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MikeH's Journal
I am sorry to hear about your marital troubles and your divorce, k4d. I am glad that your faith is of help to you. Hugs to you.
 I myself used to be a Christian; I no longer am because I came to the realization that being a Christian, and supposedly having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, had been of no help to me in enabling me to deal with anything that was a source of personal pain, frustration, or unhappiness in my life. The biggest problem I had for which I found Christianity to be totally unhelpful was my relationship with my father. My dad did some very good things, and was far from being the worst father anybody ever had. However he was often very judgmental, and sometimes bordered on being abusive, especially emotionally and psychologically (though I did get my share of spankings when I was a kid). He often decided in Godlike fashion that I needed to be yelled at like I had committed a crime when I had honestly forgotten something, made an honest mistake, or something was not according to his standards. And he would always say he was doing it “for my own good”. And he was often especially poor at understanding, or even trying to understand, from my point of view, some difficult or sensitive personal issue which was causing me to be unhappy, upset, or frustrated. I went to church and Sunday school at a Lutheran church as a kid and as a teenager, and to a confirmation class when I was in 7th and 8th grades; however I think I “really” became a Christian and started taking Christianity seriously when I was about 20. I was very unhappy and had many problems as a youth, and it made sense that I should give God (and Jesus) a try, as I had heard that doing so might just make the difference in my life, and fill a “God-shaped void”, as I had sometimes heard. I briefly became involved with the fundamentalist Christian organization Campus Crusade for Christ  at my college campus (San Diego State University). At first glance they seemed like a wholesome, happy bunch of people who had found something very important, and I needed to meet people. However I came to find that I had some serious problems with some things that they believed, preached, taught, and advocated doing.For instance, I realized I just could not accept the belief that people who did not "accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior", for whatever reason, were going to be condemned to hell. And I could not accept the duty and obligation to approach other people, or share with them Campus Crusade's Four Spiritual Laws , motivated by the above concern, so that they might come to accept Christ and become "saved".The idea of hell was something that especially bothered me. It was not just the fear or worry about going to hell myself. I was especially bothered by the idea of other people supposedly going to hell if they do not “accept Christ” or are not “saved” in this present life, and the resulting duty and obligation to tell others about Christ with that thought in the back of my mind -- something for which I felt complete and utter distaste, and absolutely no joy or enthusiasm about doing. It eventually occurred to me that one of the conclusions of the fundamentalist belief about heaven and hell, and being “saved”, is that an “unsaved” murder victim goes to hell, while if the murderer later “repents”, and “accepts Christ”, the murder is let into heaven. Even though I was still a Christian after that thought had occurred to me, I realized that from then on I completely rejected any fundamentalist approach or understanding of Christianity. I went to some "mainline", non-fundamentalist churches, specifically Presbyterian, Methodist, and Lutheran churches at different times. Even if I did not accept the fundamentalist approach or understanding, and did not believe that those who, for whatever reason, did not “accept Christ” during this lifetime were going to go to hell, I wanted to believe that having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ might be of help to me and make a difference in my life. All during the time I was going to church and taking Christianity seriously I had been having some problems, including problems at some of my early jobs, and especially problems in my relationship with my dad. My dad died in 1985, shortly before my 35th birthday. I came to realize, in early 1987, a little over a year after my dad died, how angry I still was at him. I came to realize that he actually had been abusive, or at least borderline so, at times. I.e. it was not just something wrong (or “sinful”) with me that I had problems with him, and was often angry with and resented him and things he said or did, which anger and resentment spilled to other people and to other areas of my life. Coming to the realization that my dad had actually been abusive at times was a healthy milestone in my life, though I had a lot of anger for a long time, and was in therapy, both individual and group therapy, over a period of years. Along with the realization that my dad had actually been abusive at times, I also came to the realization that being a Christian, and supposedly having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, had not been of any help to me in enabling me to deal with my dad those times he was difficult or obnoxious, and had also not been of help to me in dealing with other problems and issues in my life. In fact there were some particular passages in the Bible which aggravated my problems with my dad; notably the commandment to unconditionally “honor your father and mother” (which in the biblical text does not make exceptions if a parent is abusive, neglectful, or otherwise does not deserve honor), and a passage in Hebrews 12 which says to gladly accept the chastening of the Lord, like that of a “good” father. After a long struggle I eventually came to realize that I needed to part company with the Christian faith, and I am as certain as I am of anything that doing so was the right and healthy thing for me to do. As a Christian I had wanted to accept the assurance and certainty of a life after this present life; that was one of the hard things to let go of. The question of life after this present life is presently an open question for me. I consider the Bible, having been written by fallible human beings, to exhibit human fallibility and human prejudice just like anything else that has ever been written. As a result of my problems with my father, and feeling the way I do about him, I specifically think that the commandment to unconditionally “honor your father and mother” is an example of something in the Bible that is definitely wrong, and a mistake. We hear of those who want to display the Ten Commandments in public places. Anybody who favors displaying the Ten Commandments in public places might just as well tell me to my face that it was my duty and obligation to meekly submit to and gratefully accept the abuse from my dad which came in the guise of “loving” rebukes and scoldings. If anything there should be a commandment for parents to treat their children with dignity and respect, so that the children might come to treat others with dignity and respect. Even though I am not a Christian any more, I am also not an atheist. I feel that there are reasons for considering that the idea of a God or Creator, or some reality or intelligence higher and greater than ourselves, while not necessarily a foregone conclusion, is at least not absurd or ridiculous. I would consider myself to be a Deist, and just on the believing side of agnostic. Deists do not accept any alleged revelations from God, such as the Bible or the Koran, to actually be such, and I am with them about that. |
Profile Information MikeH
1123 posts Member since 2002 San Diego, California, USA Male Blogroll DU Journals
Other Blogs Learning from Hitler and his childhood
What point is there for us today in learning about Hitler and his history? For me, the main point is this: our knowledge will serve as a warning against our blindness and encourage us to give it up once and for all and to struggle against collective repression. This is what I do consistently in all my books in order to help people understand the psychodynamics of the mistreatment of children and its immeasurable danger for society, as demonstrated by Hitler's case. My explanations are by no means intended to suggest pity for a man as merciless as Hitler. it was in large part owing to Hitler and his history that I became aware of the dangers of our traditional morality. We are exhorted to honor our parents and never question them no matter what they have done. Yet when I realize that millions of human beings had to die so that Adolf Hitler could keep his repression of childhood trauma intact, that millions were subjected to humiliation in concentration camps so that he never had to recognize how he had once been humiliated, then I believe that one can't point out these connections often enough in order to shed light on this unconscious production of evil. How should young people be expected to recognize and reject inhumanity and crime if these continue to be disguised instead of being pointed out as plainly as possible? Only when young people are permitted to know exactly what happened and how it could happen, only if they don't allow anything to stifle their curiosity and are not afraid of the truth, can they free themselves from the burden placed upon them by their forebears' blindness. Alice Miller Adolf Hitler: How Could a Monster Succeed in Blinding a Nation? See also For Your Own Good: Preface to the American Edition For Your Own Good: Adolf Hitler's Childhood: From Hidden to Manifest Horror The "Final Solution", Adaptation to Society's Norms, Morality and Duty, and Childhood Feelings
People with any sensitivity cannot be turned into mass murderers overnight. But the men and women who carried out "the final solution" did not let their feelings stand in their way for the simple reason that they had been raised from infancy not to have any feelings of their own but to experience their parents' wishes as their own. These were people who, as children, had been proud of being tough and not crying, of carrying out all their duties "gladly," of not being afraid--that is, at bottom, of not having an inner life at all. ... This perfect adaptation to society's norms--in other words, to what is called "healthy normality"--carries with it the danger that such a person can be used for practically any purpose. It is not a loss of autonomy that occurs here, because this autonomy never existed, but a switching of values, which in themselves are of no importance anyway for the person in question as long as his whole value system is dominated by the principle of obedience. He has never gone beyond the stage of idealizing his parents with their demands for unquestioning obedience; this idealization can easily be transferred to a Führer or to an ideology. Since authoritarian parents are always right, there is no need for their children to rack their brains in each case to determine whether what is demanded of them is right or not. And how is this to be judged? Where are the standards supposed to come from if someone has always been told what was right and what was wrong and if he never had an opportunity to become familiar with his own feelings and if, beyond that, attempts at criticism were unacceptable to the parents and thus were too threatening for the child? If an adult has not developed a mind of his own, then he will find himself at the mercy of the authorities for better or worse, just as an infant finds itself at the mercy of its parents. Saying no to those more powerful will always seem too threatening to him. ... Morality and performance of duty are artificial measures that become necessary when something essential is lacking. The more successfully a person was denied access to his or her feelings in childhood, the larger the arsenal of intellectual weapons and the supply of moral prostheses has to be, because morality and a sense of duty are not sources of strength or fruitful soil for genuine affection. Blood does not flow in artificial limbs; they are for sale and can serve many masters. What was considered good yesterday can--depending on the decree of government of party--be considered evil and corrupt today, and vice versa. But those who have spontaneous feelings can only be themselves. They have no other choice if they want to remain true to themselves. Rejection, ostracism, loss of love, and name calling will not fail to affect them; they will suffer as a result and will dread them, but once they have found their authentic self they will not want to lose it. And when they sense that something is being demanded of them to which their whole being says no, they cannot do it. They simply cannot. Alice Miller For Your Own Good: The Central Mechanism of "Poisonous Pedagogy" Other tyrants and their childhood
In the lives of all the tyrants I examined, I found without exception paranoid trains of thought bound up with their biographies in early childhood and the repression of the experiences they had been through. Mao had been regularly whipped by his father and later sent 30 million people to their deaths, but he hardly ever admitted the full extent of the rage he must have felt toward his own father, a very severe teacher who had tried through beatings to "make a man" out of his son. Stalin caused millions to suffer and die because even at the height of his power his actions were determined by unconscious infantile fear of powerlessness. Apparently his father, a poor cobbler from Georgia, attempted to drown his frustration with liquor and whipped his son almost every day. His mother displayed psychotic traits, was completely incapable of defending her son and was usually away from home either praying in church or running the priest's household. Stalin idealized his parents right up to the end of his life and was constantly haunted by the fear of dangers that had long since ceased to exist but were still present in his deranged mind. The same might be true of many other tyrants. The groups of people they singled out for persecution and the rationalization mechanisms they employed were different in each case, but the fundamental reason behind it was probably identical. They often drew on ideologies to disguise the truth and their own paranoia. And the masses chimed in enthusiastically because they were unaware of the real motives, including those operative in their own biographies. The infantile revenge fantasies of individuals would be of no account if society did not regularly show such naive alacrity in helping to make them come true. Alice Miller The Political Consequences of Child Abuse Visitor Tools
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