**What are the big problems/issues you see in the Christian church today?
Churches are full of people who believe in an imaginary friend, who is all-powerful and loves THEM best because they telepathically tell him how great he is. If they don't, he'll make sure their afterlife is never-ending torture. So to avoid this imaginary torture, they do what the preachers and priests tell them. It's all based on fear and control, and being in an exclusive group of people that are "right" and will be going to "heaven". They hate and abuse anyone who disagrees with them. There is absolutely no measurable evidence for the existence of any deity.
**Is your perspective of the former question from the inside (ie, your background was in church) or that of an outsider looking in? What took you away from church, if your background was church?
I was raised Protestant fundamentalist. As a child, I had to recite memorized Bible verses every night before dinner. Hell was so real to my parents that my Mother once burned my leg with the tip of her clothes iron, to give me a permanent reminder of what would happen if I ever doubted Jesus or any part of the Bible or refused to go to church. The Rapture was going to happen any day. Then I grew up and started taking Science classes . . . reading Scientific American . . . (the horrors! My parents didn't want me to go to college, people who went to college ended up thinking that they were smarter than God!) . . . and listening to the absolute idiocy coming out of the pulpit. It was a gradual thing.
**What do you think about the person Jesus Christ? Is he real, historical person? Faked?
There probably was a real Jewish preacher behind the myth.
**What is the point or purpose in your life? What do you live for?
I want to help make the world a better place in some way before I kick the bucket.
Churches are full of people who believe in an imaginary friend, who is all-powerful and loves THEM best because they telepathically tell him how great he is. If they don't, he'll make sure their afterlife is never-ending torture. So to avoid this imaginary torture, they do what the preachers and priests tell them. It's all based on fear and control, and being in an exclusive group of people that are "right" and will be going to "heaven". They hate and abuse anyone who disagrees with them. There is absolutely no measurable evidence for the existence of any deity.
**Is your perspective of the former question from the inside (ie, your background was in church) or that of an outsider looking in? What took you away from church, if your background was church?
I was raised Protestant fundamentalist. As a child, I had to recite memorized Bible verses every night before dinner. Hell was so real to my parents that my Mother once burned my leg with the tip of her clothes iron, to give me a permanent reminder of what would happen if I ever doubted Jesus or any part of the Bible or refused to go to church. The Rapture was going to happen any day. Then I grew up and started taking Science classes . . . reading Scientific American . . . (the horrors! My parents didn't want me to go to college, people who went to college ended up thinking that they were smarter than God!) . . . and listening to the absolute idiocy coming out of the pulpit. It was a gradual thing.
**What do you think about the person Jesus Christ? Is he real, historical person? Faked?
There probably was a real Jewish preacher behind the myth.
**What is the point or purpose in your life? What do you live for?
I want to help make the world a better place in some way before I kick the bucket.
"The family that prays together...is brainwashing their children."- Albert Einstein
