Religion: A Real Life MATRIX

sent in by Bernard

I'm finally free, after 12 years of cerebral captivity i've broken the chains that bound my mind. Much like neo in the matrix flicks I involuntarily lived in an unreal oppressive Christian world for over half my life. I was programmed from birth to be a Christian robot. I was forced to read my bible everyday, attend services anywhere from four to seven times a week, pray non-stop about everything, fast every time a church member got sick, which was about every other day, live a perfect life never doing wrong, and countless other impossibilities.

Needless to say growing up in this heavenbound way of life was nothing but hell. I missed out on most of my childhood because I wasn't allowed to do most other kids did. like play, have fun, goof off, and get into the normal type of harmless mischief we're all supposed to experience. Oh sure I tried, but being under such close scrutiny all the time I rarely even got away with pissing on the toilet seat once in a while. And when I did do something wrong or made an honest simple mistake I was beaten like a runaway slave. I'd get stripped down to my underwear and hit 10-15 times with an extension cord...that's right an EXTENSION CORD. I was constantly criticized and belittled shattering my self esteem, and the threat of hell was always the trump card for my 'disobedience''.

My teenage and young adult years weren't much better either, with so much Christian pressure and low self esteem I missed out on dating, friendships, school functions, sports, and just about everything else most people do at a young age. It wasn't until I was 19 and joined the service that I was able to get away from most of the madness and finally start experiencing real life with some enjoyment. But having had the misfortune of getting stationed right in my own hometown I still couldn't really or fully escape from the mental matrix my life had become.

Then about a year and a half later I met a new service buddy who had just came back from overseas. He became my 'Morpheus' and we had many a deep conversation about religion, church, god, and the bible. He'd been through much of the same things in his life and understood exactly what I'd been going through. He began taking me to free thinkers meetings and and all kinds of non-religious bible discussion. We picked the bible apart and dropped mad science on everything from Christianity to Greek mythology. It was such a revelation I felt as if I had just come out of a twenty year coma. Six months with him undid nearly a lifetimes worth of damage and disillusion. I then started seeing a therapist to help with my damaged pysche[exscuse my spelling] and began feeling much better.

Now armed with more knowledge is power than I could have ever dreamed, I went back to the church I used to attend and denounced my membership there. I told the members as nicely as I could that I still consider them as friends but I could no longer go on participating in a distorted fantasy. I then invited them all to one of my free thinkers meetings and of course was met by shock and outrage by all. A few months later my mother begged me to come back to church with her and give Jesus another chance. I said ok but only on one condition, she would have to attend a free thinkers meeting with me first. She refused just like many other Christians who've asked me to attend church with them hoping to make some kind of breakthrough and get me to change my mind, but never willing to come to the other side and see why we feel the way we do. They ask me what have you got to lose, and I ask them the same thing. Could it be they might just lose their Christian faith?

But I'm enjoying life so much better now outside the Christian matrix and my G.I. buddy has since helped free over a dozen more minds. The ex-Christian forces are growing and hopefully in the next few hundred years the bible can be looked upon as the true mythology that it is just like all the others, then maybe the world will be a happier more sane place.

This is a wonderful website...thanx for the vine.




Sex: m

City: san diego

Became a Christian: at birth

Ceased being a Christian: 20

Labels now: hard core atheist

Why I joined: forced

Why I left: blue pill