39 replies to this topic

[mcdaddy]

As some of you know, i still go to church with my wife since she is still a believer. Well just a few minutes ago I walked out do to the absolute repugnance and disgust I felt. Instead of the usual sermon, they're having a missionary speak today. He had his own video they played on all the screens before he came up to speak.

It starts with showing smiling faces, kids playing, lovers kissing, etc from different middle eastern country peoples. About every 30 seconds it cuts away to show a ticker that is slowly counting upwards, but getting progressively faster. 50...100...1000...2300...etc. after showing all these beautiful people, who for all intents and purposes are just normal people going about their day to day, at the end of the clip the number stops on 6501 or something like that. And underneath it says "the number of Muslims that died and went to hell today". I almost LOST it.

I almost got up right then but I stayed, only for my wife. But I was holding her hand, and immediately dropped it, she could tell I was pissed. After this ignorant fucker gets up there and is talking for a few minutes, he starts showing pictures of actual people. "This is Muhammad. His father was a muslim, but he died and is in hell. This is his grandfather. He was a Muslim, he is in hell. And on and on. This is Fatima. She accepted Jeezus and they cut off her tongue and killed her, but now she's praising the Lard with her new tongue in heaven. Praise the lawd!!

So I turn to my wife and say, " I'm not going to listen to this judgemental bullshit". And walk the F out. I'm in my car right now wondering how long she'll sit thru the indoctrination session. I fucking HATE missionaries.

[Margee]

As some of you know, i still go to church with my wife since she is still a believer. Well just a few minutes ago I walked out do to the absolute repugnance and disgust I felt. Instead of the usual sermon, they're having a missionary speak today. He had his own video they played on all the screens before he came up to speak.

It starts with showing smiling faces, kids playing, lovers kissing, etc from different middle eastern country peoples. About every 30 seconds it cuts away to show a ticker that is slowly counting upwards, but getting progressively faster. 50...100...1000...2300...etc. after showing all these beautiful people, who for all intents and purposes are just normal people going about their day to day, at the end of the clip the number stops on 6501 or something like that. And underneath it says "the number of Muslims that died and went to hell today". I almost LOST it.

I almost got up right then but I stayed, only for my wife. But I was holding her hand, and immediately dropped it, she could tell I was pissed. After this ignorant fucker gets up there and is talking for a few minutes, he starts showing pictures of actual people. "This is Muhammad. His father was a muslim, but he died and is in hell. This is his grandfather. He was a Muslim, he is in hell. And on and on. This is Fatima. She accepted Jeezus and they cut off her tongue and killed her, but now she's praising the Lard with her new tongue in heaven. Praise the lawd!!

So I turn to my wife and say, " I'm not going to listen to this judgemental bullshit". And walk the F out. I'm in my car right now wondering how long she'll sit thru the indoctrination session. I fucking HATE missionaries.

I totally felt your frustration!! It was one of these services that did it for me, mcdaddy! That is so discusting - to have to watch that!! Might be a real good time to decide that this is it. Be honest and open with your wife..... Let her go to church if that's what she really needs and stay home on Sunday and make her a nice lunch when she returns.

I do not regret the day I FINALLY walked out and NEVER been back! 3/12 years ago.
Best of everything to you my friend!!

[Deva]

That was a disgusting program, mcdaddy, anyone with a grain of sense or compassion would also have walked out! These people are Not in Hell! There is nothing spiritual at all about this kind of thing.

"Love is the absence of judgment" - His Holiness The Dalai Lama

[Suzanne]

Wow, that sure is hateful. I think I would have walked out of that one, too. Well done. Maybe the missionary saw you and, just for a second, had a wait-what's-happening moment. Let's hope so.

Also, if there is a god, and a hell, then I'd like to think the first people to be sent to it are people like that.

[Legion]

I went out into the woods for an extended two week camping trip to get away from society. While I was there a hunter came through and we chatted for a while. He explained that there were only two places to go: heaven or hell. And that God gave us a mind and a choice.

Here we were, in the middle of a rich and diverse forest, complex beyond comprehension, and this guy is speaking of heaven and hell. I thought... man what a straightjacket he has placed on his own imagination.

[mcdaddy]

I'm sure everyone in there probably just thought I was going to take a dump or something. Because he's a "man of god" on a "mission" to "save unreached people groups", and everything he says is "from the lips of Jeebus". Surely no one would actually walk out on that, right?!?!

I can't believe the wife stayed the entire time. But I know I planted a seed. I mean, I know she's questioning the veracity of the hell and damnation doctrine. Maybe this put another nail in it for her. I can only hope.

[jackbauer]

I would have walked out too. I hate hate hate manipulative stuff like that, especially if it preys on people's fear of death. The so called "loving god" of Christianity is going to consign billions to hell simply because they were in the wrong religion. He doesn't give any direct proof or revelations of the "truth" until it's too late, but holds us infallible humans accountable to find the truth. Fuck that shit, it makes me see red!

[Exevolt]

The bogus level of that missionary is over 9000.

[SoftIce]

Oh wow. I am raging just as hard as you are. I go to a Unity church. It's one of those 'satanic christian cult groups' ™ as conservative christians like to put it. I don't know how you can stand that kind of bullshit. Seriously, people like that have a huge case of cognitive dissonance. Either that, or they are complete monsters. How the fuck can anyone condone the idea of hell and a loving god being compatible? I seriously don't understand how people that think a god will torture people for eternity would be able to stay sane. If I held that belief, that the average people around me when I was out at the coffee shop or the bookstore, would one day end up being tortured forever... Well. I think I'd end up in a loony bin.

Is there any chance your wife would be open to going to a more liberal church? Or one that is... slightly less batshit insane and evil?

[mcdaddy]

She's ex-Catholic (thx to me......how ironic). But today I told her if she ever wants to start going back to a catholic church it makes no diff to me. I guess its the lesser of two evils? Idk. At least they don't, in general, preach hate like fundies.

She did agree with me tho that she hates it when they use he'll as a manipulative tool to scare people. And I told her I don't believe hell exists and left it at that.

Edited by mcdaddy, 06 May 2012 - 11:40 AM.

[mcdaddy]

Margee- thanks for the advice. Were not really at a place where I can just stop going, or that I want to cause the drama that would be involved if I just stopped cold turkey. But there is shit I won't sit around and listen to.

Deva- love the quote!! fundamentalism is the most dissonant, contradictory crap sandwich ever.

[mcdaddy]

Oh, and SoftIce.....you're raging just as hard as I am?? TMI.......TMI. haha!

[Deva]

Deva- love the quote!! fundamentalism is the most dissonant, contradictory crap sandwich ever.

Yep. Thank you. For more fun along the same lines (how misguided fundamentalism is), see the video I posted today in the Spirituality forum-- Buddhist thread.

[par4dcourse]

This seemed to fit the situation.

[ficino]

Hi mcdaddy, I got a buzz just reading your story of getting up and walking out. I just have to say that it's hard for me to see how you can go on with it. Are you sure that telling your wife that you no longer believe will be so bad? That it couldn't make your marriage more real - at least, by making you less frustrated? Just my reaction on reading what you wrote.

All the best, my friend

[mcdaddy]

Ficino- she knows I don't buy into a ton of stuff the bible talks about, and have major disagreements with typical xian thinking. But I don't mind going with her, as long as crap like that doesn't happen too often. Today took the cake, but that's not necessarily the norm around there, so I can roll with it. She doesn't like doing things alone, and it makes her feel better to know I'm at least in the pew. So I'll do it for her, if for no other reason. Thanks for the concern, but I'm "strong minded". Aka I can dodge bullshit (like in darkmatter's Matrix video). But I won't listen to just anything. Gotta draw the line somewhere.

[Chikirin]

Yet this missionary is in a nice comfortable church talking not to muslims in order to save their souls but to christians plying them with guilt in order to get their money. These missionaries basically just live regular, non-evalngelizing lives and just do prayer walks and wait for divine appointments and stuff like that. I don't know how they're justified in earning a living doing that. They bank on the likelihood that the peple in the pews when they do support raising will be in awe of them.

Edited by Chikirin, 06 May 2012 - 02:30 PM.

[asanerman]

A good many years ago I served on staff of a large intercity Baptist church. One afternoon while discussing some staffing issues with the pastoral staff I mentioned
Gandhi and the assistant pastor stopped me dead in the middle of a sentence to inform me and the other staff members, that Gandhi was burning in hell and that even the mentioning of his name was an abomination.

Heads dropped as we all sat suspended in astonishment.

Later that week I resigned. No longer could I compromise myself.

I was one of fortunate ones, I had other career options, other significant work to do!

Mcdaddy when I read your post I too know what it's like to sit "smoldering" in a church parking lot, gutted, ashamed and embarrassed to be apart of the lunacy that goes on in the name of religion.

Same Keen once said,"The normal visceral reaction to carnage is to be nauseated and I want to vomit."

I can relate!

[mcdaddy]

Yet this missionary is in a nice comfortable church talking not to muslims in order to save their souls but to christians plying them with guilt in order to get their money. These missionaries basically just live regular, non-evalngelizing lives and just do prayer walks and wait for divine appointments and stuff like that. I don't know how they're justified in earning a living doing that. They bank on the likelihood that the peple in the pews when they do support raising will be in awe of them.

^^*^^THIS. Con artists. I heard a story, I think it didn't literally happen, but it goes like this. Some missionaries go to the bush in Australia. They find some aboriginees, and start proselytizing. After they're done, the tribesman says, " what would have happened to us if no one had reaced us with your message"? The missionary says " God is just and wouldn't burn you forever if no one had preached the gospel to you. That wouldn't be fair of the Almighty to resign you to hell for eternity when it's not your fault that you'd never heard the gospel. I suppose you would have gone to heaven". The aboriginee then says, "Then why the fuck did you come here?!?!".

Or something like that.

But this ass pirate today, along with our pastor, thinks if you live in some remote corner of the earth that hasn't been reached, sorry, you're gonna fry bitch. Too bad, so sad.

Edited by mcdaddy, 06 May 2012 - 03:07 PM.

[spherr]

Wow, sounds you had a rough morning. Mine was pretty similar to yours. I ended up telling my parents I'm done with my pastor whos a bigot. It feels so nice to get that frustration out!

Edited by spherr, 06 May 2012 - 03:50 PM.