That Old Feeling . . .
It has been about 23 years since I lost my belief in the Christian God, the God which I had believed in for 25 years. Since I left Christianity 23 years ago I have not once, not a single time, not even a hint of a twinge, felt any . . .
loss
loss
regret
despair
guilt
fear
uncertainty
confusion
. . . over my departure from Christianity. My confidence in the discoveries that I made way back then, and the conclusions that I came to as a result of those discoveries has been entirely unwavering. In simple terms, I have NO DOUBTS that I made the right decision to leave Christianity 23 years ago . . .
. . . often times, as I pass by my bookshelf and glance at my old, well-used Scofield Reference KJV bible, that I have had since the very early 1980's, with so many notes in the margins - often times, when I glance at it I feel a twinge of comfort . . .? . . . the very same twinge that I would often feel those many years ago when I believed that this collection of "Holy" writings was a message to me from God, the Creator of the universe.
I suspect that if a Christian were to read what I just wrote above, they might surmise that what I feel in those momentary twinges is actually the Spirit of God letting me know that He still loves me, cares for me, and desires for me to come back to the faith.
That would be an incorrect assumption on the Christians part. What I am experiencing, that twinge when I glance at my trusty old bible, is simply nostalgia. It is merely leftover emotional baggage from 25 years of self induced religious indoctrination.
As a believer I loved picking up that black leather-bound volume and searching through it's gold-gilded pages for those nuggets of "truth" and "wisdom". That book was my "authority". It held all the rules that I needed to guide me throughout my entire life - or so I thought - and since that is what I thought - or rather what I believed for so long, that conditioning was bound to have a long-lasting impact on my psyche, and that twinge is proof of that.
How do I know this? Experience. I have been a photographer / camera collector since I was in my teens. I have cameras that I acquired in my youth, cameras that I have used for more than 40 years. Sometimes these cameras will sit unused for several years.
Just the other day I decided to dig out my trusty Nikon F2, pictured above. I purchased it used back in the early 1980's, around the same time that I acquired my bible.
As I pulled one of the many camera bags from under my bed and opened it, and the old F2 came into view I got the exact "twinge", the same feeling of nostalgia. that I have experienced when passing by my book shelf. Was that the "Holy Photography Spirit", the Kodak God? The explanation is obvious - it was just a feeling that was triggered by many years of carrying that camera, and shooting hundreds and hundreds of rolls of film through it.
It was simply that old feeling.
bob
r.u.reasonable@gmail.com
"I suspect that if a Christian were to read what I just wrote above, they might surmise that what I feel in those momentary twinges is actually the Spirit of God letting me know that He still loves me, cares for me, and desires for me to come back to the faith."
ReplyDeleteDear surmising Christians, for those of us who have deconverted, if the Spirit of God desires that we come back to the faith because of his love and care for us, is a momentary twinge the best that he can do? Is he not capable of more definitive communication than that? You know, like maybe audibly talking to me, which would certainly get my attention.