Why I Am No Longer A Christian - Part 2

I've been meaning to share with you all since the last blog post: Why I am No Longer a Christian. I had even started to write my responses and then didn't save the draft! Oh well! Part of the process.

As you can see I started this blog post on 2/29/2020 ... today it's 4/06/2020, and we are in the midst of the corona virus pandemic.

Anyways, I digress. I am going to respond to some of the questions asked of me in response to my last post.

​First, to my handful of friends who responded positively and support me in my new way of living, thank you!

1st response:

"All I can say is that I wish you all the best in your new shift in life! I love being a Christian and I am so happy about it! I trust my God's purpose and His love for me. I feel better with Him than without Him! But that's what you mentioned before "Free Will" -- we choose what we choose in hopes that it leads us the right way! Sending you a big hug!"

My response:

I receive the big hug and send a huge one back!

​I am one who really thinks deeply about any important decision that I am going to make in my life. When I was a Christian, I LOVED being a Christian. It was was THE WAY, for me.

When you say, "Feel better with Him, than without Him", I am assuming you think that I am without God? I guess first I should address the question:

Do I believe in God?

Yes, I believe in God. Do I believe in God in the sense that "He" is portrayed in the Bible and as believed in by Christians? No.

I believe in God as a the unseen Source of life that WE ALL are a part of. That includes those who act favorably towards their fellow human beings and non human creatures AND those who are considered "less than" or "scum of the earth".

I'll use the analogy of the ocean. The ocean is vast and is made mostly of water molecules, which are made of atoms. I believe God is like the ocean and we, humanity and other living creatures are the drops of water that make up the ocean (the atoms). I believe everything is connected.

Take a body for example. By the way, the New Testament talks about believers being "the body of Christ" -- each having a unique function, but all part of ONE BODY.

Even the anus has a very crucial part to play for necessary bodily functions; but for the most part it is called "the a#5hole". Pun intended.

I believe the ONE BODY (God, Great Spirit, Universe, Great Mother, etc) is made up of every creature and all is connected to each other. 

I used to believe that God was only the "the Father, Son and Holy Spirit" (the great mystery). Well, it's still a mystery! I now believe everyone is an expression of Great Spirit. We are all discovering other parts of the same body.

I don't like to use the term "feel better", but rather "I feel at peace/content" about where I am in my views about spirituality. I actually feel liberated in my current walk.

Liberated, because I no longer believe in an Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omnipresent being that is, if you look really closely, portrayed as one who is also easily offended and not really a picture of "unconditional" love (referring to the Old Testament).

I believe in a Creator who WE are all a part of and who is absolute love and requires nothing back.

2nd response:

"You had me at hello. But you lost me at Satan story. We don’t serve a narcissist God. Satan had/has a choice. Jesus had/has a choice. You have a choice. I have a choice. I’m thankful for the believers that encouraged you along the hard way. Trust me. I get it. I’m walking the single mom road too with three kids. But every step of the way Jesus has opened doors for me that I can’t deny as miracles. He is the living God. You know it. And where ever you are today, I love you and accept you, and so does He. Keep singing, dancing, living life. You are beautiful and shine!"

My response:

I feel the love from you and I'm super grateful. I reciprocate.

In response to: "We don’t serve a narcissist God."

While I totally respect your views, my view is that the God portrayed in the Bible is a narcissistic God. Why do I feel this way? Well, I kind of went over it in the last blog post but I'll expound a little more here.

Any "ONE" who demands worship appears to me as a narcissist. What does "unconditional love" mean? If Jesus Christ is the epitome of unconditional love, how can He also demand worship?

Unconditional love is exactly what the term denotes "love with NO EXPECTATIONS". How can you love with no expectations yet also have a fiery hell waiting for those who don't reciprocate the feeling?

In my mind, unconditional love is COMPLETE - needing NOTHING back. 

In response to "Satan had/has a choice": How exactly did Satan have a choice in being created? I'm going to leave it at that.

​"Jesus had/has a choice" -- but wait! If Jesus is God, there is no option here. It was already intended ... yes, through choice ... but what came first, the chicken or the egg?

The words that come to mind for me are: intention, purpose, goal, objective ... God had a purpose. According to Christianity, God's purpose was fulfilled through Christ (who is also God).

So, we could also say "God had/has a choice".  If God is all knowing and all powerful, etc... would it even make sense to say "God has a choice".

Everything is in motion or in existence because of God. I guess if it comes down to the argument of choice though, Satan had no choice compared to Jesus Christ. Satan is just a character in the play.

Unless of course, God is also playing the part of Satan? I mean, isn't everything part of the Great Source (God)?

I have an easier time believing this idea (that God also is playing the part of Satan) than to believe that Satan was given free will by being created, yet he chose to go against God and now he is doomed!

I don't know if I am making sense to anyone. 

"But every step of the way Jesus has opened doors for me that I can’t deny as miracles. He is the living God. You know it."

I believe everything in life is miraculous or magical. Those words are kind of the same thing to me.

I've experienced so many "miracles" and I know it's because we are a part of a wondrous system (creation).

Every moment to me is something to be grateful for... from the opening of a flower, to the birth of a baby, to the death of a loved one. It is all part of this thing called life.

I've seen people who were involved in horrific car accidents amazingly recuperate. I've never gone hungry during my most difficult days. All miraculous and "praise worthy" moments.

But what about those children starving in third world countries? Or the child that was molested by his parent? Why do they suffer?

Life is life. There are going to be uncomfortable and traumatic experiences and there are going to be exhilarating experiences as well. 

If we didn't have the unpleasant experiences, how would we know love? Darkness and light both need each other for them to make any sense. 

I believe God plays many parts. 

I want to thank you for kindly responding with beautiful words of encouragement and for sharing your point of view! I honor you and look forward to seeing you again!

3rd response:

"I admire you putting all your questions out there and showing vulnerability. I believe that is the way we find the truth. Keep searching. I believe many of us that have been in church for awhile become disillusioned with God because we equate the church, who are supposed to be representing God, with God and that leads us to disappointment every time. I encourage you to continue searching for truth, but don't look to people. We will disappoint more times than not."

I really appreciated this response (like all the others). I am reminded right now about a thought I've had for a while.

"Mostly everything I know (information) that has come to me either through schooling, taught by parents, searching on my own accord through books, elders' wisdom passed down, prophecy, social media, youtube, you name it ... is from another source"

We search because there is a sense that something is incomplete. Kind of like a mystery that begs to be solved.

We take the "information" that moves us deeply and make some kind of sense about it and say "yes, this is truth".

Honestly, does anybody really know truth? What is truth?

I've come to realize that I am part of a system. A program or a game. One day it's like this. The next, it's like that. There are some consistencies and there are some inconsistencies.

All I KNOW is, what do I do with the present moment that I am in and how do I respond in love (the thing that makes most sense to me).

I don't equate God with the church. I just don't think the church is the greatest example of unconditional love (or Jesus Christ, in another translation), as you already know.

Therefore, Christianity no longer "attracts" me to this beautiful idea of an idealogical love; the kind where we put others before ourselves. This concept "love" can be found mostly outside of Christianity. 

My Christian friends are just as imperfect as my non-Christian friends. There is no difference. 

4th response:

"Thank you so much for sharing your heart Lucianna! I know that took a lot of guts and bravery. I am so sorry for what you have gone through! Life is so hard for many!

I struggled for 6 years as a single mom and got no help from my daughter’s biological father at all! I was an active member of a church when I got pregnant, without being married.

I got judged by so many in the church. I left a church service crying, because I felt the judgement of some when my pregnant belly started to grow, and it was obvious I was carrying a child.

I brought my daughter in this world completely alone. I understand hardship, pain, judgment, and the failure of people to really get Jesus’ message. I totally get it.

Logically it makes absolutely no sense. When I first started attending PBA, people tried to convince me to become a Christian. They would stay up late into the night trying to convert me. However, I had perfect rebuttals.

I used exactly the same arguments you are using. I really tried to think critically about religion. I was born and named Jewish in the synagog. I went to Catholic school growing up and, I knew there was a God but didn’t think he cared or knew me personally.

Now I was at a Baptist college and was thinking critically about my beliefs and what made sense to me. However, while I was doing this, I was becoming friends with people that really loved me and accepted me for who I truly was.

I had never experienced that unconditional love before, even from my own family. I began really praying and asking God to reveal truth to me. From the bottom of my heart I desired to know the truth (whatever truth that may be).

After seeking truth and having an open heart to answers, a friend of mine came up to me one evening when I was working. She told me God wanted her to talk to me. She grabbed my hands and instantly I felt a supernatural feeling of peace through my whole body. She told me things I was praying about, that I never told another soul.

From that moment on, I became a believer and have never looked back. Can I say that my life has gotten easier? In most ways not really. However I gained a purpose in life.

My life no longer consisted of me following whatever desire I had at the time. I also gained a compass. I no longer just followed whatever justification I could come up with to pursue my sin at the time.

I now had a right and wrong code to live by. I also gained salvation. I no longer had a fear of the unknown and the big death or end of life. I could finally sleep peacefully at night confident in the fact that I know there is a heaven, and I know I am going.

The most important thing I gained that night is a father. I no longer had to face any hardship alone. When I come to Him for anything, He never disappoints.

There have been times where I’ve needed Him every second. And He has been there. So I completely understand what you are saying.

Logically it makes no sense at all! People are so stupid and do not get Jesus’s teaching at all. We are all failures and sinners. However if we look to Him only, we find answers for everything.

I would never believe in Jesus, if I tried to logically figure it out. However I can never deny what happened to me that night at PBA over 20 years ago.

I have never had the flooding of feelings of peace like I did that night, however I have had glimpses of His peace and love, and I feel completely complete and safe in His presence. I am completely ok with surrendering to His control and resting in the knowledge that I am not meant to have all the answers and be in complete control of everything.

I really pray that you are complete and happy and of course respect and love you know matter what. But I love you too much to say nothing.

You were one of those friends at PBA to show me unconditional love and even prayed for me when the enemy was trying to get me.

I’m not sure if you remember a Bible study at your house. One day there was some guy that brought with him a darkness. I was a new believer but could feel a strong feeling of darkness and sadness as soon as I entered his presence. And it just grew worse when he started to pray. I couldn’t shake the sadness and started to leave your house crying.

​You and someone else stopped me and began praying over me. And as soon as you started praying, the feelings of darkness and sadness left me. I will always be grateful to you for that. I don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t of stopped me that evening. I am so grateful! Hang in there! I will be praying for you."

This was so beautifully shared! I do remember and I am glad that I was a positive impact on your life.

All the feelings that you are referring to: the strong sense of overwhelming peace, the "super natural" feelings, etc ... I have experienced as a Christian and even after, as a non-Christian. 

There is a saying "whatever you focus on becomes your reality"; I am not sure who came up with this, but I believe it applies to life. 

When I was a Christian, I believed a lot in "spiritual warfare" (fighting unseen entities that were against Jesus Christ and His chosen). As mentioned in my last blog post, I used to think there was an evil entity behind every vice and consequently I used to battle with these entities in my dreams.

As I changed my perspective and started seeing everything as interconnected, I had less and less dreams of that nature and actually started dreaming on animals more. I believe that is when my interest in shamanic healing began to crest.

I have experienced deep healing in the past few years, that goes way back into my ancestry. Although I no longer subscribe to any religious beliefs, ancestral healing has become a huge part of my life.

During some powerful shamanic circles, I've experienced such deep emotions that were just as powerful as my encounters with "Holy Spirit". There is no difference.

All of it was weaved in a cocoon of unconditional love. Jesus Christ, to me is a pure example of love. The only things that have changed for me is my belief that He is the only way to eternal life and that I have to "worship" him.

Jesus Christ represent to me: going within and seeing that eternal life ALREADY exists within each one of us and we are all eternal. You and I don't "really" know the exact life of Jesus Christ but we do know He has had a powerful impact on the lives of countless people.

He is a reminder that love is the answer and that when we truly love others unconditionally, after of course "loving ourselves" (and this is not selfish), we are living in alignment with Source.

Loving ourselves involves taking a good look at the mirror and taking the time to uncover some "painful" aspects about ourselves, seeing where we lost part of ourselves through trauma, and bringing those lost parts back (soul retrieval). 

I bring this back to the idea of the "body" ... when we look at our bodies and really start loving EVERY part ... even the stinky parts and acknowledging them as equally necessary for full function, we are able to integrate the shadows and the light as one WHOLE. 

This brings complete peace and balance. Trust me, I know many Christians who have yet to truly find that "peace", yet they live their lives in total service to God.

If I die today, by the way, I am already in eternal peace. Isn't there somewhere in the Bible that states there is no yesterday or tomorrow for God? Time is of no essence to me in this regard. ​

My code to live by is LOVE and I feel this ever so strongly.

5th response:

"Great writing Lulu. I look forward to reading future posts.

I’ve experienced many of the things you wrote about also. It is sad when Christians give a bad name to Christ. I have been able to reconcile my faith but I still agree with many of your observations about the Bible, Christianity, and humanity.

Don’t stop asking questions or seeking answers. I look forward to seeing more writing as you continue on your journey. Xoxo"

Thank you! Love exists everywhere, not only in the "name of Jesus Christ". I have experienced deep love and patience from atheists who sat through my preachings. HA HA HA!

I believe the idea of faith is a very personal one. Each person is on their own journey of discovering. There will be so much information to sift through. What I tell my kids though is this, "question everything and know that the answers are already within you".

May we all tune into the frequency of love that we came to this earth with and hold space for every other fellow sojourner that we interact with. 

Every day is an opportunity to show unconditional love; regardless of our faith choices. This, I believe would bring Jesus Christ so much joy!