One Thing I Miss About Church is....

[ignoramus]

I became an atheist so I could have sex with echidnas and not feel guilty!

[Bob Kelso]

^

O___o

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I miss one particular church goer's pumpkin pie. It was so amazing... but the church can get bent for all I care.

[KevinM1]

I did not become an atheist because I hated church.

Yeah, but who does?

I won't lie - being bored and/or scared/intimidated of church played a part in my atheism.

New England Catholic church services are fucking frightening if you're a kid with a modicum of intelligence.  You're in these dark, somber buildings where some person you don't know is droning on and on about stuff that doesn't make any sense.  All the adults around you are paying rapt attention to him.  At seemingly random times, the adults sit/stand/kneel in unison, and in a collection of robotic voices recite some weird shit.

It didn't help that we didn't know anyone else at the church.  New England, especially New Hampshire, towns are weird.  Large geographical footprints with not a lot of people.  So, it's not like in other places with a bonafide Main Street, with pre-planned neighborhoods in a grid.  People are spread out.  Unless you're in a 'city', no one walks anywhere.  There's no sidewalks and no public transportation.  You may know your immediate neighbors, if they're not the typical "let's stay out of each other's way and off each other's property" types, but even then there's no guarantee they go to the same church.

I'm also pretty introverted.  I dislike crowds, especially when they're mostly people I don't know.  I dislike group activity anything, likely because of the chaperone aspect of living with a permanent physical disability.  I have very little alone time, so I fiercely defend it.  Something like "let's go to a dank, dark building to be with a bunch of people you don't know in order to listen to weird shit, and act like fucking robots sitting/standing/kneeling while mechanically reciting even weirder shit" is the exact opposite of the kind of thing I'd want to do with 2-4 hours of my free time, even as a kid.

I could also see through the bullshit pretty early.  I remember asking my parents and brothers "If god is everywhere, and he knows what we're thinking and feeling at all times, why do we need to go to church?  What difference does going to a certain building at a certain time for a certain amount of time actually make?"  And, of course, no one could provide an adequate answer.  Just a lot of hemming and hawing.

So, while my childhood dislike of church isn't why I'm an atheist in and of itself, it definitely was the first step in figuring out that I've always been an atheist, even as a kid.  I have never understood faith.  I don't grasp how it can be good.  I've always, always been a "think for yourself; question authority" kind of person, even as a kid, so seeing people willingly and happily surrendering their will to an old white guy in a dress so he can make them do modified jumping-jacks for no real reason really made me question what was actually going on.

[robvalue]

I literally don't know what I'm missing

[KevinM1]

I literally don't know what I'm missing

In all honesty, not much.

[Athene]

I literally don't know what I'm missing

No need to rub it in! 

[robvalue]

I'm sorry! I couldn't pass up on that pun-esque joke-ette.

[MentalGiant]

I always liked all the stained glass. In few places besides a church do you find so much stained glass, but it's nothing to entice me back into one, especially given the primarily religious content of it...

[Chad32]

My church experience was fairly liberal. Everyone was nice, and the preachers didn't go on about hellfire and brimstone. They weren't trying to scare us with hell. they talked about love, forgiveness, and good things.

I remember having some pretty decent discussions about the stories in Sunday school, which was a bit more personal than proper church services. Not that I really questioned whether the stories were true or not, but e talked about details like why Pontius Pilate allowed the pharisees to rile up the crowd at Jesus' trial.

Of course there's also the free food. Sit through a service, and you get food. Usually it's an hour, but I remember once the service had been over an hour and a half, and the guy just kept going. I walked out, and went home for lunch. I was about ten, and I wasn't going to wait 6+ hours between meals if I didn't have to.

The fact that I was never reprimanded for doing that shows how easy going my religious community was.

[robvalue]

I do like going into churches, though. I find them fascinating and often beautiful buildings.

I have to get out within 5 minutes or my skin starts burning.