hockeyfan70 Posted June 2, 2016 Author Share Posted June 2, 2016 Some good news: - I found out that I got the post office job, so between this job, my third shift job and my wife getting a job at a school, I should be able to make up the pay difference with no longer being a minister. - I was accepted to The Clergy Project, which I'm really excited about. Some other news: - if you could think good thoughts about me over the next couple of weeks - I've been having tests done because I have some issues with my stomach. Have ruled out gall bladder issues, and today I had a scope go down my throat into my stomach and besides some acid damage, my stomach looks ok. Next up is the colonoscopy (NOOOOOO). There may also be a chance I have early pancreatitis. Anyway, I would like to find out soon. Thanks! - I am also tomorrow going to be going in front of the city tax department as they are threatening to take us to court again for something that was thrown out by the judge and dismissed by their lawyer last time. I'm about done, and since I can't go postal yet since I haven't started working there, I'm afraid I might get really angry at them. It's ridiculous. So it would be great if that could get resolved. thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
★ Citsonga ★ Posted June 2, 2016 Share Posted June 2, 2016 Congratulations on the job and The Clergy Project! I'm sorry to hear about the other things, but I wish you the best in those situations. Good luck! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator TABA Posted June 2, 2016 Moderator Share Posted June 2, 2016 Some good news: - I found out that I got the post office job, so between this job, my third shift job and my wife getting a job at a school, I should be able to make up the pay difference with no longer being a minister. - I was accepted to The Clergy Project, which I'm really excited about. Some other news: - if you could think good thoughts about me over the next couple of weeks - I've been having tests done because I have some issues with my stomach. Have ruled out gall bladder issues, and today I had a scope go down my throat into my stomach and besides some acid damage, my stomach looks ok. Next up is the colonoscopy (NOOOOOO). There may also be a chance I have early pancreatitis. Anyway, I would like to find out soon. Thanks! - I am also tomorrow going to be going in front of the city tax department as they are threatening to take us to court again for something that was thrown out by the judge and dismissed by their lawyer last time. I'm about done, and since I can't go postal yet since I haven't started working there, I'm afraid I might get really angry at them. It's ridiculous. So it would be great if that could get resolved. thanks! Great to hear the good news on the Post Office and the Clergy Project! Not fun to have to work two jobs, but just the freedom of no longer having to do the mental gymnastics that Christianity requires of a thinking person, well that freedom is worth a lot, I thnk you'll agree. And take it from me kiddo, having a colonoscopy is not that big a deal. It's not like you're the one that has to stick a probe up some guy's ass. You'll be in la-la land for the hard part... Good luck with the tax department! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Posted June 2, 2016 Share Posted June 2, 2016 Good luck to you. Sounds like your making your own luck now though ???????? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
notmohammad Posted June 3, 2016 Share Posted June 3, 2016 Yikes! I'm not surprised, but I'm saddened by your story. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jenovaswitness Posted June 10, 2016 Share Posted June 10, 2016 Thanks, everyone. And I wanted to post in a topic but it was locked. Does that happen a lot? It was about music to listen to when you are deconversioning from Christianity. So I guess I'll post mine here. I've been listening to David Bazan's "Curse Your Branches" nonstop. If you don't know who that is, he was the frontman for a popular emo-ish band called Pedro the Lion. He was a Christian until a few years ago, and this album is about his struggles with faith. It's so good. I fucking love that album. It came out a bit after I deconverted, but really helped me process a lot of my feelings. It's so good. I can still stomach Pedro the Lion as well. Control by PTL is in my top five for best albums of all time (in my opinion). It actually has a lot of meaning to me right now as well, as it kind of is following my life the past two years. I realize I am a smidge late to the party but the Strumbellas' "Spirits" really hits home for me especially now. At first glance it seems to be about PTSD in general, but if you listen to the lyrics just a little deeper you can easily interpret it to be about religion-based PTSD and the way toxic messages can haunt us even long after we've discovered they are not true. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hockeyfan70 Posted June 10, 2016 Author Share Posted June 10, 2016 Thanks, everyone. And I wanted to post in a topic but it was locked. Does that happen a lot? It was about music to listen to when you are deconversioning from Christianity. So I guess I'll post mine here. I've been listening to David Bazan's "Curse Your Branches" nonstop. If you don't know who that is, he was the frontman for a popular emo-ish band called Pedro the Lion. He was a Christian until a few years ago, and this album is about his struggles with faith. It's so good. I fucking love that album. It came out a bit after I deconverted, but really helped me process a lot of my feelings. It's so good. I can still stomach Pedro the Lion as well. Control by PTL is in my top five for best albums of all time (in my opinion). It actually has a lot of meaning to me right now as well, as it kind of is following my life the past two years. I realize I am a smidge late to the party but the Strumbellas' "Spirits" really hits home for me especially now. At first glance it seems to be about PTSD in general, but if you listen to the lyrics just a little deeper you can easily interpret it to be about religion-based PTSD and the way toxic messages can haunt us even long after we've discovered they are not true. I didn't recognize the name but once I played it, I remember this song. And it's true, those messages stay in there for a long time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xplorewithjamespeter Posted June 13, 2016 Share Posted June 13, 2016 I'm an ex pastor so I understand the journey. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Abrooks2007 Posted June 16, 2016 Share Posted June 16, 2016 Hi. Your post echoes my reasons why I now pretty much dislike religion with a PASSION. They speak with a forked tongue...the ideals of love and brother/sisterhood on the one hand, and on the other mean spirited nastiness and arrogance. I hope you've liked Ex-C so far. People on here are pretty cool. Hope you've chatted with Magee. She's awesome. Andrew Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hockeyfan70 Posted June 17, 2016 Author Share Posted June 17, 2016 Of course I have! And yes, she's awesome. I haven't had much time to be on here. I have a third shift job and now I'm officially a postal employee so I've been doing orientation. My week has been 10 p.m. - 4 a.m. one job, and then orientation from 8 a.m. - 5 p.m. Not a lot of time to sleep, be with family, or really anything. I know that will change soon but I'm tired!! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Posted June 18, 2016 Share Posted June 18, 2016 Don't pass out on floor at home... That rabbit's dynamite 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
★ Citsonga ★ Posted June 18, 2016 Share Posted June 18, 2016 ^^^ Even more importantly, don't pass out on the drive home from work! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
radren Posted June 18, 2016 Share Posted June 18, 2016 That sounds like an awful position to be in, you have my sympathies. I once was going to be a pastor myself, I memorized tons of scripture for that purpose. The church I used to attend as a child was pretty small but modest. I did not like forced attendance at the time, but it was nothing compared to what I had to put up with later on. When I was a youth, we moved to a bigger church and this one served to tear apart everything I had been brought up in. I had seen the tell-tale signs that the churches were becoming places for fraternizing and much more than what was intended. I ended up spending much of my time reading alone in the upper room or in a back room. I eventually stopped attending altogether, as I didn't need to attend to read the book or communicate with God. Nowadays, many churches exist to win attendants and compete with each other. They do not often give the God any glory. I'm pretty sure nearly all instances of 'church' in the New Testament were referring to a spiritual community anyway. Nowhere does The Way sect command their followers to build up physical churches. It wouldn't have really been viable with all the persecution going on. If I'm not mistaken, they would have made uses of their homes and random gathering places for worship. Today, you can find the most extravagant places of worship worldwide (not just limited to Christianity though). We are told that Constantine's adopting of Christianity as the Roman religion was a victory for the Western world, but it only provided people with a basis to control, influence, spread fear, suppress, and kill. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
qadeshet Posted June 18, 2016 Share Posted June 18, 2016 Of course I have! And yes, she's awesome. I haven't had much time to be on here. I have a third shift job and now I'm officially a postal employee so I've been doing orientation. My week has been 10 p.m. - 4 a.m. one job, and then orientation from 8 a.m. - 5 p.m. Not a lot of time to sleep, be with family, or really anything. I know that will change soon but I'm tired!! We would certainly like to see both you and James23 here more often. Your perspective is very helpful. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hockeyfan70 Posted June 19, 2016 Author Share Posted June 19, 2016 I'm an ex pastor so I understand the journey. I would like to hear your story sometime. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hockeyfan70 Posted June 26, 2016 Author Share Posted June 26, 2016 Hey, I just want to make sure and dispel the notion that postal employees have it easy because they have holidays and Sundays off every week. Nope. Those would would be Amazon package delivery days, and although seasoned veterans don't have to put up with those days, newbies like myself will basically work every Sunday and holiday for a few years. So next time you think "those postal bastards have life easy," remember that they don't. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
★ Citsonga ★ Posted June 26, 2016 Share Posted June 26, 2016 Hey, I just want to make sure and dispel the notion that postal employees have it easy because they have holidays and Sundays off every week. Nope. Those would would be Amazon package delivery days, and although seasoned veterans don't have to put up with those days, newbies like myself will basically work every Sunday and holiday for a few years. So next time you think "those postal bastards have life easy," remember that they don't. I'm not sure why anyone would think that those who do have off Sundays and holidays would automatically have it easy. How difficult, demanding or stressful a job can be isn't based on what particular days are worked. Outside of certain industries (such as retail, service, farming, emergency, law enforcement), most employees do normally get weekends and holidays days off, so it's not exactly an unusual scenario, and whenever those employees happen to need to work those days, they typically get paid overtime. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hockeyfan70 Posted June 30, 2016 Author Share Posted June 30, 2016 Hey, I just want to make sure and dispel the notion that postal employees have it easy because they have holidays and Sundays off every week. Nope. Those would would be Amazon package delivery days, and although seasoned veterans don't have to put up with those days, newbies like myself will basically work every Sunday and holiday for a few years. So next time you think "those postal bastards have life easy," remember that they don't. I'm not sure why anyone would think that those who do have off Sundays and holidays would automatically have it easy. How difficult, demanding or stressful a job can be isn't based on what particular days are worked. Outside of certain industries (such as retail, service, farming, emergency, law enforcement), most employees do normally get weekends and holidays days off, so it's not exactly an unusual scenario, and whenever those employees happen to need to work those days, they typically get paid overtime. Well, it's just that people think that there's a guarantee that postal workers have sundays off; after all, "I don't get any mail on Sunday." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hockeyfan70 Posted June 30, 2016 Author Share Posted June 30, 2016 I was listening to a podcast episode from the Life After God podcast - one I really like because the host is an ex-pastor like myself - and he was talking to someone who still considers herself a Christian, although she described herself as more of a panentheist (not to be confused with a pantheist), and then they talked about atheism and she mentioned a different term that I really really like. I know that some don't really care what label to wear, but I guess for some reason I do. Anyway, she said that she heard someone describe themselves as a "Post-Theist." I like it because one of two reasons. First, one struggle with atheism is that the description itself makes it sound like "I'm not a believer in something that doesn't exist." They used a really good example of something else, but I can't remember it. The other reason I like it is because it's stronger than the term agnostic, not knowing if there's a god, it has a little more weight to it. To me it means, "I don't believe there is a god, but even if there was, I don't really care because I've moved past believing in deities." Hopefully that makes sense. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hockeyfan70 Posted June 30, 2016 Author Share Posted June 30, 2016 Also, I have found a group of misfits that I really like hanging out with. When I first got to the last church I was at, I quickly became friends with the youth minister. They treated him like crap and fired him in 2011 (the day after Easter), and then he got involved in a progressive church but eventually it fell apart. He was completely burned out on church and religion and started hanging out with a few couples from that church who were also burnt out. He invited me to hang out with them, and we have done so a couple of times and I really like it. We haven't had any serious conversations about faith or lack of faith, but we drink a lot of alcohol and eat together and laugh. It's been good finding another tribe. And my friend and I talked on the phone for a couple of hours this week and he pretty much feels the same way as me. So between a couple other friends, my brother, and him, I have a pretty good group of guys I can vent to and share horror stories with personally. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Posted June 30, 2016 Share Posted June 30, 2016 That's great man! Hope it just keeps getting better and better for you Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator TABA Posted June 30, 2016 Moderator Share Posted June 30, 2016 Also, I have found a group of misfits that I really like hanging out with. Great opening line! Any post that starts out like that is gonna be worth reading! Great that you've found these folks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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