Since that inference wasn’t being drawn anywhere, can you explain why you brought it up, and its relevance to the discussion?
Archaeologists in Egypt have found the burial and some mummies of Ramse’s 100 sons (who was the Pharoh who was supposed to have drowned),Also Ramses"s tomb; so we know the Pharoh didn’t drown nor was his first born son slain as his tomb was well marked.
Monavis
I was raised in a Congregational Church that is part of the United Church of Christ. My former church is made up of university professors and couples from interfaith marriages. As a congregation we studied the basics of Islam and Judaism in depth. My mother taught Sunday school with a biology professor from Rutgers. I would have to say that their approach to Christian education is one of the reasons that I am no longer a believer. They tended to focus on the moral lessons and historical issues of the bible as opposed to the miracles and wonders that are written about. Their style of teaching was very similar to that of my advanced history courses when dealing with first hand accounts and historical fiction. They emphasized that the Bible was written by people and that you cannot take everything written as being absolute. They also stressed the importance of cross-referencing with historical documents in order to gain a better understanding of the stories presented in the Bible.
Another factor was my environment while growing up. Blacks tend to be very religious as a race. My father is the only son, out of eight boys, that did not become a minister. My mother grew up in a town where attending church is a social requirement. During my teenage years, I was an active member of a black youth group. I will never forget the look on my youth group leaders face when I told her that I did not go to a black church. She looked as if I had just told her that Satan was my savior.
To me, the segregation of religion is just plain ridiculous. All of this indoctrination about loving neighbors, inclusion, all god’s children, etc. and people still are unable to come together. Around this age (13) I began encountering large numbers of religious people who were hypocritical and ignorant. At the time, all of my religious debates were with other Christians. The stronger they professed their belief, the more ignorant of the Bible they tended to be. They loved to talk about how sinful it was for me to participate in a church youth group that was advised by a lesbian. It is hard for me to deal with people who believe the Earth was created in 6 days, but that there is no room for people of differing lifestyles. Their lack of knowledge disgusted me and completely turned me off of religion.
Just because I think that there are some nice moral lessons in the Bible, does not mean that I subscribe to everything in the book. Religion and I made a clean break when I reached the age of 15 and stopped attending services. I continued to do volunteer work through the church through the end of high school but I was no longer present on Sunday mornings.
You must not have the rest, it’s ‘love your neighbor and we’re all God’s children…as long as you believe exactly the same things we do and are not different from us in any way.’
Ok, that’s a bit broad…but does cover many of the people I grew up knowing, though they would never outright say it.
This thread has been interesting for me. With all the stories of like the one you responded to I can easily see how people would not give Christianity much credibility. What continues to disappoints me is the way CHristians can so easily critisize non Christians but easily over look and forgive the same flaws in a Christian.
Aren’t believers the ones that should be more Christ like?
Years ago Barry Goldwater said “Every good Christian should kick Jerry Falwells ass”
I like to see more Christians coming out against the hateful minority who claim to worship Christ but still don’t get it.
I was raised in the Church of Christ, which is to say, mom took us, dad never went except maybe on the odd Christmas or Easter. One by one, as my brothers and I reached about 13, we could no longer be forced to go, and we stopped. Though I was still sent to Church Camp in the summers, and had a few ‘revivals’ which I now perceive as me trying to please the adults in my life, be they camp counsellors or my parents.
I never questioned the tenets of the faith, never argued them, and though we did read the Bible (unlike some churches I later came to know), we evidently didn’t read it enough to see any discrepancies.
It was when I was sent to college at 18, after being given the choice to go, or to get out of the house and fend for myself, period…and of course, having been raised both sheltered and with very strict rules, I had no idea how to discipline myself…I spent my first semester about as dissolute as you can imagine, with lots of alcohol and other behaviors. I was really lucky I didn’t get raped or worse, with the situations I put myself into.
Anyway, into this festering mess that was my life, Andy stepped. Andy, who took me aside and said “You’re really messed up, and you need God.” What followed I still don’t really understand, because I wound up “speaking in tongues” that night, and he used that for proof that God had touched me. I got me into his church, a Foursquare Gospel (offshoot of Assembly of God, ie, pentacostal/charismatic). I felt totally accepted and totally loved by that group of people, and I’m sure some of them were truly loving and accepting people. I’m still in touch with one of the couples in fact (20 years later) and with Andy too. But the others…but I’m getting ahead of myself.
For five years, during college and after, I was a model Christian. I lived, breathed, ate, drank…Church and Christ. All my books, all my music, all my friends…my whole life was so focused that I alienated my family and all my old friends. And I hurt myself, too. I went well over a year without touching anyone. I mean, no hugs, nothing. The church I was in by that time just wasn’t a touchy church. I had squashed my sexuality to the point that I was asexual. I had no sexual thoughts. We single people weren’t supposed to have them. Sometimes I re-listened to an old tape series by John Medina (now a professor at University of Washington, but I’d known him as a grad student at Washington State University) called ‘Holy Sexuality Sticks It To The Pepsi Generation’ but it didn’t seem to apply to me. I was asexual. People approved of me for it. I was a good Christian Single Woman.
Then I made a trip from Boise to Seattle, and I visited the old church I’d attended back in college. I went out with the singles group to “witness” on the Ave in the University District. I had gone around a corner to pray, and a guy I’d known from school came along the street, Sperry. Sperry was in his Anti-Rainbow clothing, striding up the Ave under the street lamps. He was jazzed. He was SO excited. He started telling me about how he’d been propositioned by some guy at a cash machine. He’d turned the guy down – he wasn’t into stranger sex, although friends were cool – but he was so thrilled that somebody thought he was that sexy. So he told me this story, and he told several other people he knew who happened to pass by.
Aound the corner, I could hear the people I was “with”. They were laughing and joking about the Pagans and the Heathens and how they were all going to go to hell. And here in front of me was Sperry, so gleefully thrilled that some strange guy had made a pass at him. I hoped he didn’t hear my group around the corner, but I knew he could. I prayed they wouldn’t come around and see or hear him, because I knew what they’d say, what they’d do. That was when I saw “us” the say everybody else saw “us”, and it was ugly.
I went back to Boise with a whole lot of doubts and questions, and nobody I could talk to about them. When I did voice some of them, I got rebuked by the minister of my church. People started to shun me. But sometimes, in private conversations, some of them admitted they had the same doubts; they felt they were praying to a sky of brass. Of cours, their public faiths were much ….more…solid.
I made another – but this time secret – trip to Seattle. I spent the entire weekend in bed with an old friend, being touched, just being touched and touched, making up for the long drought of touch I’d been living in. Bless him, he understood. He’d been burned in a church too. But it was a terrible secret when I went home to Boise. I made the mistake of mentioning his name a time too many in front of one of the elders of my church, and he absolutely laid into me. He didn’t know what I had done, he was just tearing me up for having mentioned my friend’s name a time too often. Using a whole bunch of perfectly-memorized Bible verses (all taken out of context and strung together like a club), he verbally bludgeoned me into submission. Or at least into leaving his house. I never set foot there again. Nor spoke to him, or his wife (who apologized to me under her breath as I left) again.
I went to church a few more times. I stopped singing when they sang, because I knew I didn’t mean the words. I couldn’t feel ‘the Spirit’ anymore. I wondered if I ever had. I tried squinching my eyes real tight and grunting out some faith. I couldn’t do it. People began to shun me in earnest.
I burned out. Fell like a meteorite. I became truly suicidal. I had plans, I had a gun, and the only thing that stopped me blowing my brains out, or cutting my wrists in the tub, was not wanting to upset my parents or my housemate by having them find my body. I had lost my “family”, my social support structure – none of my “friends” would have anything to do with me anymore, it was like my doubt was something infectious and they didn’t want me passing it on. I was cut adrift. Suffering, lost. And all that unconditional love I’d known? It was all based on the condition that I continue to conform. All gone.
I moved back to Seattle. My old friend there spent a lot of time talking to me. We didn’t end up together (mostly because, love him as I may, I’d tear the man’s throat out in a week: I can only take so much of having every statement or thought challenged, with demands to justify) but he really got me through. I met my (now) husband, and he liked me enough to stay with me through a year or more of evolving beliefs, from ‘burned out but still believes’ to ‘why did I believe all that stuff, again?’
I believe now that the whole episode was mostly me trying to ‘do it right’, to make God happy with me. I wanted people to accept and love me. And….the latter worked, I suppose, as long as I was willing to meet all their expectations; to conform. When I wasn’t willing anymore…?
I know I’m healthier now. Happier. I don’t have to meet anybody’s expectations but my own. I suspect I could pass for a ‘good Christian’, except for the whole “uh, why did I believe all that stuff, again?” bit. So I’m content with myself. There are still questions of how to teach my children (my 8 year old said the other day, with a derisive sneer, “I don’t believe in God.” And I had to warn her not to say that in front of either grandmother, for fear of a Great Big Scene). But it doesn’t seem to come up much anyway.
::shrug:: Excuse me for opening my pie-hole.
I was refering to you post 14 where you said you saw people praying to a statue.
Monavis
Yes, the statue was the god. They weren’t Buddhists, they were part of this new religion. The statue supposedly appeared out of nowhere on top of a hill in 1950-something, was carted down by the local peasants, and they started worshipping it, eventually building a temple around it. I can’t find the name of this place, but will have a look and try to identify it.
However, regardless of whether you believe this story or not, idolatry does exist. It doesn’t matter to my argument that some religions use symbolic idols: because others do use idols that are in fact deified.
I really appreciate you sharing your story. I was moved. I’m very glad to hear that you are happy and healthy now. From reading your story and others here and thinking about my own and others I’ve know it’s clear that so much of organized religion is an emotional issue where then church becomes your family support system with some pretty strict expectations. I know when I was in church part of the reason I suppressed certain questions is that it felt so good to be a part of this loving family. In my case when I made some seriously bad judgement calls the family remained as supportive as possible. perhaps there’s hope. I am more content now with my own beliefs and feel no pressure to conform. I am able to go to church when I choose and enjoy the service without buying the whole package.
It sure doesn’t seem like that kind of pressure to conform promotes personal or spiritual growth. I do wonder what other organizations have in common with organized religion. Isn’t there always some pressure in almost any group to conform to the group? Can we exist as a people without being a part of something and dealing with the issues that human interaction brings about?
But I digress, … just thanks. I’m glad you posted your story.
In the cold light of day, my response to your post was over the top. Not that I’ve changed my mind about the sentiment; I just could and SHOULD have been less vehement and insulting.
::teleporting Malacandra a slice of coconut-cream pie in penitence::
Skald came back! And brought…
It’s all good. I too find the idea of God dictating Pharaoh’s actions and then punishing for them insupportable; I just hesitate therefore to reach the conclusion that God is in the wrong.
::good-naturedly pretends he likes coconut cream:: 
You don’t like coconut cream? What are you, some kind of communist?
::teleports Malacandra the pie menu but keeps the lemon cheesecake I just baked for myself::
As for hesitating to conclude that God is in the wrong, I do too–but not the way you are. If God had acted as the story claims, S/He’d have been wrong; but I choose to believe the story is slanderous. I’m sure J will be hearing from his attorneys.
Of course I believe idolatry exists. People even worship trees in some cultures.
I apologize, I thought you were refering to Churches that had statues.
Monavis
[QUOTE=cosmosdan]
I am more content now with my own beliefs and feel no pressure to conform. I am able to go to church when I choose and enjoy the service without buying the whole package. [\QUOTE]
Ah, but the difference here is that you can go to church and enjoy it now. Whereas I feel a great oppression if I try. The few times I’ve even set foot in local churches for holiday bazaars or to donate blood, there’s always some well-meaning person there who will ask me if I go to church there, and when I say no, they want to know where, and I say I don’t…this is always followed with something like “Why not?” in a disapproving tone.
I miss the camraderie, the mystery, the community of being in a church. I certainly have nothing like it in my life anymore. I miss that. But I know there is no such thing as casual association. Or perhaps, for me there is either ‘all’ or ‘nothing’ - no gray area allowed. I cannot permit myself to be controlled by that kind of group’s expectations, forced to conform to the local microculture for approval, or for self-definition. I have no doubt that other people can participate or not, and enjoy themselves. I cannot.
The few times I have tried to explain this to people who are actively involved in a church, invariably they say something like “Oh, well then, you should come to MY church, it’s NOTHING like that.” But I can’t believe it, and I certainly will not give their church a try, just to see. I believe they simply haven’t smacked into that wall yet, or wouldn’t see it, or object to it, if they did. Maybe I’m wrong - certainly some people live their whole lives within a system of faith and are perfectly happy within it. My aunt died recently, and there wasn’t a person at her memorial service (except maybe me) who didn’t believe firmly that she was in heaven where she wanted to be, where she believed she would be. Well, maybe she is. I hope so, since her life on Earth was a hell of illness and suffering, but I don’t know that. 
If she ever felt stifled and controlled by the culture of her church, I never heard of it.
I am sorry to hear that. I haven’t gone in a while for feelings similar to what you describe. I wanted to do a little more but I didn’t hold the same beliefs that would allow me to be comfortable as a member. I don’t try to stir things up but if asked I am willing to tell folks what I think. I try to focus on our common ground in conversation. I ran sound for a small local church for a few months and enjoyed that because I could enjoy the parts I liked but had a specific job to do.
It sounds like you might enjoy a more liberal Methodist church or even something like the Unversalist who don’t seem to have any specific doctrine they force on people. There are groups that do some very good community service and don’t focus so much on doctrine.
Why not? Why wouldn’t you try it? I would say that most organized religions have some sort of doctrine that they teach. Still, some may not be pushy about it. When I go I enjoy the music and the sincere expressions of love and compassion toward others.
I can only say I hope you come to some fulfillment and some peace of mind.
What started it for me was an architectural feature. The church I went to as a child was built in the 1850s [it was older than that but the first was rebuilt] and it had a balcony. I honestly didn’t know why it was there until I was about 13- I just assumed it had been bigger congregation at one time and needed the seats [now the main floor was about 2/3 full on most Sundays] and my father explained it was where the slaves sat. That bothered me tremendously- people had sat in these same pews while slaves (on their one off-day from 14-16 hours in the heat) sat above them and they saw no discrepancies with that and the message of brotherhood and the biblical injunctions against slavery. It literally made the church feel soiled somehow, and of course I later learned the original Baptist and Methodist churches in the same town had the same balconies. Being Christian really didn’t do a whole lot to help these people’s moral codes or make them question.
I was never really fanatical: my parents were Christians but they were not Fundamentalists (well, my mother sometimes, but she’s bipolar; my father was the more intellectual parent and believed in a Deist/Gnostic mix in that he believed in a “Divine Author” who set the ball in motion and left, wasn’t particularly concerned about what he created, and most definitely wasn’t the God described in the OT, but since there wasn’ t a church that believed that and he liked to sing and be seen he joined the Presbyterians). I never really strongly believed in a 6 day creation or the virgin birth or in little miracles (always irritated me even as a kid when somebody would actually believe that God swooped like a hawk from the heavens and made a parking place for them at a crowded mall [but then conversely did nothing for the kid across town whose face was torn up by a pit bull that day]). I believed was in basic Christian values (good works, charity, don’t kill or cheat or steal or commit sexual transgressions, etc.) with a little bit of mysticism and something generally supernatural and divine about Jesus (my God was a blend of my father’s and my mother’s [and played by James Earl Jones]). (I did have a teenage fling with Mormonism but it didn’t last and there were extenuating circumstances.)
But the stupidity and hypocrisy and ignorance of believers (and I’m not saying all believers are, I’m saying I saw it in some) started making me lose even the liberal religion I had. The woman who truly and deeply believed Christ was her savior but that selling the illiterate black guy who mowed her grass a lemon car was perfectly okay and even joked about it; I always wanted to know more about Jesus’s life & times- how could you not? and yet there were seminary educated preachers who didn’t know as basic a fact as who the Essenes were or the Nero Cæsar theory of 666 or… what the?!.
And then reading more about the ancient mystery cults, the “other” gospels and church writings, Greek myths and how they were adapted, the political machinery that determined the Bible and religious practice in its current form from before Constantine to after King James, etc.- how devout Christians in seminaries read about these things and keep their faith I have absolutely no idea.
Also the fact that most people died believing, coincidentally enough, pretty much exactly the same things their parents believed got to me, whether that was Southern Baptist or Catholic or Jewish or Jehovah’s Day Witness. About as much of a move as you’d see would be from one Protestant faith to another, and yet they were certain of their beliefs- had they looked at other religions rather than just other churches and that’s how they knew Christ was their savior? There were some “born agains” who had a wild and rollicking life and “got saved” and became, in many cases, much better and much happier people, but thereagain, they just plugged into the religion that happened to already be there rather than really think it through.
Inconsistency: the fact that sermons were always preached in one church I went to about this loving wonderful merciful God who loved all creation and wouldn’t hurt a fly, but the parts where he orders the murders of babies and whole towns and promises eternal damnation to non-believers were just ignored. Meanwhile in the hardshell churches, they preach the hellfire and brimstone parts, but they didn’t seem to greatly care about the parts that preached charity, and both churches had bankers who attended and weren’t bothered by the fact the Bible speaks against charging your own people interest, or preached against gays (even before I accepted I was gay) but everybody knew the organist or even the minister had been divorced and remarried and they didn’t find that.
And the frigging stupidity of the people at school who held the Bible- the actual book- in such high regard that they wouldn’t set a Coke on it or wouldn’t sit their butts on a desk where it was, but then they’re calling me and other kids names outside or making fun of poor kids who wore K-Mart clothes. What? Clearly any connection between true moral character and church membership was totally coincidental.
So short story long- observation and information really started peeling away whatever I had that passed for faith, then age and reflection did the rest. I currently have a semi-spiritual side, even a sort of mythos, but there’s not a deity in it, more of an in-formation consoling philosophy, but pretty much I’m an atheist and I actually find it comforting in a way. (Your child didn’t die of leukemia because you’re a sinner or God didn’t hear your prayers- she died of leukemia because she had booby trapped genes, and it’s horrible but it happened and there’s no need or profit in blaming God or yourself; ditto the Holocaust and other horrors- most things have a natural explanation, it’s just that often it’s not a simple one and sometimes it’s not knowable.)
I’ve been to a few older churches in England that have these balconies too. According to a priest I asked about it in one (Yateley, Surrey), it was for the women.
Not to be a smart-ass, but WHAT Biblical injunctions against slavery? :dubious:
It definitely contradicts itself, but there are some anti-slavery passages (pro-slavery left/anti-slavery right examples). Both North and South used the Bible to justify their positions, but generally you’d think it’d be self-evident a true Christian wouldn’t enslave another.