Why We Need Ex Christians To Come Back To The Church

[Grandpa Harley]

If I was going to go into ANY branch, the Episcopalian would be first choice due to my old friend Fr. Richard...

[Antlerman]

OK, I've read through all of this. My input. This person is sincere and NOT a fundamentalist, evangelical, "I'm right and you're wrong" sort of religion peddler. I'm hearing a sincere person sharing their perspectives, and I see the potential for healthy discussion. I'll pursue that myself here. This person is not a "bullshitter". Having different perspectives does not make a case for deception, or even "error" for that matter.

 

Carry on....

[Grandpa Harley]

Of dubious scientific ability...

[Ouroboros]

science suggests models based data. the models explain the data. taken out of context the models explain nothing. look at newtonian mechanics. when you look at big stuff , it works. airplanes fly, cars run.

when you change the context. move to the very smalll. newton breaks down. in comes a different model. quantum physics.

Agree.

 

each model explains particular phenomena in a particular context. there is no model that explains everything. if you had one maybe you'd be god.

True. But isn't "God" that perfect model that supposedly explain everything? If so, then if he is, and you believe it, then you have that perfect model that explains everything, and yet you're not God. So I agree with you up to just before the last part. God doesn't have to know things. He would just have to be all. If God exists in the fashion I envision him/she/it, God would be all, in all, of all, know all - because he is all, etc... Pantheism makes a whole lot more sense, or there will be issues with something-from-nothing, and contingency regarding free will and natural stability regarding miracles and much more.

 

and stop being mean.

Have you ever gone into a biker bar and asked all of them to shave?

 

This website is a place where people can go and let out their steam and actually be allowed to be ... mean.

 

You're asking the whole website to become something that fits you, and I have a serious problem with that.

 

So don't ask anyone again that they should stop being mean

 

if my son ever talked like that i give'em a crack.

So you compare this website with your household? You pretty much want us to be your children, and obey you? I see... well, this is not your website, and you're not a moderator here. You can't demand anything from anyone. They are who they are, and they do what they do. That's the nature of this site. Get used to it, or let them be.

[Ouroboros]

agree and agree and agree - but how else you gonna get people to be nice. the bible says christ came for those who needed him. people already living the way christ asked are already doing God's work.

You don't get it do you?

 

Compare this website as a therapy.

 

Do you have any friends that, lets say, go and play some sports that require engagement and intensity, and they get exhaust their energy and frustration? Well, how does that help the world with starving children in Africa? It doesn't, does it. Because the sport has a different purpose that saving starving kids.

 

The same with this website. It doesn't not have the purpose to build a bridge for communication with Christians, and establish world peace, or spread love and happiness. It's not at all.

 

This websites purpose it to support ... guess who... Ex-Christians. They come here to rant, vent, let their anger and steam out, so they can go back to normal life and deal with the pressure of the world. This is their outlet for frustration.

 

So they have safe haven for these emotions, and then you come... and demand they put a lid of their frustration because you want world peace. Who are you? The Morality Police? The Enforcement of Religious Virtues? Who? Who are you to change this website and its purpose?

 

I know. Start your own website. Your own forum. And let these members be. They have a right to be here, and argue in any manner they want (we do have some rules - but in general they can do this), but you don't have the right to demand a change.

 

This site has an angle. A slant. A direction. The foci of it's attention is the Ex-Christians, so they are favored and backed up by people like me, to be how they want to be in this forum. We do try to keep some in line, but I get really upset when people come and tell them how to behave.

 

If you don't like this place, then this place isn't for you. Get used to how it works here, or don't be here. It's simple.

 

buddhists seem to end on empathy and compassion and charity, but it takes a long freakin time to reach that end. christ says start with charity. i just seems easier to me.

Some of the members do that in the real world, outside the forum, but in here, this is the place where they can duke it out.

 

I know what kind of person you are. You want to ban boxing, sports, violence on TV and movies and media, full censoring controlled by the Pope, and ban books that don't fit the RCC agenda and take over the country to make it the Vatican II. Right?

 

If not, then stop acting that way!!!

[Neon Genesis]

the catechism, the book i was raised on but never read, until after leaving the church for many years, i found it made sense on the second reading when it said all god wants is for you to seek him out and the way you do that is through charity.

So, in other words, if you never read the catechism, you would never give to other people? Isn't that rather selfish of you? That the only reason you're giving to other people is because the catechism told you to and that you're trying to find something that you want? Why can't you just give for the sake of giving? Why are you only giving so you can be God's favorite? And if God really exists and if God is all-loving, all-powerful, and all-knowing, why does God need humans to give anyway?

 

Why can't God just use his magical powers to give himself? Is he too much of a lazy ass to do so? He used his miracles to give to people all the time throughout the bible. Why did God himself give to people in the bible but not to us? Doesn't the bible say God does not show partiality but isn't God clearly playing favorites, that people of the bible times were important for God to give miracles to but not the people of modern times? Why does God need mere mortals to give to others? Is God not powerful enough to give himself? Is God not loving enough to give himself? Or does God not know how to give himself? Then, God is clearly not all-loving, all-powerful, or all-knowing. And since God does not give charity to other people, doesn't this mean God must not be happy and that God is a hypocrite that does not follow his own commands?

 

I'll only ask that god will see my efforts here as charitable and not prideful.

Isn't it rather prideful for you to ask God to do what you want him to? I thought as a Christian you were supposed to do whatever your God told you to? So, as a Christian, what gives you the right to tell God what he can and cannot think? Since you seem to think you have the power to tell God what to think, and since you yourself admit you are not going to pray to God for us, then by your own admission, you are most certainly prideful and you most certainly are NOT charitable and you are a hypocrite and a liar. Well, at least now you have three sins to add for next time you go to your confession. And isn't pride one of the RCC's deadly sins? So, you must be in really big trouble now because you just committed one of your deadly sins by being prideful enough to think you had a right to tell your God what to do. Now why don't you go take your own bible's advice and pluck the shard out of your own eye before you pluck the shard out of other people's eyes?

[acorn]

i agree about the fake smiles - to me the idea of God is humbling.

i wear no mask - i bet i am more miserable than many.

after all the world is pretty crappy. but hope gets me through. hope that I can refrain from giving in to greed, and pride, and all that. those are the things that hamper my ability to give of myself completely.

 

good night all. don't worry- i won't pray for any of you. I'll only ask that god will see my efforts here as charitable and not prideful.

 

thanks all

 

Hi truthseeker10k,

 

RCC. From what I have observed, you have read the doctrine and have come to a revelation. Charity, love is important part of the Christian faith; as Paul expounded on Christs command of it. Paul goes on to say that Love doesnt envy, is not selfish, doesnt boast about itself, has no enemies, endures to the end; etc.

 

In that, Christ prayed for those that even killed Him Biblically. All of this is well and good, great for you. But, you are also trying to recruit those that are filled with knowledge, knowledge that many in this world dont possess. So. I ask, why?

 

Why are you recruiting here, for those of intelligence? Is Gods hand to short?

 

Charitable. Not prideful. Are you Jehovah Witness? Efforts?

 

Look, no offense truthseeker10k; as we are from the same apple tree of faith. If its a Christ army that you want, then do as Christ did, and get all that are willing. Your supposed love here is your efforts, right? If so, then you will not leave this place, continue to commune with others here, look at all aspects of beliefs here, have logical unevangelical discussions; as Christ would have done.

 

Not vain arguments. The willing are not here, they are the victims of a Holy war that is ongoing; and just as someone who is physically injured in a war, is coping with it the best they know how. Your giving a hope that has already been destroyed, its like trying to convince someone to have radiation treatments for cancer; that has seen their whole family die from the radiation. PIC, I will not ever use radiation, I will just die.

 

People kill people. And though I still claim Christ, I am a victim as well. We all find happiness, in whichever way we can.

[SWIM]

OK, I've read through all of this. My input. This person is sincere and NOT a fundamentalist, evangelical, "I'm right and you're wrong" sort of religion peddler. I'm hearing a sincere person sharing their perspectives, and I see the potential for healthy discussion. I'll pursue that myself here. This person is not a "bullshitter". Having different perspectives does not make a case for deception, or even "error" for that matter.

 

Carry on....

 

I see it that way too AM, this one seems to doubt quite a lot, and might very well do with a more-then-normal civil approach. (And that is saying a LOT coming from me, I live to squash fundies). This one seems to be "fence-sitting" and close to agnosticism.

[Antlerman]

OK, I've read through all of this. My input. This person is sincere and NOT a fundamentalist, evangelical, "I'm right and you're wrong" sort of religion peddler. I'm hearing a sincere person sharing their perspectives, and I see the potential for healthy discussion. I'll pursue that myself here. This person is not a "bullshitter". Having different perspectives does not make a case for deception, or even "error" for that matter.

 

Carry on....

 

I see it that way too AM, this one seems to doubt quite a lot, and might very well do with a more-then-normal civil approach. (And that is saying a LOT coming from me, I live to squash fundies). This one seems to be "fence-sitting" and close to agnosticism.

Well.. that is one hell of an endorsement! I think there's some good things that can come from this conversation, and like I've said many times before it's really a matter of listening to what the person is saying, not "how" they're saying it. Languages are just vehicles of communication, not the content of it. It's too easy to mistake the sign as the thing itself. Just some considerations...

[Grandpa Harley]

TBH, and I'm happy to admit cultural difference here, but it's nothing I've not heard from RCC's in the Uk since I was a nipper... Church needs good people to shake it up... yadda yadda... and nothing happens...

 

 

It's a long time since I was a nipper and you still hear the same litany, so either they're not getting good people, or the horse is too damned ill to get on its feet...

[florduh]

I would like to treat this seriously, but with quotes like this:

 

"You can become closer to God only through Charity."

it appears that it may be impossible to get through the Catholic brainwashing.

 

- Chris

[Antlerman]

TBH, and I'm happy to admit cultural difference here, but it's nothing I've not heard from RCC's in the Uk since I was a nipper... Church needs good people to shake it up... yadda yadda... and nothing happens...

 

 

It's a long time since I was a nipper and you still hear the same litany, so either they're not getting good people, or the horse is too damned ill to get on its feet...

This is actually where I wanted to see the conversation go, in one part of it. It has to do with the nature of Bureaucracy!! The people on the street, who are the feet of the machine are the ones touching reality around them and know the work that needs to be done. But way up, far up, in some bureaucrats office next to another bureaucrats office is a wholly separate reality! A reality of politics and culture of its own. Now keep going up further into the bureaucratic hierarchy. especially in the RCC, and you have this entity riding atop this lumbering beast that spans countries and cultures the world over, and long histories of traditions and practices, trying to move and adjust as a massive corporate entity in response to the voices down, way, way, way down there on the ground who talk directly to people on the streets, understanding through direct interaction with them.

 

It's a conundrum. The whole thing is a conundrum. As a massive organization, it can be effective in enacting changes, yet as a massive organization it is difficult for it to be able respond dynamically and fluidly. This brings us to Protestants! Like the little upstart, entrepreneurial enterprises in the business world, they fill the niche markets where holes are left exposed because the large corporation was unable to get their product to market in time to rapidly changing demands in a highly dynamic marketplace! What defines the Protestant is something different than what Mother Church offers. They're market niches is YOU! It's YOU and YOUR salvation! It's about the direct, and personal relationship with God! No longer do we work through the system, we go straight to the throne of God himself!

 

The downside of the Protestant enterprise is that it cannot be as effective on a global market. Instead it splinters and defines itself into many different start-up businesses, each clamoring for a piece of the available market, and all selling the "direct, personal relationship to God" products. Now along comes Fundamentalists!! They take this ME relationship with God, to a whole new level of market spin. It's not only about a direct relationship to God, it's about personal blessings! Talking in tongues, getting off on Jesus! It becomes so self-focused it shifts it's buyers away from society into an almost drug-culture. Yuk! That's what American Evangelical Christianity has become, and what it exports into 3rd world countries, exploiting impoverished countries with failing governments and warlords, promising truth and meaning to their lives! What they need is not Jesus - they need bread and water and stable governments.

 

So now the grand conundrum. I see someone like Jesus as having quite possibly been (or a least the movement that created the icon of Jesus) to be a social/spiritual reformation movement at the ground level, the grass roots level, within the religious bureaucratic system of Judaism, originally looking for reforms within the system (much like our new guest who started this thread is rightly pleading for). As this failed to make the sorts of inroads necessary during that period of history, as it is hard to move lumbering beasts quickly you know, this off-cast internal reform movement finds a niche market, becomes a popular product, then becomes a target for exploitation by another, even larger massive Bureaucracy: The Roman Government! It was the Corporate purchase of a small company, sending in their Mergers and Acquisition teams to assimilate them into the collective, while re-branding themselves in a new market strategy, as it was time for the corporate name to take on a new look and feel. Yet in and amongst the parts that make up new the corporate entity, you have the essences and cultures of the business they've consumed - the Jesus movement of love and charity, being an important part of them.

 

The conundrum is how does one function as a dynamic system to speak to the marketplace of humanity, yet be effective as an entity that can effectively bring the product to market? It can't be resolved in my opinion. So even though I admire the sentiments expressed in the opening post, does the answer really lie in the individual when dealing with a bureaucracy. Has it ever? Did it with Jesus? The RCC is the oldest, longest living bureaucracy in the history of the planet.

 

 

OK, I'll leave it there for now. Thoughts?

[white_raven23]

OK, I'll leave it there for now. Thoughts?

 

 

Finish it off. Give us a run-down on those pesky Baptists! I want to see your description!

 

Relationship w/ god + public bath?

[Antlerman]

OK, I'll leave it there for now. Thoughts?

 

 

Finish it off. Give us a run-down on those pesky Baptists! I want to see your description!

 

Relationship w/ god + public bath?

I need to go get some lunch.. maybe later...

[acorn]

The conundrum is how does one function as a dynamic system to speak to the marketplace of humanity, yet be effective as an entity that can effectively bring the product to market? It can't be resolved in my opinion. So even though I admire the sentiments expressed in the opening post, does the answer really lie in the individual when dealing with a bureaucracy. Has it ever? Did it with Jesus? The RCC is the oldest, longest living bureaucracy in the history of the planet.

 

 

OK, I'll leave it there for now. Thoughts?

 

I agree. The only problem is that there is not another Jesus to represent the new image. Its funny to me. Its like Walmart. Things, people, companys, get to good; to big. Then they fall, and when the fall, they fall hard. So in the process of the falling, some regress to the heritage of whatever is fallen and what made them great.

 

The funny part is that his Charity revelation was there the whole time. Maybe he just didnt want to get fired.

[florduh]

Maybe it comes down to the fact that fine art can't be mass produced, only imitations of it.

 

- Chris

[Guest eejay]

Damn! I would have loved to have gotten in on this thread. Looks like I missed the best of it though. But, just in case our OP is still out there lurking I have my own bit to add. I was a former roman catholic. I gladly left the RCC sometime in the early 70's and trust me, I have no intentions of ever returning. How any woman can actually handle the oppressiveness towards their own sexuality, I will never accept or understand. I AM THE ONLY PERSON who will decide, whether I would or not have children. To think that this lousy stinking church can tell me what I should or shouldn't do with my fucking body, is the biggest insult a woman can face. Because I chose not to have children your rulers think I should live in abstinece?#%&*%& You have no fucking right to deny me the right to love someone in an intimate manner, because I haven't got to right to birth control. That is the ultimate epitomy of bullshit. Then you think I should confess my sins to a priest???? Another fucking joke. Who the fuck is this man that thinks he should listen to my deepest personal secrets. FUCK YOU.....ALL OF YOU. Bunch of cartoon character kid raping pervert motherfuckers.

[BlueGiant]

As tempted as I am to bite off an obscenity-laced reply, given that you clearly do not know what you're taking about with respect to either your science or your theology, but you'd claim martyrdom and/or victory.

 

Yes, I was RCC. I have earned my excommunication on no less than three counts, and yes, they were automatic. I have read the Catechism, as well as bits and pieces of Cannon Law.

 

Last I read, the Catechism has very little to do with charity. Has a lot more to do with regulating peoples lives, what they say, what they do and what they think.

 

You walk into a church and feel love? Interesting. I walk in and realize that I am hearing nothing but blasphemy against reality. Nothing but a warped view that is entirely driven by fear, not love, with what amounts to a fascist god and godhead. Most don't realize this, but then again, most Catholics don't read the Bible, let alone the Catechism. Most of them don't even see the inside of a church unless there are poinsettias on the altar. The charity shown is only by the individual there, it isn't from the Church.

 

And from your responses here, I can see that you are a stunning example of the love that is shown there.

 

I was cowed by fear once, I will never be coerced by fear into action again. The Church only wants the likes of me if it wants to be destroyed. That is why it rejects me (despite the come as your are line they like to try and feed you), those who will actually challenge it and reveal the centuries of tradition for exactly what they are. Well that and expose that Pope Rat has no clothes, metaphorically speaking.

[♦ nivek ♦]

Antlerman,

 

I'll beg to disagree strongly with you here.

 

Cat comes into a Rational Recovery meeting asking attendees to return to the local corner serving establishment, "because it needs patrons".

 

I'm reading that 10k is seeking suckers to come continue to bouy up the religious system that has been shedding itself of collars in lawsuit losses, and thousands of bodies through lack of indoctrination.

 

Just like the Bar needs the coinage from the recovering drunks who no longer use that business, RCC needs paying bodies to keep it afloat locally.

 

Fuck them.

 

*I'll not sacrifice my son, his Freedoms and ability to think sans permission from robed whores who exist to serve a System so corrupt and opulent that is is sinking under its own beached weight. 10k is invited to go fuck himself and the RCC system until the lube runs dry and the toy quits being comfortable.*

 

Brooking and harboring any thought of being re-Xorg'd is as horrifying to daFatman as being nutted with a dull knife.

 

"aint.... gonna.... happpen... while... i.... can... still.... resist...."

 

Being nice and polite to individual is just fine and neighborly. Let said neighbor respect the House and what it stands for as Hans so well laid out.

 

kL

[Antlerman]

Antlerman,

 

I'll beg to disagree strongly with you here.

 

Cat comes into a Rational Recovery meeting asking attendees to return to the local corner serving establishment, "because it needs patrons".

Yes. Taken at the face value, I can certainly agree that's not the right tact to take in addressing recovering folks from the system. I agree that can be taken as not the right thing to say to us. I guess for myself I glossed over that as I was hearing something underlying that in his plea, and it was to that I was speaking in my first comments to him where I stated this:

 

Isn't living love doing this, and whether or not one is asked to set aside their intellectual doubts or objections to doctrinal statements is utterly beside the point? What do you consider 'returning to the body of Christ"? How does doctrinal affiliation have anything to do with love?

 

Maybe it has just taken you to step inside the walls again to be able to see what's outside them? A book of religion can help act as a lens for you to focus on these things, but there is a point of no longer needing that book.

 

You need to ask yourself, what is it really that people have left in leaving the church? Have they left Love, or tried to find it?

My point in this was to try to maybe help this person see that the things he's talking about are bigger than an Institution. It's trying to help him as well, in what I saw as being behind his question to us.

 

But you are right. To have approached it with language he did, most definitely would be put people on the defensive! It just didn't me, and I overlooked it instead of recognizing that as I should have. I forgot how someone else may have received what he said.

 

 

Being nice and polite to individual is just fine and neighborly. Let said neighbor respect the House and what it stands for as Hans so well laid out.

I hope my intentions in being "neighborly" are not misunderstood. I am hardly weak towards the hard-core evangelist. Sometimes I just don't hear what others do. Sometimes I right, sometimes I wrong.

[sojourner]

Hi truthseeker

 

I understand how passionate you are about your epiphany. Anytime we have some sort of new awareness and it touches us deeply we want others to experience what we find so amazing. I do get that, however, that epiphany you experienced as wonderful as it is to you has nothing whatsoever to do with 'church'. Church is an institution and in all honesty its very hard to maintain that new place you find yourself getting involved in an institution. They are often the culprits of killing the very thing that is now alive in you. Believe me Im speaking from experience here. Church may work for some but usually once passion like you are experiencing comes alive in them that is the last place that it will be able to grow and flourish in. Before long it will be stifled by all the rules, fear and thought police till its a but a good memory and nothing else.

 

And in all honesty, I find it a tad arrogant or perhaps just not thinking in your passion, to assume you now have the thing everyone here is missing. And I think that is a disease amongst christians in general to think we have what everyone is needing and looking for. If you will take the time to read testimonies and posts you will find many folks here have had the same epiphanies you have had. They may label them differently but many here could describe the same thing and tell you how instead of drawing them to church, it drew them to become athiest or agnostic and deeply in touch with humanity. And in all honesty I have found much more that I had no idea I was missing by hanging with these folks than feeling I have something they are missing.

 

 

sojourner

[The-Captain]

Yar! I be a latecomer to yon thread! Oh well.

 

After many years of seeking I've returned to the Church. It feels good to be home.

 

The church needs you. The body of Christ is the members of its church. We don't need robots we need people that love each other. You people have gone through torment destroying the childish parables taught to children. You've become intellectuals and have every reason to turn away. I say turn back and look closely one more time. Don't look for how stuff works in the world, ie. evolution, big bang, bla bla bla, that is the stuff of science. There are questions science can't answer. Like why evolution, why the big bang, why I exist. Go back to the basics.

 

Ok so far so good, there is more to life than science and the quantifiable, we don't naturally see everything through equations and the scientific method.....

 

Except I fail to see how Orthodox Xianity (or any theist sect for that matter) gives a real answer to the whys of life and existence. Why settle for someone else's crappy guesswork idea?

 

Read the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Look for your reading to touch your spirit, not satisfy your intellect.

 

Why Catholicism anyway? If I've already given up the childish parables and dont want to be a robot, why would I turn to the RCC and its heavy reliance on such. I get that you want to make it better, but I think the root of it is so compromised that would be impossible.

 

Spirituality, love, life etc. can all be found elsewhere. In fact I seriously doubt that the RCC is suited to facilitating those, how do you get that stuff from empty catechisms? That sounds more like satisfying your intellect.

 

Some members of the church have made a mess of things. They've embarrassed us. They made decisions that don't seem to jive with the teachings. But WE are the church. It is the body of people that make up the body of Christ. And you are the thinking people. If you could get back on track you are powerful. You might see what is important and what is not.

 

The teachings of the church, as well as its past sanctioned activities were never so good to begin with. You are correct, it is the people that make up a church, its actions and history reflect what kind of people form the body.

 

And who cares about being powerful anyway?

 

I don't care about arguing if there is a God or not.

 

The world is better when you seek happiness as instructed in the Catechism. Happiness is the hole puposely left which needs filling. It can only be filled by seeking out God. You can become closer to God only through Charity. Charity is defined as loving one another the way Christ loved us. That means loving each other more than yourself or at least attempting to.

 

Would this make a better world.

 

Does it make a difference who made the sky or whether or not a man lived in a whale.

 

The story is about love.

 

If you've been following recent political events you might agree we could use some love. We need community. The church needs you to come back. We need to be a united people, we need thinking leadership, under God, living with focus, and making the world a better please.

 

Annoying altar calls and evangelizing aside... Sounds to me like you have some right and noble aspirations (IMHO) but you're working off some faulty assumptions and trying to use a broken, polluting, deathtrap to get you there. I'm not buying, and if that stuff is what you joined up for, I fear you have some disappointments coming.

[Grandpa Harley]

TBH, the most scientific religion seems to be Theravada type Buddhism, wherein everything at it's base is an emantaion from empty space... a potential gaining form because it can't not... and that is something we HAVE seen in the lab... photons, and larger chunks of matter, sleeting into existence and moving out of existence - potential energy fluctuations in empty space. Nothing in the Chrsitan meme comes close...

 

In Hinduism, there are ephemera (astronomical tables) that not only map the fact the earth orbits the sun, but maps the movement of the sun within the galaxy. And when I say 'movement' I don't just mean about the galactic centre, but around the spiral arm we occupy... a phenomena that was only calculated in the 20th C in the West... when first published in English, the West believed that, although the we knew we orbited the sun they believed that the sun rested by chance at the centre the universe... the galaxy being thought of as the 'universe'. When published in 1889 (eighteen eighty nine) the idea that the sun moved and there were more galaxies than we could count was beyond the realms of Verne, Wells and Chambers tripping on Mescaline, ergot and LSD while drinking high octane Absinthe...

 

Basically, you get into those other religions and on the morality side, they're as good, if not better than Christian thought, you get on to the 'natural philosophy' side and there is an Abrahamic Religions shaped hole in the water... the Emperor isn't just naked, but it's a cold day so what is on show is blue and shrivelled...

[Grandpa Harley]

Annoying altar calls and evangelizing aside... Sounds to me like you have some right and noble aspirations (IMHO) but you're working off some faulty assumptions and trying to use a broken, polluting, deathtrap to get you there. I'm not buying, and if that stuff is what you joined up for, I fear you have some disappointments coming.

 

With deference to the RCC... they don't do sordid alter calls...

[The-Captain]

Annoying altar calls and evangelizing aside... Sounds to me like you have some right and noble aspirations (IMHO) but you're working off some faulty assumptions and trying to use a broken, polluting, deathtrap to get you there. I'm not buying, and if that stuff is what you joined up for, I fear you have some disappointments coming.

 

With deference to the RCC... they don't do sordid alter calls...

 

Yeah, but the whole OP's tone is reminiscent of one.