Have you been hurt or rejected by a church or other ministry

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MCalavera
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03 Jan 2012, 11:58 pm

Cash__ wrote:

To see a change in someone's life, you by definition would have to know that person both pre- and post-conversion. Only then you can say there was or wasn't a change., So by saying you haven't seen any radical or behavior changes in any Christians, you are saying that you personally know every Christian both pre and post conversion. Which is a proposterous statement.

I'm not interested in seeing any Christian's pre-conversion state.

I just want to see something exclusively radical in them in their present states.

Not preposterous to me.

Vexcalibur
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04 Jan 2012, 9:01 pm

I found it quite annoying that in order to stay a Catholic (confirmation sacrament) when I was 15 I was forced to go to three retreats (camps) and they were awful. I hate prolonged contact with people, I really do thus it was a horrible experience I had to go through because I wanted to confirm. For example, they remove your watch (is that not a patented mind control method?) and I was forced to conform to social interaction.

In retrospect, I think all that crap snowballed into resentment and helped me lose attachment to the church and let me change my mind later to the point I am much much now closer to an atheist than a Catholic. So, maybe I should thank them?

I wouldn't say I was "hurt", but god was it annoying.

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1000Knives
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05 Jan 2012, 10:55 am

Vexcalibur wrote:

Man, I'm glad I chose Orthodoxy. To me that sounds like a pretty modern innovation. I think one thing the Catholic church tried to do in general is try to get a much more "community togetherness" kinda feel to everything. http://www.sacatholic.com/2011/12/05/ca ... -a-priest/ Jimmy Fallon even talked about it here.

Quote:

Mr. FALLON: I don’t go to – I tried to go back. When I was out in L.A. and I was kind of struggling for a bit. I went to church for a while, but it’s kind of, it’s gotten gigantic now for me. It’s like too… There’s a band. There’s a band there now, and you got to, you have to hold hands with people through the whole Mass now, and I don’t like doing that. You know, I mean, it used to be the shaking hands piece was the only time you touched each other.

(Speaking) I’m doing too much. I don’t want – there’s Frisbees being thrown, there’s beach balls going around, people waving lighters, and I go, ‘This is too much for me.’ I want the old way. I want to hang out with the, you know, with the nuns, you know, that was my favorite type of Mass, and the grotto, and just like straight up, just Mass Mass.

androbot2084
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05 Jan 2012, 12:13 pm

My church hated me because I did not believe in nuking Russia.

AceOfSpades
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05 Jan 2012, 12:24 pm

Fnord wrote:

AceOfSpades wrote:

If you're asking all those at once, that's just nagging.

I never get the chance to ask all of them at once. Whoever I'm talking to seems to get all huffy after only the first three or four.

I imagined you were completely butchering their sacred cows all at once which I don't think is the most mature way to go about it but something's definitely up if you can't even poke at them.

Fnord
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05 Jan 2012, 12:35 pm

AceOfSpades wrote:

Fnord wrote:

AceOfSpades wrote:

If you're asking all those at once, that's just nagging.

I never get the chance to ask all of them at once. Whoever I'm talking to seems to get all huffy after only the first three or four.

I imagined you were completely butchering their sacred cows all at once which I don't think is the most mature way to go about it but something's definitely up if you can't even poke at them.

What you imagine is irrelevant to your conclusion.

What is real is that religious teachers seem to have the attitude that Thou Shalt Not Question, what with religion being one of the few professions wherein the leaders can say almost anything they want, and the followers are supposed to accept and believe it unconditionally.

"And he said: 'I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven'." -- Matthew 18:3

Children are largely ignorant, gullible, trusting, and will believe almost anything you tell them - this is how church leaders want their adult followers to be, and they hold the promise of Heaven out as a carrot on a stick for those who leave their ability to think outside the narthex.

Of course, pointing that out also gets me in trouble ...

I hate religion.

AceOfSpades
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05 Jan 2012, 12:39 pm

Fnord wrote:

AceOfSpades wrote:

Fnord wrote:

AceOfSpades wrote:

If you're asking all those at once, that's just nagging.

I never get the chance to ask all of them at once. Whoever I'm talking to seems to get all huffy after only the first three or four.

I imagined you were completely butchering their sacred cows all at once which I don't think is the most mature way to go about it but something's definitely up if you can't even poke at them.

What you imagine is irrelevant to your conclusion.

Thanks, I would've never figured. Notice I didn't make any conclusions so I made it clear it's nothing more and nothing less than what I imagined.

Fnord wrote:

What is real is that religious teachers seem to have the attitude that Thou Shalt Not Question, what with religion being one of the few professions wherein the leaders can say almost anything they want, and the followers are supposed to accept and believe it unconditionally.

"And he said: 'I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven'." -- Matthew 18:3

Children are largely ignorant, gullible, trusting, and will believe almost anything you tell them - this is how church leaders want their adult followers to be, and they hold the promise of Heaven out as a carrot on a stick for those who leave their ability to think outside the narthex.

Of course, pointing that out also gets me in trouble ...

I hate religion.

Same here. I don't bother pointing it out anymore though, it's useless. It's hard enough for people to change their diets, so how am I gonna change anyone's worldviews?

androbot2084
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05 Jan 2012, 9:57 pm

Autistics drive preachers crazy.

Tadzio
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05 Jan 2012, 10:18 pm

androbot2084 wrote:

Autistics drive preachers crazy.

My first Catholic Church Father said it was the hair on my chest that drove him crazy.

Tadzio

Fnord
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05 Jan 2012, 10:33 pm

AceOfSpades wrote:

Fnord wrote:

I hate religion.

Same here. I don't bother pointing it out anymore though, it's useless. It's hard enough for people to change their diets, so how am I gonna change anyone's worldviews?

If I can inspire a religious fundamentalist to question his or her brainwashing, then I'll have inspired change from within.

Maybe one day, we can do away with religion entirely ... due to lack of interest, perhaps ...

raisedbyignorance
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06 Jan 2012, 8:36 pm

I was never really ostracized by the church for anything beyond having a boyfriend in the church at the time (long story I won't go into here). But the pressure was really high, especially in organizations like Student Venture and FCA that treated converting people to Christianity like a competition. Now imagine what a nightmare that would be for someone like me who has Asperger's and social anxiety to believe that if I didn't convert as many people as possible, I would be doomed to fail as a Christian. Never converted anyone so I really lost it to near suicidal tendencies and had to walk away from the religion. Of course it didn't help that this was also years before I even knew I had Asperger's or social anxiety. However after I was diagnosed, I felt a little bit better knowing that it was never meant to work out for me being in those religious organizations anyway.

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