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Post by grievousangle on May 8, 2009 18:09:50 GMT -5
Hi there, I am Scott,(not THE Scott from Vyckie's tale) a way secular ex-fundamentalist dood who thankfully grew out of it before getting tangled up in anything as dumb as QF. I met Vyckie Garrison on the internet via a comment she left on an Alternet article dealing with the QF movement. I am so impressed by Vyckie and Laura and the work they have done with this site. I am even more encouraged to read that Vyckie is working on a book. It is high time that there was a voice out there to help other trapped women struggling with the torments of QF life. I am of the belief that the nugget of trouble, the thing that precipitates much of the pain shared by so many women in this world is the notion of an angry little god with a penis responsible for creating all of this who now busies himself reading our minds and watching us like we're "The Truman Show."
I believe we simply must escape our superstitions if we are to progress. One of the great providers of light in the struggle is feminism. And while I will leave open the question of whether it is possible for a male to be a real feminist, I will just say that it is better for all of us for men to at least try. So I try.
Other than that, I like motorcycles, riding wherever I go.
The username I chose, grievousangle, is wordplay from a Gram Parsons song, "Return of the Grievous Angel." I believe I might have a fairly grievous angle for certain fundamentalists.
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linnea
Junior Member
Posts: 80
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Post by linnea on May 8, 2009 19:07:16 GMT -5
Welcome, grievousangle!
If you feel like it, it'd be interesting to hear how you became an ex-fundamentalist.
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Post by Vyckie D. Garrison on May 9, 2009 0:00:36 GMT -5
Hey Scott ~ I was wondering if you were reading the NLQ forums. What Scott so humbly neglected to mention in his intro. is that he is the one responsible for the Salon.com article which was really the kick-off for No Longer Quivering. He also suggested "Not Quivering" for a title ~ which Laura altered slightly to No Longer Quivering ~ and so that's where we got our name. Cool. Anyway ~ glad to have you here, Scott. Hope to hear from you often ~ you may have noticed that your gender is grossly under-represented here on the NLQ forums. I suspect that's because so few men are willing to give up the privilege and power which comes from serving the angry little god with a penis. Kudos for being one of the few.
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Post by grievousangle on May 9, 2009 3:25:19 GMT -5
Welcome, grievousangle! If you feel like it, it'd be interesting to hear how you became an ex-fundamentalist. Hi Linnea, No remarkable story, really. I grew up in the prototypical abusive stepfather house. I and my younger brother and sister grew up with constant hatred and violence. I was the oldest and when I got big enough to fight back to defend my mother and my brother and sister, I sometimes got tossed out of the house or fled to let things cool off. I met a good kid with a nice family who sheltered me from some of the vilest outbursts. They were fundamentalists and influenced me to convert. Basically, it was like when, near the end of O Brother, Where art Thou?, Everett McGill faces death and pleads for mercy from the sky. I lived with constant doubts about it all, of course. That's the thing: every believer, I think, wonders if all of the stories are really true. Gradually, all of my fundamentalist corners began to soften and round out. I began to see the impossibility of the miraculous fables of the old testament or the very possibility that the author of our complex universe could ever crave sacrificed animal carcasses. On the other hand, the notion that there might be somebody else in the temple who did happen to enjoy the odd roasted leg of lamb and found that the likelihood of one appearing coincided neatly with the temperature of his zealotry did not strike me as being too illogical.. Still, I clung to the notion of a merciful Jesus and was willing, for a time, to accept the dichotomy of the vile Old Testament and what I reckoned to be the divine nature of the New. I am a slow learner. It took me quite a while to determine that mercy and forgiveness do not require Christianity. I began to see that the very nature of the biggest fable of them all, that an innocent soul had to be slaughtered to pay some kind of perverse debt owed to the author of the universe, could never have been true. Everything in nature tells us this is wrong. Nature tells us that reliance on supernatural activity yields precisely what no reliance on supernatural activity yields. All the while the normal distribution rules. Wanna meet the real god? Shake hands! The formula for the normal probability distribution. Believers pray, non-believers don't. Both get sick or injured, both die or live according to probabilities that arrange themselves in the same bell curve we are all familiar with. So I began to suspect, mostly through watching the behavior of Christians, that perhaps there was something more to their characteristic repression, backbiting, and xenophobia than just "human imperfection." Then it occurred to me: when you adhere to a philosophy proclaiming the futility of good works there should be no mystery about the fact you're also an asshole. The fundament of Christianity, the belief in eternal damnation and salvation through grace is at the heart of crappy behavior worldwide. And the notion that acolytes must convert others is responsible for so much death and suffering throughout the ages that one just gasps. I came to the conclusion that not only was my remaining a Christian a lie, it was unethical. I was doing evil by not getting out of it. I now have a great deal of enmity built up for the knucklehead fundamentalists responsible for so much atrocity and crime. Pain and repression follow Christians around like fart clouds and they don't even know it. Their hollow smiles and their smirking pomposity and their fake concern sickens me. But, even though I am not a Christian, I also realize that there is an obligation on my part to try to help them escape it like I did. Like Vykie and Laura, our hosts here, did. When someone escapes fundamentalism, and especially its weirder offshoots like QF, the world becomes a better place. Not because any phony god is made happy or unhappy over it, but because free and rational thinking and behavior is necessary for our survival. Patriarchy is ruining our planet, our societies, our minds. And at the very root of patriarchy are the goat herder religions like Fundamentalist Christianity. So I consider it my duty to try to love the fundamentalists while hating their fun. When they deny others rights, trample on basic human rights, repress our society and stunt its growth, I can speak out against it. I can also hope that some of the fundamentalists will, in their inevitable sessions of navel gazing and doubt, come to places like this to learn and to heal. I rejoice when that happens. And that's how I became an ex-fundamentalist!
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Post by sargassosea on May 9, 2009 7:32:30 GMT -5
Hey, GA and welcome. And while I will leave open the question of whether it is possible for a male to be a real feminist, I will just say that it is better for all of us for men to at least try. So I try. Agreed, it's in the trying And as Vyckie said, it can be hard to step. away. from. the. privilege... I have to remember that although I am a woman, I am a white, middle class, secular woman and all of those things give me privilege beyond a whole lot of other women. So even for me *it's in the trying*. Sea PS - Love the handle!
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Post by grievousangle on May 9, 2009 9:17:35 GMT -5
Hey Scott ~ I was wondering if you were reading the NLQ forums. What Scott so humbly neglected to mention in his intro. is that he is the one responsible for the Salon.com article which was really the kick-off for No Longer Quivering. He also suggested "Not Quivering" for a title ~ which Laura altered slightly to No Longer Quivering ~ and so that's where we got our name. Cool. Anyway ~ glad to have you here, Scott. Hope to hear from you often ~ you may have noticed that your gender is grossly under-represented here on the NLQ forums. I suspect that's because so few men are willing to give up the privilege and power which comes from serving the angry little god with a penis. Kudos for being one of the few. Hiya Vyckie, Good to talk to you again. I am just in awe of your efforts here. It's a splendid blog, so well done and with such thoughtful and talented commenters! So happy to see it here as an outlet for your story and as a help for others who are/were in your shoes. I shudder when I think of the treatment you and Sandy and your Mom and your kids have received at the hands of various abuser doods and it makes me ashamed of my sex, quite frankly. Maybe it's a blessing that you aren't seeing a whole lot of males in here. My guess is that the ones you get are probably just as disgusted with the patriarchy as I am. Hey! Have you been able to kick any abusive males off here yet? Boy, that ought to be fun! Anyway, have a great weekend Vyckie and all NLQ readers! Scott from California
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erin
New Member
Posts: 2
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Post by erin on May 9, 2009 10:05:30 GMT -5
Hey, thanks for sharing the mathematical formula to allow us to "shake hands" with God; that made me smile on a bad morning. And on a superficial note, I am thrilled to meet another Gram Parsons fan! His music has soothed me through a lot. From what I have read about his sense of humor he would be delighted with your twist on the album name.
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Post by grievousangle on May 9, 2009 12:54:01 GMT -5
Hi there Sea, I am right there with you on the privilege thing. First step is admitting that the playing field is not level. Some of us are always going to be "more equal" as Orwell put it. In this world the most equal are wealthy white males and the most unequal are women of color. If you can't see that first then it is impossible to move forward. Secular Humanist Blessings! Scott Hey, GA and welcome. And while I will leave open the question of whether it is possible for a male to be a real feminist, I will just say that it is better for all of us for men to at least try. So I try. Agreed, it's in the trying And as Vyckie said, it can be hard to step. away. from. the. privilege... I have to remember that although I am a woman, I am a white, middle class, secular woman and all of those things give me privilege beyond a whole lot of other women. So even for me *it's in the trying*. Sea PS - Love the handle!
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Post by grievousangle on May 9, 2009 12:58:35 GMT -5
Hi Erin, Thank you for your generous comment. I am delighted to read that you have escaped an abuser and now have been able to win custody of your child from him. Secular Humanist Blessings! Scott Hey, thanks for sharing the mathematical formula to allow us to "shake hands" with God; that made me smile on a bad morning. And on a superficial note, I am thrilled to meet another Gram Parsons fan! His music has soothed me through a lot. From what I have read about his sense of humor he would be delighted with your twist on the album name.
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Post by krwordgazer on May 9, 2009 13:40:49 GMT -5
Grievousangle, I'm sad to say that many, many Christians are exactly as you say. But you don't know me, and you can't see whether my smile is hollow or my concern is fake. They both feel quite genuine to me. As to whether I have "smirking pomposity," all I can say is that I don't believe I'm better than anyone else, and if you find such in my words, you are free to point it out-- with kindness, I hope.
I do not consider myself a fundamentalist. And I don't believe it's necessary to have an us-them mentality. We are all human beings, all trying our best to find reality when all we have are limited views through non-objective eyes.
From your words, I can see that you are an "evangelical" secular humanist, in that you believe you need to "save" Christians from Christianity. Tell you what-- if you don't try to convert me, I won't try to convert you. Not that I would anyway. . .
Sound ok? ;D
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Post by grievousangle on May 9, 2009 14:50:40 GMT -5
KR, I will be having an altar call later in the meeting. First we must handle some vile serpents and speeke in divers tounges! Grievousangle, I'm sad to say that many, many Christians are exactly as you say. But you don't know me, and you can't see whether my smile is hollow or my concern is fake. They both feel quite genuine to me. As to whether I have "smirking pomposity," all I can say is that I don't believe I'm better than anyone else, and if you find such in my words, you are free to point it out-- with kindness, I hope. I do not consider myself a fundamentalist. And I don't believe it's necessary to have an us-them mentality. We are all human beings, all trying our best to find reality when all we have are limited views through non-objective eyes. From your words, I can see that you are an "evangelical" secular humanist, in that you believe you need to "save" Christians from Christianity. Tell you what-- if you don't try to convert me, I won't try to convert you. Not that I would anyway. . . Sound ok? ;D
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Post by krwordgazer on May 9, 2009 18:34:12 GMT -5
kewl. I'm having a meeting too. We'll show some Carl Sagan documentaries, followed by our guest speaker, Richard Dawkins. ;D
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Post by AustinAvery on May 26, 2009 16:51:56 GMT -5
Really good story! I, too, contacted Vyckie after seeing her posts at AlterNet. I was not nearly as much help to her as you were, though, so "good on ya" (said with a deep Texas drawl a la Molly Ivins). I was raised in a college town by loving parents who were college professors and who were, without every bothering to so label themselves, humanists and/or naturalists (metaphysical or philosophical--I can't figure out the difference). Religion was practically outside of my experience (other than a long high school relationship with a Mormon, whose belief in Mormonism was just befuddling) until the Bush II years and the attendant rise of the religious right. Thus, I don't really have much to be angry about (but don't get me started on evolution vs. creationism ). What I find most interesting is that people like you and Vyckie managed to--in essence--think your way out of repressive religious groups. And you two are part, I hope, of a vanguard. Admittedly, I'm saying I like you guys because you've come around to MY way of seeing the world. But I put much stock in the fact that my why of seeing the world--yours too it seems evident--welcomes introspection and examination, and always remains subject to revision. Dogma isn't like that. So, if I have "faith," it is in the power of thinking and compassionate people, in the long run, to overcome dogma, orthodoxy, and prejudices, and to bring the rest of humanity with them. I see much of that here--your story particularly--and that is why I enjoy coming back so often. I look forward to more of your posts.
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Post by grievousangle on May 27, 2009 0:00:33 GMT -5
Hello Austin, Appreciate you invoking Molly Ivins, she was a special favorite of mine from way back. I miss her. Texas is not, er, underrepresented, by clods of the Bush stripe, but when you run across an authentic good 'un he or she is finestkind. Molly was all that.
How wonderful to have been raised by academics and intellectuals. Though there is no sure vaccination against theist predation, I imagine that a skeptical and enlightened set of parents is about as good a start as one could ask for.
Pleasure to meet you, Austin.
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Post by sleepybones on May 28, 2009 9:17:21 GMT -5
"When you adhere to a philosophy proclaiming the futility of good works there should be no mystery about the fact you're also an asshole" LOL! That's a good one!
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