failure to connect

 i just wrote the following in an email to a couple of sheeple.

didn't think i'd write to u again but it seems i have no better options.

i've harbored a passionate hatred for christianity, and by extension all dogmatic puritanical religion, for many years now. decades actually, going back nearly 40 years to my divorce and coming to understand that i'd married under pressure of living in a sexually repressed christian culture where the only way for me to have a steady lover seemed to be to get married, so i did so, but even as i did so, i knew in my heart it was the wrong thing for me to do, and that i was only doing it because i was so desperate to have a lover. when the marriage failed it tore me up badly and i learned a lot from the experience; essentially the necessity of openness and honesty in intimate relationships, beginning with one's self, but ever since i've been unable to connect with anyone, not just sexually, but philosophically. i passionately desire to live in a radically different world, one without dogmatic puritanical religion.

now anything that makes me think of sex (and something makes me think of it many times every day) reminds me of the repressive influence of christianity on my life, reinforcing my virulent hatred of it. and it's not only sex, it's how dogmatism and cruelty are so prevalent in american institutions and culture, which i now always associate with christian faith in a dogmatic puritanical judgmental and infinitely cruel god, belief in 'sin' for which according to the bible we must die (the wages of sin), and then, according to christians who also believe in heaven and hell, consignment for eternity to torture for those who haven't accepted christ as savior. that's one cruel god those christians believe in! in light of such belief it makes perverse sense to make the lives of the worst 'sinners' amongst us hell by making them live in prisons wherein cruelty is a way of life. i think this also relates to a broader cruelty in american society, cruelty towards the less fortunate, the homeless, the poor, the misfits, minorities, lgbtq+ people, etc., the shocking lack of a social safety net and social services, things like childcare, healthcare, etc.. it seems to me that it isn't just coincidence but correlation that the arguably most religious country in the so-called 'developed' world has the most regressive social policies and the greatest economic inequality, the harshest and most punitive laws, and the greatest injustice, corruption, and hypocrisy.

in spite of all this i've benefitted from my association with your church thanks to the limited sense of community i find there. i imagine that's basically the same reason anyone like u would choose to become a minister, to help foster the development and maintenance of such community. unfortunately it seems just about impossible to find this outside of religion, but why is this so, and must it be thus? why can't we have community without connection to holy books, dogmas, and superstitious rituals like holy communion? why can't we live in a world in which critical thinking flourishes, facts are valued more highly than dogmatic faith, and unconventional thought is not suppressed?

now that u've retired or are about to, perhaps u'll feel free-er to address such questions, to question the validity of your own faith, and to engage with me further in this discussion? perhaps it won't turn your life upside down too much to do so? perhaps together, we can try to think of ways to bring about such changes in the lives of others without turning their lives upside down too much, to bring about radical social change without too much social disruption? what do u think?