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SAMPLE BLOG POSTING....
July 20, 2008 by Jezebel
Religion…a Misuse of the Imagination?
Over the next 12 weeks, I will be revealing the 12 Steps to Recover from Religion!
STEP 1
RECOVERING FROM RELIGION…
Get an Inquiring Mind!
Religion…A Misuse of the Imagination?
I wasted many, many years after leaving the Mormon Church being angry and hurt and taking it all very seriously! The truth is that I spent many years choosing to feel like I was not worthy to even be alive. This blog is all about skipping the angry part and ditchin’ the guilt and realizing that you are not a victim of your past, but rather the Master of Your Fate!
So, like many people ask me why I left the Mormon religion and I am going to share why… But first I want to tell you why I have chose such a seemingly irreverent and sinful website like Beer4Her. The reason is that this is the world we live in and it seemed like a great way to get your attention!
This website and blog are like Alanis Morissette’s music… she’s quite pissed off with tones of revenge in “You Oughta Know” and then next thing you know you are being uplifted by “You Learn” and “Hand in My Pocket.” This is life, this is how we ALL are…trying to pretending that we are ALL “good” or happy ALL the time is the problem! GET REAL! We ALL have pain and little secrets hidden deep in the dungeon of our souls! [Exit tangent]
 So, I left the LDS Church because I read the book Think and Grow Rich by Napolean Hill and I learned the power of my thoughts and how if you think a thought over and over it becomes your belief system and reality. In Chapter 1 titled “Thoughts are Things” I read about how we are masters of our fate because we have the power to control which thoughts we think about and focus on.
(If you are familiar with The Secret, or Law of Attraction, that’s essentially what Think and Grow Rich is about. Our thoughts create our realities).
Humm…let me think about this…no one is born a Mormon or Buddhist, Muslim, Republican or even a world class golfer (except maybe Tiger Woods, his Dad put a golf club in his crib when he was a baby). All of those are CHOICES which are just made up of thoughts that you think and then ultimately believe.
So, I got to thinking about the billions of Buddhists and other religions and the indigenous tribes and I realized that everyone had their own right and true religion FOR THEM because studied/THOUGHT about their religion so much so that it became their belief system. I realized that we live in an infinite universe with infinite possibilities and it was just crazy to think you are right and everybody else is wrong. Perhaps judging things as right or wrong is the real hell?
Then I realized that the Mormon Church used the same techniques such as “affirmations” in Think and Grow Rich. They have their youth speak out loud and repeat the same thing over and over - Sunday after Sunday. They tell you that just thinking about a sin is almost as bad as doing it…it’s the very first step to committing it!
 Even the Bible tells you this…
“As a man thinkith in his heart, so is he”
~Proverbs 23:7
I realized the power of the imagination and it seemed to me that religion was a terrible misuse of it! I was using the awesome power of my imagination on guilt, shame and fear…pass the Prozac please! I was so worried about fitting in and trying to be a good well behaved Mormon girl…feeling so guilty for even having a bad thought and stressed out that I wasn’t going to heaven that I didn’t even realize the hell I was in! Yup! I used religion to create my own hell on earth! Go figure?
Now I’m thinkin’ oh hell…I’m mean “heck” as I am in Utah! What if I spent the last 20 years using my imagination to create wealth and the life I actually desired instead of wallowing in imagined guilt and shame??? Gee…I don’t know – whadda you think?
Another book that really helped me realize that I was not completely insane to leave the church was As a Man Thinkith by James Allen – Here’s a link to the free eBook or even audio download if you are interested…. just click on this link… http://manybooks.net/titles/allenjametext03mntkh10.html
So…if you are haunted by feelings of guilt and of not being “good enough” from religion – stay tuned to this blog as I will be sharing exactly how I freed my mind. You can subscribe by entering your email address below.
Religion…a misuse of your imagination?
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