Sin

Christians have used this word to demean themselves and others for centuries. During my exploration of deeper learning on my way out of my faith crisis, I use to define this word as

Anything displeasing to God or Anything that causes harm.

In essence I, as christian woman, existed to please god. A man. But not just any man. THE Heavenly Father. THE man upstairs. Elohiem. God the Father. And subsequently anything I did that would make him unhappy or sad was a sin. I was lead to believe that his happiness would bring me joy.

During this phase of my life, using this definition softened how I felt about god. Plenty of other people had worse definitions. Full of damning, fear-filled rhetoric. We are all sinners, no? And yet the Old Testament of the Bible was not the God I knew. In fact there is such a dissonance between the New and Old testament, many Abrahamic religions take issue with it.

The god of the Old Testament was not the imaginary friend who listened to my plea's to "kill me already/end my pain" so I would stop trying and whom I thought granted me sleep to help protect myself from more self harm through dark depression. It was not the god that I had "sacred experiences" with. It certainly wasn't the god who "hugged me" and made me feel warm inside when no one else was there for me. But yet such hallucinations continued to make me "safe" in the isolating environment of the cult I was raised in. With no other outside influences able to penetrate my thoughts, the god I knew was very different than the one everyone else around me seem to know.

As a christian I never really had a relationship with jesus. Jesus was suppose to be my "brother". He wasn't god, and in my denomination, while he was a member of the god head, they were two separate entities. What he did for me on the cross apparently is what saves my soul, but it was my relationship with god that was fascinating to me and others around me.

God answered every prayer I ever made. Sometimes with words, touches, and deeply moving experiences. Or so my mental health allowed me to believe. But I never prayed to Jesus, it was just done through/in his name, as if Jesus gave the power to humans to pray? I still don't understand it, I just knew that is how it worked for me. That being said, these experiences are specific to thw denomination of Christianity I practiced which was the small cult of Mormonism. And small it was despite me thinking they were mighty in number.

So how come the god I new was so much more nice and loving than the god everybody else around me proclaimed to know? How come nobody got answers like I did from god? That's when I realized it was my higher self I was speaking to, encouraging me to move forward in love in the best way possible even if I currently wasn't.

Everybody had a different version of god because everybody is different. It's why there are so many religions today! I believed I was talking to god just as much as everybody else believes they were talking to god. But in reality they are talking to their higher self. So really how much kinder is your higher self than others?

Back to sin....

Some sin is abominable. Apparently all sin, but the abominable sin, can be forgiven!

But this too has errors and hypocrisies with in "gospel" and "preaching" era's too.

If sin is anything that displeases God, anything that makes him unhappy is forgivable? Cool!

This did not give me the free-for-all that others I encountered thought it did/would. This gave me the outlook that Heavenly Father was a softer, kinder, and more gentler being that what was being taught at church and by other Christians. It made him previously HUMAN; which deep mormon doctrine alludes to. especially if we were "made in his image" and "he was once just like us." Young and dumb, roaming a planet meant for faith, not facts or truth. Waiting to get into his heaven, to be given "godly powers" and create his own people to play with. (me) Ah yes, living that life. You know, the life he requires you to have faith in order to speak with him or to ever see him again after you die?Never mind the fact he just up and left on planet in the middle of no where?

( for my new readers, I'm agnostic- atheist/ secular- humanist)

Sin was something that occupied my mind daily as a fundamentalist mormon. I didn't want to sin, but knew I would continually, in ways I didn't even understand. Not only was my salvation on the line but I could hurt my best friend, God, just for masterbating! Which I have done since the age of 3? (child masturbation is typical, normal even. Exploring your body and what feels good is different per individual) Something I didn't even know was wrong until it was taught to me at an later age.

Mind you, I did feel that what I was doing as child was wrong and shameful, but I could never recall an actual conversation on why what I was doing was wrong. But since leaving the mormon cult and education myself on child development, such conversations has to happen! Shame and guilt is taught regarding sex or body exploration, it is not instinct! But somehow I just knew I shouldn't talk to people about it, and that I only did it in private. During nap time, before bed, in the bath tub etc. I even tried really hard to quit for periods of time because I felt god wanted me to.

Before I learned the word "masterbation" I had a name for it myself as a child. I also don't know where this name came from either, but I can speculate I based my term on my mother using the word "wee-wee" for my brothers penis. She never gave us girls a special name for our "privates". (aka vulva)

I called it "Screwing my wee-wee".

I never spoke those words aloud until recently. These words plagued my mind as a child. Words that were forbidden to say although I didn't know why. And today, at age 27, is the first time writing them down and for the public to see. My childhood masturbation was my BIGGEST secret. I understand this cluster of words are a cause for pause. I brought them up with my therapist last week. And as most people worry when mentioning children and sexual related acts together, she asked if I had been molested or abused. While this is possible, I have searched diligently, combing through my memories for years with no proof of such acts.

I also have no reason for why I still held onto these deeply shameful memories, other than I remember that it felt wrong then. I felt shame for SIN I was committing that I didn't even understand. Seriously though, who taught me those words? Someone certainly did! What 4 year old would call touching themselves "screwing"? Why did I feel the need to do it privately?

During therapy, I speculated that these memories, while shame-filled, where about pleasure and self soothing, and therefore some of my most "happy" memories I have as a child, even if they were by myself were alone, masturbating. Sad. This is just another outcome of people surrounded by purity culture- and potentially the result of abuse now forgotten or repressed. I also was concerned that if I wasn't abused sexually, is it really possible that these desires were created on their own by a child? I have lot of questions that may never be answered.

Before I continue I will take the time for a teaching moment. It is IMPERATIVE to teach the anatomically and biologically correct terms to your children about their bodies! This can help prevent abuse and flag when there has been any!

Please use the words "vulva, vagina, clitoris, breasts, penis, testicles and anus!

I learned about the "seriousness" of my self-served sexual-sins one day in Mormon seminary (a class for 14-18 year olds in highschool) watching a 90's purity culture small church film. (tagged below) I made myself physically ill due to years of indoctrination, finally realizing I had been doing something wrong for so long. I was taught how masturbation lead to other sexual concerns including addiction and even could make you gay. I learned that it made you unworthy of a temple recommend and that pre marital sexual sins, was the sin second to murder. That orgasm/ ejaculating was something to be reserved for your future husband. And that by performing this act made me less desirable for my future husband. Ugh. toxic belief after toxic belief filled my entire body until I hated myself as a teen/ young adult.

This is when I pushed myself to tell my bishop in person. I mentioned this experience once before on my blog called Coitus and Dalliance .

Pretty much I recall setting up "appointments" during/after church and canceling the appointments until I was brave enough to actually go through with it. This was likely due to a future temple trip coming up and I really wanted to be "worthy enough" to go. Which involved invasive questions of my "obedience" to god with my bishop behind closed doors. When it finally came time that I couldn't procrastinate any longer, I wrote down the sin that I felt the need to admit in my journal for him to read, to himself. I feared having to say the word I couldn't even say alone all by myself.

At that time I was certain he already knew I was a masturbater and why I kept cancling my interviews. Mormon doctrine teaches that Bishops have that special "power of discernment" given to them by the "spirit of god" that they would know if I was lying. So I knew he could just see it in my eyes and I felt shame when he asked me to clarify what my cryptic long paragraph in my journal said. He wanted me to admit my sins outloud. This 45+ year old man, talking to a 14/15 year old girl, alone behind closed doors wanted me to tell him I masturbated. I remember bawling my eyes out from being so scared. I almost puked right there in his office. I don't recall his words that day verbatim, but I do know I left feeling like a weight was off my chest and strange like it wasn't that big of a deal as I had been making it out to be, as long as I continued to be honest.

Thinking back, it was probably beyond awkward for him too, though I'm certain he heard all sorts of things as a bishop. However I don't know if other teens in my small congregation were as honest and striving to be their best, or if they felt guilted to confess their sins in this manner; all to enter a huge white building to baptize dead people. . .Like why the fuck do children need to tell an adult man, in a private room, behind doors, that they touch themselves?

Why was this was standard procedure until only recently changed THIS YEAR in the Mormon cult, due to outspoken ex-mormons who pursued the safety of children? Forcing them to have windows on all doors and classrooms in the building, as well as tinted windows, and now allows/ encourages an adult present during these interviews, to ensure their sexual habbits aren't being questions. Even though most mormons likely prefer the1:1 pressure and embarrassment that these interviews would bring. Scaring their children into obedience. Continuing the purity culture and shame.

All these things and more I discussed with my therapist. Who is also sex positve!

So, sin...

As I continued to learn more about the god that wanted me to be happy, his happiness, I had questions. Lots! I prayed about if god was upset that I was having sex with more than one person and out of wed lock. I prayed and asked why god would be mad at [my] parents divorcing. I prayed about teenage pregnancy and cuss words. I prayed about the death penalty, abortion and people of the LGBTQIA comunity. I prayed about my mental illness and even once made a pack with god; knowing that I'd have my mental illness forever, that it was my earthly burden, and that I would not attempt suicide again if he took my life at the moment, and not a moment longer that my life was fulfilled.

And with the answers, from my higher self that I was calling god at the time, I likely applied the knowledge and experiences that I had to try and make sense of my god, these answers that I swore to be sacred.

"God filled my heart today and gave clarity on sex before marriage. It breaks his heart that teenage moms likely have to be single moms and struggle. God doesn't want to see us struggle. He believes children need a family, and the best way to have a successful family is to not have children as a young teen." This made sense to me.

The answers for sex before marriage and divorce were similar. God didn't want to see the heart ache that it caused me to give my body away (aka the woes of purity culture) nor the chance that the greater sin of sex before marriage are the physical consequences of having children not born with his blessing, covenant, or that I wasn't prepaired for them. "But who is to say marriage is what qualifies you as prepaired?" I asked god. He said "you're right, it doesn't!" In my mind that an 17-19 year old mormon, rushing into marriage because they want to have sex, and it is the only acceptable way it is allowed, that they are magically prepared for children now? (most aren't!) My search lead to more questions. I learned that god loves mindful people. People who include him the procreation of another child/soul. Marriage was meerely one step in that process.

Children were the sin? No.

It was the recklessness of potential childbearing that was wrong and hurt god hearts. His most prized possessions being tossed around through lust. His children messing around with life, thoughtlessly. So I opted for safe sex always. Condoms, staying tested for STI's, and counting my periods. I even had forms of sex that I knew could not ever create a child. Not skipping over the sin, but definitely dipping my toes in without getting my whole self soaked.

Each of my questions had similar answers, that it wasn't the listed sin that was specifically bad, it was the consequences that potentially could come, so not doing them at all was safest. Some would say these answers are not of god, but of the devil, tempting me into sinning and rationalizing its seriousness. But if "I felt the same calm peaceful spirit" I had during all my church meeting, that how were these answers from satan, which is a contentious spirit? Instead I felt love and clarity?

Because the answers were from me. Neither a sky daddy or hell fire greater demon.

I don't believe in sin anymore. I don't believe in god anymore. I don't believe in most things I do anymore.... this was just my process out of such a hateful mind trap. And if you are Christian, or goodness even Mormon you likely may struggle with these very thoughts and experiences. Shaming your mind, body and sexuality. You may even hate yourself like I once did.

Gratefully my higherself loved me more than any man made god ever could! And for as long as I live, no matter how long that may be, I'm greatful I am out of the Mormon cult and religion! Forever.

Only healing for me now! Time to fill my holes! hahaha In my heart that is. *winks*

Freudian slip, I'm sure.

And god forbids the oral sex!