Does anyone feel like they took the red pill?

[Barbarbarann]

DH and I are active Christians. I was having an interesting conversation with DH the other day and we were talking about how being saved and following Jesus feels like we took the red pill from the Matrix. It feels like our eyes are opened to how evil is operating in the world and you can't unsee it. I feel like we are in an age where evil is deemed good and good is deemed evil and we are the only ones that can see it and others are mostly blasé, heads in the sand or mislead.

I wonder if anyone else out there feels that too? When I mentioned it to some ladies at a Bible study yesterday - I was met with blank looks. I am not some militant, Bible-thumping conspiracy theorist either, just someone who quietly reads their bible daily and prays.

@BadSkiingMum aye, there has to be balance alright. And that's what my previous post was addressing, extrapolating upon. In different contexts different actions are appropriate. I see that within my Christian belief too. However, as you say, Christians aren't perfect either. But my Christian faith has helped and still helps me.

@TheMousePipes 😁 love, love, love your post.

Isn't this all religions though? Every believer will think they've seen the light and that everyone else is wrong/doomed/evil. It's one of the things I find so fascinating/bonkers about all religions. I don't know how you can say this stuff with a straight face.

I am not in the slightest bit religious, but have similar world views to you in many respects. I think it is perhaps more of a product of black and white thinking styles. It is difficult for people who think this way to see all the other shades that lay between the extremes.

@BadSkiingMum, well it's not the end of the world but a lot of heart ache and emotional upset can occur if the partners have entirely different expectations of a relationship

Yes because that never happens within marriage, does it?! Oh hang on... (scans Relationships board). Going by the number of disastrous marriages, there should be a lot more finding out how compatible you are (including sexually) before committing yourself in a legally binding way!

I think the OP is correct in her observation that evil is very active and very tricky right now. We are living in the Kali Yuga (the dark age). It does get better when this age is over - it goes in cycles. I don't think she and her husband are by any means the only ones to notice it, but I think many people don't want to acknowledge either the glaringly obvious prevalence of evil right now or the existence of a counter-force. She's setting forth on a spiritual path, and that will require courage, self-analysis and determination. It's not easy. It's not easy swimming against the tide of this world with all its trappings.

I think it's incredibly egotistical in a world of activists and campaigners etc to somehow believe you are one of a select few who can somehow see how evil the world is as if the rest of the world is blind and doing nothing about it.

What are you doing OP about it?

Because I have a whole lot more respect for journalists and medical personnel in war zones trying to make sure the evil in the world is documented and talked about or trying to heal people than I do for someone who is probably sat in a safe, warm house with easily accesible food, free, safe education for your children pontificating about how only they can see the "real evil"

Perhaps a bit more do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves is in order

Most people can see the evil around us. If you are sat on your sofa waffling about it rather than doing something then you are no better than the next person.

Tbh it sounds like you may have schizophrenia.

I met a man on holiday who thought he could understand things others couldn’t, and how everyone else had their head in the sand while he had special insight into the workings of the world (like taking the Red pill), and he was definitely schizophrenic.

I’m not at all religious but I do absolutely agree with your sentiment that there is significant amounts of evil or maybe bad behaviour in the world and significant amounts of denial about such harmful behaviour. I also agree with you about the gaslight whereby people are calling truly bad things at best benign at worst good.

My family are Christians, there was CSA from a family member which they all swept under the rug for the sake of maintaining relationships. I’m not sure following Jesus, as they massively purport to do, has anything to do with seeing these patterns of human behaviour for what they are.

@AllProperTeaIsTheft,

Yes because that never happens within marriage, does it?! Oh hang on... (scans Relationships board). Going by the number of disastrous marriages, there should be a lot more finding out how compatible you are (including sexually) before committing yourself in a legally binding way!

Agreed marriage isn't a magic sticking plaster.

Did you read further and see my other post where I spoke further on the subject? Here it is:

@pointythings, yes, marriage (the institution) is not a sticking plaster. However, real marriage is real partnership, true union, it goes deeper than the institution of it. I would agree communication is key. Assertiveness? At times, yes, but it must be kept in balance with consideration.

Anywhere where a service is sold without actually caring about the welfare of those service users, in any genuine way, is a form of prostitution. Especially when business models create perceived need by erroneously persuading prospective service users they have a dysfunction.

ironically the last bit sounds like religion to me….

I don't think you are on your own with how you are thinking. There are so many ills in society from my perspective. Profit is the most important factor in our society it seems to me. We consume and consume if we have the means with no thought to tomorrow. While so many in society go without.

@Rangewife not what it should be though.

@Rangewife

That is the Christian faithful should not be judging fault to be where there is none.

But I find Christianity helpful because I am fallible. 😉

I still stand with what I said. Yes, I in no position to diagnose solely based on the snippet from op but I am still if the opinion this is a typical pattern of thought by an individual who is experiencing a mental health issue.

I still stand with what I said. Yes, I in no position to diagnose solely based on the snippet from op but I am still if the opinion this is a typical pattern of thought by an individual who is experiencing a mental health issue.

@Scottishshortbread11877, well let's hope you would be surprised if you knew them properly. 🙂

I stumbled upon my truth some years ago. It is probably far too simplistic, and may actually cause a few/some/many people harm if they were to believe it. So on the understanding that it is my truth, that answered many of my most burning questions, and on the understanding I hope, * * that any Christians reading this must continue to try to find the "truth" that they are comfortable with, I will share my very simplistic view, that differs with most - if not all - that mainstream Christian believers are taught:

God is not Omnipotent.

My truth is that God is a coping mechanism for psychologically and emotionally dealing with the pathologically harmful behaviour human beings inflict upon one another at such an inordinate rate that a lot of people deny it exists. He is a projection of the good that is in people in the world. The devil is a projection for the evil in people or in other words is a projection for the root cause of the harmful behaviour when in fact it is human emotions, cycles of trauma and a very small minority of truly maloevent individuals who drive the evil (the ones with damaging personality disorders).

I do worry about certain Christian teachings in that so many followers take everything literally and live from a fear perspective, fearing the devil and evil and so on. In that sense I see it as a cult (sorry OP!) using fear and guilt to control people and keep them in line. (I see a lot of religions in a cult like way, and am not singling out Christianity here). I think it is quite dangerous in that respect. I don't think everything about Christianity is bad and there are a lot of good things and teachings. But some of the darker stuff I don't think is healthy for humans to focus on. I'm also not saying there isn't bad stuff going on in the world but to focus on it from a religious perspective is quite warped and dark IMO.

@Beyondbeyondbeyond what do you think Jesus Christ is a projection of?

I love your first post here @heyhohello . Thanks!

I am a Muslim (since a few years, not by birth or culture) and my feelings of faith are very much a realisation that as @heyhohello says, we are all a vital and intrinsic part of a whole created by something which is far beyond my ken, but which I understand is both love and peace and rigour and judgment. All I can do is my best, appreciate and allow all things to do what they must and create my own peace and life in a way that hurts and damages as little as possible.

I don’t see the superiority that others see in your OP but I do fear you sound similar to some of the MAGA people in the US which will inevitably rub people up the wrong way.

Evil presented as good- going to a maternity scan, being told baby probably has Down Syndrome and the unbelievable bias to terminate.

You're saying women who terminate a DS pregnancy are evil?

Jesus was a person who lived in the Middle East about 2000 years ago. One of many, many men who throughout time has laid claim to some kind of divinity. Who do you think Jesus is?

@pointythings No, I believe that the rhetoric that children with downs syndrome should be terminated and which has become normalised, is evil. Society pursues perfection.