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What made you leave the church?

Started by hereweare1, November 25, 2016, 03:53:02 PM

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widdershins

There is no single reason I left.  If I had to narrow it down to a single reason I would say that it was because my mind was just too analytical to hold magical beliefs for an entire lifetime.  But there were a ton of little things that just didn't add up.

One of the big ones was a flyer which circulated for a while saying that Proctor and Gamble had a new logo which was the mark of the beast.  They were in league with the devil.  I looked at the logo.  I didn't see it.  I had clearly seen it on the flyer, so I wanted another look.  I went to the church bulletin board and I couldn't find it.  So I asked my friend where it was.  Being the pastor's son he was in a unique position to tell me the actual truth, that Proctor and Gamble had threatened to sue the church if they kept circulating that flyer.

That was difficult to process.  The week before the church had been telling me that Proctor and Gamble WAS in league with the devil.  It was a FACT.  The next week they were no longer telling me that.  Why?  Because lawyers threatened to sue them.  They were fighting against the devil, the devil threatened to take their money away, so they stopped fighting?  It didn't make any sense whatsoever.  Either they WERE fighting the devil and they should continue to do so, regardless the consequence, or they had lied to me.  Either way, these were not holy people.  They could not be.  By the beliefs they had put into my head themselves these people were hypocrites, being either liars or more in love with money than God.

Of course, my believer brain didn't process that all out at once.  Hell, I didn't let myself think about it at all.  But it sat in the back of my head for a year or two, chewing away at my faith that I was right, that the people I had chosen to follow were right.  I would say that was a big reason I left and not the reason at all.  I didn't leave because of that, but I was taught to be on the lookout for false prophets, so when the false prophet was my church I couldn't just dismiss it even if I had wanted to.  So that one thing made me think more and question more.  I didn't just dismiss the smaller things outright.  It made me subconsciously suspicious of my own church and it was the greatest thing they ever put in my head.
This sentence is a lie...

Sorginak

As a teenager in high school I was an outcast/pariah, yet quite the good student/individual as well.  I merely joined the church as a means to fit in at least somewhere.  It did not take too long for my logical mind to leave such an oppressive environment, however, because it quickly became all too apparent that the congregation was only accepting of me if I completely changed myself to adhere to their standards of what they thought I should be.  It was easy enough to leave such a hostile place.

SGOS

Church bored me and I could not relate.  I quit going regularly as a teenager, but remained a Christian, although I was skeptical of the claims.  If I would have found it meaningful, it probably would not have bored me.  And when I say "bored" I can not overstate that.  Sometimes I was so bored and disconnected from anything meaningful in church, I would have the urge to scream.  I didn't of course.  That would have terrified the rest of the congregation, and they would have labeled me a crazy person, but I really wanted to scream, just to relieve the tension.

Sometimes when I'm in my car, I will tune to a radio station that has some preacher ranting and raving.  I actually pay attention, but only to listen to the nonsense, and since I'm by myself, I can yell out, "Amen, Brother," or "Praise Jesus," without looking foolish, unless I'm at a stop light and the guy next to me catches me, which I'm pretty good at avoiding.

Baruch

Widdershins ... all religion is "cultus" but some of them are "cult".  A subtle difference.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

widdershins

Quote from: Baruch on February 22, 2017, 12:49:59 PM
Widdershins ... all religion is "cultus" but some of them are "cult".  A subtle difference.
I often refer to my old Pentecostal church as being "a compound away from being a cult."
This sentence is a lie...

Hijiri Byakuren

I was never in a church. Parents took me to services until I was old enough to stay home, but we were always guests rather than bonafied "members."
Speak when you have something to say, not when you have to say something.

Sargon The Grape - My Youtube Channel

Cavebear

I am always saddened, but not surprised, when children forced into theistic beliefs rebel.  It causes such grief and difficulty for some.  I am glad I was not so forced.  My atheism is rather more calm and steady. 
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

Blackleaf

Quote from: HumanBN on February 20, 2017, 09:53:51 PM
While I was growing up I was forced to go to church.  My dad even told me that if I didn't go I couldn't live in the house anymore (I still don't know if he really meant that, or what mom would have done).  When I was a teenager I really tried to be a Christian.  I used to play drums for a praise band every week.  I remember being in services and seeing everyone else with their arms in the air, with an expression of near bliss on their faces.  I would try very hard to experience that.  I would stand there every week praying and asking God to just let me feel him the way everyone else seemed to.  I used to even pray for that after I went home. 
For a while I did manage to convince myself that I did understand and that I was a good Christian.  I even thought for a while that I would become a pastor.  When I left home and went to college I met, for the first time in my life, a person who openly claimed God and Jesus weren't real.  What an experience!  Like telling a bird that it's never flown, but that it's been dreaming its whole life.  I freaked.  I couldn't keep up with my studies because I didn't know that I needed to study hard!  I thought that if I was supposed to do well in class then God would give me the way.  I was so brainwashed that I didn't realize I needed to put forth any effort of my own.  Anyway, I eventually decided that I wanted to spend my life learning and studying.  It took a while but I finally quit going to church.  I've since graduated from college, and am currently working on a Masters of law and a Juris Doctor.  It's amazing what a person can do when they stop waiting for some unseen force to do things for them.

Christianity teaches that every good thing comes from God, and every bad thing is our fault. What a way to live, to think that we cannot take credit for any of the good things we do. God gets all the glory, and we get all the blame.
"Oh, wearisome condition of humanity,
Born under one law, to another bound;
Vainly begot, and yet forbidden vanity,
Created sick, commanded to be sound."
--Fulke Greville--

Mike Cl

Quote from: Baruch on February 22, 2017, 12:49:59 PM
Widdershins ... all religion is "cultus" but some of them are "cult".  A subtle difference.
Yeah, not a very big or very significant way, though.
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?<br />Then he is not omnipotent,<br />Is he able but not willing?<br />Then whence cometh evil?<br />Is he neither able or willing?<br />Then why call him god?

Unbeliever

Quote from: Blackleaf on February 23, 2017, 11:20:23 PM
Christianity teaches that every good thing comes from God, and every bad thing is our fault. What a way to live, to think that we cannot take credit for any of the good things we do. God gets all the glory, and we get all the blame.
That's a lot like internalizing the profits while externalizing the costs.
God Not Found
"There is a sucker born-again every minute." - C. Spellman

SGOS

Quote from: HumanBN on February 20, 2017, 09:53:51 PM
I remember being in services and seeing everyone else with their arms in the air, with an expression of near bliss on their faces.  I would try very hard to experience that.  I would stand there every week praying and asking God to just let me feel him the way everyone else seemed to.  I used to even pray for that after I went home. 
Back in the 70s at the university, there was a Christian group of hippies that lived on a commune nearby.  They used to come to the University, and the leader of the group would preach hell, fire, and brimstone in the commons area, while the good looking hippie babes would walk about, palms raised to the heavens, with that blissful look of peace.  They were an interesting oddity and students would hang out and watch them to their thing.  We used to call them Jesus Freaks, a term of endearment for hippies "gone Christian."

After I graduated, I heard that group had been broken up and the leader arrested.  I'm not sure of the charges, but it had something to do with pimping out the babes to get new members to join the cult.  Oh well.  I suppose that blissful look of peace, was really a blissful look of "piece."  The babes looked happy, anyway.

Baruch

Are you disapproving as a Puritan, or jealous for not getting more babes?
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Unbeliever

Quote from: SGOS on February 25, 2017, 09:29:07 AM
The babes looked happy, anyway.
It's one thing to look happy, quite another thing to actually be happy.
God Not Found
"There is a sucker born-again every minute." - C. Spellman

Unbeliever

Why did I leave "the church"?

I simply read the Bible, the whole Bible, and that was enough to convince me it was NOT the word of any God.
God Not Found
"There is a sucker born-again every minute." - C. Spellman

Baruch

#29
Quote from: Unbeliever on February 25, 2017, 03:30:43 PM
Why did I leave "the church"?

I simply read the Bible, the whole Bible, and that was enough to convince me it was NOT the word of any God.

Most Christians never read the whole Bible ;-(  At one time they weren't allowed to read the Bible.  At earlier times they weren't even able to read.  Our ancestors went thru tremendous struggle to be able to read and to read the Bible ... and it is a shame if literate Christians (most of them are literate now) don't avail themselves of it.  Dinky Bible study classes in Church are child like in comparison ... but that is partly because the Church wants to control what you are paying attention to in the Bible (watch out for gay people) or are wanting to control how you read it, what conclusions you draw.  And in your case, we can see why.  What makes you different isn't just that you read the whole Bible, but that you have free thinking.  That is what is threatening to society, even to Madison Ave.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.