And this Jew would really like to hear yours, Scott Plaid. I don’t come across too many people who identify as former Jews.
I was going to respond, but I think it’s best to not to. Sorry for ever bringing this up. :eek:
I didn’t have a fundie upbringing but I did have a very heavy involvement in church life. In fact, my uncle was an ordained minister and my father a lay minister and between them, for a short period of my life, they covered services in several churches in an isolated region. So sunday mornings for a while there were going to church, then going to more church, then going to any given farmer’s house for a massive lunch. Apparently I had a habit of back talking to Dad if he made biblical errors while in the pulpit. It wasn’t deliberate sass, I’ve just got a mind like fly-paper for trivia and couldn’t help but correct him. Dad continued guest preaching occasionally in both my Uncle and my Cousin’s churches, even after he’d become an agnostic. It’s all pretty weird but entertaining in retrospect.
Weed.
I grew up in a Pentecostal Church of God and later an Assemblies of God church. I remember one guy whom everyone felt sorry for because he just couldn’t get the Spirit and speak in tongues like everyone else. He wanted that gift so badly he’d pray for what seemed like hours after the alter call started. The preacher and several congregation members, including his identical twin, would lay their hand on him and everything. But no dice. I suspect, now, that he may have been a skeptic. I told that short story to establish my bonafides. I didn’t start breaking outta the hive until summer '87 at Arkansas Governor’s School, which was probably the first time I met unbelievers in person rather than heard about them. I was 17 and had my mind opened just ever so slightly (and saw a movie in a theater for the first time as we weren’t allowed in them.) It’s like a crack in the pavement that allows just a bit of water in. Then when winter comes and the water freezes, it cracks the pavement a little more, which is what happened as I finished high school the next year and went on to college.
I think the biggest challenge for me then was reading the Upanishads and realizing that according to the church of my upbringing millions of people would burn in hell for simply not believing the right way, despite them believing what they think is true. That seemed absurd. It still does. So I came to the conclusion that all religions are bunk.
I was pretty lucky, most of the time I had to go to my fundy-ish church I was a young kid who bought it all still.
But, for a little while after I realized religion was bs, my parents separated and my my Mom and sister I lived with the grandparents. My grandparents, I finally realized at that point, were absolutely insane. We went to church 3 times a week, Saturday, Sunday, and Wednesday nights. I suspect now a lot of the reason we went so much was that they were retired, and this is how they socialized. But dammit, I wasn’t retired, and as a closet atheist it really sucked. I was still a kid though, like 12 or 13, so I didn’t expect to have any control over my life anyway and just beared it. And I had friends at the church too, so it wasn’t that bad.
I do remember acting like I was “filled with the love of Christ” and feeling like an idiot though.
I grew up Presbyterian. Confirmed when I was 12, the whole 9 yards. I loved it, mostly because of the music.
My church had the biggest organ ever, with a huge choir, and lots of pomp and circumstance. I’m told that having a 100+ year old sanctuary with blue stained glass windows that had Gospel figures in them (not actual saints) is pretty unusual for the denomination, but I still have fond memories of sitting in the loft as a small child with my parents and amusing myself looking at the glass. I also amused myself by looking through the hymnals, which had a lot of old hymns and songs in them.
One of my favorite memories of attending services there was the candlelight service on Christmas Eve. That was the time of year that ‘Gloria in Exclesis Deo’ and all those Christmas hymns got hauled out, and hearing the entire packed-to-the-rafters church sing them with the backing of the organ and the choir…
I know, slightly ironic that I’m thinking about reaching God through music, but that’s kind of the way that I felt (and still do, to some degree). There’s something very beautiful about joining in the carryover of a tradition that’s been around for hundreds of years.
Then my parents thought that we should move to a church where I understood things better (read: not just hitting services in Sunday-go-to-church-best for the music) and moved us to a tiny startup Deaf church where the pastor came from a Southern Baptist seminary. This was in the face of loud and vociferous protests from yours truly.
Nice man, but one that had a very literal interpretation of the Book. I think the final few straws came when he preached a whole sermon about that particular declaration from the SBC that women should be submissive to their husbands, plus participation in the Promise Keepers. And the precept of applying ‘love the sinner, hate the sin’ to gay people struck me as pretty hypocritical even at the time.
They didn’t have music – not the kind of music that I, in my heart of hearts, still love.
It was because of those objections that once I hit college, I told my parents that I’m not going to services, full stop. Not even for the socializing, since I wasn’t comfortable going to services if I didn’t share their beliefs. After several blowups, my family simply stopped trying to drag me along. They tell me they’ll pray for me, and I take it in the spirit it’s meant since it requires no participation on my part other than breathing.
But I still miss that music.
I was raised in a Southern Baptist church. One of the ones where you only opened your mouth to sing a required hymn. If you were over 80 and male, you could get away with an occasional “Amen, Brother” during the sermon.
Then I went to visit my paternal grandmother when I was 8. She was Pentacostal - Holiness. The women didn’t cut their hair. When I went to the first service and they started shouting and speaking in tongues, I almost wet myself.
During this visit, I got a toothache. My grandmother took me to the preacher, who “laid hands” on me and prayed. I don’t remember if the toothache went away or if I was just to scared to mention it again, but it was the first time in my life I remember being absolutely terrified.
I dealt with having to attend church with my grandparents (the Baptist ones) every Sunday during the summers I spent with them by reading the Bible. If you were reading the Bible during the sermon, it didn’t count as “not paying attention”. So I read it. Cover to cover. Including the “begats”. I learned a lot - including things the pastor would rather I didn’t know. 
Hmmmm, I suppose I shouldn’t have used that term. I was just trying to make a contrast to the term “Fundamentalist Mormon” in Jennshark’s post. Not the best term to use. After all, most people using that term are former Jews, who are currently Christians.
Personally, I am an atheist, but according to Jews, I am a Jew, seeing as how I was raised by them, and had a Jewish Mother. (A father too, but that doesn’t really matter.) Now, Christians insist that all the evidence leads to Jesus being the Savior of Prophecy, and SCO says the same thing about them, but that doesn’t make it true, or important.
My family wasn’t really fundamentalist, but they had this annoying view that I could question as much as I would like, but of course, I would find that all answers lead to Judaism. :rolleyes:
Shuls was always long, boring, and intellectually insulting. I simply had no need for it.
I was brought up Presbyterian, too, and feel much the same way about the music. I occasionally attend my husband’s Catholic church, and they’re nice people, but they just don’t do enough of those great old hymns.
I have an atheist friend who sings in a church choir every Sunday, and also does a Messiah sing every year as well as a carolling party. You don’t have to give up the music.
I know what you mean about the music… I’ve been an agnostic for as long as I can remember, but the closest I’ve ever gotten to looking in the window and seeing what a spiritual experience must be like was once when my woodwind quintet was playing (quite poorly, sadly) in a church, and this frail little old lady was the organist, and as she was playing, she kind of gazed up at the organ and seemed to be transfixed with the beauty of the music she was producing, almost like it surprised her.
Not that there’s anything supernatural there, or anything…
ROFL I thought that site was pretty funny, in a “let’s watch the train wreck” sort of way. I really cracked up when I hit the Back button and found the Homeschooling page. So C.S Lewis was born Anglican and then converted to christianity. I thought the Church of England was christian. What a surprise. Then to find out he only converted so he could be rich 
And everyone else was either a fascist, a pot head, a Catholic, or a Freemason. Some were all four! SHUDDER
Damn right.
Damn right again. Some people are scum. It does not follow that all people are. What those people did was beyond excuse. They had no right to do it, and they violated the hell out of the “laws” they “profess”. The operative word is hypocrisy.
Once again, I’ll agree with SteveG1. I freely admit that one reason I am a Christian (or at least an Anglican 
) is because of the acceptance my local Episcopal Church gave me when I needed to belong somewhere very badly. If I’d had the experiences some of you have had, I might well have wound up one of the most vocal opponents of Christianity on this board instead of one of its more vocal advocates. Speaking of which . . .
lizardling, if you really do miss the music, most of the Episcopal Churches I’ve gone to over the years have genuine concerts around Christmas with a lot of music and little or no preaching. They may not be well publicized, but I can’t see them being offended if you called up and asked. I must admit, 15 years ago, I had friends who were Wiccan and was considering taking it up, but the music was one of the things that kept me Christian.
CJ
I wish I could respond, but I brought myself up as a fundie. My family was a bunch of Christmas & Easter Christian sorts, but I was a diehard fundie by the age of 8.
Eventually I went through years of annoying soul searching and ended up a somewhat liberal Episcopalian. :eek: (I have no idea how it happened either, but it works for me.)
[slight hijack]Here in France “Christians” (ie Catholics) have “churches” where as “Anglicans” (who are sort of ok because they are poor ignorant foreigners) and “Protestants” (shiver) have “temples” :smack: [/slight hijack]
>I set foot in a church 3 times as a child.
Me, too. My mother was raised Mormon, converted to Catholicism as a teen Why I do not really know; she says it was because of Mormon misogyny but Catholicism is better?! My dad comes from a staunch Southern Baptist family. His sister is married to a pastor and all their children and their spouses hold some kind of church position. They are, however, from the rapidly fading liberal branch of the SB’s. But to shorten the story up, after my folks got married they never went to a regular church again. It just didn’t draw them.
So imagine their shock when, some 40 years later, I’m sitting at a table explaining why I’m spiritually a Sikh but attend a Unitarian-Universalist congregation. They kind of looked like this: 
Another preacher’s kid checking in (Methodist). Spent multiple days a week in church until I got a job when I was 16 and finally got to miss services. Shortly thereafter, the parents separated, and I really haven’t been back in a church since (except for when I visit my dad). Dad’s pretty ok about it now (gave me a bit of crap back in the day), and even plays everything off diplomatically when I don’t take communion at his church.
Anyway - I got through it by reading. I switched from wanting to be a preacher to a Jesus-is-cool-but-the-rest-of-this-is-bunk agnosticism in about 6th grade, mostly because everything I loved about science went against all this biblical stuff. I’ve never really understood the concept of faith, and once I realized that, I left the flock. Carl Sagan helped.
I do really miss the music, but that’s why I listen to A Prairie Home Companion every week. Garrison’s monologues have almost the exact same cadence as my Dad’s sermons (seriously - I think my dad should be paying the dude royalties), and I get to harmonize on the hymns. And sometimes a fellow lapsed Methodist and I whip out the guitars and sing all the old church camp songs. Does the heart good.