In this episode, I expose how fundamentalism worked on my mind to cause me to do some of the stupidest things I regret. I’ll share what I was thinking at the time and the outcome of my decisions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Chapters:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In this episode, I expose how fundamentalism worked on my mind to cause me to do some of the dumbest things I regret. I\u2019ll share what I was thinking at the time and the outcome of my decisions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stories"],"acf":{"file_name":"aa-ep22-five-regrets","duration":"19:29","ep_num":22,"file_size":18,"transcript_content":"What's up good people, this is your host Neil real and this is the apostate Apple broadcast back again.\r\n\r\nThis is five stupid things, christian religion had me doing that.\r\n\r\nI regret the most I'm exposing how fundamentalism worked on my mind and the faulty thinking behind some of the bad decisions that I made any outcomes.\r\n\r\nSo I'll be sharing that today.\r\n\r\nBut before we do that, so I'm gonna go down the list of five things and then I'm gonna jump into each one in detail.\r\n\r\nSo the first one was I burned all my art.\r\n\r\nThe second thing I did that I regret the most was keeping my word.\r\n\r\nI gave $500 to the church when I needed to pay off my credit card balance number four.\r\n\r\nI passed up a lot of pussy from Christian women.\r\n\r\nThat would have gave me something.\r\n\r\nSo a lot of sexual experiences that could have happened didn't happen because of my christian upbringing.\r\n\r\nAnd that that was a regret of mine and then finally preaching the gospel to people who didn't want to hear it.\r\n\r\nAll right, So let's get right into this.\r\n\r\nNumber one, burning all my artwork.\r\n\r\nSo imagine you destroyed decades of your own work that you loved deliberately in a fire.\r\n\r\nAnd the reason was because you thought they all represented some type of sinful past of yours that God didn't like.\r\n\r\nAnd so that was my thinking.\r\n\r\nI was an artist, illustrator.\r\n\r\nI really loved that about myself.\r\n\r\nI enjoyed creating things particularly designing and illustrating and drawing and just I had so much work and it was great and a lot of it depicted sex, it depicted violence.\r\n\r\nIt also depicted demonic thing.\r\n\r\nSo when I stopped drawing I still had all these catalogs and portfolios of all this work.\r\n\r\nAnd my mind began to rumble about if God was pleased with this work and why am I keeping it?\r\n\r\nAnd like this is your old sinful nature, this is who you used to be.\r\n\r\nYou should not keep that.\r\n\r\nThere was a thing in church where they would tell you to burn your old rap cds or your old music that didn't glorify God.\r\n\r\nAnd so here I am my own artwork.\r\n\r\nI'm looking at it as evil and wrong and I took it and I burnt it all.\r\n\r\nI got rid of everything and I regret that the impact was I destroyed a record of and a reminder of my greatest joy and my talents.\r\n\r\nI can't show that to people anymore.\r\n\r\nPeople don't know that I was a great illustrator and artist and because there's no proof of it because I burnt it all.\r\n\r\nThat was something that really that I regret because of my fundamentalist belief system, I destroyed all my artwork.\r\n\r\nSo and to piggyback off of this to connect this, I see my own father do something similar once he joined religion and the more he was in religion, the Jehovah's witnesses that he still in to this day, he stopped being a musician, he stopped making music, he stopped singing, he stopped writing and I've seen how a lot of music instruments started to leave his room.\r\n\r\nHe just wouldn't have him anymore.\r\n\r\nAnd he seemed to be unhappy.\r\n\r\nI'm sure he was unhappy about a lot of stuff.\r\n\r\nBut not being able to express yourself musically because of your religion destroys who you are as a person.\r\n\r\nIt really harms you as a person.\r\n\r\nAnd here I am, I wasn't exploring, you know, expressing myself and here I am destroying even the evidence of my greatness as an illustrator and a designer.\r\n\r\nAnd so fundamentalist religion really fucks with you.\r\n\r\nIt really gets with you.\r\n\r\nOkay.\r\n\r\nI regret that I also want to mention before I forget that my father also took my artwork at one point when I was young, just out of my room when I was gone and destroyed it.\r\n\r\nIt was a dragon that I had fashioned from paper.\r\n\r\nThis was the emblem of the mortal compact symbol.\r\n\r\nI thought the symbol was cool.\r\n\r\nSo I made a duplicate of it with paper.\r\n\r\nAnyway, he took that and destroyed it and didn't tell me until later that oh yeah, that's demonic.\r\n\r\nYou can't have that in my house.\r\n\r\nAnother time I created a image of the bulls logo for the Chicago bulls at the time.\r\n\r\nMichael Jordan was famous and big and Chicago bulls was the top basketball team.\r\n\r\nAnd so I took the logo and I drew I created a character out of the bulls logo.\r\n\r\nHe looked at that picture and said that's demonic.\r\n\r\nYou know, you know, he didn't destroy it and take it from me.\r\n\r\nBut this just goes to show you his mindset about, you know, how he was programmed from the religion that everything that resembled a dragon or a demon or a devil or anything, even the word wizard at one point, he wouldn't allow me to have a book with that title on it because he thought that it was witchcraft spells or something inside the book or whatever.\r\n\r\nSo the fundamentalism in him, I guess trickled down to me of course, you know, I did the same to my own art.\r\n\r\nI destroyed my own art, you know, so it's it's bad there.\r\n\r\nYou have it.\r\n\r\nNumber two, I regret keeping my word.\r\n\r\nNow this may sound weird because keeping your word is a noble thing.\r\n\r\nIf you say you're gonna do something, you should do it.\r\n\r\nBut in a lot of instances things had changed where I promised to do something for somebody and then they showed me who they really were and then at that point they didn't really deserve what I was gonna give them.\r\n\r\nSo here's a few examples.\r\n\r\nOne was, I found a christian leader online.\r\n\r\nI followed him on youtube, watch a lot of his videos at this time.\r\n\r\nI didn't have a church and I wanted to join.\r\n\r\nI'm trying to find a church to join and I thought this guy was a cool guy.\r\n\r\nI thought he was a man of God and he was, he needed a website.\r\n\r\nHe mentioned that publicly and I said I would give him that a new fresh website to help promote his ministry and to get donations and you know, build some credibility.\r\n\r\nBut I went down there to see him in the midst of that and realized that he was a cult leader.\r\n\r\nHe actually was exposed to be a cult.\r\n\r\nHe was toxic.\r\n\r\nHe was abusive to his people and I should not have supported him.\r\n\r\nBut because I gave my word that I was gonna build him a website and I didn't want to be shamed for being called or be called a man who didn't keep his word, I ended up building a website anyway.\r\n\r\nSo despite seeing the fallacies and all the stuff that was going on there, I built his website anyway because I wanted to keep my word.\r\n\r\nAnd what that did was it brought credibility to this toxic ministry and it allowed him to receive even more donations to his ministry.\r\n\r\nAnd then finally, one of the worst things that happened from me keeping my word was I promised to marry my wife, my first wife before I came down in the meeting, I told her, I'm gonna marry you when I get down there.\r\n\r\nAnd because I said that I had to keep my word.\r\n\r\nEven though things changed when I got down there, I could see her that something was off with her and that her parents were off.\r\n\r\nAnd there was something, the behaviors and things that went down over there showed that something was off.\r\n\r\nAnd here I am saying, well, I I said I had to marry her.\r\n\r\nSo I got to show my character and keep my word.\r\n\r\nAnd so here I am making a life decision based off of this program of not breaking my word.\r\n\r\nAnd it had detrimental effects.\r\n\r\nObviously seven years of misery.\r\n\r\nUm seven years of unhappiness with a woman ending in divorce eventually.\r\n\r\nAnd this is why I was so adamant about keeping my word.\r\n\r\nI was a part of a ministry when I first joined the church, the baptist Church.\r\n\r\nAnd I was scheduled to go on a trip with the ministry I was a part of and I I couldn't go.\r\n\r\nI told him I couldn't go anymore because I was sick.\r\n\r\nAnd it wasn't like I was hanging up money or hanging up help because they had enough help and everything like that.\r\n\r\nBut the leader was so I guess he just was upset that I wouldn't go.\r\n\r\nHe began to shame me and say I was indecisive, I wasn't indecisive.\r\n\r\nI decided I was gonna go.\r\n\r\nI got sick.\r\n\r\nI told him I'm not going now that's not being indecisive.\r\n\r\nAnd then he implied that I wasn't keeping my word.\r\n\r\nAnd so this shame that was coming from him really impacted me to where I said going forward, I can never break my word again.\r\n\r\nIf anything changes, I still got to do.\r\n\r\nAnd that's why I gave to this ministry that was abusive to their people and why I married a woman despite seeing signs that this was not going to be healthy or um compatible all because of that.\r\n\r\nThat one instance dealing with that guy shaming the hell out of me and pretty much implying that I wasn't a man of God for changing my mind because I'm sick.\r\n\r\nHe had no care for me being sick.\r\n\r\nThe normal healthy response should have been, hey, get your rest man.\r\n\r\nI'm sorry that you can't come.\r\n\r\nBut no, it's just, you know, you're indecisive, you're not keeping your word.\r\n\r\nYou know, the man of God.\r\n\r\nSo that really impacted me.\r\n\r\nAnd it kind of fortified the already belief system that I had, that God keeps his word.\r\n\r\nThey obviously use scripture against me to shame me.\r\n\r\nThat's the thing I wanted to be this good moral person.\r\n\r\nAnd then they would flip scriptures on me to shame me and control me.\r\n\r\nAnd that's what I hate about religion so much.\r\n\r\nAnd the people within religion, you know, I talked about how religion fosters toxic people.\r\n\r\nYou know, so it's not just the belief system itself is people that will come in and reinforce that and make it even worse on you.\r\n\r\nSo I regret keeping my word in certain instances.\r\n\r\nNow, the lesson I learned is that you can change your mind if circumstances change, if you decide to do something for somebody, give them a gift or something, and they turn up to be somebody who it's not worthy of that gift.\r\n\r\nYou have the right to not to give them that gift, and then you don't have to feel guilty about it either.\r\n\r\nOkay, that's that.\r\n\r\nNow.\r\n\r\nNumber three, number three, I regret giving $500 to a church building fund when I could have used that to pay off my credit card balance.\r\n\r\nOkay, I regret giving a lot of money to people on the street or helping people in my congregation or church behind them groceries and food only to find out that they were spreading rumors about me serving ministries, for free, all of this stuff where I'm giving giving giving came from this fundamentalist ideology, that you must put the work of the Lord first.\r\n\r\nSo ministries that you're serving, you gotta put them first, put your time and with them first at your own expense, give your money to God or to the church.\r\n\r\nAll that was embedded in me, and it was strong and I would even, and like I said, in some cases, not even pay the right bill off because I'm too busy giving to the church.\r\n\r\nAnd so the impact of that was I fund my credit up.\r\n\r\nI had the money to pay off my credit card, and now I don't because I gave it to the church and scriptures like give and it will be given back to you, press down, shaking over and stuff like that.\r\n\r\nThey just didn't work out for me.\r\n\r\nThose scriptures did not work for me.\r\n\r\nI discovered that the reason why is because I was given to the wrong people.\r\n\r\nIf you give to parasites, people who don't value you, they're just taken from you.\r\n\r\nAnd that's it.\r\n\r\nThere's nothing coming back from that.\r\n\r\nI don't care what attitude you gave in, how wholesome your mindset was.\r\n\r\nIf you're given to the wrong people, it's not going to come back to you.\r\n\r\nOkay?\r\n\r\nSo I had to learn to give to people who would be reciprocal.\r\n\r\nIt's okay to be generous, it's okay to give.\r\n\r\nBut you shouldn't help everybody.\r\n\r\nYou shouldn't support everybody.\r\n\r\nAnd I learned, I need to stick around and see who people are before I give.\r\n\r\nBut once again, fundamentalism goes all passed.\r\n\r\nYour reasoning, it says you gotta give because it's God.\r\n\r\nAnd if it's a ministry that says God's label on it, you gotta give to it.\r\n\r\nYou got to support it.\r\n\r\nYou have to give give, give, put yourself second to the ministry and that God.\r\n\r\nFirst, that's fundamentalism right there, and that's how it worked on my mind.\r\n\r\nAnd that's why I regret giving to the church another one is passing up pussy from christian women that would have gave me some.\r\n\r\nThe reason was I was programmed to think flirting was a sin, premarital sex was obviously a sin, that they would say that and I wanted to please God.\r\n\r\nAnd it was rooted in a lack of social intelligence.\r\n\r\nI didn't realize these women were wanting to be with me.\r\n\r\nBut because of sexual repression, you know, and these these laws on my spirit about sex and flirting and anything to do with connecting with a woman outside of friendship, I lost a lot of healthy connections with women and to explore women and to learn women, women who was attracted to me thought I wasn't attracted to them because of my behavior and perhaps they thought I was unmanly or maybe I was a homosexual or something.\r\n\r\nI missed out on a lot of pleasurable experiences I could have had with these women.\r\n\r\nAnd what it did was it limit my experience with women leading me to marrying a woman who was not compatible with me.\r\n\r\nSee, the more experiences and relationships you have with women, the better you can learn from the opposite sex about what you want in need.\r\n\r\nAnd if I would have did that, I would have been able to realize that my ex wife was not compatible with me, you see.\r\n\r\nBut because of my programming from fundamentalism blocked me from that.\r\n\r\nSo a lot of good experiences I could have had with women were prevented and see those good experiences actually program you to seek out and attract other healthy relationships, but when you don't have those relationships, you're left with the negative ones.\r\n\r\nAnd so I became more familiar with negative experiences with women.\r\n\r\nAnd so this all has to do with fundamentalist Christianity, which is causing sexual oppression and then also low social intelligence, not knowing how women interact and how they show when they're interested in you and all that kind of stuff.\r\n\r\nOnce again, just another thing I regret, you know, I'm over these women's houses, you know, they're showing off their thighs, they got their chest out here.\r\n\r\nI am not even taking it.\r\n\r\nSo they're looking at me like I'm not attracted to them or I'm weird or something and all because of my fundamentalist programming number five, and this is the last one here preaching the gospel to people who didn't want to hear it.\r\n\r\nNow, once again, social intelligence can kind of give you an understanding of the room and particularly the people and how they feel about what you're saying to them in some cases, I could see that in people, but my programming would override that because there's scripture that talked about, you must preach the gospel.\r\n\r\nAnd um and so therefore I would go past my what I could see and and end up preaching the gospel and kind of pissing people off, you know?\r\n\r\nAnd so one of the biggest regrets I have is creating um a business function for people locally in my city and we would meet up and talk about business and things like that.\r\n\r\nOne guy kept coming back.\r\n\r\nWe had a real good connection and he also kind of eluded that his dad was a preacher and he kind of showed like he didn't like that or he didn't like anything to do with religion.\r\n\r\nHere I am a christian and I should have picked up on that and said, okay, I ain't gonna bring up nothing about God with this dude.\r\n\r\nBut I did it anyway because that program was running, I got to share the gospel and that was the end of our relationship.\r\n\r\nHe never came back to any of the meetings and that was the end.\r\n\r\nAnd here I am, I could have had a good business contact, I could have had a future friend, but here I am going past my social intelligence.\r\n\r\nWhat I know to be true is that this is not a subject he wants to deal with.\r\n\r\nAnd hearing him bringing it up Anyway, the same thing happened with my parents.\r\n\r\nI'm not looking at my mother and seeing that she's uncomfortable and she don't want to hear this.\r\n\r\nShe has in her own religion, they don't want to hear this, they're upset and here I am still, I gotta preach this gospel to them.\r\n\r\nI gotta share this thing with them and all it did was alienate my parents further from me.\r\n\r\nThey already with distant, none of us are really close, they never was really close to me, but now I'm in their house and I'm I'm making the wedge between us even wider.\r\n\r\nAnd so I regret that also preaching them all at one point with a guy who was an evangelist and I, I didn't really want to be there, but he, you know, he just said, won't you come along?\r\n\r\nAnd, and also I went, I felt stupid after the fact, because I could see people not wanting to hear it, but here I am, I got to do this because the bible says so and you gotta preach this gospel, It's like, dude, this is the wrong context, this is the wrong people, you need to be led by the spirit.\r\n\r\nAnd so after that I told him I said, man, you gotta be led by the spirit, you can't just go around talking to random people about God, you know, and I never did that again, But where is this coming from fundamentalism?\r\n\r\nThe bible says this, you must do it.\r\n\r\nWhat about the context?\r\n\r\nWho cares about the context?\r\n\r\nWho cares about the circumstances, You must do it.\r\n\r\nAnd so there you have it, Y'all five and there's tons of other shit religion had me doing it out, making me look stupid once again, fundamentalism is not good, it's just not good.\r\n\r\nAnd so that's all I got for you today.\r\n\r\nWhat has religion made you do?\r\n\r\nThat was stupid.\r\n\r\nHopefully you learned from it and you've overcome it and now you're a better person.\r\n\r\nSo until next time the blessed like share subscribe, rate the channel, Go to Apostate Apple dot com.\r\n\r\nYou can email me at Neil at Neil real dot com or a at NEal Real dot com.\r\n\r\nDoesn't matter.\r\n\r\nYou're still gonna get to me.\r\n\r\nUh, we're gonna go to the website and go to the contact page.\r\n\r\nYou can contact me that way, share some love, share your experiences.\r\n\r\nCheck out my t shirts that I made called My Kingdom.\r\n\r\nCome there on the website.\r\n\r\nProstate Apple dot com.\r\n\r\nUntil next time.\r\n\r\nBe blessed and have a good day.\r\n\r\nMm 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