Christopher HY11

10/01/2024

Don't throw the spiritual baby out with the religious bathwater.

10/01/2024

I heard a great definition for the overused word 'toxic': An environment where success is impossible. No matter how good you are. No matter how hard you work. Success is not possible.

05/01/2024

Find out who you are and do it on purpose. Dolly Parton

30/12/2023

You can always tell people to
"Go to Hell!" tomorrow.

13/12/2023

For things to change,
you've got to change.

12/12/2023

Who you become attracts.

11/12/2023

Learn to work harder on yourself than on your job.

11/12/2023

Act as though it is impossible to fail.

04/12/2023

Coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous.

25/11/2023

To my creative friends: Keep making your art. It changes the world.

23/11/2023

In conversation, the 2019 Templeton Prize winner does not pull punches on the limits of science, the value of humility and the irrationality of nonbelief

12/11/2023

When I left my Christian faith, I wondered what to do with a lifetime of powerful spiritual experiences. Was it all a delusion? But the effects of these spiritual experiences, on the whole, had a very positive and transformative effect on my life. Is it possible that the experiences were true even though many of my Christian beliefs were false?

This blog post addresses that.

I never lost my personal, conscious connection with God during the deconstruction of my Christian beliefs. My spirituality was actually expanding during my deconstruction. I was like a kid in a spi…

19/10/2023

18/10/2023

Fundamentalists and Evangelicals and Halloween........

14/10/2023

Alan Watts suggests that much truth can be discovered through subtraction. There is much subtraction in the Deconstruction of one's Christian faith. Three substantial subtractions for me are:

1. Christian Dogma - so much dogma is unreasonable, unscientific, unhealthy, unnecessary, and, even, unethical. When dogma is subtracted, in my experience, my life becomes healthier and more natural. I no longer consider 'natural' as being a bad thing. I also find that, for me, God is gradually becoming clearer to me.

2. Self-serving Religious Organizations - I believe that the primary evil of organized religion is that, despite its original intentions, it quickly becomes ruthlessly self-serving. Members are reduced to cogs in the machine. Interchangeable parts. Fuel for the system. And manipulation through guilt and fear and collective pressure becomes the means of control and coercion.

3. The Need for Certainty - As much as we crave certainty in our beliefs and in our circumstances, there is very little in the way of certainty in this life. The only certainty is uncertainty. And death. And there is much uncertainty about death.

And what remains? What statue is being discovered in the block of marble?

Well my statue is a bit abstract at the moment. But the things that I believe are being revealed are:

1. Meaning - Discover meaning. Discover your own personal expression of that meaning. Bring that personal meaning incrementally and increasingly to reality. Happiness is an intermittent result of a life lived in pursuit of meaning.

2. Family/Especially Children/Deep Friendships - This is complicated. There can also be much pain, abuse, betrayal, and tragedy in family. But I find that, within that, or despite that, I have had deep experiences of meaing.

3. Nature - I bought a 115 year old DIY lake house that Dave Ramsey probably wouldn't approve of. It was inexpensive, but it contains of a century's worth of structural problems. But it is across from a beautiful lake and we can watch the sunset over the lake every evening. And it is surrounded by 7 acres of woods. Just sitting in the backyard for 15 minutes taking in the woods, the squirrels & rabbits, the blue jays, cardinals, & robins...this is a priceless spiritual experience for me.

4. Art & Music - there is a transcendent power in music and art that touches the deep places in people's souls and reveals and empowers a truer life. Listening to the music of Dave Matthews Band, Counting Crows, Peter Gabriel, Wilco, Krishna Das, and Rich Mullins is transcendent for me.

What are you discovering as you chip away? Please share in the comments.

09/10/2023

I was never a fan of Howard Stern, but late in life he has become something entirely different. Very sweet thoughtful interaction with Paul Simon. I grew up listening to my dad playing Simon & Garfunkel's Greatest Hits. Paul talks about the experience of songs seeming to come through him and not from him. I consider myself a creative person, but on a small scale. I have had that experience when creating a song. Or sometimes I go back and read something I wrote and I think, "That is really good. I don't even remember writing that." Or when I taught in the church, sometimes writing a lesson or sermon was a very powerful experience as I felt God spoke to me and then I wrote it down and shared it. Please forgive the grandiosity. But I think it is a universal experience if you think about it. And I share Paul's intuition about an afterlife. And also his complete lack of dogmatism. And, like Howard Stern, I think it would be tragic to exist and, then, not to exist.

Paul Simon opens up about being a conduit for music, his views on spirituality, and his thoughts on life after death.Get more Howard Stern by signing up for ...

08/10/2023

I will never forget the time my mother told me I am going to hell. And that I was dragging my wife and children to hell with me. For me, this is one of the most difficult aspects of Deconstructing. Rejection and Judgement by family and friends. For more details on this I am sharing a piece I wrote on this.

by Christopher HY11 When My Mother Told Me I Was Going to Hell It wasn’t the first time someone told me I was going to hell. But it was certainly the most insistent. And it was my mother.&nbs…

07/10/2023

You've been thinking about it for a long time. The traffic lights will never all be green. A step of faith creates growth and opportunity you cannot see right now.

06/10/2023

Remember: First Things First (11)

01/10/2023

"Basically, I believe in one less God than you do." This often quoted statement by Ricky Gervais is cute. But it is without substance. Unfortunately, I actually see this presented as a serious argument and as a definition of atheism. It fails on both counts. If I am a Christian I would not say I am an atheist about Hinduism. Additionally, many people have an inclusive view of the world religions. There is One True God, and many wandering and imperfect paths to move one closer to God.

Actor & Comedian Ricky Gervais is often quoted as saying, “Basically, you deny one less God than I do. You don’t believe in 2,999 gods. And I don’t believe in just one more.& #…

30/09/2023

The Evangelical Christian teaching and treatment of homosexuals was one of the reasons I began deconstructing my Christian faith. Increasingly I found the Evangelical Christian teaching on homosexuality unethical, illogical, and terribly harmful and abusive to innocent people who weren't harming anyone.

When I raised questions and challenged my Evangelical Christian friends the response was to quote anti-homosexual 'clobber verses' from the Bible. A few sentences out of a giant book.

In addition to that, sometimes my Christian friends asked me if I was struggling with same-sex attraction. The one thing that really annoys me when Christians learn I am no longer a Christian is that they suspect that my apostasy is motivated by a desire "to sin". I am more of a conventional family man than I have ever been in my entire life.

All of that motivated me to write this:

“Are you struggling with same-sex attraction, Chris?” There were just three of us. A small group of men from my small Evangelical Christian church who met at a dilapidated diner once a …

30/09/2023

I was driving to work yesterday. I live in the Chicagoland area so there is always traffic. I hit a section of Grand Avenue that is usually backed up and there wasn't a car in sight. The first thought that popped into my head was, "Did the rapture happen and I missed it?" Do you ever have any "Left Behind"/"End Times" thoughts that pop into your head? Any residual anxiety from being immersed in the Second Coming of Christ/Book of Revelation teaching in Christian fundamentalism?

26/09/2023

Shout out to my newest followers! Excited to have you onboard!

Silvio Martins, Avinash Kumar, Raju Bhuktare, Rahul Kumar Singh, Nela BigearMooswa

26/09/2023

Friendships: Two helpful categories for friendships/relationships I learned recently are transactional friendships vs. authentic friendships. Transactional friendships are pragmatic relationships that we need and maintain as long as they are mutually beneficial or required. A lot of work relationships fall in this category. Authentic friendships are not dependent on transactions. They are based on authentic connections and affection. We need both categories, but the authentic relationships are where the gold is.

26/09/2023

I believe there is a spiritual current. A divine flow. I become aware of it through some experience of stillness, meditation, or being in nature. I participate primarily by surrender to the flow, being present, and taking the next right action.

24/09/2023

I think it is true that there is one God and many paths to God. But I think it is more accurate to say there are many roads and they are all hard roads. The pain and the struggle seem to be an essential part of the formation and the discovery. Kind of like a butterfly emerging from a chrysalis.