Half my life, so far.
“Constant alertness, constant willingness to fight back. There is no other price.” is the stated price for involvement of my religion of old that says to itself that it is the only force for good in the world and must make a war against mans insanity. Before the world wipes itself out.
Unfortunately it holds that EVERYTHING done and said by anyone is pure insanity so the idea of there being any sort of other force for good in the world is null and void. So one must dedicate everything one can to this religion or else the world will likely kill itself and this religion is the ONLY way to save humanity from being dammed for eternity.
Doctors, scientist, politicians especially every single psychiatrist and psychologist and journalist are forces only for absolute evil and there is no exception. These people have been ‘doing us in’ life after life since the eons began 75 trillions (that is a ‘little’ bit before the universe began) years ago. So therefore must all be destroyed.
My pops had 3 religious reawakenings in his life. Once when I was 5, then when I was 10 then when I was 17. Each time it got him through the door to be no longer be involved in parenthood. Each religious reawakening somehow or another meant he had to cut off from his sons again for some reason.
The consequence is now half my immediate family now practice this religion with devotion and insist only on associating with others who are just as convinced in the need to be as devoted as them. The other half fight out against this movement saying it is the most evil force on Earth. Suffice to say there has not been a fully attended christmas dinner now for 35 years. Forbidden through religious scriptures.
The mother ‘had’ to cut me off as a ‘potential trouble source’ so she could do the highest of levels. She took this a little further and told my daughter I was someone she no longer considered worth speaking to. A declaration of DB.
This stands for degraded being which was my official classification on leaving this religions inner order. I also had a £18,000 freeloader bill for religious services I had done while aged 12-18. This had to be ‘paid back’ before I could continue on spiritual enlightenment. Which I did during my 20s. I then had to do an amends project to ‘make up the damage’ I had caused by leaving the inner order. I spent 2 years rebuilding the inside of the local church at my own expense. Approx £20,000.
I have spent approx £40,000 on other religious services and books and lectures. I wont count the hours I put in. Or months. It was 35 years all lost, every connection, friend, relative that I knew before I was 35 is religiously forbidden to have contact with me for my apostasy.
A decade ago my local church decreed my family could not meet all together at the same time.
So for me the price of freedom was half my life (I hope) a fair whack of cash and every personal and emotional connection I had with anyone before I was 35 including all my siblings (we are 7).
I ended up not free but classed as a degraded being by the group and outcast without so much as a thanks for my efforts.
I recently went to the local church saying I wanted some family mediation and while in reception one member told me flat out to leave while another got the police on the phone behind them – swell service.
Don’t worry, be hapi.