How can one thing destroy an otherwise good parent-son relationship? I hate that I am posting this, but I hope to get some food for thought.

Story:
I grew up in a Christian home; my dad is also a pastor... So are two of my uncles. Suffice to say my family is very "christian." My dad was always encouraging me to be independent. He also wanted me to figure out my spirituality on my own (within the christianity construct). When I studied the Bible and had questions, he wouldn't just give his opinion; he would give me all the different theological arguments and his opinion.
As I got older, I realized my beliefs didn't line up with my parents denomination so I changed churches. My dad was cool with it. The rest of my family was not; switching denominations is apparently not allowed... Or something like. Very sinful.
Let us just say that the end of my religious following culminated in a church internship where everything I ever believed fell to ruin and my view of the church was shattered. I left the internship and went home to fall into one of the darkest places I have ever been. Needless to say I didn't go back to church, which hurt my dad but I think he understood I needed to figure stuff out. So other than telling me I needed to get back in church, he mostly left me alone.
...fast-forward...
After pulling myself out of that hole, I began to make progression again. Everything was looking up. I began studying other religions and philosophies. They all had something good to them, but I couldn't apply them to my life. They all came up short trying to explain the "truth."
When I thought about christianity, I didn't think about all the bad; I just remembered connecting to the Spirit. So I began meditating (without the Bible). Funny thing. God was still there. I was still capable of connecting to the divine. In my mind, that almost negated religion. Religions are all trying to explain the unexplainable divinity of the universe and fighting about who is right. They are many attempts to explain the whole, the truth.
Then came my first LSD trip... The solidification of these ideas... I am one piece of something so much greater. We are made in God's image; he isn't made in ours. This monolithic father figure is incorrect. The origin, the source of the reverberations of energy that make up our universe is "God." We are just a piece of God. There is no eternal suffering for that. If you understand this, why would you ever want to condemn someone to eternal suffering. A man lying on his deathbed accepts Christ, and the christian praying with him is thinking, "This isn't fair. I have been a christian doing good my whole life, and this guy got to do whatever he wanted. Why does he get the same Heaven I do?" That is so fucking ridiculous.
So I began tripping a lot. My ideas have changed, morphed, and progressed. I won't get into it here, but obviously religion doesn't play a role in my life... Other than making things between my dad and I very tense.

I even tried to go back, to be the happy christian again. To make my dad proud of me again. Which sounds petty, but my dad has always stood behind me and the decisions I have made. He is the greatest man that I know. Him being a pastor is perfect; his love for God and people is inspirational. But he doesn't understand that we have the same values, mine just without religion. I think it is mostly the conditions he grew up in along with being a pastor not allowing him to understand. That came out wrong, but how can you teach a congregation one thing and allow your son to be nonreligious. I also do not think anyone would argue that the two generations grew up in the same environment.
To get off that rant, I am still suffering the reprocussions of the two weeks I spent in church. They are like flies, and I am a garbage bag of old chinese food and roaches. Weed roaches. Haha.

To get to my point. I don't really know how to handle my dad anymore. We are both pretty stubborn, and I cannot let him live my life. He even told me that one time, but I don't think that he knew I would quit church. I feel like a disappointment when I talk to him. I hate that I hurt him. But at the same time, I am past religion. There is no going back. I can deal with my extended family hating me, but I don't want the same look of disapproval coming from my dad.
It's impossible to thoroughly explain my ideas without putting down his life. What do you do with that?
and my ideas are constantly changing, so my arguments are also.

I guess I just want to know how you guys would go about having this conversation with him. I cannot keep putting it off.
And my dad is intelligent which makes it harder, he will destroy holes in my arguments. Haha. I don't want it to turn into unconstructive criticism.

I think this is normal. It is how it is sopposed to be. If we all just did the same thing because our parents did it there would be no progression.

You are rubbing up against an operating system though, you gotta understand that. Christianity is based on alot of historical misrepresentations, mistranslations, and a dogmatic literalization of concepts that were once much more metaphorical. So much of the shape of the church today is a reflection of pagan holidays as well, traditions of people who were once burned for observing those same holidays.

The reality is that people who follow the church this closely, to the point where they condemn others etc for not going along with it, are brainwashed. The church is an operating system and so many people grow up within that system, it is all that they know. It is not wise the man who follows in the wake of cultural dogma IMO..

Live your life for who YOU really are, and not for who anyone(even your dad) wishes you could/would be or once were. This is the only way you will be happy and if others cant share in your happiness than that is fine. They dont have to. If you change who you are to fit the costume someone else thinks you need to wear then they will never truely respect you, for that is not respect.

Only when you are truely as you are can you be in the position to gain the respect of another. Maybe it doesnt happen overnight, it usually does not. I guess this is life, sometimes things take time. if you are truely comming from a place of love and acceptance, and can continue to forgive your father and the rest of your family for treating you less than well, than someday they will come around and realize where the faults of their actions lay. Until then you must understand, people are running off of old programs, modalities that are secure for them. That is all this sort of thing is about. When someone sees a round peg that they cant fit into the square hole of the program they are running, they tend to feel threatened by it at first and condemn anything else that might happen to be round.

Accept the situation. It is all you can do. you cant change people. You can only be you and give them what you wish to be given by others.

It sounds like although you aren't letting your dad control your life, your letting the need for his approval control your life.
I would say to remember that you don't actually need his or any of your families approval to be happy.

Let them know this makes you happy. They should be happy for you too, but Christianity is a hard thing to oppose. Let them know you still respect them, and you just want respect back.

Ice,

I am sorry you are having to deal with this now. I am aware of a number of stressors that you are attempting to balance in your life at this time.

Do your family hate you or your behaviors/choices?

I suspect it is the latter and not the former. And from their perspective it's probably not hate but deep concern.

I would suggest that in everything you do you try to communicate to your father your love and respect for him but also your independence. Make sure he knows that you hear him - repeat back what he says to you using slightly different words. Tell him what you have told us - he's the greatest man you know and perfect as a pastor, etc. But, also communicate that you are now a man too and must find your own path. Your path may be spiritual but may not involve his (or any organized) church. You embrace God but in a very different way than he does. Surely, if God exists and created this entire Universe, He has place in his heart for more than one way to celebrate and praise Him.

Express your concerns that this minor divide (which sect/church to attend or not, how to manifest spirituality in this life) is causing you major discomfort and difficulties. Probe as to whether he feels the same. Surely, neither of you want such a thing to come between a strong father son relationship. I am hoping that communication, honesty as well as an indication that you are finding your own way will eventually be embraced by all members of your family, yourself included.

Somehow I want to encourage you to work for a mutual understanding of love and respect for this man hand in hand with an agreement to disagree.

Regardless, I know enough about you to understand that you are a strong and deep soul. You will find a solution that will work. Know that this community loves you and wants to be as supporting as we can. Please feel free to post more or again as new thoughts come up or the situation evolves.

Peace & Love

I feel you. Me and my old man have such different world views that it can be very hard to see eye to eye with him, particularly when he drinks. It saddens me, but it's the way it is. We have come to accept this, and he knows that I still love him dearly, but its like we now hold each other at arms length. I hope to get closer with him one day, but you can't force these things, both of you need to come to terms with each other on your own terms, and that can be a rough journey.

Well, I think the best way to sell your father on who you are is by showing him instead of telling him and debating him. Your father has witnessed your life from two different view points. One was when you were a part of the church and his plan. The other has been a view of your life in chaos. I think as a father the most important thing to him is to have a son who has balance or synergy. Harmony between body, mind, and spirit. You have soem decisions to make, explaining that to a father who is also a pastor isnt going to be successful especially when he see that your life is in a bit of tumoil spiritually. Also remember he has your conservative christian extended family assing fuel to the fire.

Show them by doing. When you are at peace and you are happy, that will minifest in you in many ways and it will be noticable to all of them, epecially your father. Remember he just wants happiness and stability for your future. I kinda soubt he will criticize you if he sees genuine happiness and stability in your life.

Take your life in a positive direction. One that feels right and makes you happy. Dad is never going to argue against positive results.

Dont argue with him, show him.

Good luck.

I think something that many modern Christians seem to ignore are the importance of the symbols in the stories and not the history. It doesn't matter that there was a man called Jesus who was the son of God. What you're meant to take away from the story is that you're the son of God (not just Jesus) and that you're the one who is meant to undergo the death-resurrection process whereby you realize that there is more to this material world than meets the eye. This is partly why entheogenic practice plays such an important role in certain societies where it's almost like a rite of passage (like an ayahuasca or iboga tribe). The entheogen helps to directly ascertain the knowledge through experience that there is a spiritual realm. People can tell you it exists up and down and even if there's no one to persuade you otherwise (not likely), it's still not as convincing as first hand experience. It's these symbols that are important and the symbols themselves aren't by any means unique to Christianity. I'm not a Christian and never was, but I'm starting to learn myself how valuable these symbols and their implications can be. You know, one of the reasons why many white people find Buddhism to be so appealing is because Buddha and Jesus each said extremely similar things. They each proposed nearly identical lessons (i.e. I'm the son of God/I am the Buddha), but the problem is that Christians and other religious devotees for that matter get too tangled up in the characters and what "actually happened". It doesn't matter if Jesus really died and came back to life, because it's the symbol and lesson that's important. It is through the strict historical interpretation of the bible that has lead to many of the issues and paradoxes that seem inherent in the religion. Everything begins to make a bit more sense when you can see past the specifics like what the names of the characters are and where they're from and more importantly what it is that they represent and how their experience is supposed to be a reflection of you.

I would just explain to him that religion is a personal choice, and you can't make yourself believe something that you don't accept. Furthermore, its worse to pretend to be someone you're not, or to put on a facade(I see you've realized this already).

Tell him that he should love and respect you no matter what, as you do for him, and that religion is something no one really understands. Regardless of how wise the so called wise-men may be, there is still nothing to convince us that we should believe in God. If you want to, that's your own choice and there's nothing wrong with that. But religion is the hegemony behind faith, religion has corrupted and killed millions. Just explain your point of view, and help him understand the best he can.

I have some similarish situations. In discussions with them, I treat the bible as a path to divinity. I seek common language in discussing the divine, and try to refrain from arguing. I use words like god and christ and baptism in divine ways. I try to focus more on my love and respect for the person. I seek the deep meaning they are attempting to express in their words, and by loving and encouraging them I seek to encourage them to take that deeper and find better words. I continue to refrain from arguing.

I think a person's spiritual experiences are real, and people can't help but putting words on them. To tell a person, who has not studied linguistics, that their words are wrong, is to tell them their spiritual experiences did not happen, which they know did. "Christianity is platonism for the masses."

I try to find where the person believes their book is metaphorical, and use soft non-argumentative logic to assist them in slowly spreading that view through the rest of their book. Help them grow in their spirituality. Little by little, it's essentially never in my experience that a person changes their perspective of reality because they've been confronted by great logic in an argument with someone. Our brains take time to make these changes, pushing too hard for this change to come quickly will likely backfire. Just focus on the love and respect. Consider that having the conversation you are considering may not be needed at all. Words are essentially shallow and useless. Just focus on the love and respect. Focus on your connections in depth, instead of differences, and work to grow those connections. And share divinity together. And practical work.


That's my brains 2 cents. I do not stand by its value

I really enjoy the doctors of philosophy on this forum such as InneffableThings, and especially Global...

You do not have to explain your ideas, you just need to have them.
There are many ways to god, and if your father really is in line with the holy spirit, he will at least feel, that there is more behind dogma. But "explaining" is not how you connect.

Sharing your love for god is the ONLY thing needed to connect you.

Perhaps your dad just needs to know, that you really are with the divine?

He might want to meditate about that.

Ice, I won't reiterate what all others have said in your thread which is all excellent, but I'd like to give you a piece of practical advice you might want to try and see if it works for you (it did for me when dealing with the overly religious in my own life).

You mention having studied the bible, but have you since taken a look at it through eyes opened by your psychedelic experience?

It's easy to write off Christianity the religion, it's much harder to write off what Jesus ACTUALLY SAID AND DID, especially if you understand the metaphors and parables he used and what his message REALLY was about. I don't for a second believe Jesus would be a Christian today if he was alive. He would view it the same way as he viewed Judaism in his day.

I'd suggest, as a starting point, re-read the bible (not all of it for god's sake, there's little spiritual value in the parts on Jewish tradition imo). Take a good look at the works and advice Jesus gave and see if you can find fault with his philosophy of absolute unconditional love for god and man. What passes for Christian love these days is NOT the love Jesus talked about. Christians today try to piss on the rights of gays and lesbians and other minorities, yet Jesus sat and ate with prostitutes and sinners. Those we're the people who kept his company. That says a lot about his character right there.

See if you can meet your dad on common ground. Throw out all the dogma and religious crap and speak to him squarely about Jesus message and find where your opinions cross. I think you will be wonderfully suprised at how different the bible reads and how well it can be understood having had a psychedelic experience.

Don't forget also that when Jesus was just a small boy, he amazed the wise men and teachers of his time because of his innate understanding of the scriptures. He hadn't had decades to study the words a thousand times over, he just intuitively understood the underlying message hidden in the holy texts. Personally, I feel as though one of the great gifts I've been given through psychedelic insight is to look at the old books with fresh eyes, take the existing concepts and strip them of all excess baggage, and arrive at the core of Christianity which is ......drum roll please......

LOVE EVERYTHING!!!!

I hope this helps

jesus was the sun. Christianity was a sun worshiping cult.

<rant>

What did Jesus actually say and do? I mean the King James Version has four gospels. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

Mark was the first gospel written. it was written between 50 and 70 years after Jesus died. Now let's say Mark was 20 when he met Jesus. that puts him around 70 years old when he was writing his Book. How accurate do you think his memory was of this event?

What's much more important however is the fact that the other three gospels are obvious plagarisations of Mark. Those books were written form 70-150 years after Jesus did. Quick question for ya. How could someone that knew Jesus write a book 150 years after his death?

Here's the flat out truth...from my 10 years or so of studying this issue and trying to reconcile my own religious upbringing.

The Bible as you know it today was sanctioned by the Roman Emperor Constantine. The chosen books weren't even settled until 367 AD....nail meet the coffin. The Bible is NOT the divine word of God. Rather it is a fantastic story about God that Rome massaged into other pagan cults (like Fractal said).

Truth is. There isn't even ANY evidence that a man called Jesus lived....and there were plenty of writers and scribes in the day that recorded all sorts of important stuff.

Personally I believe he did live, but that belief is totally irrelevant because literally nothing that he taught or said has been preserved. At least with Buddhism there has been an oral tradition that was passed down human to human before finally being written down...oh and the fact that Buddhism at least tells you to question everything....not trying to give a plug for Buddhism, but it sure as hell makes a lot more sense than Christianity...I'm surprised you (as a psychonaut) can't find anything applicable to your life in Buddhism...but I digress...

Now this is the hard part for me. Some of the best people I've ever met have been Christians....but without a doubt the greatest crimes in the history of humanity have been committed in the name of Christ.

I despises the Christian religion with every single fiber of my being. I hate ignorance. I can't understand how people can call a book like the Bible Divine. If that book was called anything but the Bible we would never in a million years let a child read it. What with daughters raping dads, and gods killing babies and telling men to kill their sons...oh and lets not forget the total ruin and destruction with hell fire and brimstone of Sodom and Gomorra because they were fucking each other in the ass.

I'll take the man Jesus any day...but the religion he left behind should be exterminated.

Believe in Nothing. Allow for Anything. Question Everything.

</rant>

Ice. I can understand your side very well. I was raised southern baptist and told I couldn't question. Eventually I did. I am still to this day trying to deal with the mental baggage. At this point I'm just angry at all the people involved in the lies I was told as a child. Yes I've come to terms with the fact that these people believed this and were technically not lying to me, but it doesn't change the damage caused to my still developing mind at the time.

No child should ever be raised Jewish, Christian, or Islamic. It is simply unfair to tell bald faced lies to children....yes I lump santa clause in their to.

Ok...I'm going to slink back to my "time-out" zone and decompress.

ICE I wish you the best of luck...I think the best advice you have been given has come from Ice House.

Thank you guys. This is all solid advice. I truly appreciate it.

The whole mandatory letting down the parents unless you want to let them control your life so you have no actual independence or sense of responsibility in your actions string of events is at its end. I just imagine some huge heartbreak or something and start to feel guilty.

I don’t need the approval to be happy, but it would make me happier not to fallout with my dad. And Christianity is hard as hell to oppose or should I say easy as hell.
My immediate family likes me, the rest of them don’t see me enough to really play a part in my life save holidays so who cares about them? Haha. Communication is key. I just hope emotions don’t start to play a part in this. That’s the hard part of it.

The thing about trying to tell a Christian that you visit the spiritual realm, self is that they dismiss it as drugs automatically. The structure and hierarchy of the church is impenetrable. The covered all their bases to make sure that it is their way or the highway. Many Christians I talk to are so close-minded to anything “sinful.” It gets a little frustrating when an exchange of ideas turns into a brawl to prove me wrong. I don’t want them to understand anything other than it is okay for someone else to have a different life view.

I agree that the doctors of philosophy here are awesome. I learn a lot of articulation in my wording from reading the debates.

I actually love reading Buddhist material. I really enjoy Dzogchen teachings. Much of the way I try to present myself leans on Buddha. But being a Christian for so long, it is also attributable to Christ’s teachings. I love the teachings of both of these religions, but I hate the religions.

Thanks again guys.

Stick to your guns my friend, I am sure you will reach an understanding. But a friendly word of advice - don't mention 'drugs' - you will be opening a can of worms. I am still trying to get the damn things back in the tin

I'd echo what Purges said - leave any mention of LSD out of it, as it tends to cause irrational behaviour in people that haven't taken it.

Your clear love for your family and perhaps especially for your Dad makes me think that this conflict or tension is eminently resolvable - you and he are both thinking spiritual beings, and you just need to find the right 'nexus' for both your beliefs.

I'm not suggesting this will be some kind of silver bullet, but have you considered taking your father to 'your place of worhsip'? Any place of natural beauty would do for me, where I might sit and mesh my mental gears with the multiverse. Your place might be different, but it should be a place where you can spend some time undisturbed in quiet contemplation. It strikes me that if he understands that you still worship, that you still understand the power of unconditional love, the danger of great pride and avarice, and that you are honouring your mother and father. You're not dishonouring them them by walking away from the teachings and compromising what you truly believe.

If you are asked about your beliefs and how you arrived at them, it would be no lie to say that you have had genuine, life affirming religious experiences.

I'm a weak atheist/agnostic (at baseline!) for the record, but I consider myself fortunate to count many evangelical Christians amongst my friends.

Just my €0.02

[quote=joedirt]


Was this directed at me Joe? I perhaps should have clarified a bit better. I was born and raised in the Christian church (several different denominations over the course of my upbringing), however I have studied all of the other major world faiths as well as a few smaller ones and I have to agree with you, there is much that Buddhism offers that correlates to the psychedelic experience.

I was merely trying to present the OP with an option to meet his family on ground they are familiar with. Since his family is of the Christian persuasion, I didn't see much merit and giving him advice about Buddhism.

And to your point about the books of the bible being selected by the Roman Catholic Church, I'm fully aware of that and I wouldn't suggest viewing the bible as the infallible word of god or some divine book. However, there are many things that Jesus said and did that, when viewed from a psychedelic perspective, make just a world of sense and I'll list just one of these concepts below (bearing in mind these are just correlations that I've made personally, I never claim to have any sort of definitive truth)

When Jesus told Nicodemus that to enter the kingdom of heaven, you had to be born again. Nicodemus took this literally and asked in bewilderment (I'm paraphrasing) "You mean to tell me that to enter the kindgom of heaven a man needs to crawl back inside his mother's womb and be born a second time?"

Now the standard Christian interpretation of this is that if you accept Jesus as your lord and personal savior, you 'died' with him on the cross and 'live' again since he rose from the dead. However, when you get down on your hands and knees, say the prayer and ask Jesus into your life, nothing really happens. Trasncendence isn't automatically obtained, my sins didn't immeadiately disappear, and my behavior didn't suddenly become more ethical overnight. So, we can presume, that the modern interpretation of this passage isn't entirely correct. Can we look at it another way?

Is it impossible for us to use our imaginations and apply what Jesus said to the mystical and transcendent psychedelic experience? I don't think this is a large leap of faith. Like Joe already stated, the Roman Catholic Church edited out books from the bible, books that may have shined a brighter light on some of the more obscure comments Jesus said like the example I'm using here. If we can, for the sake of arguement, assume Jesus was talking about a personal death and rebirth experience can we correlate that to the psychedelic experience?

When I take a powerful psychedelic substance and achieve breakthrough velocity, I cease being human in the strictest sense of the term. I lose all awareness of my body and at times I lose all memory of ever even having one. In the truest sense, 'I' die, or the part of me I percieve as being human ceases to be. However this is a temporary 'death', since when the experience winds down I find myself alive and well in my room, totally perplexed by the transcendence I've just experienced. The knowledge and feeling of absolute love I extract from the experience brings new vitality and understanding to my life. I'm reborn, as something greater than I was when I left. And, if I can make another leap of faith, could we presume hyperspace to be the kingdom of heaven Jesus was talking about? It sure feels much more heaven-like than Earth does so that fact alone leads me to believe there was some truth to what he said.

I dunno. Overall I find religion to be a detestable practice, however I'll be the first to admit that had I not be so immersed with it most of my life I'd have never had the desire to find out the real truth. I guess in the respect, religion has had some merit in my life, although in a roundabout and indirect way.

Sorry for the double post but I was on youtube listening to this Alan Watts lecture and had to post a link. He does a muuuuch better job of drawing true meaning out of the bible than I ever could. It's about an hour long but if you skip to roughly 20 min in he starts talking about the bible and the true meaning of Jesus message. I highly recommend.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwMu6Y10naU

it was not directed at you! I was just talking/typing off the cuff.

You and I are in pretty good agreement.

Probably the only thing I don't agree with is trying to find hidden mystical meaning in the supposed words of Jesus found in the 4 gospels. Doesn't make sense. Why would Jesus not say what he meant? Buddha did? Krishna did?

BTW I do personally believe that Jesus likely taught methods of meditation and other spiritual practices, but like I said it's irrelevant what I think or believe because as of yet I haven't found any proof that the man even lived.

out of all the religions...buddhism is pretty much the only one I can put a lot of 'trust' in...and that's only because the Buddha himself said this:



This is pretty much dead opposite of anything I have ever been taught in any sort of Christian setting. In fact learning that there were spiritual practices out there that encouraged questioning has been very good for my continued spiritual pursuits.

At the end of the day I believe that the spiritual path is a very personal one. Everyone has to find their own way. My beef with the Christian way is that it breeds ignorance and the world doesn't need any more damned ignorance.

Peace