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StrangerThan -> RE: I renounce Christianity (9/30/2011 10:15:28 AM)
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This is one of those threads I look at and think, ya know, stay away. You been there, know the thought process, the sometimes intense dislike or at least intense need to disassociate, and you know that anything coming across is, whether it's intended that way or not, somewhat antagonistic.
Because I do know the thought process. For me, culmination occurred around the age of 18, though the process had been building for several years prior to that. You were raised Catholic. I was raised Pentecostal Holiness. Think... fundamentalist and all the bad stuff that can go along with it. I will say though, we never had the snake thing going. All the rest? Pretty much.
I started working, full time, at the age of 13 just to keep from going to church. I volunteered for the Sunday shifts, even for split shifts to avoid both morning and night services. I left home at 16, intending to hit up the military as soon as I could. In the details of that however, was something I didn't think about - namely needing parental permission at 17 to sign up. That's how I ended up with Pentecostal on my dog tags. My mom was insistent, and I had to have her consent.
So be it. Amen.
I left for boot camp 2 days after graduating high school and by the end of it, my dog tags read NONE next to religion. I didn't go home again for a long time. Maybe 6 or 7 years and that was to visit. It was 10 years before I moved back, and probably 20 before I stepped into another church. I didn't go because I wanted to go to church. I went because someone got married.
I was the bastard you didn't want to meet during that time if you were an evangelizer or proselytizer. I know a lot of people get bitter. I wasn't. I was just adamant. I threw a couple of pastor types off my porch, one figuratively, the other literally. After that one, I stopped them at the property line and said, wanna talk, talk from there. Another step means you're trespassing.
So what brought me back? Nothing that will make sense or matter, but mostly if you want to know, it was outgrowing the need to disassociate long enough to be able to look at both life and religion rationally in the sense of what they mean to me.
I can tell you though. The first step was to get off the blame game. God wasn't responsible for the things that happened in my life. People were. Learning that the Bible itself is a historical document that details the emergence of a people and a belief system was part of it too. Belief systems are just that. In denouncing one, you're adopting another. That means in terms of proof, what you have is your belief. To others, what you believe can and often is, meaningless.
What you sound like you are, is angry. I can understand that. I can understand needing and finding things to blame. I can understand questioning all the things the church told you, cause I been there and half what they said doesn't make sense. What does make sense to me is that in looking at a historical document, it becomes pretty clear that once Jesus stepped into the arena, God pretty much took a hands off approach. I figure, he gave me a brain, two hands, two feet, and the will to see things through. Past that, if I need him, I'll holler. Other than that, I do believe he'll let me fuck up, fuck off, be an idiot, or just be what I can be all day long, cause in the end, it's me I have to answer for, and no one else.
There, I believe I've talked more about religion in the last two days, than I have in the last two years. What you won't find is me trying to talk you into coming back or convincing you that you're wrong. You are no more right, nor any more wrong than anyone else.
And by the way, God never really established himself as a loving god. Jesus is the one who pretty much brought that concept to earth, and a great many of his teachings were related to how we treat each other.
Later.
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