I shared a whole bunch of Bible verses and stories that I wish I’d seen while I was actually Christian–because they’d have helped me leave the religion a lot faster! I literally didn’t notice the Bible’s most troublesome passages. I don’t even think I was even capable of noticing them. At the time, I suffered from a malady that appears to strike many Christians: antiprocess. I was reading the words and seeing the pages, sure, but I wasn’t able to clearly perceive what they said. Through antiprocess, I protected myself from a confrontation with some truly challenging new ideas and contradictory information. Here’s how I did it–and why I had to do it.
All human beings, regardless of theology (or lack thereof), are capable of avoiding deep reading, critical thinking, etc.
Christians could easily be forgiven for having that kind of faith in the Bible. In Christian-Land, regular, diligent Bible study is supposed to fast-track Christians to spiritual maturity and give them the strength to maintain their faith even through those inevitable periods of thorny, gnawing doubt–as well as teach them how to live like decent, ethical human beings and help them settle difficult questions about how to conduct themselves and their relationships. This is the only book anybody needs, they often tell anyone who’ll listen. -Captain Cassidy