tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4420322690040076675.post320588829410924739..comments2023-03-16T09:04:59.272-05:00Comments on Rusty's God Blog: Belief in God: An Analysis of My Early YearsRusty Spellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04192027160446175143noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4420322690040076675.post-78080160945175651692012-03-19T10:29:28.458-05:002012-03-19T10:29:28.458-05:00I like lengthy comments, especially when they'...I like lengthy comments, especially when they're this well-written (rare for internet comments, I find). I was lucky enough to escape the "fear" thing somehow (at least when it came to basic belief, though it affected related areas), but it's certainly a big one for many, many people.<br /><br />For my silly "answer" to your mentor's hell argument, see my "Belief in Marduk" post, the "Pascal's Wager" section. There's also a funny video I saw once of someone attempting to follow *every* religion, "just in case."<br /><br />If you want to read an extension of this post, you can write me an <a href="http://www.rustyspell.com/rustysemail.html" rel="nofollow">email</a> and I'll send you a "secret" God Blog article that I'm not ready to post to the general public yet.Rusty Spellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04192027160446175143noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4420322690040076675.post-26669817696026095882012-03-16T15:32:00.802-05:002012-03-16T15:32:00.802-05:00I grew up in an ultra-conservative Christian envir...I grew up in an ultra-conservative Christian environment, and for many years I considered myself a born again Christian. Looking back on those years, I believe that my belief in the Christian god was based on fear. My earliest memories are of lying in bed at night and being terrified that I was going to hell for that lie I told my mom about whether I brushed my teeth that morning, or taking a cookie when no one was looking. As a grew older, I had many problems with what my religion taught: that gays are going to hell, that God is loves all equally yet he lets some have the obvious advantage of being born into Christian families while others are born into some “heathen” religion, etc. When I was struggling with my beliefs, I talked to a mentor who told me that he believes in the biblical God because if he’s right, he gets to go to heaven, while if he’s wrong then no harm was done and he’s lived a fine life. While there are many holes in this argument that I won’t get into, again it seems belief based on fear. Just in case there is a hell, I’ll follow Christianity so that I don’t go there. After I began to change my mind about the whole Christianity thing, the fear was still there, only this time it was fear of what people would think. Would my parents disown me? Would my friends hate me? Was it worth going through the motions to avoid external conflict, although internal conflict was eminent? What am I supposed to believe now? At first I secretly considered myself a complete atheist, but it didn’t seem to fit for me. I had beliefs that didn’t seem to fit any exact label, and I felt that religion/spirituality was too important of a part of human nature to disregard it completely. So here I am now. I wrote all that to share an extremely brief account of what motivated my early beliefs and to tell a little bit about how they have changed. Hope you don’t mind the lengthy comment. And as a disclaimer, I’m certainly not saying that all Christians believe in my brief description of what I was taught.Alinoreply@blogger.com