I haven't been posting on here in a very long time, I'm home sick today from work and felt compelled to log in. This is the first thread I read and it struck me that my past screen names didn't quite ever reflect who I was and what part of my journey I was on at the time. They were just names I liked. I started out on here as "August Rush", then went to "Flaming June"(my favorite painting), then for a short time "Black Mamba"(because I love love love the Kill Bill movies), then back to "August Rush". Today I decided I am now simply "Phebe". This was my temple name and saying it out loud marks the spot of my journey where I simply don't give a damn anymore. I am who I am and am truly on the path to considering going ahead and removing my name from TSCC completely.
I choose "God" because I am slightly insecure, and need the attention. Oh, and I work in mysterious ways, and I like to call down the thunder and bring all Hell with me.
In The Lion King, Simba is taught that he should forget the problems of his past and live in the present. I thought that was a pretty good metaphor for what I was learning here.
God:
I choose "God" because I am slightly insecure, and need the attention. Oh, and I work in mysterious ways, and I like to call down the thunder and bring all Hell with me.
I also think Losingmyreligion is an awesome user name. I automatically think of R.E.M. and Michael Stipe. He was also a producer of the movie Saved.
"When a girl attending a Christian high school becomes pregnant, she
finds herself ostracized and demonized, as all of her former friends
turn on her."
It shows the process she goes through questioning everything she has ever been taught because she received a "revelation" and it didn't turn out as promised. Sound familiar?
God: I choose "God" because I am slightly insecure, and need the attention. Oh, and I work in mysterious ways, and I like to call down the thunder and bring all Hell with me.
Can we date?
Let me check with my wives for an opening. Ahhhh yes, I have an opening next Tuesday at 4:30 pm. I will have to bring wives 2-6. I hope that won't be a problem???
God:
I choose "God" because I am slightly insecure, and need the attention. Oh, and I work in mysterious ways, and I like to call down the thunder and bring all Hell with me.
God:
I choose "God" because I am slightly insecure, and need the attention. Oh, and I work in mysterious ways, and I like to call down the thunder and bring all Hell with me.
Can we date?
Let me check with my wives for an opening. Ahhhh yes, I have an opening next Tuesday at 4:30 pm. I will have to bring wives 2-6. I hope that won't be a problem???
Losingmyreligion also speaks to me. I don't really care what the writer of the song orignally intended ... it speaks to me in a religious way. Also, have you watched the video? There is a lot of mythological and religous imagery for it being non-religous.
My screen name is not very imaginative. I life in Northern Californa and I am out. I came here shortly a after I told my wife about my non-belief. It was a dark time. My wife told me that there is NO information that would prove to her that the church is not true. I was at the point where we were due to baptise one of our kids and I just could not continue with the lie. I also could no longer lie to my kids about the church. I was done but it but my life in turmoil.
Fast forward over 4 years to now and my wife is mostly out but can't completely seperate herselfe from her upbringing. We are all out though and I am very happy about that.
I plan to keep the name (norcal out) for new. I am used to it. We are also out to my family so I could just use my real name, but my wife tends to be very private about what she share on line and probably would not like it if I put stuff here that her family could read.
God: I choose "God" because I am slightly insecure, and need the attention. Oh, and I work in mysterious ways, and I like to call down the thunder and bring all Hell with me.
I want to change mine to "The Artist Formerly Known as A Three Hour Bore," but there is no appropriate character for such on the keyboard to represent me. The closest I have seen is the Command Key on my mom's Mac but that is one more restricting cult I will never join.
I'm not sure what nick I registered with. It's some of the ones I've been using for a long time somewhere else, and I didn't really feel comfortable with it. I spent quite a long time deciding what to call myself here, until I landed with Metamorphosis. I went through some huge changes in just a few years, so it's more than fitting. Always reminds me of it when I log on
Turning point....is just a name I put up on a moments notice. Turning point just reflects the state of my life over the past two years. Leaving my religion, wondering how to navigate my 29 year relationship with husband since we've grown apart in so many ways....asking the question, "at 52...what do I really want for the rest of my life?" I've answered that question with a few simple truths....I don't want to be Mormon and I want to be active physically and mentally strong. As most of my friends are getting botox and plastic surgery, I've opted out.....I want to be less attached to my looks. So, Turning Point....will continue. Btw....love the name "god" and the reasons. Funny.
I chose RationalGuy because it states my attitude very clearly. I like to think about things in a realistic way without mysticism or magic or blind faith, and particularly hate it when someone presumes to help me by doing my thinking for me.
On more than one occasion I've heard someone in the church say "Isn't it wonderful that the gospel is all laid out for us in the scriptures and we have our prophet to guide us! That way, we just don't need to think about it!"
Metamorphosis:
I'm not sure what nick I registered with. It's some of the ones I've been using for a long time somewhere else, and I didn't really feel comfortable with it. I spent quite a long time deciding what to call myself here, until I landed with Metamorphosis. I went through some huge changes in just a few years, so it's more than fitting. Always reminds me of it when I log on
Metamorphosis,
Your name is a good example of a name that actively facilitates shift, transition and a true rebirth.
Ultimately people make their own choice, however I am a strong believer that language has power, as stated in my thread-starter, so there's good reason for caution.
A wrecking ball can be wrecking facades of BS, but my concern was that the focus might have been more on loss than gains, hence my statement of concern. Whilst I am familiar with the song Losing My Religion, I am not familiar with the words, which obviously could have the potential to substantially shift the connotations.
Re this, I wonder sometimes if I'd even recognise the former me, my worldview has shifted so massively. Even several years after leaving, I discovered how much magical thinking still permeated my thinking. Walking out the door of a chapel, never to return, is one thing. Identifying, how much of that crazy perspective on life still lay hidden in the recesses of one's mind, was far more problematic, and required persistance and work over time to further eradicate. And it's like weed-eradication in so many ways.
Daryl
PS: I still struggle with my own username. I certainly never felt born free. There were heavy expactations and retributions for departure from 'the path'. Yes, theoretically, but 'children of Mormon parents' get such heavy input that severely restricts their agency.
My 80s plus YO mother recently shared for the first time that she came into the bathroom when I was a child, part way through a discussion with my father on God. She overheard me say 'But who created God?'
How I wish I'd heard that during my teen or early adult years
I was encouraged by that. Clearly at an early age I had the smarts to think through teh G issue. But at the same time, looking back, it is obvious I learned early to keep those types of questions to myself, which resulted in my dissociating from myself and my own better judgement in many critical ways. I paid a high price for that disassociation.
I was in a bookstore this morning and it was refreshing to see that 25% of the shelf space in the religious section was on atheism (This is in Australia). How I wish it had been like that when I was younger, and I really had been aware of the range of powerful religion-critical thought that has been there for eons, but risen to greater levels recently.
Metamorphosis:
I'm not sure what nick I registered with. It's some of the ones I've been using for a long time somewhere else, and I didn't really feel comfortable with it. I spent quite a long time deciding what to call myself here, until I landed with Metamorphosis. I went through some huge changes in just a few years, so it's more than fitting. Always reminds me of it when I log on
Metamorphosis,
Your name is a good example of a name that actively facilitates shift, transition and a true rebirth.
Ultimately people make their own choice, however I am a strong believer that language has power, as stated in my thread-starter, so there's good reason for caution.
A wrecking ball can be wrecking facades of BS, but my concern was that the focus might have been more on loss than gains, hence my statement of concern. Whilst I am familiar with the song Losing My Religion, I am not familiar with the words, which obviously could have the potential to substantially shift the connotations.
Re this, I wonder sometimes if I'd even recognise the former me, my worldview has shifted so massively. Even several years after leaving, I discovered how much magical thinking still permeated my thinking. Walking out the door of a chapel, never to return, is one thing. Identifying, how much of that crazy perspective on life still lay hidden in the recesses of one's mind, was far more problematic, and required persistance and work over time to further eradicate. And it's like weed-eradication in so many ways.
<snip>
I like the way old stories describe metamorphoses as something that just suddenly happens to you without you maybe even noticing it at first. It's a really fast event, and still it changes your life forever. Yeah, there really is something of rebirth involved in it.
[] I spent the first year and a half after leaving questioning everything in
my identity. It felt really much like shedding a skin, struggling out
from a form I couldn't recognize anymore. Sometimes it makes me think of
werewolves, but more often it takes me back to old Greek stories where
the transformation always had a lesson behind it. I'm not in the middle of change anymore, but the nick still applies, as I'm something and someone completely else than before. I'm something so much better.
I agree that words are powerful, not in themeselves... but as symbols of what they point to and... to the degree with how we interpret & resonate with them.
