Substitutionary Atonement: How It Promotes Dissociation and Empowers Abusers

[AMS]

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

[Kevin Beal]

Wow!

 

Very well written and well argued.

 

Luckily, I wasn't born into a religious family and so I'm not so familiar with how christians are about that sort of thing. But the comparison you make between dissociation and atonement is very interesting, and I think quite right.

 

The whole idea of heaven itself seems to me an out of body experience. To believe in such insane things must require at least some dissociation.

 

 

Dissociation is, I think, a kind of self hypnotism and is great for not considering that which would expose past trauma for what it is. It makes perfect sense to me.

 

 

Thanks for posting!

[Wesley]

When I confronted my father about the abuse in my childhood, he had several bad arguments and I ended up reasoning him until he realized he was trapped and didn't know what to do. He was very dissociated and within the same sentence he would go back and forth between admitting that what he did was wrong and denying that it ever happened.

 

The next day he tries to talk to me and says he is concerned for my soul as I did not forgive him and that is necessary to get into heaven. (of course if I ever told him I was atheist, then he would disown me) Of course, he didn't forgive me when I did things he thought were wrong as a child, but instead abused me. 

 

I am sure he has actually "talked with god" to get forgiveness or pray for my soul or something like that. Made what restitution he could with God to assuage his own psyche that he is forgiven (or that bad things did not occur, I have no idea which he thought by the end) and he made no attempt to provide restitution to me, but only to tell me that he is worried about my soul if I do not forgive my abuser.

 

Just thought I would add some personal experience.  

[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. 

[Wesley]

So my father was very religious, read the bible nightly, didn't go to church (laziness?/ went a ton as a child and was bored/ tried to teach the teens when I was young and wasn't allowed to teach them when he told someone they were wrong. I am a bit fuzzy on the incident), however he often watched Kenneth Copeland on Sundays. Every night when we were kids he would require us to read a chapter out of the Bible and then "report" on it. Many nights this was an excuse for him to hyper-criticize and demean us to take out his various frustrations and put us in impossible situations. Several nights I would end up in tears from the impossible situation of wanting to go to bed because I had school or a report in the morning that I needed to be ready for. I read through the Bible several times. If I ran into one of the questions about contradictory sections or "reported" on it incorrectly, then he would use his verbal ninja tricks to make sure I believed the correct things. He was the child of a single parent household whose father abandoned him with 8 brothers and sisters. They hardly had enough money to eat 2/3 of his meals. He truly views God as his only father.

 

Since my father did not go to church, my mother found a church for us. She worked a side graphics design business and stayed home and worked a daycare out of the house where we hung out with great friends for the first few years of my life (I also rarely saw my father as a young child as he traveled much more back then (sales) and then went to night school in Syracuse for his masters). The graphics design business lead me to go to an American Baptist church when my mom did business for them. She ended up working at the church, so I spent a lot of extra time there when we had off school.  American Baptists tend to not teach you the conclusions from the Bible, but rather view the pastor as a guide to help you. People are encouraged to have different opinions and there were people who were humanists who viewed stories as just myths and stories (mostly) to people who believed most every word (that they knew of as they tended to be less educated of what was in the Bible). We had optional communion, didn't believe in saying a creed, did not baptize until a child as old enough to choose for themselves (because there is no pressure from friends or family at all) and stressed that people read and learn and discuss and challenge views. The pastor would often sit in on discussions and have his personal views of a story challenged at it would be encouraged. I would learn about different theories, and find out contrary things. People would often just accepted the differences and be fine with them both being true and accept the differences. I never gave up that there was one truth that I wanted to figure out which is why contradictions lead me to challenge things until I could figure out what was actually true. I started questioning stories and would read into symbolism, disregard parts as myth, and then eventually challenged the idea of God itself within the last two years and it fell away pretty quickly thanks to some FDR arguments.

 

In a sense, if I had to go to any church as a child (which I didn't and it still filled my head with a lot of wrong ideas- the children do not know as much so it tended to be more telling what went on and less debate, however I often knew more than my teachers as I was at church so much and watched the bible videos about stories to pass the time or was confined by my father to read the Bible so much) this was probably the best possible. I was not threatened by the church's view of hell if I disagreed. I would think that most people there did not even believe in hell. I think I was only threatened with hell by my father. I was encouraged to learn and challenge and form my own opinions with as little hierarchy as possibly that could be present in a church. Most of my memories of church were positive and I would hear about my friends who went to, say, a catholic church and think to myself how terrible that must be and how liberating my church was in comparison. When I realized God did not exist and formed better ideas on thought and evil and such, I saw many more problems present as you may see in the vast majority of institutions that claim to deal in ideas. Namely that they are often wrong, hypocritical, and told to children simultaneously as ideals. 

 

Ok, now I have rambled a bit so I will stop unless someone has additional questions.