AMS

Wesley, thanks so much for sharing your experience. God, I'm so sorry that happened to you. I really appreciate your openness. There are so many integral pieces of Christianity that systematically empower morally abhorrent people. It's truly deplorable. Did you grow up going to church? Kevin, thanks for your response! I'm happy to hear that your early years excluded religion. My ability to see clearly in the context of religion is being cultivated. It's still pretty cloudy, but it seems as every week passes my ability to differentiate the stories from reality becomes greater. Religion has affected so many areas of my life, and left me deficient in many ways. Slowly, I'm finding those areas, exploring them, and developing them. It's definitely a worth-while endeavor, but I wish that it weren't something I had to deal with.

This is a blog post that I wrote about the effects of the Christian doctrine "Substitutionary Atonement." I've been blogging about the trauma produced by religion since I've left the mythology of Christianity. I'd love to get your thoughts on the post. Also, If you have any suggestions for posts, please share! Enjoy! http://www.goddisorder.com/2013/08/substitutionary-atonement-how-it.html

Thanks Philip! Sorry for the delay in responding. My notification settings weren't set properly. I'm absolutely interested in freelance work. I'm in the middle of building a portfolio site right now, but I can send you an email of samples of my work. Here's my email [email protected]

If anyone lives in Nashville, TN or in the middle TN area I'd love to hang out!

I'm new to the FDR message board. I'm really excited about interacting with rational individuals through the board. Here's some background. I grew up in Tennessee with all of the sterotypical qualities of "The South." I was raised in a Southern Baptist Church and I attended private Christian schools from third grade til graduation from a Christian college, Belmont Univeristy. I graduated with a degree in Religion and a degree in Studio Art. up until about two years ago, my goal was to go to seminary for a masters of divinity in pastoral counseling and become a minister inside of the Presbyterian Church (PCA). A lot has changed since then. I left the mythology of religion about nine months ago. This paradigm shift has been difficult, albeit very beautiful. Currently, I live in Nashville, TN, and I'm trying to form new and healthy relationships, thus my interaction with this message board. I started a blog called "Post Traumatic God Disorder" shortly after my deconversion. You can find the blog at www.goddisorder.com. The purpose of the blog is to provide good resources and help connect dots for people leaving religion and dealing with the trauma produced by religion. I love entrepreneurship and I mostly do freelance graphic design and website work right now. I've also been working on creating a new model for live entertainment inside of the music industry for nearly two years now. The basis of all the projects I do is creativity. I've produced a small music festival, done clothing design, furniture design, music videos, etc. It's a strange variety of things. Psychology and therapy also are very important to me. I've been researching different masters in counseling programs offered in TN with the hopes of finding one that I like. I'm excited to join the FDR community! Feel free to message me