I reject this idea.

I believe in humanity. I believe we have the strength of mind, will and spirit to become better than what we are. To improve ourselves, individually – and collectively. To find methods of group governance that actively serve everyone, and aren’t willfully ignorant of subsets of our majorities.

Many of my peers are driven through fear. Fears long drilled into their heads, fears which I empathize, and sometimes sympathize from my own upbringing. These thorns in their mind convince them of various lies:

• the enemy will consume us
• time is short
• ‘they’ are out to destroy us
• many souls are lost and irrecoverable
• the solution is simple and turn-key
• embracing of our self-interest will bring freedom
• that all Great Institution is a derivation of a Great Plot to control and subjugate us all

And while I acknowledge corruption is a hallmark of humanity, I believe that we can transcend this scar and become that which we were created to be – a community of humans who react to tragedy in love, who reject cynicism for ideas that better the future,  who work together to see those ideas to fruition, and who acknowledge that we don’t have all the pieces in this mystery of existence.

I believe this transformation will take generations, has been in process for much longer than my brief existence, will see many casualties sent to the next life, and will hopefully outlast me far into the future.

And why can’t private health insurance companies compete with a government health plan? Oh, cause they need to make profits… riiiight.

Oh, and I had no idea people die from cancer.

Good thing Pat is keeping me ‘informed’.

The new atheist movement (militant fundamentalist all-religions-must-die) has, being somewhat of an oxy-moron, illuminated the hypocrisies of my own religious past. Although I had long pulled myself from the denominational bubble, militant atheists like Dawkins finally gave me the lens with which to view the structure in which I had grown up. Using subtle phrases, an isolationist worldview was pushed on me all those years. I was ‘inside’ with the ‘one-truth’, much like the new atheists – convinced of their assertions and willing to aggressively defend them. To see such an approach being used by ‘the non-Christians’ gave me additional pause, and led me to the distinct possibility that it was unlikely I held the ‘one-truth’ – as taught by my former denominational leaders.

In the end, it was the us-vs-them attitude that introduced my doubt, and gradually demonstrated to me that really my church leaders were mouthpieces of the bible college they had attended and in turn the denominational industry it represented. If they had ideas outside that denominational box I never saw them discussed. The building of polemic arguments against the latest ‘threat’, be it a court decision, a rock band, television, dating, alcohol, homosexuality, and anything considered a remote threat was commonplace. I now think that the polemic approach was less necessary in regards of the arguments themselves, and served a better purpose of ‘uniting’ the group. We then had a common enemy that we could fight together, ignoring the sometimes shaky foundations of our theology – and certainly ignoring any sort of pragmatism or compromise that could have helped meet ‘the non-Christians’ where they were at.

There was a single overarching idea of ‘unity among the body’, which was a twisted way of saying ‘stick to your denomination’. It was this imperialist mindset that gave unity its secondary meaning – the one pertaining to member retention and the guilt and fear associated with walking away from the ‘body’. I now look back astonished that I was always frustrated with our lack of ability to achieve ‘unity’ among believers, which I now attribute to the fact that they had an entirely different sort of isolationist unity in mind.

This brings me to their idea of self-control, their version of which took until much later in life for me to learn was actually repression, a repression borne through fear and negative reinforcement. I plan to write a much more detailed piece on the idea of the ‘dangers of repression as self-control’, but need to do more research into the psychology of these ideas (anyone have any pointers?).

However their biggest fear is that of ideas, and particularly ideas that challenge the denominational theology. There is no room for discussion, and no structure for conversation or debates involving derivations of the teachings. At this point, I believe that is because they were taught with certainty that they hold the ‘one-truth’, and therefore greatly fear (and have no need for) a clearinghouse of ideas. This is where the fear has become systemic, where leaders teach fear not out of some malicious intent, but because they are genuinely scared of being wrong themselves – and in order to protect themselves turn a blind eye to new ideas, interpretations and reason itself.

My emergence from fundamentalism has been refreshing and I feel more at peace with myself and God than ever. And so my persistent uncertainty dictates that I cannot run from ideas, only consume, evaluate and apply those that are sensible to my life as a human who identifies with Christ’s teachings.

Feel free to comment below…