s upper class where the holy roller thing was much more easily indulged for lack of a better phrase so like I do think Nico was very much raised Catholic esp because he was like put right into a Catholic school post vegas and like his Catholic guilt and teachings stayed with him post memory loss like obv his religion is an intrinsic part of his identity and him leaving it I think is a far shallower story then him coming to terms with both also  Like knowing other gods exist wouldn’t make me believe less in another god ahdjshdghdv quite the opposite actually so the idea that all the kids are areligious unless specified otherwise is weird esp because we now know Nico literally knows gods of old and different religions 

The only way Nico is an atheist is because he gave up Catholicism for lent

I think about him teaching Sunday school sm the kids would love him and he really would encourage questions and debates 

Doing Bible study and making friends and having like incredibly smart theological debates with the staff or other religious people w/o disrespecting anyone’s beliefs

Him reading a few passages every night and just praying before bed as a form of self care and reflection

Him praying and saying grace before every meal because he is thankful he’s not eaten before he will thank whoever’s out there for this..sm thoughts and feelings

Like the healing and community aspect of religion?? Cmon Nico would flourish  

I also think Nico would of been a Boy Scout for that time he was in school and I think he actually would of been good at it dhdhdhdhg and might go back to it tbh and I think he’d counsel at a Bible camp over the summer or something 

Nico prays with his moms rosary beads 🥺😭

if I have more thoughts I’ll add them later

#asks #anon #nico di angelo #tw religion #pjo #ask to tag #pjo hcs

[looking-for-wisdom]

Catholic Guilt

When your mom and dad marry they decide to raise you and your siblings Catholic. Your dad is agnostic but he knows this is important to her, so he agrees to help how he can. They have three girls. Mass is attended every Sunday and you go to bible school each week. They’ve done everything right.

You fight with your siblings often during services when you’re young. An hour feels like a very long time to be still and the whole ceremony is so dull. Of course, you know it means something, but you’re r a child. When your older you see the younger you in each child misbehaving during prayers. But despite the boredom it all feels a bit like magic to you. Your faith just feels like a part of breathing. Youve never known life without it. It’s easy. It’s natural.

Being Catholic, there are all sorts of classes to attend and sacraments to receive. Your mother ensures you attend. She even makes you the little white dress you wear to your first communion. Some classes are more fun than others, but you like answering teachers questions and asking queries that stump them. Sometimes they say odd things, but it doesn’t bother you too much. You asked about a friend once, who wasn’t religious, questioning where she’d go after all this. Your teacher struggled to explain only Christians can go to heaven, but she hasn’t met your friend. Your friend is good and will obviously go to heaven too. It’s ok, teachers make mistakes sometimes. Nothing to fret about.

You get older. It starts with a disconnect. You don’t fee quite as in touch as you did as a child, but you assume this is normal. You still have so much time, and many people don’t truely understand their faith until later. You just have to wait for the moment where everything clicks. You’re patient and you don’t mind biding your time. During that time you keep going to classes and summer camps, and every time you arrive you think this will be the day you understand. The epiphanies fade, though, not long after. It’s difficult, but you can’t give up.

You don’t know what to call it until many years later, but your anxiety first starts manifesting around the age of twelve. Religion class gets harder. You don’t know anyone there and they all seem to get it on a level you just... don’t. You still go to church every week with your family. Your beginning to understand what the priests say better now and some of it... is odd. It’s hard to keep track of all the lessons and you’re worried you won’t be able to keep up with it all. If you forget one you risk salvation and that’s a fear you really don’t know how to cope with. You don’t always agree, either. Your father may support your mothers faith but you still a lot of him in you. He teaches you morals and you can’t help but feel the church teaches some things that just feel wrong— like your teacher all those years ago who said your kind friend would not go to heaven. Surely that’s not God’s plan, but then again, the priests don’t make mistakes, do they?

The disconnect grows. You have a lot of rough weeks. Months. Years. You still don’t have a name for the stuff going on in your head but you cry often and pray for a sign that life isn’t just going to be decades of hating yourself so devoutly. It feels like a punishment and you’re not sure what you did wrong. You’re mad, and you feel incredibly guilty about it but maybe God doesn’t love you. Maybe this is all on purpose. The question sprouts: whats wrong with you? It has yet to go away.

You prepare for confirmation around the same time. There’s a lot of work to go along with it and really you can’t seem to bring yourself to do it when you feel so alone. The woman who teaches your confirmation lessons enrages you. She’s so cruel, so arrogant, so condemning. You have enough fears and you don’t need her adding to the pile, but she does anyway. Your mother is sympathetic but there’s nothing to be done. You have to be confirmed. This is the only option. On the final test you get frustrated and write angry notes to her in the answer blanks. She wasn’t happy, but you didn’t see her again, so no harm done.

Your confirmed now. You expect things to change. They don’t.

The 2016 election rolls around and things get bad. Your understanding of the world is expanding and you find that your beliefs don’t always line up with what your church preaches. You believe abortion is more complicated than they present it and that people should love who they like. They tell you to vote red in the name of God, but that doesn’t feel like God to you. And your mother... sometimes you find her crying over things they say. She’s like you— she was raised on this faith but it doesn’t come easy. You can’t comfort her, you can’t even comfort yourself. You can’t help but feel like God wouldn’t make your mother sob this way.

Freshman year you come to terms with it. You aren’t straight. It’s not easy, to this day your mother doesn’t know. She doesn’t condem it but she often says she doesn’t have to like it either. If she knew she was saying she didn’t have to like you she would reconsider. You know she would, and yet you don’t want to risk it. Not over something you can hide. You can’t change who you are but the faith that no longer comes as easy as it once did feels almost like a trap now.

You switch churches not long after. Your mom hopes it will make things better. You, to put it simply, are just... scared.

Catholic family. Mom, sister, you, sister. Dad tags along and Yknow, 4/5 isn’t a bad score. Except, when your older sister comes home from college she’s found that it’s better for her health to stay away. You wish you could join her. Mom, you, sister and dad tags along. Dad isn’t home all the time though, and now that the oldest is out he sometimes decides to keep her company at home instead of going to mass. You wish you could join them. Mom, you, sister. Your younger sister has Down’s syndrome and it’s hard on mom trying to explain the faith. She just doesn’t get it. Sometimes she stays home because mom is too tired to handle her on her own. Mom, you. Mom’s got one shot left. She’ll be devastated if you fall away too, and you can’t do that to her. You want to say it hurts you but she expects you to be the one to stay with the faith she gave to you. You learn to be the strong one. Don’t complain, keep mom happy, and never let them know how hard it is on you. You know it’s for the best but you hate it sometimes.

She tells you she’s failed sometimes, in raising her kids good Catholic girls. To you it just sounds like there’s something wrong with you, but haven’t you known that for... a long time? Every other kid seemed to have a connection that you don’t.

You think to turn to your friends who aren’t religious for solace, but they judge you, call you a hypocrite for claiming to have faith when the Bible says all these things you don’t obey. If only they knew that’s what has been killing you slowly since the day you were born. They want you to give it up, stop preaching your religion at them. It’s not your intent to make them feel as if you are forcing it on them so you learn not to talk about those things at school.

A war goes on in your mind. You can’t have both your faith and your beliefs— you can’t move past your trauma while still stepping in the place that caused it. But not doing both isn’t an option.

You pick up the phone to the God you can’t help but love despite it all, and you can’t hear the answer. Everyone says to just keep ringing, youre just not listening hard enough. Everyone says to just hang up, as if this telephone line that’s been with you since birth can go away just like that. Everyone has some magic fix-it answer. No one wants to say it’s alright. Faith is difficult, and trying your best is enough sometimes. No one wants to hug you when you’re alone and confused because you can’t turn to anyone.

They don’t want to listen to what you have to say, so you learn to take this on by yourself, never quite a Catholic, but never not one either.

#i dont know what to describe this as i just wanted to put it into words #cause i rhought maybe people might understand #cw religon #cw trauma #cw homophobia #cw christianity #cw anxiety #my writing #poetry #not sure if it actually is poetri but thats the most fitting thing i can thing of #catholiscism #christianity

[lifeafterthewatchtower]

Hi! Baptized JW here. I'm PIMI, but I feel so emotionally out and uninvested. Like, my parents and I are in different language congregations. I moved out of their foreign language congregation but I still visit. I absolutely enjoy my congregation but I am getting emotionally isolated and burned out for some reason. Glad to know I'm not alone in feeling isolated.

Same as in the last ask: I am terribly sorry that I didn’t see this. Please excuse my delay of answering.

Thank you very much for reaching out. No, you are not alone. Absolutely not. No matter if you believe in the Bible, in (some of) the WT teachings, or not. Know that you are not alone with your struggles.

Let me be straightforward: Since you’re PIMI, please know that I will not - in no way - try to convince or persuade you of anything. I am aware that it must have been hard for you to even get in contact with an “Apostate” like I am one. And that you even might feel scared and afraid. So, again: I will not try to drag you to the “dark side” ;) - even though we have cookies ;PJoking aside: All I can do and all I want to do, is to encourage you to look at counter-arguments. If something is true and “the truth” then it will withstand scrutiny. It is as simple as that. So, there is no need to be afraid to look at counter-arguments. And - even more importantly - to ask questions.

I know that many of us POMOs are often very direct and in some cases even come across as “aggressive”.My dad once made a pretty good analogy: If you take a metal spring and squeeze it together really hard and then suddenly release it, what will happen?All the tension and pressure that you put on it will immediately “explode”. And that is what happened to many of us.All the tension and pressure - not only put on us by the WT doctrines - but especially through the way we tried to “squeeze” ourselves into the whole structure of the organization to fit it, all the fears and the feelings of inadequacy… all that is suddenly gone. And some of us became angry (I certainly did) when we saw what exactly the Watchtower did and does. So… please be a bit patient with us ;) And don’t be afraid.

It totally feel you about enjoying the congregation. I miss some of the “brothers” and “sisters”. There was this one “brother” who was sort of my “uncle”. He was a really pleasant person. There are others that I don’t miss that much. Because I never “connected”.So… the unity that was there… that’s really something great. But it is not as unique and special as I was told. You can find groups of people with the same interests everywhere. Clubs, societies, interest groups. I have friends all over the world. And they are friends with me. And _not_ friends with my religious opinions. And I personally feel that this is much more valuable.I have friends - real friends, people who care for me as a person - who are polar opposites to my personal opinions. 

For example: I am liberal, leftist agnostic atheist. One of my best friends is an ultra-conservative gnostic Christian. Of course we “fight” over these issues. But we totally care for each other. And we help each other as good as ever possible.

When I moved to a new apartment, I had 18 people helping me. 18! None of them got paid. One of them I never saw before in my life, he was a friend of a friends and just helped carrying heavy furniture because “that’s what we do as human beings - we help each other”… and none of them was in any way interested in my religion.

Some years ago, when I was going through a really dark phase in my life, I had people checking up on me, helping me. Because they like me. They were not interested in my faith. On the other side, while I was still “in” and my mom passed, all I got was a visit by a CO and two elders, who read some Bible passages… Don’t get me wrong: I do not say and I will not say that the “brothers” and “sisters” in your congregation are not serious and are just faking it. Not at all. I am totally convinced that they really mean it. Because they are also human beings. I am sure that those, who are in closer contact with you, that they really like you.The question though is: Will they act upon their affection towards you, will they still like you, help you, support you, you in case you change your opinion on matters concerning your belief? Have you ever asked yourself whether these “brothers” and “sisters” will stop liking you if you do “this” or “that”?

In case they do change and in case you asked yourself this question… Don’t you think it is legit to ask whether this is the “real love” that Jehovah’s Witnesses say they have amidst their “bothers” and “sisters”. Your worth and value to be loved and supported… is it based on what you believe or not believe? Or based on how you treat other people?I know that as long do my best to be a good person, not harm anyone, and act at least a bit decently ;) I will have real friends that go with me through thick and thin. Something that the Watchtower denies is possible outside. Because “real love” is only possible within the Organization. I know otherwise. And I know it from experience. I HAVE that…

Take care, Anon! And please, please, please never let anyone keep you from making your own picture of things. 

I’ll say it again: The truth - the real truth - will withstand scrutiny. So there is nothing to be afraid of. No matter if you believe the Bible is God’s word or not.Fact is: The Watchtower does not teach what’s in the Bible. The Watchtower teaches their interpretation of what they say is in the Bible. And that is a HUGE difference.Whether you believe their teachings are true or not true… whether you even believe that the Bible is true or not true… that is upon you to decide. And it’s your own responsibility for your own life.And it was upon me to decide for my own life. And so I did research. Now I do have arguments that are solid and based on evidence. What more can I wish for?

#ask #jw #ex jw #jehovah's withness #ex jehovah's witness #Anonymous

[rickssoberjourney]

Am I Ready to Surrender?

Like Bluto in the GIF I'm waving the white flag. I surrender! "To what?" you might be asking. Hard to say.

I've been fighting God for a very long time. But it wasn't always that way. I had a very emotionally intense "born again" experience during my senior year in high school. For five years or more, I considered myself to be a Christian who believed that the Bible was the inerrant Word of God. To me, if the Bible said it, I believed it LITERALLY...and that was final!

I sought God's will. I did all the crazy (read "immature") stuff that new Christians do. I prayed for parking spaces and to make that red light and I couldn't understand how God refused to honor my supplications. Imagine! The God of the Universe...the God that I worshipped...not doing what I asked! I reasoned that those things weren't really important and I chalked it up to my anthropomorphized god was just too busy. I accepted that...sort of.

I decided (notice I said, "I DECIDED") to become a minister. I didn't want to pastor a church or preach. I wanted to be a psychological counselor in the church. So, I applied to the University of San Diego for get a Religious Studies degree. USD is a Jesuit university and, if you know anything about the Caholic Orders, the Jesuits are the academics of the bunch.

I chose a Catholic university because they promised to let me grow in my own faith while the other schools (like Point Loma Nazarene University) were going to shove their religion down my throat with the goal of converting me to their faith. Nah. Not having any of that!

Of course, the radical thinking of the Jesuits bothered me, but I just dug my heels in and told myself that I wasn't going to listen to their teachings. I would simply put in my time, learn about the Bible, get a second major in psychology, and graduate. I wasn't having any of their theological mumbo jumbo.

Well one day in class, Father McDonald, a priest from Ireland with a brogue I could hardly understand said, "Scripture is a myth!" OMG!!!! I wanted to walk right out of class. I was really upset. Myth means "untrue," right?

But, somehow, I got it in my mind that I would listen to what the Jesuits had to teach me and I would use the brains that God gave me to weigh what they were teaching against my fundamentalist beliefs. That was a breakthrough of major proportions. It didn't end there.

By the time I graduated 4 years later, I was about 180 degrees away from my old fundamentalist self as I could get. It made sense to me that the Bible had been an oral history for centuries and that those stories had been passed down, family to family. I had no problem with the idea that the Old Testament was filled with stories, or "myth" is you will. The word "myth" simply came to mean something different.

Every religion from the ancient Greeks and Romans to the early Tribes of Judaism, to the Native American people, to modern-day Christians use myth to explain what we humans simply cannot understand.

I love the Native American story of how the stars got up into the sky. The Shaman explained that the Earth was dark and flat. The people wanted room to move around so they used tree branches to prop up the sky, poking holes in the firmament. Those stars were simply the sun shining through those holes.

So, I reasoned, if cultures had been telling stories to explain what they didn't understand, the early writers of the Bible probably did the same thing. Was it lying? No. The stories of Noah's Ark and Adam and Eve were simply that - stories. They were never meant to be taken literally and the ancients knew that.

I graduated, went to work as a youth pastor and Christian Education director for a large church in Scottsdale, Arizona. I spent over 12 years in various capacities in a number of churches from Arizona to California. But all during that time, something was happening to me.

For one, I was sturggling with the idea that I could be married with kids and be gay. I never felt that God hated me for that. I'm not sure why. And, as I struggled with my sexuality and what to do about it, my faith began to change as well.

The idea of a white-bearded humanoid that lived in the clouds just didn't cut it anymore for me. I began investigating other religions like Buddhism, Islam, and a variety of others. I came to realize that each of these schools of religious thought basically taught the same thing: loving God and my neighbor as myself. Self-sacrifing love.

I had one person tell me that was evidence that God existed. But, to my way of thinking, that just signaled that the human brain, no matter what culture, used the concept of god to explain life. It didn't convince me that there was a god.

Today, after coming out of the closet over 20 years ago and after experiencing everything from gay relationships, wanton sex, and even drug addiction, I find myself saying that I'm an athiest.

Really now...???

I'm a pretty introspetive person. I usually know why I do the things I do. There has always been this deep anger and resentment toward the god that I used to worship. And, in recovery, I have met that resentment in a different form.

I attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. I try to go every day. I learn a lot and I have found true support in those rooms. But, I have also found judgement and what appears to be passive-aggressive behavior on the part of my fellows.

How does that manifest itself? People that I know...people that I text with and am friends with on Facebook...will ignore my greetings. The look right through me as if I'm not there.

Resentment.

The same resentment that I feel toward the god I used to worship.

I'm savvy enough in the ways of psychology to know that when something bothers me that much, the problem is most likely mine. I can't possibly know why a person would behave like that but my codependent brain always takes it personally.

Jeeze! Where the hell does that leave me? Am I an athiest? An agnostic? Or, am I just acting like a spoiled brat who didn't get his way with God? I don't know that I have an answer for that just yet.

I do believe in my Higher Power...Icall it LOVE. I don't resent LOVE. But when I think about praying to God, that raises my hackles! When they say that Third-Step Prayer at meetings, it bugs the shit outta me! Oh, and just let someone decide to end the meeting with the Lord's Prayer and I get practically apopletic!

Why?

There's that resentment again. Someday, maybe I will discover where all that anger comes from. Maybe someday, if I stay open to the idea and to what my Higher Power has to teach me, I can put back together a realtionship with God of my understanding. A different God this time. One who loves me and nurtures me and wouldn't do anything to arouse such resentment in anyone let alone in me.

So, I quote the Book of Mark in the New Testament. A man approached Jesus, asking him to heal his son. Jesus asked, "Do you believe?" The man answered with gut wrenching honesty, "I believe...help me with my unbelief!"

So, that's where I'll leave it...

I believe...help me with my unbelief!

I surrender.

Amen

[viampythonissam]

Intro, continued...

It was then I became obsessed with death and the occult, desperately trying to make contact with my grandfather through anything possible. Being clairaudient, I was expecting to hear a message from my grandfather all throughtout the whole funeral and mourning period, but to no avail. So in my desparation, I went into research, and stumbled upon things such as the ouija, seances, and many more. I even considered dabbling into necromancy, just in order to hear from him again. His death broke me so much that I was for the most time wishing I were dead too. I had suicidal thoughts but somehow something has prevented me from attempting. It could be I'm too chicken to hurt myself (getting hurt by other things besides self-infliction doesn't scare me though) or the thought of my mother crying over my dead body is another thing that would crush my heart.

I started questioning my religious beliefs then. We were Roman Catholics, and we go to church, but not too often. I am very religious though when I was a child, having been schooled in a private Catholic school, and I know all the prayers by heart; but it all changed. I felt resentment for praying so hard but never getting answered. That everything happens for a reason. A reason still so vague to me to this day, which I continue to believe was the same reason of the breaking apart of this family and eventual downfall. The family is in ruins, and the family home is crumbling apart. My father's only brother, my uncle Aldrin, died a little over two years after my grandfather; and his widow and only child, my cousin, was estranged ever since then, because of inheritance issues. My father decided to sell the house, my childhood home because of this; splitting the family fortune already so that we can all go off our separate ways and stop the bickering. The only thing that's keeping him from doing so is my grandmother who is still so attached to the house built by my grandfather.

At 16, I eventually traversed my way into the craft, dabbling on it. There was a kind of pull into these mystics that appealed to someone like me. Was it power? Was it danger? Mystery, perhaps? Or maybe I just got all too familiar with the unknown for me to be comfortable chasing after it? This craft, shunned by my faith since the dawn of time and even killed tons of people because of it, felt like home to me; learning it felt like retracing my steps back from where I came from. There was a sense of calm, relief, and freedom learning the ways of the earth, elements, and spirits and those who came before. Its unrestrictive nature was a stark contrast to the repressive and dominating teachings of the Catholic scriptures. Wherein Christianity demands a million things to do and not to do to save your soul, the craft only ever wanted you to do anything you want, just as long you harm none, even yourself. I have a lot of arguments to make against my old faith, that's why I consider myself an agnostic in all fairness. That's a topic for another day.

When I got to college at 17, I applied for nursing school under my father's wishes. It was in my misfortune to be enrolled in a school with a toxic environment of sorts: unhealthy clinic hours, unreasonable school workload, toxic Christian classmates who bombarded me everyday with bible verses and inviting me to join Sunday worship thingies. I am very respectful of other's beliefs and opinions but I really have a bone to pick with the Born Agains because upon knowing I am interested in dark movies and occult, they've started telling me that the Devil has a grip on my soul and that I should stop it so that my soul can be saved. They're even worse than the Mormons and Witnesses who knock on your door at certain days. I'd just ignore it and they'll go but BAs will stop at nothing to guiltify me of being possessed and that I need deliverance. It was also the time my parents went to Australia for work because of the failing finances due to to my late grandfather's hospital expenses, my uncle meeting his untimely demise, and my uncle's greedy widow who already demanded their inheritance even though my grandmother was still alive. My best friends of highschool also attended different schools and pursued different career pathways which left me feeling more isolated and unsure of myself. These issues fed my undiagnosed depression and relapse of suicidal thoughts all throughout my 4 years in nursing school. It was a mix of emotions, a rollercoaster ride of disappointments, achievements, first-time experiences, full independence. All without a proper support system. Nevertheless, I grew wiser while treading the craft, and for the first time since I lost my grandfather, I felt safe and sound and complete.

Then I met my elementary school sweetheart again in my final year and we became a couple. He was a sweet guy, smart and responsible. We had our similarities, our quirks, but we also had differences. I was already quite a learned witch, studying tarot and palmistry as my supposed-to-be expertise, when he told me how he wanted to be baptised as a Born Again (he and his family are Roman Catholics as well). He told me how he was deeply affected by the one time he went to a worship service of his friend's church. This struck a chord in me, a subtle reference to my beliefs. At the time, I have fully believed he is the man I'm gonna settle for, the one I'm gonna marry. He's everything I have hoped for then: he's finished school, on his way to a very decent career on a ship as a marine engineer. He's from a good family as well. Well-mannered, and not to mention that we've got a pretty long history way back when we we're 10 or so. He even made a subtle proposal of a civil marriage before he hops on board the ship. I know it was betrayal of myself, but I love this man so much so, I am ready to submit myself to him.

Worst decision of my life. I started to try and mingle with Christians so I may understand just why I needed to be saved. I joined worship services and sang with them against my own beliefs. I taught myself to be like them just so I could fit in, so that I may have friends. In return, they've burned all my books and tarot decks. Even my Slipknot t-shirt that my grandmother bought me was not spared from the Christian pyre. Said that it's to release me from the grip of the Devil. They even did deliverance to me. For a while I thought I was given a new lease on life and that this is the only right thing to do. I was easily convinced since it was the most trying time of my life so far: I was killing myself reviewing for the nursing licensure exams, my parents are already coming to get us and live away in Australia for good, my bf and I hit rock bottom and broke up (the girl who is the 3rd party confessed to me that they're having an affair, and that she was so guilty she can't sleep at night knowing we are good friends and they're doing this behind my back, also I've noticed red flags about him that made me doubt him a bit. I factored everything and the dots connected like a damn constellation so I've called it quits), and I was caught in an identity crisis because of inner turmoil. Maybe it was a time of personal upheaval and the mix of situations was too much for me to handle. Maybe it was a good thing though that I never got baptised because my life just got much more complicated after that.

So I did pass the licensures, ex and I never got together again, I went to live to Australia, but I never recovered from the inner turmoil thing; which made me spiral down again the depression lane, this time in its dangerous, ugliest and darkest recesses. I was fighting with my parents which I never did before, I was angry all the time. I started drinking then and I was exhausted all the time I just want to sleep. All the activities I've enjoyed before like sketching, playing the piano, afternoon strolls, and cooking for the family, I've totally lost interest in. My health deteriorated and I cut off and isolated myself from my friends overseas, ignoring their messages and emails. I tried to cope up by immersing myself in Christian songs and scriptures but it was not enough. I was still empty and numb. I was like a zombie, waking up just enough not to get late for work, then go home after, eat unhealthily, play video games, chug a bottle or two of beer, surf the net for worthless and trivial things, and sleep very late, like around 3 to 5 am, only to wake up again a few hours later for work. This was a vicious daily cycle that went on for 4 years. The only reprieve I had was my video games, and my sombre playlist, just enough to block the deafening screams of suicidal thoughts and ideations before I go to sleep. There was also a time I was going home from my internship waiting for the train home, that I thought of just jumping on the train tracks to end the struggle and pain. I was more than ready to attempt as I felt braver now. That was the time I lost all fear for death. Hell, I was ready to buy a rope at Bunnings too as well. But at the back of my head, the same sad picture of my mother crying over my dead body stops me from doing such thing. They said the deliverance was supposed to stop these things, but guess what? It was it that brought it back. It was supposed to keep the demons away, but it did the opposite, and felt so trapped in a cage of deceit and lies. I was supposed to be saved, but why did it felt like I was dying?

It was then I pondered over everything that's happened in my life so far. Where did I fall, where did I stand tall, where did I pick myself up? I thought long and hard enough and decided to start off where it began to crumble: back home. Retracing my steps back to Manila, now 25, I found my old stuff in my old room, before things happened. It reminded me of my simple life and my freedom and innocence. Back when I had complete control of my life. Back when I was the master of my fate. I let the people around me convince me that the man from the sky take the wheel, and it damn well crashed. A head-on collision with a destructive force. I decided to go back to my roots, the one where I felt best. And embracing it tighter than ever and promising to never betray it anymore for any reason.

My ex is now preparing to marry his girlfriend of 3 years. We met accidentally and forgave him already. I'm happy for him and that hopefully his happiness continue on. My old friends are still my friends, but there's already a notable gap between which I do not intend to close at all anymore. I do have new friends now and I keep a healthy distance from them whilst making a worthwhile connection. I am now preparing to enter med school in August and become a surgeon someday. The old house is in shambles, and I realized that a house is not a home, but the family that lives in it. I miss my parents and that my family will always come first, but I am happy to be more independent now and live by myself while studying medicine. Things are well between me and my cousin (my late uncle's child) and that I have forgiven his mother already for the hurt and trouble that they caused us. We see each other as he visits me and grandmother here at the old house every 2 months. When BAs, Mormons, and other religions try to do bible study to me, I am now assertive to tell them that I am agnostic and that I am firm in my beliefs. I am now recovering from my self-destructive ways and more optimistic and living healthier. Love is around, but it felt to me that I have lots to undertake first before I commit myself to someone again. I have backlogged so much that my time has to be devoted to the craft, my family and myself first before anything else. I am trying hard to pick up all the pieces and it seems things are finally going back in its right place. And the craft, after all these years, welcomed me back with open arms without any questions, like a mother does to her child. The sun, moon and the stars never shone brighter before, the day I returned home and answered its longing call.

Now. I have to let this off my chest now once and for all. Pleasure. Why is it a sin to pursue whatever makes you happy? Why must you endure pain just so you can be saved? Isn't that a crooked logic? Why must you be averse to your own will just so you get into a good place in the afterlife? I am only human, I am flawed, but it isn't my fault because I was born and created this way. Why must I be punished for something that is natural for me? If being free and happy costs me a one-way ticket to Hell, then I'd best be off. If my witchcraft, which teaches the opposite of your tyrannic religion, is a surefire way to deliver me there, then I'll make sure I will be a remarkable witch and enjoy my lifetime, and be very ecstatic to march down the fiery highway to Hell after I am gone. But I will never again submit myself to a narcissistic, psychopathic religion who has to kill millions of innocent people, and shun and humiliate people who think in contrast, just to justify and preach the existence of their god and its scriptures. My argument does not end with this and I will not back down anymore in defending my faith.

The craft is my world, and nature is my home. I am a daughter of those who came before, of those who are truly enlightened, of those you can never ever kill. I am a witch, and you can never take that away from me again.

*** Sorry for the long post. Thanks for reading, if you did. I hope you had something to take from my story and may it help you with whatever is botheringvor troubling you right now.

May the journey of life be kind to us all. Blessed be! ❤

[thegreyareabetween]

Texts I Send During Seminary

I consistently forget to post these here, but I’ve compiled them now because tbh, they really show a lot of what seminary is about. (Things in quotes are things said by teacher or students in seminary; asterisks mean I went on a long rant after)

- Cool so in seminary they’re saying that the reason the native Americans were forced out of their lands and beaten and tortured and subjected to the horrors the Europeans brought because it was god’s will.*

- “This is not about color” as god makes the bad guys in the Book of Mormon darker skinned and makes the good guys have light skin. Sure whatever just say Joseph Smith was racist and let’s move on*

- “Women need to be educated because they need to educate their children. Not because you want to make more money.” First of all, fuck you.*

- “When you feel like the church is wrong, you aren’t feeling that it’s wrong, you’re feeling what those people who oppose the church are saying is wrong.” What kinda bullshit logic are you trying to use?

- Oh boy do I just hate going to church and listening to the same lesson I’ve been hearing for 17 years

- Love when the church uses big numbers to make them seem better... Kay so they say they’ve donated $1.2 billion dollars over the last 30 years to charity. They’ve got 15 million members. If all those members paid tithing, that’s a lot of fucking money right? But the church only donated $80 per member to charity. When y’know, you’ve got members donating $18,000 per year. So really, are they really digging into their pockets for charity? If you divide that by the number of years, they’re donating $2.67 per member per year to charity. So like, that’s bullshit.*

- I bond with no one over being gay because I’m surrounded by STRAIGHT PEOPLE

- God we have a sub today in seminary and he’s being a bitch,

“No talking”

“Get off your phone.”

“Use your phone only for scriptures.”

“You have to talk to people.”

“I’m going to take your phone away.”

First of all I have anxiety so jot that down, Second of all, try to take away my phone, I fucking dare you. I will get up and leave, I’m done with this shit.*

- “The Nephites were in bondage.” First of all, that’s kinky. Second of all, please stop saying bondage so much it is making me

u n c o m f o r t a b l e

“In what way have you seen people in bondage today?”

S T O P

- Getting up early and dragging my ass to a religious institution that makes my whole existence a sin is not something I would call ideal. The sabbath is the lord’s day of rest therefore Jesus wants me to take this nap, mom.

- If there’s one thing I’ve learned from church, it’s that I hate kids and I will never have them. Other people? Fine have an army of children. Me? Not for both of my kidneys.

- So my seminary teacher is telling a story about an SBO at Bingham high school. The legislature said you can’t pray at high school graduation right? So this kid gets up at his graduation and prays anyways and my teacher is like, “And I’m so proud of him for standing up for what’s right.” Like wtf. Breaking the law and forcing your religious values on a captive audience seems wrong to me???

- Mormons trying to reconcile religion with science makes me feel not good.*

- “Now that gay marriage is legal, mormons may now be forced to perform gay marriages.” That’s not how this works. That’s not how any of this works.

- "A successful woman isnt educated, or in a big career, or an owner of nice things- she's a mother." -My seminary teacher. Like I’m not trying to make motherhood seem unimportant, because it is important, but like... it’s just not for everyone.

- I don't know why but it bugs me when people brag like, "Well I'm related to Brigham young." The man had 50 wives, the real question is who isn't related to Brigham young in this state.

- My teacher is like- overtly racist and it meshes way to well with the doctrine in class

- "Would you go on a mission to a Polynesian island?" Idk man seems racist to me to ask that

- “Our church does really well in countries with dark skin." That's... that's not... where do I even begin to tell you how wrong that is. Bad bad word choice.

- "50% of people who walk into hotel rooms watch porn." First of all, I didn't even know the hotel had any porn options until now. Second, where did you get that statistic?

- "When you dress immodestly it's because you want attention and you don't really care about your body." That's not how this works. That's not how any of this works.

- "You'll get an STD if you have sex outside of marriage." I mean, if you're dumb and you're not careful you'll get an STD. You can get an STD even if you're married so lol

- "We turned on a PG-13 movie and within 10 minutes they had sworn like 30 times." At that point it's not PG-13 so you obviously weren't really looking at the rating

- My seminary teacher just said that Albert Einstein said that he believed in god. Which is like. So wrong. Albert Einstein said he was agnostic, and didn't believe in life after death. He said he wouldn't deny the possibility of a divine being but he wouldn't say there was one either 😒😒

- "Wow. The Book of Mormon and the Bible are so similar! They say the same kind of things about this other thing." Wow. It's like. It's like Joseph Smith had read the Bible because he grew up Christian. It's like. It's like he knew what the Bible said. Wow.

-"Anti-Mormon literature is so false, I would know because I'm the expert on the staff here about why it is false." Well first of all you have been so wrong so many times I find that extremely hard to believe

- "Fortnite is part of Satan's plan." Yeah I'm sure Satan wants to turn people from Jesus by playing fortnite.

- "My friends who swear have different thoughts." Wow, really? That's insane information.

- Everyone getting accepted to BYU and I'm here like, lol if I step on that campus I'm pretty sure alarms would go off and the campus and I would burst into flames.

- "It's on girls to dress modestly so boys don't do bad things." Maybe... maybe we should teach boys to control themselves.... And not teach girls it's their fault if boys make fucking dumb decisions...**

- So being gay is equal to murder in the eyes of the church in terms of transgressions. I hate living here*

- “You can’t be on your cellphone unless you’re on the gospel library.” Cool, try to take away my phone, see what happens. Like lol go ahead and call my mom. I don’t care anymore. I clearly have not cared since the day I started seminary. My mom will be pissed and probably take my phone away but really, y’all parade around free agency but it’ll just make you look bad if I get in trouble*

- “All of you on your phones are you with us?” Is that some sort of rhetorical question? Because I know you know I’m not paying attention and I don’t care to so why do you keep asking? Because if you’re looking to shame me into complying, jokes on you, I have no shame.

- Why must I, a simple gay, suffer like this

- If I had to choose between coming here and getting hit by a bus, you best damn be sure I’m choosing the bus

- Because of course that’s how you encourage people to go to church, yell at them so they feel so bad they have to go

- Like 90% of my problems wouldn’t be problems if church weren’t a thing

#exmormon #exmo #i do not like seminary at all #please release me from this hell #eternal suffering in the pits of hell would be preferable to seminary for me #omg seminary was my favorite class- says the girl who never left the state of utah (physically or mentally) #end me please

[a-polite-melody]

How do you feel about religion? Were you brought up in a religous household or religious society? Do you feel religion has a place in current society, if so, where? And where should it not be in? What about religion and children? 🤔 (I am from a very religious country so just curious about your opinions)

I was brought up with very little religion. My parents were both brought up… christian I believe? Or catholic? Can you tell I’m bad at the whole religion thing?

But yeah, the extent of religion I’ve experienced is celebrating a relatively secular Easter and Christmas (I was made aware of why those holidays existed, but we didn’t really bring religion into the celebrations), and occasionally going to a grandparents’ churches for a charity thing or to support something my grandparents were involved with.

My feelings about religion… Hm… Well, I would personally define myself as being atheist or agnostic. However, I find religions to be deeply interesting. If I could slot it in, I would really love to take a class on the study of religions sort of broadly.

As for religion and current society, I believe in religious freedom. Everyone should have the choice to follow whatever religion they choose and take part in the practices involved with that religion. A trend I find deeply troubling from some atheists (people like Richard Dawkins, for example) is the disdain for religion and anyone who practices religion, and basically the call to end religion.

While I don’t think that specific religious studies should be mandatory in schools (for example, a specific period of the day dedicated to bible studies as a subject), I think that a broad religion studies course that teaches about some of the most common religions, their practices, and how to be respectful to people of that religion would probably be a really great mandatory course at some point in schooling. Maybe combine that with a gender and sexuality type course, as well as some other concepts and make a social diversity course?

If anyone were interested in learning about the deeper details of a religion (again, for example, studying the bible), that should be left to religious groups - churches, mosques, temples, etc… partially because there’s a lot of other material to cover in schools, partially because that would save people who aren’t interested from having to put in that much work into something that they don’t want to work on, and partially because those religious groups will be much more knowledgeable and dedicated than your average teacher who may be teaching that course as a secondary subject that they didn’t necessarily study as heavily. Oh, and since this topic has been discussed a lot with regards to evolution vs. creationism… Religion should not be taught in a science classroom. There are certainly ways to reconcile believing in both (eg. the bible is written in hyperbolic and metaphorical stories, so God created the world and everything we know now in “seven days” could mean seven time periods, and God’s creation of us could be him directing evolution from the background to make us the way we are), but that is for outside of the science classroom.

And I never really know what to think about religion and children, and I don’t try to come to a conclusion on it too often because I don’t want to have children, so I won’t have to worry about it. Basically… I think everyone should be able to choose whether or not they want to study a religion. Religion isn’t necessary to bring up a child with good morals, or respect for others, or anything like that. But if religion is a big part of your life and you want to introduce religion to your children, I think you should be able to do that… Just, it should be done at a time when the child can be an active and willing participant in that, and could opt out if they wanted to. I don’t know exactly what age that would be, and it’d probably be different for every child really, but I do think it’s important that it isn’t forced.

Like, I remember when I was around 7 or 8 my parents asking me if I’d thought at all about religion, or if I’d heard about friends going to church and wanted to know what that was about. I said no, and that was the end of that. If my parents were more invested in religion, I think it’d have been fine for them to explain what religion meant to them and what reasons I should maybe try it out, but if after that I’d said no as well then, again, that should be the end of it. That kind of thing.

#Anonymous

[sirchubbybunny]

Okay, so this showed up on my facebook feed a few days ago, and it’s been bugging the hell out of me. If religious discussions aren’t your cup of tea, then keep scrolling. I’m in no mood to have debates with people right now, and I’ll try to avoid making this into an argument. I’ll go into my background information later, since it’s relevant and I’ll get to it in a moment. Also, disclaimer, I’m in no way shape or form speaking on behalf of the atheist community. These are my views and mine alone. also, I before I even open my mouth, yes. I know generalizing an entire group of people based on the actions of the minority is never okay. I’m only presenting my narrative as someone who has put up with with a fair amount of shit over the years and how this ws the last straw.

Now, let’s get this going.

Right off the bat, this really got under my skin. As someone who has been an out atheist since I was 14 and shutting bullshit with scumbag atheists down for years, it really ticks me off to see Christians, specifically Western American ones, cry persecution and play the victim card constantly when their faith is called into question. Now, am I saying that the actions of those set group of pricks are excusable? Of course not. My life long view has always been to practice whatever makes you happy as long as you aren’t hurting anyone (which also includes appropriating religious practices that aren’t your own). It’s part of the reason why I’ve lost respect for some  outspoken atheists that I’ve looked up to growing up; because I detest how islamophobic they are.

The stereotype I’ve seen of the atheist community that gets thrown around are that we’re so trigger happy to wail on someone. I know a few Christians I’m friends with online would share this meme of someone coughing, and how an atheist is quick to scream in their face that there’s no god. That sort of over the top bullshit. Am I denying that there aren’t Christians who have dealt with bullying and harassment from agnostics and atheists? No. What I am saying though is I don’t take kindly to Christians, once again, playing the “woe is me” persecution card and act like they never harass or make the lives of anyone who isn’t just like them utter hell. I know that when I end up in these debates or discussions anymore, its generally because someone, usually a Christian, is very quick to spout toxic and ignorant bullshit off; be it islamophobic, racist, antisemetic, homophobic, sexist and transphobic trash; making it tougher to not check them on their hate which they masquerade as what their religion teaches.

As someone who at 12 had their religious grandmother tell me my atheist/agnostic friends in my debate circles that they were going to burn in hell, and to get ostracized from discussions in high school by evangelicals after getting outed as an atheist (god forbid if they saw me with my Satanic Bible or knew I was queer), I know what getting back handed is like. So when I see Christians go on and on about how atheism is this void that wants to suck the joy and meaning out of life, it pisses me off to see it villainized and have this shitty “God’s Not Dead” narrative where all atheists are pissed off ex-Christians who “hate god”. Atheism is simply the lack of a belief in a higher power; nothing more and nothing less. Why is it SO hard for people understand?

Atheism isn’t this nihilistic system of “oh, nothing matters”. What I’m sure most atheists would agree on is that because we can’t prove that there is some afterlife waiting for us, it’s important to live every day to the fullest and strive to reach your fullest potential as a person; whatever that means to you as long as you aren’t hurting others. This is the only life we have to live, and waiting to getting what you want in some paradise after you die is worse than death itself. Life is way too short to deal with petty shit and living in fear of being tormented for all eternity. Do good and charitable deeds because they’re the right thing to do, not because you needed your religion to tell you that.

I’m just about done here. If I wanted to see more crap like this, I’d put on a PureFlix movie. While there are shithead atheists out there, it pisses me off to see the community get demoted to “movie villain” status like this is “God’s Not Dead 2″ or “God’s Club”. PS: In case you missed it, I have no qualms with religious people in general. If you’re a good person, which is the core of most religions, then we’re gravy. Many of my close friends and heroes are open about and proud for be Christian or Catholics, and I wouldn’t have them any other way. However, if you are religious and you use your faith as an excuse to hurt people (ex: persecuting LGBTQ people or terrorizing Jewish/Muslim communities), then please distance yourself from me. You’re no friend of mine if this the case.

#religion #christianity #atheism #rant #vent

[studying-inwonderland]

Becoming a Christian Witch

So I’m not here to preach to you.  I have no grounds to tell you how to live your life and what to believe.  And I know that.  But I want to talk a little bit about my journey through faith and what it means to me, where I started and where I am, and why.  So If you don’t care to hear about religion feel free to ignore me, you have that right!  But if you feel like something is missing try it out.

So I was christened/dedicated when I was a baby.  My mom (to my fathers protest) took me to her grandmothers church and had me dedicated to God.  God, not Jesus.   Now if you ask my mom, when I was very little I think 2, I saw Jesus.  I was sitting at a table and babbling, like kids that age do  and then I asked a question and when my mom answered me I told her that I wasn’t talking to her I was talking to the Sad Man. I said he was wearing a bleeding crown and bleeding from his arms.  Now I think I just had a very active imagination and my mom is a niave and hyper-religious freak.  She still swears I saw Jesus so whatever.  I was very religious until about 4th grade.  My mom said that God doesn’t like things that I really didn’t see anything wrong with.  Homosexuality? My hair dresser was a gay man and he was always nice to me and called me a princess and did my hair so pretty with sparkly sprays and nice regal up-do's.  Pre-Marital Sex? My mom had me before she was married and I didn’t think she was going to hell.  And if all it took for it to be forgotten was an “I’m Sorry” than obviously God didn’t care that much and how exactly do you feel sorry for who you are?  What kind of God expects that? Or maybe he just didn’t exist and was made up to make people follow dumb rules.  But either way I thought he must be kind of irrelevant and while I continued to believe in him, I stopped liking him so much.

Fast forward to middle school and my aunt, and my best friends mom, were both Wiccan? and I found this world where spirituality was about self love?  I was amazed and started to, rather appropriatively I’m afraid to say, Identify as a “Wiccan” I thought Wiccan was synonymous with witch, tried to talk to trees (not a Wiccan thing) control fire (not Wiccan) and lived without a deity.  Seeing as Wicca is a religion, with a pretty heavy emphasis on their deities (the horned god and triple goddess I believe?)  I was definitely not Wiccan.  I also had no idea what witchcraft was actually like in the real world, and my parents kept such close tabs on my internet use that I was afraid to do real research. About the only thing I did do right, was learn how to read playing cards and palms. I checked out books on ancient religions from the library, saying that I wanted to be an anthropologist, and read mainly about greek and roman gods and mythology, and a little about Celtic mythology too.  I read bits from the Torah and the Quran in an effort to gain some sort of understanding, thinking maybe I didn’t like the idea of multiple gods.  Some sort of love was just absent from my life.  But nothing fit right.  At this point it was that I didn’t believe in any god at all.

In 8th grade I moved to the Bible Belt.. I started to identify as an atheist/agnostic and stopped caring that I didn’t believe.   I just couldn’t agree with the things my new classmates believed about people.  The racist homophobic bullshit.  Assaulting my friend because she was gay.  And the adults were worse.  Not doing anything about the harassment and bullying?  I got pretty angry and it wasn’t until 10th grade that I got back into witchcraft.

With the help of Tumblr I explored other deities asking questions of more seasoned witches.  I started meditating, charming objects, doing glamours, cleansing rituals, and setting up wards around my room.  I started to collect crystals and trinkets and herbs and oils.  And was more open about it to my parents.  I learned that I can practice without a deity, and that was huge for me and the fact that I hadn’t chosen another deity pleased my parents.  People accepted that I can be whole without a god.  I accepted that I am enough and and that I have power and am beautiful with or without one.  But something was still missing.  I tried to learn more about the gods of my ancestors, thinking that might be a good place to start.  Well, my Native ancestors converted to Christianity rather easily.  And I haven’t found a reliable source of information on what their deities were like before that.  Only some information on their ceremonies.  I’m also Irish.  So I researched Celtic history, and I didn’t really connect to those deities either.  I did really like their symbolism and imagery and did start include that in my craft though.  I tried reaching out to Aphrodite, Hera, Artemis, and Athena.  But it felt wrong.  I looked into Tao-ism, Buddhism, and every pagan religion I could get my hands on.

I was a freshmen in college when I stumbled upon a christian witch.  At first I was skeptical.  The God I had known couldn’t have supported witch craft?  But I got more interested anyway, and continued to research and found more christian witches.  I found out that so many of the “Bible Quotes” that had been being shoved down my throught were actually mistranslations.  That Jesus spread love and forgiveness and that God wasn’t a fan of divination and necromancy... well how many christians read their horoscope anyway?... not witch craft as a whole.  

So from there it was quite a journey.  Turns out God Jesus and I had somethings to work out.  I was mad and uncertain, but after about a year of trying I accepted that I have always been a Christian.. So that was my journey but I thought I’d share it.  Today my practice isn’t much different than it was in high school.  I occasionally divine, accepting that God will either give me the answer or he won’t, through scrying generally (I like smoke scrying) with the occasional use of card reading.  I use prayers to charge my crystals and wards, and when I glamour or do a protective spell it’s coming from God.  I look to Jesus to teach me kindness and compassion, and try to practice forgiveness in my life.

[pitz182]

Is AA Too Religious for Generation Z?

Are today’s mutual-aid recovery groups ready to satisfy Generation-next?“More than any other generation before them, Gen Z does not assert a religious identity. They might be drawn to things spiritual, but with a vastly different starting point from previous generations, many of whom received a basic education on the Bible and Christianity. And it shows: The percentage of Gen Z that identifies as atheist is double that of the U.S. adult population.”Released early this year, Barna Group’s Generation-Z Report (Americans born between 1999 and 2015) surveyed over 2,000 13 to 18-year-olds. The oldest of this generation turn 20 in 2019.According to AA’s most recent triennial membership survey, 1% of AA is under 21—that’s about 20,000 sober teenagers in AA rooms right now. What’s my personal affinity with this demographic? It’s two-fold: I have two millennial children and one 18-year-old stepson; secondly, while I am a grey-haired Baby Boomer, I was a teen at my first 12-step meeting. My 20th birthday was 1980, three months shy of my fourth anniversary clean and sober.I was a second-generation AA member and—like Barna’s youth focus group—my worldview seemed incompatible with the old fogies of 12-step rooms. My mother mused about finding god’s will for her from meditation or her daily horoscope. She was such a Virgo, you know. Horoscopes, higher powers, legends of Sasquatch, these were all fictional symbols as far as I was concerned. Reasonable people didn’t take such constructs literally, did they?Bob K, like me, is a second-generation AA. He’s currently between historical book projects; Key Players in AA History will soon have a prequel. Bob’s follow-up research will produce a book about pre-AA addiction and treatment. At age 40, Bob made it into AA as a result of his dad 12-stepping him. He also was uncomfortable with the emphasis on "God." “When I was a month sober, it was ‘God-this, God saved me’ and I was going to put my resignation in. I didn’t think I could stand it in AA any longer. I went to the internet of the day—which back then was the library—and I looked for non-religious alternatives to AA. They had them in California but nothing in Ontario Canada. So it was AA or nothing. If I tried to brave it alone, I’d be drunk; I knew it.”Today, Bob enjoys the likeminded company at his Secular AA home group, Whitby Freethinkers, which meets in the local suburban library just East of Toronto. If I were confronting addiction/recovery as a teen today, I wonder if I would go to AA or NA? If AA was once “the last house on the block,” today it’s one house in a subdivision of mutual-aid choices. Today, newcomers have access to Refuge Recovery, SMART Recovery, Secular Organizations for Sobriety (SOS), or Medically Assisted Treatment, none of which existed in the 1970s.On Practically Sane, therapist Jeffrey Munn states: “I like to take a practical approach … I’m not a fan of the ‘fluff’ and flowery language that is often associated with the world of psychology and self-help.” Jeffrey came into the rooms at 20, stayed sober for 2 ½ years, relapsed, came back and is now 13 years clean and sober.“I was mandated to three 12-step meetings per week to stay in the program I was in. Since I was young I have been agnostic. I wanted to find a higher power that was common sense-based, but in the rooms I felt pulled towards a more dogmatic spiritual idea of higher power. Back then, I needed to come up with my own conception of what was happening on a psychological level." Recently, Jeffrey wrote and published Staying Sober Without God: the Practical 12 Steps to Long Term Recovery from Alcoholism and Addiction.“I looked at SMART Recovery,” Jeffrey tells The Fix. “I looked at Moderation Management, too—that one struck me as being an organized resentment against AA—I wasn’t feeling it. When it comes down to social support and a practical plan of action, it’s hard to beat 12-step programs. What I try to teach is: if you don’t buy into any kind of a supernatural higher power, navigate the 12-step world, filtering the god-stuff out, working the program in your own way; there is lots that really works.”Barna reports, “Nearly half of teens, on par with Millennials, say, ‘I need factual evidence to support my beliefs.’” Jeffrey hopes Staying Sober Without God—which joins a growing secular 12-step recovery offering—offers the rational narrative today’s youth crave. Barna calls today’s youth “the first truly post-Christian generation [in America].”Certified Master Addiction Counselor David B. Bohl of Milwaukee understands the value of other-oriented care. David tells The Fix: “As head of a 20-bed coed dual-diagnosis treatment center, emerging adults, 18 to 25 years old, came into our care. I wouldn’t say that they universally shrugged off the 12-step approach but almost universally, in reaction to our volunteers, alumni, and traditional AA community, younger clients didn’t want what the volunteers and alumni had. And I wouldn’t say it was the religiosity always. Sometimes it was an age-thing or life approach. So, our recovery management function became that much more important in terms of building individualized treatment that suits everyone.“In the USA, 75% of all residential treatment centers identify as 12-step facilitators,” David tells us. “In the simplest form, our job is to introduce people to the language and the concept of the 12 steps and then to introduce the clients to support groups or people in support groups when they are discharged from acute care.Where trauma is involved—religious trauma in particular—traditional AA language and rituals trigger that shame they feel from negative formal religion experiences.”Let’s put this overbearing religion caution to a real-life test: Suwaida F was the second oldest of 11 children to Somalian refugee parents who fled to Canada in the 1980s.“In Kindergarten I didn’t have to wear a hijab; my parents weren’t super religious. I went to an Islamic school in grade one. It was normal for teachers to have belts with them, they would hit you; child abuse was normalized. They didn’t really teach us that much math, science, history. The Islamic teachers weren’t that educated. My parents took me out and put me in public school. Then, some of my mom’s Somalian-Canadian friends started moving their kids to Egypt. My friends would stay in Egypt two years, finish the Qur’an and the girls came back wearing burqas and head-scarves. Some Muslim friends would come to school in their hijab, take them off and put them back on when they went home. We called them The Transformers.My parents really wanted us to learn the Qur’an; I don’t speak Arabic, so it was difficult. And I never believed it. I asked my mom and dad, ‘How do you know that this stuff is real?’ They got frustrated and mad and said, ‘Don’t ever ask that question again.’ I knew it wasn’t real. Mom got more and more religious. Pictures of her at age 19 -- she wore no head-scarf when she was my age. My mom expected me to be religious and I rebelled. I had to leave home.”Suwaida misses her sisters. She feels unwelcome in the family home unless she is dressed in the Islamic custom and that wouldn’t be true to herself. Away from home, Suwaida found the welcoming community she craved in the booze and cocaine culture.“It wasn’t a matter of having no money; I had no sense of hope. People at work didn’t know I was hopped from shelter to shelter at night. One winter I was told, ‘Suwaida, you’ve been restricted from every youth shelter in the city of Toronto.’” As addiction progressed, Suwaida recalls an ever-descending patterns of compromises, bad relationships and regrets.“Today, it’s like I still never unpack my suitcase; I’m always ready to go.” During a stay at St. Joe’s detox, Suwaida went to her first NA meeting.“At 7 PM, a woman spoke. I made it clear that I thought it was stupid; I wouldn’t share. At the end, everyone was holding hands to pray and I said, ‘I’m not holding any of your hands.’ I didn’t go back. When I was discharged, I went drinking at the bar with my suitcase, not knowing where I was going to stay that night.My second meeting I consider my first, because I chose it. I thought I should go to AA. I googled atheist or freethinker AA to avoid a repeat of my NA experience. I found Beyond Belief Agnostics and Freethinkers Group on the University of Toronto campus. I went there last February. For a while, I had wine in my travel-mug, and I didn’t say anything. In August I felt like the woman beside me knew I was drinking, and I ask myself, ‘What am I doing?’ So, my next meeting, I went sober. I’ve been clean and sober ever since.”Despite the child-violence of Islamic school and rejection from her family, Suwaida isn’t anti-theist. “I do believe in God or in something. I feel like I’m always looking for signs. I don’t believe in a god in the sky but to say there’s nothing beyond all this doesn’t make any sense to me. Sometimes the freakiest things happen. Maybe it’s because I’m a storyteller, I try to make a story out of everything; you think of someone, then they phone you, is that random?I feel a part-of in secular or mainstream AA meetings. My self-talk still sounds like, ‘Don’t share Suwaida, you have nothing to add.’ Maybe it comes from not being able to express myself when I was growing up. I have no sense of self. I guess I have something special to offer but I don’t know how to articulate it. It’s hard; I have limited self-confidence.”“Give them their voice; listen to them,” is Kevin Schaefer’s approach. He co-hosts the podcast Don’t Die Wisconsin. He’s also a recovery coach.“I’ve been in Recovery 29+ years. I’m a substance abuse counselor and I got into addiction treatment through sober living. When I started working in a Suboxone clinic, I came to realize that AA can’t solve everything. I always come from a harm reduction standpoint: meth, cocaine, benzos; I ask, ‘Can you just smoke pot?’ and we start building the trust there.Medically Assisted Treatment (MAT) is geared towards this generation. Most kids coming through my door know a lot about MAT, more so than people in AA with the biases and stigma that they bring. Kids sometimes know more than the front-line social workers. Their friends are on MAT, that’s how they gather their information (not to say their information is all correct). But a lot of therapists don’t understand medication. Medication can be a ticket to survival out on the streets.”The Fix asked Kevin his opinion on the best suited mutual-aid group for this generation.“Most of the generation you’re talking about walks in with anxiety and defiantly won’t do groups.” We talked about the role of online video/voice or text meetings for a tech-native generation. “Yes—where appropriate. Women especially, because from what I’ve seen, most females have suffered from trauma. I have heard women who prefer online recovery; that make sense to me. I’ve been to InTheRooms.com; as professionals we have a duty to know what’s out there. And there are some crazies online.If someone has an Eastern philosophy bent, I’ll send them to Refuge Recovery; I’ve been there. If I can, I’ll set them up with somebody that I know can help them. And let’s not forget that some youth, if Christianity is your thing, Celebrate Recovery is amazing — talk about a community that wraps themselves around the substance user. There are movie nights, food, all kinds of extracurricular activities. The SMART Recovery Movement? Excellent. SMART momentum is building in Milwaukee. They are goal-oriented and the person gets supported whether they’re on Suboxone or, in one case I know, micro-dosing with LSD for depression; they’ll be supported either way. My goal with youth is: ‘Try to get to one meeting this month; start slow.’ Don’t set the bar too high and if they enjoy it, then great.The 12-step meeting I go to, it’s a men’s meeting. There are people there on medication and they don’t get blow-back. I wish more of AA was like this. When I came in, almost 30 years ago now, I saw all the God-stuff on the walls and I thought, ‘Nah, this isn’t going to work’ but thank G… (laughs), thank the Group of Drunks who said, ‘You don’t have to believe in that.’ The range in my meeting is broad—Eastern philosophy, Native American practices, Yoga, I was invited to Transcendental Meditation meetings at members’ houses. I was fortunate to fall into this group. You know, the first book my sponsor gave me was The Tao of Physics—not The Big Book—it was this 70’s book with Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism, correlated to physics and contemporary science.”So, as to the question that kicked this off, some mutual aid meetings are ready to meet the taste of a new generation; results may vary. Who’s heard: “If you haven’t met anyone you don’t like in AA, you haven’t gone to enough meetings”?The reverse is true, also. If the peer-to-peer meetings I’ve sampled seem too narrow or dogmatic, maybe my search for just the right fit isn’t over. And if I don’t want a face-to-face meeting, there’s always Kevin’s podcast, virtual communities like The Fix, or I can order one of Bob or David or Jeffrey’s books if that’s more to my taste.

[alexdmorgan30]

Is AA Too Religious for Generation Z?

Are today’s mutual-aid recovery groups ready to satisfy Generation-next?“More than any other generation before them, Gen Z does not assert a religious identity. They might be drawn to things spiritual, but with a vastly different starting point from previous generations, many of whom received a basic education on the Bible and Christianity. And it shows: The percentage of Gen Z that identifies as atheist is double that of the U.S. adult population.”Released early this year, Barna Group’s Generation-Z Report (Americans born between 1999 and 2015) surveyed over 2,000 13 to 18-year-olds. The oldest of this generation turn 20 in 2019.According to AA’s most recent triennial membership survey, 1% of AA is under 21—that’s about 20,000 sober teenagers in AA rooms right now. What’s my personal affinity with this demographic? It’s two-fold: I have two millennial children and one 18-year-old stepson; secondly, while I am a grey-haired Baby Boomer, I was a teen at my first 12-step meeting. My 20th birthday was 1980, three months shy of my fourth anniversary clean and sober.I was a second-generation AA member and—like Barna’s youth focus group—my worldview seemed incompatible with the old fogies of 12-step rooms. My mother mused about finding god’s will for her from meditation or her daily horoscope. She was such a Virgo, you know. Horoscopes, higher powers, legends of Sasquatch, these were all fictional symbols as far as I was concerned. Reasonable people didn’t take such constructs literally, did they?Bob K, like me, is a second-generation AA. He’s currently between historical book projects; Key Players in AA History will soon have a prequel. Bob’s follow-up research will produce a book about pre-AA addiction and treatment. At age 40, Bob made it into AA as a result of his dad 12-stepping him. He also was uncomfortable with the emphasis on "God." “When I was a month sober, it was ‘God-this, God saved me’ and I was going to put my resignation in. I didn’t think I could stand it in AA any longer. I went to the internet of the day—which back then was the library—and I looked for non-religious alternatives to AA. They had them in California but nothing in Ontario Canada. So it was AA or nothing. If I tried to brave it alone, I’d be drunk; I knew it.”Today, Bob enjoys the likeminded company at his Secular AA home group, Whitby Freethinkers, which meets in the local suburban library just East of Toronto. If I were confronting addiction/recovery as a teen today, I wonder if I would go to AA or NA? If AA was once “the last house on the block,” today it’s one house in a subdivision of mutual-aid choices. Today, newcomers have access to Refuge Recovery, SMART Recovery, Secular Organizations for Sobriety (SOS), or Medically Assisted Treatment, none of which existed in the 1970s.On Practically Sane, therapist Jeffrey Munn states: “I like to take a practical approach … I’m not a fan of the ‘fluff’ and flowery language that is often associated with the world of psychology and self-help.” Jeffrey came into the rooms at 20, stayed sober for 2 ½ years, relapsed, came back and is now 13 years clean and sober.“I was mandated to three 12-step meetings per week to stay in the program I was in. Since I was young I have been agnostic. I wanted to find a higher power that was common sense-based, but in the rooms I felt pulled towards a more dogmatic spiritual idea of higher power. Back then, I needed to come up with my own conception of what was happening on a psychological level." Recently, Jeffrey wrote and published Staying Sober Without God: the Practical 12 Steps to Long Term Recovery from Alcoholism and Addiction.“I looked at SMART Recovery,” Jeffrey tells The Fix. “I looked at Moderation Management, too—that one struck me as being an organized resentment against AA—I wasn’t feeling it. When it comes down to social support and a practical plan of action, it’s hard to beat 12-step programs. What I try to teach is: if you don’t buy into any kind of a supernatural higher power, navigate the 12-step world, filtering the god-stuff out, working the program in your own way; there is lots that really works.”Barna reports, “Nearly half of teens, on par with Millennials, say, ‘I need factual evidence to support my beliefs.’” Jeffrey hopes Staying Sober Without God—which joins a growing secular 12-step recovery offering—offers the rational narrative today’s youth crave. Barna calls today’s youth “the first truly post-Christian generation [in America].”Certified Master Addiction Counselor David B. Bohl of Milwaukee understands the value of other-oriented care. David tells The Fix: “As head of a 20-bed coed dual-diagnosis treatment center, emerging adults, 18 to 25 years old, came into our care. I wouldn’t say that they universally shrugged off the 12-step approach but almost universally, in reaction to our volunteers, alumni, and traditional AA community, younger clients didn’t want what the volunteers and alumni had. And I wouldn’t say it was the religiosity always. Sometimes it was an age-thing or life approach. So, our recovery management function became that much more important in terms of building individualized treatment that suits everyone.“In the USA, 75% of all residential treatment centers identify as 12-step facilitators,” David tells us. “In the simplest form, our job is to introduce people to the language and the concept of the 12 steps and then to introduce the clients to support groups or people in support groups when they are discharged from acute care.Where trauma is involved—religious trauma in particular—traditional AA language and rituals trigger that shame they feel from negative formal religion experiences.”Let’s put this overbearing religion caution to a real-life test: Suwaida F was the second oldest of 11 children to Somalian refugee parents who fled to Canada in the 1980s.“In Kindergarten I didn’t have to wear a hijab; my parents weren’t super religious. I went to an Islamic school in grade one. It was normal for teachers to have belts with them, they would hit you; child abuse was normalized. They didn’t really teach us that much math, science, history. The Islamic teachers weren’t that educated. My parents took me out and put me in public school. Then, some of my mom’s Somalian-Canadian friends started moving their kids to Egypt. My friends would stay in Egypt two years, finish the Qur’an and the girls came back wearing burqas and head-scarves. Some Muslim friends would come to school in their hijab, take them off and put them back on when they went home. We called them The Transformers.My parents really wanted us to learn the Qur’an; I don’t speak Arabic, so it was difficult. And I never believed it. I asked my mom and dad, ‘How do you know that this stuff is real?’ They got frustrated and mad and said, ‘Don’t ever ask that question again.’ I knew it wasn’t real. Mom got more and more religious. Pictures of her at age 19 -- she wore no head-scarf when she was my age. My mom expected me to be religious and I rebelled. I had to leave home.”Suwaida misses her sisters. She feels unwelcome in the family home unless she is dressed in the Islamic custom and that wouldn’t be true to herself. Away from home, Suwaida found the welcoming community she craved in the booze and cocaine culture.“It wasn’t a matter of having no money; I had no sense of hope. People at work didn’t know I was hopped from shelter to shelter at night. One winter I was told, ‘Suwaida, you’ve been restricted from every youth shelter in the city of Toronto.’” As addiction progressed, Suwaida recalls an ever-descending patterns of compromises, bad relationships and regrets.“Today, it’s like I still never unpack my suitcase; I’m always ready to go.” During a stay at St. Joe’s detox, Suwaida went to her first NA meeting.“At 7 PM, a woman spoke. I made it clear that I thought it was stupid; I wouldn’t share. At the end, everyone was holding hands to pray and I said, ‘I’m not holding any of your hands.’ I didn’t go back. When I was discharged, I went drinking at the bar with my suitcase, not knowing where I was going to stay that night.My second meeting I consider my first, because I chose it. I thought I should go to AA. I googled atheist or freethinker AA to avoid a repeat of my NA experience. I found Beyond Belief Agnostics and Freethinkers Group on the University of Toronto campus. I went there last February. For a while, I had wine in my travel-mug, and I didn’t say anything. In August I felt like the woman beside me knew I was drinking, and I ask myself, ‘What am I doing?’ So, my next meeting, I went sober. I’ve been clean and sober ever since.”Despite the child-violence of Islamic school and rejection from her family, Suwaida isn’t anti-theist. “I do believe in God or in something. I feel like I’m always looking for signs. I don’t believe in a god in the sky but to say there’s nothing beyond all this doesn’t make any sense to me. Sometimes the freakiest things happen. Maybe it’s because I’m a storyteller, I try to make a story out of everything; you think of someone, then they phone you, is that random?I feel a part-of in secular or mainstream AA meetings. My self-talk still sounds like, ‘Don’t share Suwaida, you have nothing to add.’ Maybe it comes from not being able to express myself when I was growing up. I have no sense of self. I guess I have something special to offer but I don’t know how to articulate it. It’s hard; I have limited self-confidence.”“Give them their voice; listen to them,” is Kevin Schaefer’s approach. He co-hosts the podcast Don’t Die Wisconsin. He’s also a recovery coach.“I’ve been in Recovery 29+ years. I’m a substance abuse counselor and I got into addiction treatment through sober living. When I started working in a Suboxone clinic, I came to realize that AA can’t solve everything. I always come from a harm reduction standpoint: meth, cocaine, benzos; I ask, ‘Can you just smoke pot?’ and we start building the trust there.Medically Assisted Treatment (MAT) is geared towards this generation. Most kids coming through my door know a lot about MAT, more so than people in AA with the biases and stigma that they bring. Kids sometimes know more than the front-line social workers. Their friends are on MAT, that’s how they gather their information (not to say their information is all correct). But a lot of therapists don’t understand medication. Medication can be a ticket to survival out on the streets.”The Fix asked Kevin his opinion on the best suited mutual-aid group for this generation.“Most of the generation you’re talking about walks in with anxiety and defiantly won’t do groups.” We talked about the role of online video/voice or text meetings for a tech-native generation. “Yes—where appropriate. Women especially, because from what I’ve seen, most females have suffered from trauma. I have heard women who prefer online recovery; that make sense to me. I’ve been to InTheRooms.com; as professionals we have a duty to know what’s out there. And there are some crazies online.If someone has an Eastern philosophy bent, I’ll send them to Refuge Recovery; I’ve been there. If I can, I’ll set them up with somebody that I know can help them. And let’s not forget that some youth, if Christianity is your thing, Celebrate Recovery is amazing — talk about a community that wraps themselves around the substance user. There are movie nights, food, all kinds of extracurricular activities. The SMART Recovery Movement? Excellent. SMART momentum is building in Milwaukee. They are goal-oriented and the person gets supported whether they’re on Suboxone or, in one case I know, micro-dosing with LSD for depression; they’ll be supported either way. My goal with youth is: ‘Try to get to one meeting this month; start slow.’ Don’t set the bar too high and if they enjoy it, then great.The 12-step meeting I go to, it’s a men’s meeting. There are people there on medication and they don’t get blow-back. I wish more of AA was like this. When I came in, almost 30 years ago now, I saw all the God-stuff on the walls and I thought, ‘Nah, this isn’t going to work’ but thank G… (laughs), thank the Group of Drunks who said, ‘You don’t have to believe in that.’ The range in my meeting is broad—Eastern philosophy, Native American practices, Yoga, I was invited to Transcendental Meditation meetings at members’ houses. I was fortunate to fall into this group. You know, the first book my sponsor gave me was The Tao of Physics—not The Big Book—it was this 70’s book with Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism, correlated to physics and contemporary science.”So, as to the question that kicked this off, some mutual aid meetings are ready to meet the taste of a new generation; results may vary. Who’s heard: “If you haven’t met anyone you don’t like in AA, you haven’t gone to enough meetings”?The reverse is true, also. If the peer-to-peer meetings I’ve sampled seem too narrow or dogmatic, maybe my search for just the right fit isn’t over. And if I don’t want a face-to-face meeting, there’s always Kevin’s podcast, virtual communities like The Fix, or I can order one of Bob or David or Jeffrey’s books if that’s more to my taste.

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