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Struggling with hell/satan/evil stuff. I am fully convinced it's not real but I'm still struggling to free myself from the fear. What are some good tips.

PeterLash 5 Mar 15
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You acknowledge the very root of it: fear. Myths are 'planted' in our little wooly heads as soon as possible like little seeds sown with a fertilizer called fear of punishment and security from approval and the reward of 'inclusion' with family and community.

It requires repossessing what we were deprived of and literally forced to suppress in order to accept the mythical systems of thought necessary for security from bad outcomes. Strangely, I still think of it as 'faith', but faith in ourselves and our own instinctual capacities for evaluating reality. We're born (in my faith...) with at least two self-regulating instincts that are sidelined as a price of membership in society in exchange for externally dictated replacements. They are morality and sexuality. We're first, as children, deprived of development of them and as we gain 'full membership' become conditioned to voluntarily abdicate them for substitutes that make us all sick by different degrees; depending on our native abilities to internalize the artifice and still function legally and honestly within society as dictated.

Tips:

Know that your own 'gut' and reasoning, though imperfect, is more reliable and more your friend than what the 'reasoning of others' has to offer. We get for free (so to say) what others persuade us to accept with promises that THEY know better and that our interests are important to them.

Might doesn't make 'right' and neither does consensus, when it is a product of off the shelf or menu concoction. We must write our own recipes. When we do, we know why each and every ingredient is included and others excluded internally. Those consuming packaged, manufactured goods know only some ingredients and depend upon 'makers' for talking points, scriptures, etc. to explain what they THINK they believe.

Truth really does set one free, but the catch is that we have to cooperate in emancipating ourselves by pursuing Truth with our own curiosity and reasoning; free of the parasites all around us, hawking this or that 'ism' which are for the most part only a protection racket in disguise. Truth is the daughter of Time, it is said. We find it in time on our own paths. The less we're detoured by isms the less time necessary to reach our destinations.

Don't allow people with native faculties no better than yours to infect you with their self-deluded notions that they 'know better than you' because they've discovered a wonderful magic-like secret that explains more than you are equipped to understand on your own. They've been conned and want to hook others to feed their suppliers and their own addictions.

I'd say 'good luck' but luck is always good. That is, if we only recognize it.

And never worry that you want ‘belong,’ since the majority out here are still believers. It will eventually become clear,...your/our only real need is to belong to ourselves!

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You either believe in bullshit or you don't, up to you.

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Maybe this will help

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When you give up your imaginary friend security blanket it is always best to give up the boogeyman that the security blanket was supposedly protecting you from. There are bad things out there in the world, Satan is not one of them.

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" You have NOTHING to Fear except Fear itself." Author unknown atm.

Tat was FDR.

I believe that was Roosevelt?

@Sgt_Spanky Thanks for jogging my memory.

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I ask myself this question, "Would an intelligent creator design such a system?"

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I enjoy the structures and pathways one can explore in regard to explanation. Fear I was able to leave behind (somewhat perhaps 😊), by meditation. Things actually got better for myself fearwise when I started paying attention to what and how I fed myself.

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What happens to you after you die? My research tells me that your body is buried, cremated, or disposed of in some manner. This means the matter eventually or directly goes back into its elemental form and gets redistributed to the Earth. This may take some time as if you are put into a coffin the coffin has to disintegrate for you to escape it. The energy that is in your body at death is transformed either into matter, your dead body or escapes into the Universe, it probably stays locally (by this I mean within the realm of the Earth). Time for matter is like the time you experience while alive. Time for energy (traveling at the speed of light, all electro-magnetic energy travels at the speed of light) is instantaneous. This means that the photon one would see from the start of the Universe some 13.8 billion years ago, in terms of that photon is instantaneous. At the speed of light there is no passing of time. So what this means for one who is attempting to ask a question about what happens after death is still a mystery if there is something other than the mass of material in your body or the energy existing while one is alive. It could be said that the actual molecules or atoms that were once in a persons body will again enter another persons body through food or something else that one puts into ones body. We cannot actually track individual atoms so to say this is not really a stretch. It has to do with the mathematics of large processes. We are all star stuff and we will go back to that at some point.

word

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If you have recently made the decision to leave religion behind, don’t be so hard on yourself to forget everything and live in your new life. It will be settled quicker than you might think. But, let it happen intellectually and emotionally within your particular personality...no need to fear anything! You are taking charge of your own life, and that must be possible, as many many people before you have made that transition with success. I am one of them. Best of luck.

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As an African, my belief, conviction and ability to verbally express that there is no God, come from freeing myself from idiotic utterances.

Many Africans are genuinely terrified, that some unseen ever-present deity will come down and strike them dead, if they renounce the existence of this fake parasite, called God.

So, see all around you, the presence of Science is in everything, not Gods.

Take this moment and believe in only what you see and can be tested

Ask yourself, how many other books, have you read that 'prove' the existence of God.

Ask yourself, how many people who died, that you knew who came back to prove or dispel the reality of God. Heaven and Hell. How many people ? Be bold and desentisize yourself and come out of this slavery.

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Popular question:

The 1st hardened catholic I de-converted thanked me because after I showed him the way from the darkness of superstition to the light of reason and truth, he no long feared hell. Before de-converting, he would often awake in the middle of the night from a hell nightmare.

Your question is a common question:

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The bible itself is the best cure for this. It does not hold any truths revealed by any god. It is full of contradictions, just as the god described in its pages. There is no reason to take any of it literally.

  1. The Satan character started out as a prosecuting attorney of sorts, who worked for the big G. The Satan was used by this god to "test" people, making sure that their faith in this god, love of this god, was for the right reasons (as is seen in the character Job). It was not the leader of demon hoards it became later.

It was the Christians who turned this character into what it became--the evil fallen angel that god gave reign over the earth. Seriously, what kind of fair and loving god would do that? Also, the serpent in the garden was NOT the Satan; this was alleged by later Christians.

  1. There is no hell. Ancient Jews, just as Jews of today, did not believe in any place of eternal punishment. They believed in Sheol. Everyone went there when they died; it was not a place of punishment. We can thank Christians for inventing hell (a place of eternal torment).

Jesus supposedly believed in hell, but words attributed to him were written decades, even centuries, later by people who were, by then, Christians--not Jews (as Jesus was).

If this god created hell, why did it wait so long to threaten its creation with it?

  1. Two books that helped me realize that the bible is a collection of fictional writings based on folklore, tribal agendas and widespread myths of the time are:

'Who Wrote the Bible,' by Richard E. Friedman and "101 Myths of the Bible," by Gary Greenberg.

As for evil. Good and evil are human constructs. What is good or evil has changed over time and still varies among cultures.

We are products of our nature, culture, upbringing...

There is no malevolent force acting on us, causing us to do bad things, nor a benevolent force encouraging us to do good things.

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The cure is education. Read and listen to (my recommendations) Hitchens, Bart Ehrman, Jerry Coyne, deGrasse Tyson.. there are so many. History, think about the history of life on earth, and then there is science. Humans are the creators. We created the supernatural where all gods reside. Good luck! GROG

GROG Level 6 Mar 17, 2020
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Then there is THIS...

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Fear for mos tpeopel comes from a lack of knowledge. As i tis impossible to find actual facts of an afterlife to prove one way or another about hell and what comes afterwards... if anything, , then you have to educated yourself on the origins of the stories of a hellish afterlife.

Most people are surprised to learn that the Jewish (Hebrew) faith did nto originally include hell. As it turns out the Zoriastrians conquered the Mews, and the "war in heaven" and stories of the origins of hte devil and hell were co-opted (plageurized) from Zoriastrain beliefs.

Every story religious or otherwise is built on previous stories and themes of other societies and other religions. For instance the story of Noah is the fourth (known) and most recent incarnation of the flood story, and the only one that has only one god.

The story of Jesus, was one of many savior/messiahs and was also taken form previous stories and themes.

As you learn more about the origins of the stories, you will strt to see them as what they are... just stories. REalize that the above videos only reference known origns of stories, and there are soem origins which have been lost because they predate written language, or they were lost an int efire of the Alexandria library (which I believe was set by Christan extremists of th etime).

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Reason it out. Where’s the proof for any of it? You will read that every belief is rooted in someone’s vision.why his and not mine then? Garbage. We no longer need to live in the mythological age. We’re well read and learned. Science leading the way in almost every discipline.

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I don't believe in a soul. I mean, where is it? How does it interact with the body because if it doesn't interact with the body how could it learn/change/evolve? And if it can't do that, what's the sense of it? Why is there no evidence whatsoever that a soul exists despite research. Who have souls, people, dogs, cockroaches? It's all bullshit, when you're dead you're dead: no heaven, hell, ghosts, spirits etc. Just dead. And you won't care, because you'll be dead.

@Novelty best laugh all day. Thank you 😅😅

When I think of ‘soul’ my mind envisions the universal energy that supports us. We do have an energy field about us.

@Freedompath yep, and so does my car because it is also a conductor and has electric circuits running through it.

@Cyklone Our autos do have an energy field too! Did Einstein not prove that all things are energy vibrating at a different speed?

@Freedompath yes, I agree. But a conductor (bodies, cars etc) that has a current running through it generates a measurable electromagnetic field around it as well.

@Cyklone That would be energy...right?

@Freedompath Actually I think you'll find that the actual reference was to Atoms and Molecules vibrating, which they all do, imperceptible to our normal sense, but none-the-less they vibrate.
For example, when a container of water is heated, it IS trhe heat that causes the vibrations of the molecules, etc, to vibbrate faster and faster until they vibrate so fast that the percetion of the bioling and turning to steam ocurrs.

I just ate my sole ceviche and it was delicious, so this sole is inside me already!

@Triphid How different is the ‘energy’ of a human body, when it is living and when it is no longer alive and breathing? If my memory serves me here...I believe this has been measured? If so, what left the body? Was it just the breath then what was that ‘breath?’

@Freedompath Well, technically the 'energy' of the human body is derived from the both the nutrients it has consumed, digested and then utilised by the cells that make up the body and the oxygen it also consumes AFTER the lungs extract it from the air it has breathed in.
Since atoms and molecules make up EVERY single cell in every part of the human body and those atoms, etc, vibrate, then that is the 'energy' to which, I assume, you are refering.
Every atom, every molecule in the entire Universe, without execption, vibrates, each copper atom in the wires leading to your house vibrates, but it is stimulated to vibrate even more and faster once you throw the switch to turn on a light, etc, that is how the current and electrical power travels from Generator to your house, basically.
And is travels along the wires it creates an Electro-magnetic field that radiates out as a 50Hz radio signal as well.

@Triphid Humans are not an inanimate object. (Nor animals.) So where does the ‘energy’ that existed in a person (animal), go? Does it merge with the current field of energy, (it does not disappear)? And if radio waves can be measured, cannot energy leaving a live person in death, be measured? Energy must take different forms as it is dispersed from one form (humans/animals) to another. The whole of nature must be another story?

@Freedompath Oh stone the crows, (shaking head in disbelief btw).
Yes I know full well humans ARE animate objects, so are birds, other animals etc, as well, ALL are made up of atoms and molecules, so are rocks, trees, dirt, gases, water, the chair/s you sit upon, your computer/iphone, ipad or whatever and even excrement as well.
In all my years and years as a Nurse NEVER once have I seen 'energy' eminating/departing from a newly deceased person but I have regularly seen the body rid itself of wastes such as urine and faeces soon after death.
We Humans, just like every other living thing just live and die, after that the flesh, etc, begins to slowly but surely decay and rot away as bacteria take over and start breaking down the individual cells usually leaving not much more than a putrid sludge behind.
Any clearer on the subject now?

@Triphid It helps to be able to recognise when you're flogging a dead horse. 😉

@Cyklone Or, in Aussie parlance, trying to push shit uphill.....LOL.

@Triphid Why does the weight of the body weigh less after death?

@Triphid ‘Any clearer on the subject now?’ With your ‘superiority’ I should be!

@Freedompath Didn't anyone ever tell you that " Sarcasm is the LOWEST form of Wit and the last resort of the Fool?"

@Freedompath Have you EVER tried to lift a dead body?
They don't use the term " Dead Weight" for nothing, immediately ( within an hour or two after death the bodies actually weighs as much as it was whilst the person was living, 3-4 hours later it, if not chilled in a morgue that is, it will weigh a bit heavier since the fluids in the body cells, etc, have begun to be released, the blood has pooled and coagulated at the lowest points, creating a scenario where, instead of being contained in smal amounts distrubed evenly theoughout the body, these fluids are now amassed together and everyone with a bit of knowledge in physic knows that a fluid spread thinly over a wide area weighs less than when contain/held in mass/pool/puddle.

@Triphid ...keep digging! I do believe that when people show you who they are... I believe them!

@Novelty Hey, whenever you put on shoes, etc, you gain 2 extra soles (souls)....LOL.

@Novelty Thanks, but that is not a myth. You are free to believe your evidence the same as I am. And the body does weigh less after death, (research). And, my energy ideas did not fall out of my head. If I see otherwise to what I have studied in past, I will concede. I will hold on to them, till then.

@Freedompath The idea that the body changes weight with death was the result of a badly flawed experiment by a man called mcdougal in 1907. It has since been completely debunked. But feel free to hold onto your beliefs, it's not the silliest I've heard, just wrong.

@Novelty It is possible that my idea of a soul and your idea of what I mean by that are two different ideas. I do not mean that something leaves the body and lives on! I am referring to energy only. Surely, you do not believe that I should believe something simply because you believe it or that your evidence is better than mine? My information can be taken as something that I learned or not. It can be researched, if it can’t be believed. That is exactly what I do at my end. I need proof of something that I believe...and when presented with more proof...if i need to alter my thinking, I will do that.

@Cyklone That is not where I learned about the difference...this was much more recent. If I learn better, then I will change my mind. But, reading it someplace or some person insisting that I MUST believe does not ring true to me.

@Novelty No one can be forced to believe anything...they believe when the evidence is there to support it...at least that is how I have lived for 80 years and I would expect no less from anyone else!

And just like that, poof!! she's gone.

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Satan is pure BS. If something is evil, it is he consequence of being hurtful to the dignity and worth of human beings, and/or destructive to our environment.

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Yes, you have been indoctrinated for all those years. It's understandable to struggle with long held beliefs.. However the more you read and think critically and rationally you will come to appreciate the truth and wonder how you were take all these years. You are no longer a sheep being told what to believe. You can think for yourself.

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there is no "hell" in the original Bible, that is the invention of scribes xlating the Bible into English for us, Gehenna is a place on earth, and Sheol is just the grave, and Hades is a greek god whose mythology has no punishment in the afterlife attached to it. The Bible even says If you dig a pit for others, you end up in it yourself eh? So if you like Quote any instance of "hell" you can find and we can look at it, bc trust me our concept of hell is not on There ok, except possibly for Abaddon, the "place" reserved for evil spirits? But just like heaven, that is not meant to be taken so literally yeh? the kingdom of heaven is within you etc
[biblehub.net]

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Medication.
Meditation.
Exercise.
Find purpose.
Engage a hobby.

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The problem is with untrue thoughts that reside in your subconscious mind. What I’ve learned is to write down my thoughts about some situation and to analyze each of those thoughts, and determine if they are true or false. For many of our thoughts we don’t really know whether they are true or not. But those uncertainties have bred spinoff thoughts that are false, and which spark fear, guilt, and general unhappiness or depression.

By writing it all down longhand, all levels of your consciousness will get the word and you’ll instantly feel better—at least that was my experience.

For a detailed guide read Help Yourself to Happiness by Dr. Maxie Maultsby.

I like Mark Twain’s analysis. He said that if things really were as the preachers claimed, that not believing would land you in hell, then there was no help for it. He would just have to go to hell because it is impossible to force yourself to believe stuff.

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The more convinced you become, the easier it will fall away in time. Listen to the arguments of AronRa, look up debates with Chris Hitchens, also Seth Andrews and Mat Dillahunty are always good.

A great YouTube atheist to check out are the cartoons of Non-Stamp Collector. Give them a look if you haven't already.

Eventually reason will free you from the remnant fears.

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Time will help you with this. I studied for the ministry and what helped me the most was to investigate fully how and when we got the bible as we know it today. Once you understand that you see how believing everything we do today is like deciding on what happened 300 years after the fact. If you can grasp it everything then looks like a fairytale. Imagine beliefs from our own 1700's as being real today. The fact that there was said to be a fountain of youth in Florida did not make it so. People believed it and actually tried to find it. This is the distance we are talking about with our beloved holy book as it came long after the time of Jesus.

If the above alone is true why would I worry about hell, satan, and evil stuff? It is all made up.

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I used to have this fear and what helped me when I would have a "moment" was going over and over the idea that the god in the bible is not in any way a moral agent. Most everyone in the world, myself included, is far more moral than "him". If "he" is not a moral agent, and if everyone one else is more moral than this creation, then I should not fear being judged by "him". If "he" is the bar for morality, then I have exceeded "him" by every measure and I have no reason to fear punishment. All I can do is try my honest best to be a good person and do the right thing (even when it's the harder thing to do). The fact that I try to do good for the sake of being good, and not for punishment or reward, is already more moral than any christian's excuse for morality. So long as I always keep a "moral horizon" in front of me and always try to reach that measure, then I feel I am doing my best at being a good person. Also the fact there are sooo many different versions of "hell" depending on the religion.

Also watch those videos NoMagicCookie posted. They are all great at dealing with this question. Just know it takes time, and I wish you the best of luck.

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I find it helpful to substitute another mythology - one you never believed in - for whatever it is in your own past mythology that still bothers you. Since you struggle with a fear of hell, you might try thinking,

"Oh no! I have angered the drangue, and now I must fear Ferri!"

Or,

"Dang! I did not please Delgi, now Burotu awaits!"

I am fairly certain that I got those gods, hells, and religions wrong, but that's hardly the point. The point is to get you thinking about the ridiculousness of it all. By attempting (and failing) to really fear these other hells, you will start to internalize the fact that your own fear is just as silly.

May you be free of this fear soon!

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