Hate -- Christian Style
By Neal Stone
I was always told that Jesus loved us not matter who we were and that God had a will for us.
I was born with Epilepsy and visually impaired. This resulted in a learning disability (which I eventually overcame), and I was anywhere from being the normal kid. I would get made fun of, put down and have my family judged as nothing but trouble makers due to other family members who got into drugs and alcohol.
The stories I post here are just a small part of what Christianity has done to my life.
But the real pain would be trying to fit into church. I was always at odds with the PK (preacher's assho...kid). I would struggle to understand God, the Bible and his will.
But the real struggle would be years later as I gave one last shot at finding God's plan for my life.
I was in my early to mid 20s and was attending this church in Lacey, WA. We had a new young adults leader and this new gal. Both went out of there way to filter out those of us who didn't fit into their little social club. Basically, if you didn't have the looks, the voice and talent, then there was no place for you.
Funny how all the so called 'spiritual giants” are usually the worst people outside of church.
This one gal we shall call Beth and her “friend” we shall call Travis were both looked upon as big spiritual giants. Granted they once shared a sleeping bag on a Christian camp out and no, they weren't married and Travis was dating someone else at the time. WTF!
I have a real talent for creative writing. I could have done many skits and poems for this church that would have reached many.
One skit is call “Lights, Camera, Action” and follows a so called spiritual giant with a director coaching her as she gets ready for church and while she is at church. Just putting on a big show is what the skit is about.
These people went out of their way to make me feel welcome. They only saw the surface and not the person underneath dying to fit in and belong.
They would call me weird or strange. Funny, I thought I just needed God in my life and his will! Being church leaders isn't that what they should have thought of rather than judge me and push me away? Just shows you what it's really about. Just puttin' on a good show and don't let the weird ones try and steal it from you. Can't have them on stage, it just wouldn't look good for the church no would it?
I guess it all worked out for good. I no longer have the insecurity about my life, God's will and so on. I know where my life is headed and have dealt with a lot and made it without Jesus or God being there.
Since quitting church my life has turned around quite a but.
In church: Single and alone, unemployed or dead end jobs, no friends and not fitting in and no direction in life.
Out of Church: Making good money, married and good home, great job and friends and co-workers who love me and life is great. Yes I have direction in my life too.
Preacher: If you don't like it theirs the door!
Me: Ok, c-ya!
I was always told that Jesus loved us not matter who we were and that God had a will for us.
I was born with Epilepsy and visually impaired. This resulted in a learning disability (which I eventually overcame), and I was anywhere from being the normal kid. I would get made fun of, put down and have my family judged as nothing but trouble makers due to other family members who got into drugs and alcohol.
The stories I post here are just a small part of what Christianity has done to my life.
But the real pain would be trying to fit into church. I was always at odds with the PK (preacher's assho...kid). I would struggle to understand God, the Bible and his will.
But the real struggle would be years later as I gave one last shot at finding God's plan for my life.
I was in my early to mid 20s and was attending this church in Lacey, WA. We had a new young adults leader and this new gal. Both went out of there way to filter out those of us who didn't fit into their little social club. Basically, if you didn't have the looks, the voice and talent, then there was no place for you.
Funny how all the so called 'spiritual giants” are usually the worst people outside of church.
This one gal we shall call Beth and her “friend” we shall call Travis were both looked upon as big spiritual giants. Granted they once shared a sleeping bag on a Christian camp out and no, they weren't married and Travis was dating someone else at the time. WTF!
I have a real talent for creative writing. I could have done many skits and poems for this church that would have reached many.
One skit is call “Lights, Camera, Action” and follows a so called spiritual giant with a director coaching her as she gets ready for church and while she is at church. Just putting on a big show is what the skit is about.
These people went out of their way to make me feel welcome. They only saw the surface and not the person underneath dying to fit in and belong.
They would call me weird or strange. Funny, I thought I just needed God in my life and his will! Being church leaders isn't that what they should have thought of rather than judge me and push me away? Just shows you what it's really about. Just puttin' on a good show and don't let the weird ones try and steal it from you. Can't have them on stage, it just wouldn't look good for the church no would it?
I guess it all worked out for good. I no longer have the insecurity about my life, God's will and so on. I know where my life is headed and have dealt with a lot and made it without Jesus or God being there.
Since quitting church my life has turned around quite a but.
In church: Single and alone, unemployed or dead end jobs, no friends and not fitting in and no direction in life.
Out of Church: Making good money, married and good home, great job and friends and co-workers who love me and life is great. Yes I have direction in my life too.
Preacher: If you don't like it theirs the door!
Me: Ok, c-ya!
Comments
Christians aren't generally a principled people. They're a partisan people. It's the stuff of cults, not of love of the Bible, Jesus, or any such thing. It's the stuff that promotes mental illness and, of course, there is always a Christian counselor of some kind to manipulate your mind into partisan submission.
Like you, my life improved when I quit churches altogether. I also dumped Christian Counselors and I have a clean bill of mental health today according to the practitioners I have come to trust, none of which have a religious agenda.
Just for starters, I mean
ATF
ATF and I discussed "optimism", "optimists", "alligator attacks" and the mechanics of the Hokey Pokey on another post. I stated, "If an optimist had her left arm chewed off by an alligator, she might say 'Well this isn't too bad. I don't have my left arm anymore but at least no one will ever ask me if I am right-handed or left-handed." After going back and forth on the topic of dancing the Hokey Pokey without arms, ATF wiggled out of my trap by assuring me that, as far as tooth fairies go, he is ambidextrous and and a realist so our atheist tooth fairy would dance half of the Hokey Pokey after an unfortunate alligator attack.
Now ATF states that he is a right-handed tooth fairy so I demanded a clarification. LOL!
BB
ATF and I discussed "optimism", "optimists", "alligator attacks" and the mechanics of the Hokey Pokey on another post. I stated, "If an optimist had her left arm chewed off by an alligator, she might say 'Well this isn't too bad. I don't have my left arm anymore but at least no one will ever ask me if I am right-handed or left-handed." After going back and forth on the topic of dancing the Hokey Pokey without arms, ATF wiggled out of my trap by assuring me that, as far as tooth fairies go, he is ambidextrous and and a realist so our atheist tooth fairy would dance half of the Hokey Pokey after an unfortunate alligator attack.
Now ATF states that he is a right-handed tooth fairy so I demanded a clarification. LOL!
BB
Since I have found out about how christians can really be, and the truth of the god in the bible, plus leaving the church I have become a stronger person, and say what's on my mind to most of these "better than thou" christians. Life is still hard, but better without religion and it's god(s).
Peace to you.......Roger
1. Barbiebrains + Jesucristo = depression, anxiety, inability to laugh, repressed exuberance, loss of creativity, loss of space, loss of time, loss of close friends, loss of inquisitiveness, loss of words, and intellectual curiosity and a wearer of itchy clothes in grotesque colors.
2. Barbiebrains -Jesucristo= laughter, resiliency, focused, energetic, able to launch myself headlong into the world with something resembling joy and lightness and vigor....a better partner, friend and mother.
I hear that my ex, Jesucristo, makes regular appearances on a large tortilla at a roadside taco stand near the border. I wish him luck. I hope he finds a job with benefits: a job with the Department of Motor Vehicles. I hope his next girlfriend is more understanding about the bloody nail-prints on the sofa.
BB
I've often cited the 'social' element of church life as, perhaps, the one thing keeping people in xianity but, let's face it, as we all well know - and you have captured wonderfully here, Neal - the social side of church is sub-standard as well!
Give me the real world, where you can pick and choose who you hang out with, not based on their so-called xian 'fellowship' (what a feckin' AWFUL word! lol) but on some kind of REAL connection with you.
Neal, I look forward to more from you, dude. You shoot from the hip and I like it!
HOO-HAA
--S.
While it's true that on Saturday's Party Nights, I am indeed an ambidextrous tooth fairy while doing the Hokey Pokey, after one or more alligator attacks, that isn't always the case.
See, during the course of my normal tooth-collecting work days (Sunset to Sunrise--while the tooth donors are fast asleep), I'm mostly Right Handed.
Luckily, I haven't had to become Left Handed by having an inadvertent run-in with a child's bedtime stuffed alligator, which as you might know, they are far more REAL and dangerous to life and limb, than even the bible-god; or his devil counterpart.
Sconnor,
Who the hell dances the Hokey-Pokey with alligators, anyway?
I believe you might have seen such a thing, in an old film called Peter Pan?
Okay, so it wasn't exactly the Hokey-Pokey being done, but you have to admit that the alligator in that old film, was as "Hokey" as the xtian bible god seems to be, no?
ATF (Who wonders if stuffed alligator teeth would fetch a higher price on the black market?)
More power to your elbow, mate. That was a wonderful story - thank you so much for telling it. I acquired epilepsy thanks to a schoolfriend shying a rock at me when I was 6. Stayed that way til I was twenty-one when surgery repaired the damage, but left me visually-impaired.
It always struck me that the inclusive fellowship of the church only included the "normal" people, never the different or needy. I never understood why the sermons were about submission to god AND to the authority of the leaders when there were poor, sick and needy people in the church who were desperate for help and hungry, sometimes just for "fellowship".
What a bunch of fraudsters and intellectual tosspots!
David(who thinks that a left-handed tooth fairy would be just TOO sinister.)
I cut ties with them after I gave up the jesus thing about ten years ago, but my youth group experiences were way back in the 1970s.
Youth group was for church kids and none of us really had the guts to invite anyone from outside the church, anyway. I know that I never even mentioned it to any of my non church friends. Obviously, we weren't evangelicals! Although, one time, we did actually go door to door and hand out tracts and it was the worst youth group activity EVER! We normally did fun things like go roller skating or playing lots of volleyball.
That was a fun trip down memory lane, but I have no idea, of course, what happened after I graduated H.S. which is when youth group booted us. There was always talk of a young adult group, but it never got off the ground as far as I knew.
The church was a rather liberal (back then, anyway) SoCal Lutheran congregation (LCMS) My dad still attends sporadically and they seem to have gotten more conservative, which turns my dad off a bit.
Sorry for the TMI... Bottom line is that even a good youth group is still soaked in bible nonsense.
Churches these days have wandered from the Gospel. They have become cliquish and they have hurt many people because of this foolish belief that we are to be a certain way and have all these gifts. It's not about us--it's about God.
One last comment...do not ever change who you are to accomidate the image others want you to portray! God is Creator, He is the one who formed you in your mother's womb the way you are. The reason you feel free after you leave church is because you act natural. Today's church (the people of God) need to get REAL--and perhaps because this has happened with so many people, someone will start speaking the truth of the Gospel and stop trying to fit everyone into a neat perfect image of what they imagine a Christian to be! This is the biggest defect of the church today and the reason it is failing in the forward movement of the Gospel.
For all those who have commented, the Lord loves you just the way you are and He is still with you if you believe in His Son. Reread the Bible. Read it and study it from old commentaries (they have better insight and avoid cultural influence). Just as we study great literature, do the same with the Bible and you will understand your Creator and His ways. You are just the way He wants you--nothing more, nothing less, just the way you should be. Enjoy your life but live by the principles of the 10 Commandments. Read what Christ says about love so that love grows in your heart and hear His Words, they will inspire and allow you to see things in a different light. Use them as wisdom not restrictions.
(suits up in valkyrie armour and grabs Her Clue-By-Four™) Okay, I'm ready. Cry Havoc! and let loose the apostates of Ex-C...
Candiced: "Perhaps rereading the Bible will bring some clarity to the issues you and everyone else who has posted here has faced."
Hardly, little girl. I became an Ex-Christian because I read the Bible.
"Jesus was a sacrifice for the restored relationship with the Creator."
I reject that sacrifice. Killing one person for the crimes of another person is immoral. Period.
"He imaged the One True God who we can not for the life of ourselves (even as a Christian) image."
Got any evidence that this hypothetical One True God exists outside the human imagination, Candiced?
"...the work of the Spirit is not to make everything better but to proclaim the Good News of the Sacrifice."
Existential fallacy: No evidence for existence of above-mentioned Spirit. Furthermore, 'Good News of the Sacrifice' is an oxymoron.
"We are not given anything but eternal salvation..."
No evidence for 'eternal salvation'. None. Not a sausage. Until otherwise demonstrated via scientific means, your consciousness and your Christian beliefs simply die with your physical body.
"For all those who have commented, the Lord loves you just the way you are and He is still with you if you believe in His Son."
*KAPOW* Candaced, you ignorant little troll, what part of Ex-Christian is too f%cking hard for your Bible-boiled brain to understand?
We see no evidence that your god and its occasionally dead kidlet and the woo-woo ghostie thing are anything but ancient myths.
We see no valid morality in the Bible that hadn't already been said by Greek philosophers, Jain monks, Buddhists, Confucians, and everyone else who lived in a culture with a viable social contract.
The Bible is one of the most vile and manipulative books ever produced, and you should be ashamed of yourself for promoting it as a thing of value. I hope to Me that your faith crashes and burns in spectacular fashion.
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