I’ve gone from Sunday attending to more lax and agnostic. Does that count? If so, is because of how inconsistent the actual practical actions of churches I’ve been to. Started protestant, but enough were hypocrites (remind me of the pharisees) so I stopped going. Became catholic and loved it, but the way the church has continually terribly handled the sex abuse pedo cases has disgusted me. Priests should be held to a higher standard, not lower.
Additionally, I don’t wanna be associated with the people who are Christian on TV. All the right wing Republicans in the US govt are terrible people. Whatever they say they are, I don’t wanna be a part of that. It’s hard to reconcile “love your neighbor” and then legislate their live away or give crazy people unfettered access to guns.
On a more practical level, I like a lot of the charity work and compassion taught by Jesus. I’m OK with the spiritual aspects. I cannot get behind the church’s message (mostly protestant) about personal relationship with God. If God intervenes, then that means it’s his responsibility when he doesn’t intervene and a lot of terrible things are his fault. If he doesn’t intervene, then a lot of what the church says is wrong. It doesn’t add up.
Your response caught my attention because I had a similar path, though only in Catholic Church, practicing religion in my 20’s, but moving away after mid 30’s.
At a practical level Jesus was right, showing compassion, living modestly…. but the interpretations of the churches - not only catholic - all the pomp and circumstance around mass, preaching, shrouding secrecy, asking the poor for money, etc. made me question churches in general.
After studying some philosophy, and learning meditation practices, I believe churches play an important role in society, including that prayer enables the masses to experience meditative states that have important health benefits. Religious teachings give something in which people can believe in, instead of facing uncertainties of life alone.
Also in many cases throughout history, churches anchored small communities together.
I believe people should experience church to decide on their own, but not being guilted to staying. Each person should be able to discern, choose their path, but there are always the crazy ones out there guilting and trying to impose their beliefs on to others. That is not right.
One big problem with your last paragraph: Baptism and many other rite to join religions happen at a very young age. These children know no world without the belief almost everyone around them practices. It’s getting their norm how live is. Leaving gets hard, it means leaving your life behind.
It was a slow process, but honestly the liturgy was boring and like out of touch. The narratives felt like they can’t really hold up to a contemporary audience.
That, on top of being very uninterested in being made feel guilty for random things. Sorry but I’m gonna continue masturbating and you insisting on guilt is not gonna make it stop, so what are we doing?
Finally, all the general nonsense and cognitive dissonance sealed the deal.
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Fundies. Seeing how ridiculus and backward their beliefs were made me wonder about my own beliefs and one by one they failed to withstand the scrutiny I put them through.
I have never been religious (it was never a subject that came up in my family). What I found strange was when I started studying and moved to a larger city, alot of former christians I got to know told med how they stopped believing.
These were “extreme christians” if you compare them to other christians where I live (Norway, we’re not a religious society at all). When they went out into the world, they found out that they’d been lied to. They’d been told everyone else wanted what they had, and they’d be converting heathens left to right.
One girl I got to know, told me she noticed people physically rejected her and felt sorry for her when she told them about her religion and that they also could partake. The people also asked her very troubling questions she could’t answer, and they seemed to know the religious texts better than her. After that she started to question what she’d been told since childhood
Personally, I plan on being taken over by the cordyceps fungus, which will instruct me to go to a warm, wet place in order to grow its spores, then burst through me and kill me as the fungus eats my body.
The first time i saw a documentary about this as a kid, with plenty of footage of poor Insects seeking high places, climbing to the top and burst those spores in the air in order to disperse them as far as possible, i was unable to sleep.
I just couldn’t wrap my head around the whole ordeal and the kind of power such a fungus has.
I know, they are unable to do this to bigger animals ( for reasons i don’t remember ), but for how long? If evolution taught me something, it’s that it finds a fucking way or/and a way to fuck.
A mix of a generational gap and me coming out. I still like the parts about treating people and animals with respect, but the whole “restoring mana through a church building” parts and going to hell for loving someone just seems strange.
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