It seems like I have been lurking and posting for awhile but haven't done an introduction thing yet.
By fairly typical I mean I have seen so many people just get fed up and leave pentecostal churches. Sometimes I wonder if they have the highest turnover rate of any religion, but I digress.
Most people who are lured in by the churches I am talking about (see "splitting hairs" still calim to beleive in God, they often find a different church that is somewhat less "go go gadget crazy" as one forum member put it. What may make me atypical is that I kept leaving and coming back, and that I haven't left behind that church and all of my friends that go to church. And that, after years of playing the shame game and being their example of who not to be, I have come to think all religion is a farce, constructed by people who suffer from varying degrees of arrogance and hypocrisy.
I hope I am not being too long, but I came to this forum because I have been searching for a place to safely rant about some of the bs I have put up with since the last time I came back to "the church."
My parents left the methodist church shortly after my younger brother died of the flu in the late 1960's. He was an infant and they took it hard. Against my father's wishes, my mother joined a full gospel church. I was just barely out of diapers myself when I was indoctrinated, by way of bedtime stories, into Christianity. My mother began to wear her hair uncut, and got rid of our tv set. My parents still had financial and relationship problems, in spite of trying to be good Christians. I also tried to be a good Christian boy, and as a result, had fewer friends, since we moved around a lot and were poor, it was hard to be accepted anywhere in the liberated seventies, and religious folks never seemed to be much help. by the mid seventies, my parents did not go to church anywhere. I hardly darkened the doors of a church at all until my teenage years. I was still socially awkward, and did not make friends easily. In the first years of High School, I was invited to a pentecostal church. I was told that the United Pentecostal Church was the one true church and that their way was the only way. The world was ending soon and we had better get right with God. I was well on my way to being a high school dropout, and I ate their doctrine up, at first. I got rid of my music collection, stopped wearing shorts, started wearing shirts, cut my hair etc. I still dropped out of High School, but now, it was because I was trying to go to a "christian" school. That strained relations with my dad to their limits, and the church acted like it was ok to be isolated from my family. They were my new family, although I can't really say if I was accepted, I thought I was, and it was the first time I felt accepted in quite some time. I had to get a job, though, so I agreed to join the Navy. Away from the influence of my pentecostal friends, I began to explore all the things Southern California had to offer a young military person. By the time I transfered to Florida, I was quite the opposite of the kid my parents had tried to raise. I drank, hung out in bars, and worked. For the most part, I enjoyed life. When my discharge papers came, I moved back to my little town in Illinois. I came back to the church I had gone to before. Somehow, no matter how hard I tried, I never fit into the pentecostal mold again. I tried getting married and having kids, and enjoyed my life with them. As far as being right, I would only feel a desire to change. God never changed me a bit. No matter how much I prayed, I still did things that were wrong, and still felt guilty. The time that should have been the prime of my life was marked by frustration and shame because I could not be the person I needed to be. Eventually, I would always say something to someone, who I disagreed with. that person would go to my wife, and I would have another round of mandated self flagellation. I finally got tired of this cycle and left. that was when I thought I had found out just what kind of people these so called Christians really were. Then I came back again. After two years of drinking more heavily than I thought myself capable, and living hand to mouth with no friends or family around, I gave in to pressure from my family, and went back. You have no ide how arrogant and condescending, how utterly cold, and ruthlessly self righteous these pentecostals can be until you go back to them after leaving. The last straw of their shaming and bullshit games came shortly after my father died. Now my mom has passed and the veil of my pretending to tolerate these arrogant fucking assholes has pretty much worn out. they don't tolerate me much either, but that is old news. If you want proof there is no God, try to talk to a Holy roller. I only feel bad that my kids have been indoctrinated into this horseshit, and if they ever deconvert, what those motherfuckers will put them through will probably get me locked up for murder. If I had as little self control as they think, we'd all have been in the newspapers long ago.
If you are still reading, I feel for you... sorry it was so long.
By fairly typical I mean I have seen so many people just get fed up and leave pentecostal churches. Sometimes I wonder if they have the highest turnover rate of any religion, but I digress.
Most people who are lured in by the churches I am talking about (see "splitting hairs" still calim to beleive in God, they often find a different church that is somewhat less "go go gadget crazy" as one forum member put it. What may make me atypical is that I kept leaving and coming back, and that I haven't left behind that church and all of my friends that go to church. And that, after years of playing the shame game and being their example of who not to be, I have come to think all religion is a farce, constructed by people who suffer from varying degrees of arrogance and hypocrisy.
I hope I am not being too long, but I came to this forum because I have been searching for a place to safely rant about some of the bs I have put up with since the last time I came back to "the church."
My parents left the methodist church shortly after my younger brother died of the flu in the late 1960's. He was an infant and they took it hard. Against my father's wishes, my mother joined a full gospel church. I was just barely out of diapers myself when I was indoctrinated, by way of bedtime stories, into Christianity. My mother began to wear her hair uncut, and got rid of our tv set. My parents still had financial and relationship problems, in spite of trying to be good Christians. I also tried to be a good Christian boy, and as a result, had fewer friends, since we moved around a lot and were poor, it was hard to be accepted anywhere in the liberated seventies, and religious folks never seemed to be much help. by the mid seventies, my parents did not go to church anywhere. I hardly darkened the doors of a church at all until my teenage years. I was still socially awkward, and did not make friends easily. In the first years of High School, I was invited to a pentecostal church. I was told that the United Pentecostal Church was the one true church and that their way was the only way. The world was ending soon and we had better get right with God. I was well on my way to being a high school dropout, and I ate their doctrine up, at first. I got rid of my music collection, stopped wearing shorts, started wearing shirts, cut my hair etc. I still dropped out of High School, but now, it was because I was trying to go to a "christian" school. That strained relations with my dad to their limits, and the church acted like it was ok to be isolated from my family. They were my new family, although I can't really say if I was accepted, I thought I was, and it was the first time I felt accepted in quite some time. I had to get a job, though, so I agreed to join the Navy. Away from the influence of my pentecostal friends, I began to explore all the things Southern California had to offer a young military person. By the time I transfered to Florida, I was quite the opposite of the kid my parents had tried to raise. I drank, hung out in bars, and worked. For the most part, I enjoyed life. When my discharge papers came, I moved back to my little town in Illinois. I came back to the church I had gone to before. Somehow, no matter how hard I tried, I never fit into the pentecostal mold again. I tried getting married and having kids, and enjoyed my life with them. As far as being right, I would only feel a desire to change. God never changed me a bit. No matter how much I prayed, I still did things that were wrong, and still felt guilty. The time that should have been the prime of my life was marked by frustration and shame because I could not be the person I needed to be. Eventually, I would always say something to someone, who I disagreed with. that person would go to my wife, and I would have another round of mandated self flagellation. I finally got tired of this cycle and left. that was when I thought I had found out just what kind of people these so called Christians really were. Then I came back again. After two years of drinking more heavily than I thought myself capable, and living hand to mouth with no friends or family around, I gave in to pressure from my family, and went back. You have no ide how arrogant and condescending, how utterly cold, and ruthlessly self righteous these pentecostals can be until you go back to them after leaving. The last straw of their shaming and bullshit games came shortly after my father died. Now my mom has passed and the veil of my pretending to tolerate these arrogant fucking assholes has pretty much worn out. they don't tolerate me much either, but that is old news. If you want proof there is no God, try to talk to a Holy roller. I only feel bad that my kids have been indoctrinated into this horseshit, and if they ever deconvert, what those motherfuckers will put them through will probably get me locked up for murder. If I had as little self control as they think, we'd all have been in the newspapers long ago.
If you are still reading, I feel for you... sorry it was so long.
