Guest Freedomtarian Posted July 1, 2009 Share Posted July 1, 2009 When I was a kid my family would go to church on an off and on semi-monthly basis. Also it was never the same church for too long. We went to churches of many denominations which I do value as an overall good experience. The problem started when a good friend of my dad's started his own church. It started as an under 100 person service with only a couple services a Sunday that took place in a multi-purpose room. He grew in popularity and they rented a larger location less than a mile from our house, and my family's church attendance increased. The the services then began to become more and more irrational, paranoid, fire and brimstone driven. The pastor then started to get into crowd manipulation, playing with the much larger audience and he got more political in his sermons. My mom is a lot more liberal than my father and the sermons got to her so it got to the point where only my dad kept going. I was offended by some of his statements so I was in no hurry to go back either. Now they are a mega church with a congregation in the tens of thousands. They use their large following for political clout, with petitions for christian legislation at the exit. They were also a major player in the prop. 8 passage and very vocal about their involvement. I saw the true ugly face of organized religion and I see this as the major deciding factor in losing my faith. I also researched the Bible and read about all the gross, violent, psychopathic, genocidal, racist material that is in there. Although I am not an atheist or even an agnostic. I have been reading into deism, pantheism and most recently Quakerism. I don't think I will ever go back to Christianity or follow a religion that condones violence, hate, divisiveness and inequalities. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kyle Posted July 1, 2009 Share Posted July 1, 2009 Welcome. What a story! This place is great. I hope you hang around Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
★ Citsonga ★ Posted July 2, 2009 Share Posted July 2, 2009 Greetings from another newbie. I have been reading into deism, pantheism and most recently Quakerism. I don't think I will ever go back to Christianity.... The mention of Quakerism in this context struck me as odd, since it's a form of Christianity. When I was a Christian, one of my best friends' father was a Quaker/Friends pastor. They weren't much different from other protestant denominations, other than being pacifist and not practicing baptism. Anyway, good luck on your journey away from Christianity. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pitchu Posted July 2, 2009 Share Posted July 2, 2009 Welcome to the forums, Freedomtarian. So you had the "good fortune" to get in on the ground floor of a mega-church, huh? It must have been fascinating, as well as horrifying, to see, step by step, how it all became monstrous. I'm glad you opted for sanity, and glad you found this site. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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