Anna Posted March 17, 2009 Share Posted March 17, 2009 My parents still think im a christian. I find it hard to cope sitting in church listning to what I have now identified as bull flying out of the pastors mouth. the church is no small thing its a ten million dollar building and when im there its particularly hardto cope with all the deluded nonsence. they have a website http://www.cityimpactchurch.com/ how do I deal with asting a day and going every week? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazycatlady Posted March 17, 2009 Share Posted March 17, 2009 Your pastor (the male one) is really scary looking! Anyway, here are suggestions from two atheists sites: http://www.atheists.org/youth_and_family/q...nswers#Catholic I understand how bad it must be to be forced to attend church when you know it's all bull. I was there, when I was your age. I expect it's worse for you given the current state of the Catholic Church. Here are a couple of suggestions. 1) you need to go if your parents are going to force you. You are only two eyars away from college, and religious freedom, but until then, if your parents are going to force you to go, you should go. 2) Make the best of the situation. Learn about Catholicism as much as you can, and listen well to the non-answers they give to the hard questions. Make it a game (it really IS fun) to try to catch them in lies. 3) When the collection plate comes around, drop in an envelope, in which you have written a note of protest. Just a line like "Donation withheld on morality principals" or "please pay your protperty taxes" will drive them buggy, and make you happy! 4) Find OTHER people who agree with you. Join an Astronomy, physics, or science club. Join a Humanist club if you can. Subscribe to a magazine if your parents will let you (I recommend American Atheist magazine or one of the Skeptical Inquirer). this will keep you brain in the "On" position. 5) Start looking at colleges with active Atheist organizations. It will make you feel better to have something to which to look forward. http://atheism.about.com/od/atheistsfamily/a/church.htm If you are young and living at home, there probably isn't much you can do no matter what your family's motivations are. If there is no way you can reasonably get out of going to church, the most you can do is try using the trips as a learning experience. Consider, for example, writing down some of the things said in the sermons and then writing critiques of them — perhaps publishing them on the web....if you are expected to attend religious services on a regular basis, then refusing to assert yourself will probably only lead to growing resentment and repressed anger — anger which won't stay repressed forever. As a result, avoiding a confrontation now may lead to a worse confrontation later on — not a good idea. It is unlikely that you will be able to avoid hurt feelings entirely, but you should try to avoid making matters worse than they need be. The New Zealand Association of Rationalists and Humanists I hope these blurbs and links help you. I can guarantee that it will become much easier when you move out of your parents' house. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hereticzero Posted March 17, 2009 Share Posted March 17, 2009 Poor kid. I went to their website ... Smarmy, really, really smarmy. Wait until you are old enough to leave home. I find that living almost five hours from my family and visiting two or three times a year is plenty. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deva Posted March 17, 2009 Share Posted March 17, 2009 From Pastor Peter's Desk: Isn’t it great to know that God wants us to prosper? Sounds like a prosperity gospel church. Give the church all your money and then you will prosper. I hate the crummy promises of the religion. Its all a big lie. You have my sympathy. Creepy picture. Pastor Peter looks like he would like to strangle his wife. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super Moderator florduh Posted March 17, 2009 Super Moderator Share Posted March 17, 2009 At least it looks like they do some fun activities. I was dragged to church Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday night. I went to a week of "Camp Meeting" with the folks every summer. In large part the people and pastors seemed, even to this child, rather ignorant, uneducated, and almost illiterate. I read books when I could, so I didn't have to pay much attention to their hillbilly preaching and testifying. I survived, and so will you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Etchison Posted March 17, 2009 Share Posted March 17, 2009 Here's my one-word recommendation: LAUGH! Good luck my friend ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vomit Comet Posted March 17, 2009 Share Posted March 17, 2009 At least it looks like they do some fun activities. That was my first thought, actually. Not that it doesn't still suck, of course. But it could be worse! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
♦ Fuego ♦ Posted March 18, 2009 Share Posted March 18, 2009 We briefly attended this kind of church locally. They run a very tight ship, no questions tolerated (if you do you will be promptly ignored and scowled at), all dissent is quashed and you will be told "You would be happier elsewhere". Tithing is emphasized. We asked a deacon once about it and he assumed we didn't want to tithe. We told him we gave more than a tithe, but wanted to know why he thought it was scriptural since Jesus fulfilled the law. He wasn't sure what to do with that since we didn't fit into his ready-made rejection statement, but quickly moved on to talking about Abraham doing it before the law, so we should still do it. (Ha, I just found a parody site that some ex-members made that mock the power-mad staff, clone-like deacons, and continual emphasis on money. ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anna Posted March 18, 2009 Author Share Posted March 18, 2009 Your pastor (the male one) is really scary looking! Anyway, here are suggestions from two atheists sites: http://www.atheists.org/youth_and_family/q...nswers#Catholic I understand how bad it must be to be forced to attend church when you know it's all bull. I was there, when I was your age. I expect it's worse for you given the current state of the Catholic Church. Here are a couple of suggestions. 1) you need to go if your parents are going to force you. You are only two eyars away from college, and religious freedom, but until then, if your parents are going to force you to go, you should go. 2) Make the best of the situation. Learn about Catholicism as much as you can, and listen well to the non-answers they give to the hard questions. Make it a game (it really IS fun) to try to catch them in lies. 3) When the collection plate comes around, drop in an envelope, in which you have written a note of protest. Just a line like "Donation withheld on morality principals" or "please pay your protperty taxes" will drive them buggy, and make you happy! 4) Find OTHER people who agree with you. Join an Astronomy, physics, or science club. Join a Humanist club if you can. Subscribe to a magazine if your parents will let you (I recommend American Atheist magazine or one of the Skeptical Inquirer). this will keep you brain in the "On" position. 5) Start looking at colleges with active Atheist organizations. It will make you feel better to have something to which to look forward. http://atheism.about.com/od/atheistsfamily/a/church.htm If you are young and living at home, there probably isn't much you can do no matter what your family's motivations are. If there is no way you can reasonably get out of going to church, the most you can do is try using the trips as a learning experience. Consider, for example, writing down some of the things said in the sermons and then writing critiques of them — perhaps publishing them on the web....if you are expected to attend religious services on a regular basis, then refusing to assert yourself will probably only lead to growing resentment and repressed anger — anger which won't stay repressed forever. As a result, avoiding a confrontation now may lead to a worse confrontation later on — not a good idea. It is unlikely that you will be able to avoid hurt feelings entirely, but you should try to avoid making matters worse than they need be. The New Zealand Association of Rationalists and Humanists I hope these blurbs and links help you. I can guarantee that it will become much easier when you move out of your parents' house. thanks! your a big help! ill have a look at the links Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anna Posted March 18, 2009 Author Share Posted March 18, 2009 From Pastor Peter's Desk: Isn’t it great to know that God wants us to prosper? Sounds like a prosperity gospel church. Give the church all your money and then you will prosper. I hate the crummy promises of the religion. Its all a big lie. You have my sympathy. Creepy picture. Pastor Peter looks like he would like to strangle his wife. He does look a bit creepy now that I look again lol I didnt notice sinse I see him every week. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loren Posted March 18, 2009 Share Posted March 18, 2009 Anna, I have one thing I'd like to strongly stress: If you do decide to do any writing as was wisely suggested, keep it locked up! Whether it's text files on your computer or pen and paper, put a lock on it! One thing I've seen over and over is that parents who are working under the complex of assumptions such as yours are won't even stop to think about whether they should go through your things, they'll just do it. And for them to find your written responses to their doctrines which are anything other than fawning, mindless acceptance will be to their minds, more horrific than if they found heroin hidden inside a vibrator in your sock drawer. If you use writing as a coping tool (And that's a most excellent thing to do.), keep it locked up! Loren Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CelticWhisper Posted March 18, 2009 Share Posted March 18, 2009 Anna, I have one thing I'd like to strongly stress: If you do decide to do any writing as was wisely suggested, keep it locked up! Whether it's text files on your computer or pen and paper, put a lock on it! One thing I've seen over and over is that parents who are working under the complex of assumptions such as yours are won't even stop to think about whether they should go through your things, they'll just do it. And for them to find your written responses to their doctrines which are anything other than fawning, mindless acceptance will be to their minds, more horrific than if they found heroin hidden inside a vibrator in your sock drawer. If you use writing as a coping tool (And that's a most excellent thing to do.), keep it locked up! Loren He's right. Luckily, there are some great tools to help you do this if you're using a computer. The first is GPG (http://www.gnupg.org) It's a Free file- and message-encryption tool that can use a variety of different ciphers to secure information. I won't go into too much cryptographic theory here, but if you want to encrypt something with a simple password, AES256 is a good way to go, and if you want to securely exchange files with like-minded atheist/agnostic/otherwise "unsavory" friends, ElGamal is a good choice. GPG can do both, and again, is free. GPG does not require a formal installation so you can keep just the .exe on a flash drive or something like that and nobody will know you're using it. The downside (and it really isn't much of a downside once you get used to it) is that you will have to become comfortable typing in a command line to use it. There are graphical tools available but I haven't used them so I don't know how good they are. Honestly, though, it takes a few tries and about half an hour to really get used to the way it works in the DOS prompt and then it becomes second-nature. The other tool I'd recommend is a little more advanced but also free and excellent, and is called TrueCrypt. TrueCrypt works by creating a virtual drive whose entire contents are encrypted. You mount it like another hard drive (think plugging in an external HDD or other storage device) and supply the password to unlock it. You drag-and-drop your writing into it and then unmount it, and it cannot be opened without your password. Now here's the real genius bit of TrueCrypt: you can have a hidden drive inside the regular encrypted drive with its own, different password. So, if for some reason your parents find out about the encrypted drive and force you to open it, you can supply the "regular" password to mount the regular drive (the one they know about). There is no sign at all that a hidden drive even exists unless you supply the special password to open it. And you can do this as many times as you want - hidden drives inside hidden drives inside hidden drives, and on and on, for as long as you have the real hard drive space to support it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seeker630 Posted March 18, 2009 Share Posted March 18, 2009 I am going to suggest something simpler, and maybe Celtic Whisperer can critique it. In Anna's situation, just to keep it easy, I was thinking of opening another email account with one of the free web-based providers like Hotmail, Yahoo or Gmail. There's a ton of them out there. Keep it to yourself, and come up with a password that means nothing to anyone but you. Memorize it, don't write it down anywhere. Using whatever email account you use from home, if that's where you're going to write out your thoughts, do it in the form of an email message and then send it to yourself at the other account. Then delete the message from the "Sent" folder in your primary account. The message is now on a mail server for Yahoo or Hotmail, and not on the computer. Then you could go to the public library and access the other account if you wanted to, or maybe a friend's or even at school if you have access there. No one else would know. If you intend using a computer away from home anyway, then it's not an issue. I'm not a computer expert. I don't know if there's any easy way to detect what you did after deleting the message. Any one else know? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prysm Posted March 18, 2009 Share Posted March 18, 2009 I am going to suggest something simpler, and maybe Celtic Whisperer can critique it. In Anna's situation, just to keep it easy, I was thinking of opening another email account with one of the free web-based providers like Hotmail, Yahoo or Gmail. There's a ton of them out there. Keep it to yourself, and come up with a password that means nothing to anyone but you. Memorize it, don't write it down anywhere. Using whatever email account you use from home, if that's where you're going to write out your thoughts, do it in the form of an email message and then send it to yourself at the other account. Then delete the message from the "Sent" folder in your primary account. The message is now on a mail server for Yahoo or Hotmail, and not on the computer. Then you could go to the public library and access the other account if you wanted to, or maybe a friend's or even at school if you have access there. No one else would know. If you intend using a computer away from home anyway, then it's not an issue. I'm not a computer expert. I don't know if there's any easy way to detect what you did after deleting the message. Any one else know? Even easier, you could create a gmail account and send messages from it to itself. I keep notes this way quite often when I don't have a pen. No need to delete, the sent and inbox folders will just be duplicates. Unless your folks are keyloggers, you should be safe. And if they're keyloggers, I'd wonder how they could still mindlessly buy the bs at that level of tech-savvy knowledge. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seeker630 Posted March 18, 2009 Share Posted March 18, 2009 Even easier, you could create a gmail account and send messages from it to itself. I keep notes this way quite often when I don't have a pen. No need to delete, the sent and inbox folders will just be duplicates. Unless your folks are keyloggers, you should be safe. And if they're keyloggers, I'd wonder how they could still mindlessly buy the bs at that level of tech-savvy knowledge. Ok so if she doesn't delete the one in the sent file, the rent's can't see if? Even if they can get into her primary account? I'm not familiar with multiple users having accounts using the same pc. I live alone and no one but me has access to my machine. Never mind----I just figured out what you would be doing. Duuuuuuuuuh! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anna Posted March 18, 2009 Author Share Posted March 18, 2009 Anna, I have one thing I'd like to strongly stress: If you do decide to do any writing as was wisely suggested, keep it locked up! Whether it's text files on your computer or pen and paper, put a lock on it! One thing I've seen over and over is that parents who are working under the complex of assumptions such as yours are won't even stop to think about whether they should go through your things, they'll just do it. And for them to find your written responses to their doctrines which are anything other than fawning, mindless acceptance will be to their minds, more horrific than if they found heroin hidden inside a vibrator in your sock drawer. If you use writing as a coping tool (And that's a most excellent thing to do.), keep it locked up! Loren Oh yes I will definitly keep that in mind heh I have lotsa hiding places to put things so I think ill be safe. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anna Posted March 18, 2009 Author Share Posted March 18, 2009 Anna, I have one thing I'd like to strongly stress: If you do decide to do any writing as was wisely suggested, keep it locked up! Whether it's text files on your computer or pen and paper, put a lock on it! One thing I've seen over and over is that parents who are working under the complex of assumptions such as yours are won't even stop to think about whether they should go through your things, they'll just do it. And for them to find your written responses to their doctrines which are anything other than fawning, mindless acceptance will be to their minds, more horrific than if they found heroin hidden inside a vibrator in your sock drawer. If you use writing as a coping tool (And that's a most excellent thing to do.), keep it locked up! Loren He's right. Luckily, there are some great tools to help you do this if you're using a computer. The first is GPG (http://www.gnupg.org) It's a Free file- and message-encryption tool that can use a variety of different ciphers to secure information. I won't go into too much cryptographic theory here, but if you want to encrypt something with a simple password, AES256 is a good way to go, and if you want to securely exchange files with like-minded atheist/agnostic/otherwise "unsavory" friends, ElGamal is a good choice. GPG can do both, and again, is free. GPG does not require a formal installation so you can keep just the .exe on a flash drive or something like that and nobody will know you're using it. The downside (and it really isn't much of a downside once you get used to it) is that you will have to become comfortable typing in a command line to use it. There are graphical tools available but I haven't used them so I don't know how good they are. Honestly, though, it takes a few tries and about half an hour to really get used to the way it works in the DOS prompt and then it becomes second-nature. The other tool I'd recommend is a little more advanced but also free and excellent, and is called TrueCrypt. TrueCrypt works by creating a virtual drive whose entire contents are encrypted. You mount it like another hard drive (think plugging in an external HDD or other storage device) and supply the password to unlock it. You drag-and-drop your writing into it and then unmount it, and it cannot be opened without your password. Now here's the real genius bit of TrueCrypt: you can have a hidden drive inside the regular encrypted drive with its own, different password. So, if for some reason your parents find out about the encrypted drive and force you to open it, you can supply the "regular" password to mount the regular drive (the one they know about). There is no sign at all that a hidden drive even exists unless you supply the special password to open it. And you can do this as many times as you want - hidden drives inside hidden drives inside hidden drives, and on and on, for as long as you have the real hard drive space to support it. I think ill have a look at the first one Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anna Posted March 18, 2009 Author Share Posted March 18, 2009 I am going to suggest something simpler, and maybe Celtic Whisperer can critique it. In Anna's situation, just to keep it easy, I was thinking of opening another email account with one of the free web-based providers like Hotmail, Yahoo or Gmail. There's a ton of them out there. Keep it to yourself, and come up with a password that means nothing to anyone but you. Memorize it, don't write it down anywhere. Using whatever email account you use from home, if that's where you're going to write out your thoughts, do it in the form of an email message and then send it to yourself at the other account. Then delete the message from the "Sent" folder in your primary account. The message is now on a mail server for Yahoo or Hotmail, and not on the computer. Then you could go to the public library and access the other account if you wanted to, or maybe a friend's or even at school if you have access there. No one else would know. If you intend using a computer away from home anyway, then it's not an issue. I'm not a computer expert. I don't know if there's any easy way to detect what you did after deleting the message. Any one else know? Hey thats I good idea. Lol I already have a secret email so ill use that one Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AKR Posted March 18, 2009 Share Posted March 18, 2009 Ugh, fucking mega churches. From Pastor Peter's Desk: Isn’t it great to know that God wants us to prosper? Sounds like a prosperity gospel church. Give the church all your money and then you will prosper. I hate the crummy promises of the religion. Its all a big lie. You have my sympathy. Creepy picture. Pastor Peter looks like he would like to strangle his wife. You have to wonder if these idiots even read the Bible. Jesus spoke quite clearly about giving practically everything away, and he didn't mean giving it away to the church. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amethyst Posted March 18, 2009 Share Posted March 18, 2009 Anna, I have one thing I'd like to strongly stress: If you do decide to do any writing as was wisely suggested, keep it locked up! Whether it's text files on your computer or pen and paper, put a lock on it! One thing I've seen over and over is that parents who are working under the complex of assumptions such as yours are won't even stop to think about whether they should go through your things, they'll just do it. And for them to find your written responses to their doctrines which are anything other than fawning, mindless acceptance will be to their minds, more horrific than if they found heroin hidden inside a vibrator in your sock drawer. If you use writing as a coping tool (And that's a most excellent thing to do.), keep it locked up! Loren Agreed. If you are going to keep a journal, do it on the computer. Password protect your computer writing files and make it something non-obvious to your parents. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vomit Comet Posted March 19, 2009 Share Posted March 19, 2009 How do you get past a key logger? I've heard horror stories of parents busting their kids by using those. I had a friend who was a computer genius whereas the rest of his family were tech tards, and he used key loggers to keep tabs on every last thing they did on their computers. He knew all their secrets, all their dirty habits, everything. He had the passwords for all their e-mail accounts and would check those as well, as well as private messages on message boards. I mean everything. He was an evil bastard. Well, hopefully Anna's parents are average tech tards and not IT experts!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
babysealclubber Posted March 19, 2009 Share Posted March 19, 2009 Haha, I think a spyware scanner would pick up a garden variety key logger, but I don't know for certain... I don't think I would want to know what my family does with the interwebs. *shudder* Being forced to go to church was never a big deal for me, I just tuned-out like I always had. The wood grain on the pews was always so much more interesting than what the Pastor had to say anyways. Still is. Just come here and rant when you get frustrated Anna. And be sure to turn on private browsing if you haven't already. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CelticWhisper Posted March 19, 2009 Share Posted March 19, 2009 It depends on the kind of keylogger. Software keyloggers can be picked up by decent anti-spyware tools, or alternatively, can be defeated laughably easily by booting from another device (Linux LiveCDs are TERRIFIC for this). Hardware keyloggers are not susceptible to such attacks but have a major weakness of their own - their presence is glaringly obvious to anyone who's looking for them. "Oh, gee, what's this funky-looking thingamabob sticking out from the PC between the keyboard connector and the port? Probably some sort of steam-cleaning device. Oh, wait..." Pop off the logger, do your writing, pop it back on. Failing that, use an on-screen keyboard (where you can click the keys) to get by it. Slow as hell, but it'll get the job done. As for the E-mail account thing, it would work, but make absolutely sure you select a secure password. Do NOT base it on anything in the dictionary, make sure you use mixed-case letters, numbers, and special characters. If you browse with Firefox, there's a great plugin called Secure Password Generator. Otherwise you can try PWGEN (http://pwgen-win.sourceforge.net/). And yes, memorize it, never write it down anywhere. A good way to memorize it is to keep repeating it to yourself one letter at a time, starting from the beginning. So A, A2, A2\, A2\h, A2\h!, A2\h!c, A2\h!c+, etc. etc. It's how I memorized the Office 2000 serial key/activation code at a previous place of work - made installing a LOT easier once I didn't have to look at the stupid license sticker, and that was a 25-character sequence. Still know it to this day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super Moderator florduh Posted March 19, 2009 Super Moderator Share Posted March 19, 2009 Is it just me, or does anyone else think it's wrong to counsel a minor child in how to circumvent their parents' wishes? After all, their only crime is teaching their religion to the kids. It's not like they are physically abusive. Yeah, I know - it's Christianity so it must be snuffed out at all costs (!) but responsible parents have the right and duty to raise their children as they see fit. I always offer moral support and ways to deal with having different beliefs than the parents, so I do sympathize with the child. I'm just uncomfortable undermining the authority of reasonable parents with whom I merely disagree. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PandaPirate Posted March 19, 2009 Share Posted March 19, 2009 My parents still think im a christian. I find it hard to cope sitting in church listning to what I have now identified as bull flying out of the pastors mouth.the church is no small thing its a ten million dollar building and when im there its particularly hardto cope with all the deluded nonsence. they have a website http://www.cityimpactchurch.com/ how do I deal with asting a day and going every week? Wow, the guy on the front page looks really creepy!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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