What is your experience with Christianity?

So what is your experience with Christianity? How have you interacted with Christians in your everyday life? What kind of impact did it make on you?

So I first heard about Christianity from school because for some reason my parents felt some sort of reservation about getting involved in my religious life, but were more interested in getting me involved in a catholic school. catholic school was alright at first and I remember learning about the bible at a very young age although I didn't really appreciate it at the time. we had church meetings at school, but after a few years I was labeled as a troublemaker and I spent almost all of my time in detention. So after a few years and after I had transferred to public school I completely lost my faith. There was something about catholic school that just didn't sit well with me at all. In fact I would go as far as to say the entire catholic faith is fallen.

Then after some time I became involved in a Christian community, until I realized that it too was deceived and left. I tried going to a few regular churches a few times after that but I found the things the pastors said strange and uninspired. I know the gospel, and I often thought that the things that the pastors said were somewhat strange or pushing the limits of what the gospel really means. Sometimes the things the pastors were preaching were just outright wrong. At least, I have not found any pastor that can preach better than the Christian community which I became a part of, which sadly is deceived.

So you know I'm not particularly supportive of any churches but I do believe there are good Christians out there doing the best they can with what is given to them. Despite everything, I still believe in the goodness of the gospel.

 

I'm another ex-Catholic. My earliest memories, beginning at age 5, are of the nuns with rulers. I vividly remember Sister Lawrencia's lecture on original sin, where she had a person outlined in chalk on the blackboard, all chalked in to represent the sin, and then she showed how God would erase it through grace. Heavy stuff to lay on a five year-old, but it sunk in. Whenever I'm tempted to do something wrong, my inner nun gives me a whack upside the head with her ruler. They actually told my mother I'd be better off in a public school, cuz I was disruptive. Kinda like being kicked out of East Germany during the Cold War, when they were shooting everybody else who tried to escape.

At the public school I attended , most of the kids were Calvinists who assured me I'd go to hell if I were Catholic. The Catholics, of course, were telling me I'd go to hell if I wasn't--the classic case of "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation! When I went to college, what they said about those atheist professors was true, and I lost my faith, which was mostly superficial and fear-based anyhow. Then, in my early twenties, I had a moment of clarity, religious experience, psychotic break, whatever, which turned my life around. It was quite a trip. (No, I don't use drugs), in which a passage from Genesis triggered a chain reaction of cascading thoughts including the Hindu Atman, Buddhist Upādāna, Muslim shirk,and finally Jesus' teachings on love of God and neighbor. I found the latter to be the most compelling, so I consider myself a Christian, but I draw on the others to inform my Christianity. I now take fellowship with a couple of Sunday school groups: one Methodist, the other Disciples of Christ, both of which I attended today and am high from the experience. How was I fortunate enough to find such progressive, open-minded folks in Christian churches? For balance, I also meet with a group of freethinkers, atheists and agnostics, who are about to embark on study of the entire bible.

Where did all this come from? It seemed like it was from On High, but it's likely that it was stuff that I stored in my unconscious from my college days and dredged up for the occasion--which happened to be a decision I was wrestling with involving whether or not to support a co-worker who was threatened with being fired. I guess this is what the shrinks would call "insight". Anyhow, I decided to go with it, since it provided a meaning and purpose to life that was previously lacking. So far, it's working out.

 

Organized religion is always about money, and the louder they protest it isn't, the more money they make, with televangelism appealing to more Christians today than you can shake a stick at, and infamous for their hypocrisy. My mother was disgusted and turned off to religion by her Bible thumping mother, who was a hillbilly and baby sat for Loretta Lin. Anyway, my mother allowed us to attend any church we wanted, so long as it was christian, and I've always felt comfortable visiting any church or temple, and like to sometimes visit Hindi temples, just to stay grounded, and visit the Holy Rollers for the food and swinging company!

Today, the US has become the most nepotistic country in the world, and the poor have largely abandoned services as entitlements have increased, and prefer to watch televangelism. The middle class is attending services in record numbers, and busy doing a little business on the side, while I'm working on developing cheap bots they will all love to argue with, that will encourage them to believe whatever the hell they prefer, and shoot themselves in the foot more often. Its nothing personal or anything against Christians, but I'd like my constitution back, and just a little bit of honesty and dignity. Christians killing and locking up peaceful hippies and black people, while storming the palace with knives and pitch forks, demanding lower taxes for millionaires, and judges treating them with kid gloves, is just no way to live.

 

In a capitalist society, most things are about money. You could say the same about medicine, academia, rock n' roll, etc. But some things are more about money than others. Some have other priorities. I had a discussion with friends earlier today about what, if any, charities are not mainly about money and worth giving to. We identified some local ones, and Habitat for Humanity, which seemed to us to be on the up 7 up. Somebody brought up St. Jude Childrens's Hospital. They sure advertise a lot, but we just didn't know. Anyhow, it's easy to be cynical, but I don't think the Methodist church I attend is mainly about money. The pastor seems like a good guy. The assistant pastor is more narrow minded, but not mercenary. And it's worth the money I put in the collection basket for the support I get from my Sunday School class, who are great people. There are lots of Latter Day Pharisees posing as Christians, but I've found some I can trust.

 

Some 90% of Americans believe they are smarter than rest, and capable of detecting things like fake news better than average. They also tend to ignore anything they believe contradicts common sense, despite nobody ever proving it exists. They're idiots, who believe whatever the fuck they want, because they have no clue who to trust, and their entire culture promotes lying and arguing over even the dictionary. Yeah, they really are people, who actually have real hearts and lives, just no fucking brains, and their souls can be pathetic to say the least.

 

"Once a Catholic, always a Catholic", as the saying goes. Next to Jewish mothers, Catholic clerics are experts in fostering guilt. Unlike ,most Protestants, who stress justification by faith alone instead of works, Catholics stress both. And have you keeping track of your sins so you can tell them in confession. And are pretty unreasonable about condemning masturbation and "impure thoughts" (who ever go through adolescence without plenty of both?) But I'm grateful that the Church exposed me to the reason-based theology of St. Thomas Aquinas, and my inner nun with her ruler is always on the job.

 

I was raised in a Jehovah's Witness family, and escaped at age 19, running away from home (legal age was 21 then) to get away. For years, I didn't go to any church. When I was 30, my daughter asked me if she could attend church, right at the end of our street. I said OK and she started going. At Christmas, she was in a program, so I went. I ended up attending the First Congregational Church in Turner's Falls, Massachusetts.
At Easter, a church from Brattleboro, Vermont (Agape Christian Fellowship) came down and put on a passion play. I was so impressed with this, and their pastor, that I moved there and attended regularly. I had found my church home and still attend, only online now, as I live in Connecticut.

 

Raised by gramma. As a little tyke, she taught me the lords prayer and I recited it every night after getting into bed with gramma listening. About 1st grade I stopped doing that. There was a non denominational church about 200 feet north of our house and so then gramma sent me to Sunday school , which I guess was about an hour long and just before regular church. I didn't mind it because there were some pretty girls there. No one in my family went to church, so I did not get in the habit of going. I didn't see the point. As I went through high school age, I never thought about religion at all, however I had some friends that went faithfully to one church or another. I began to feel as though religion was a haven for hypocrisy when the stoutest of believers were known and seen as definite "sinners " around town, although I didn't spend much time thinking about religious subjects. I read the bible clear through with a friend of mine and it seemed rather archaic to me --slaves and killing and demands. Anyway, nowadays religion to me is another mind and economic control system among other human control systems. Talk about god this and god that doesn't amount to a hill a' beans when you look at how humanity manifests and has manifested throughout human history. Now, anything created--means something was the creator of that creation. It's pretty obvious that we, as biological creatures on the face of this little blue ball hurtling through space, are not meant to know the answer / s to that question. So, to sum up--I don't think about religion much at all , except thinking that people are rather foolish to give hard earned money to other people to talk about the same unknowable subjects week after week ,month after month and year after year.

 

an awful lot of people using their belief as an excuse to refuse to accept responsibility for their own morality.
an awful lot of teaching of a perspective that if anything makes it more difficult for them to do so.

a lot of telling people its more important what they call themselves then how they actually act and treat each other.
a lot of encouraging the ego to deny that anything can possibly exist without its knowing about it.

a lot of denying the evil of wishing to be feared and of vengence.
a lot of narrowing and denying the diversity of reality and the reality of diversity.

which anyone can see with their own eyes walking as little as a half a mile anywhere in nature.
(when they're not being brainwashed into seeing only what someone else tells them to)

that a higherarchy of awareness, is somehow a default condition of a mostly mineral universe that it even denies the existence of in favor of.
denial of the unknown being unknown, which is getting back to the ego thing that is at the root driving it.

denial that consideration is morality, and evil is the lack of it, and the only thing wrong with this world or any world.
while at the same time pretending to simplify by doing so.

its kind of a narrow little box that says the only way a god can exist is how it describes one.
its baseless claim that one and only one can even legitimately exist, as if somehow, a god were indebted to belief, and could only exist be conforming to its expectations.

a lot of telling people to hate logic and not ask themselves the next question.
a lot of denying that anything it doesn't say is or can be good.

basically i thank god other religions exist.

 

I am a Christian. Haven't been to church for years but it makes sense to me in a way even most Christians don't seem to understand. Generally people today go about their lives doing what makes sense to them and makes them feel good including Christians. But if God is real life is not about you getting what you want, doing what you want or even relying on your own understanding. Good is what God says it is, truth is what God says it is, love is what God says it is.

An argument against religion that annoys me is that there are so many religions that they must all be false. No, one of them is true and all the others false and that's the God who created all things, who is just and loving and sent His son to die on the cross so we can all be redeemed and be with Him forever in heaven.

 

My experience...

Christian "talkers" aren't worth the time.

Christian "doers" are some of the best people I've ever met.

What I mean is, people who practice Christianity with words (especially moralising at others under the guise of enlightened discussion) are worthless to me. But the other kind--those who are actually making the world a better place with their actions not words--are the most dedicated and reliable people I've ever met. My experience has been mostly with animal rescue. The best volunteers whom you can always count on to transport an injured dog in the middle of the night...? 7 times out of 10 they're Christians. I suppose their faith gives them the guts to do the dirty work that most others wouldn't bother over. And weirdly enough it's only Christians, no other religions. Christians & atheists make up all the animal rescuers in the world (and they get along famously lol).

But the talkers, yeahhh... nah. They can wind themselves up all they want. That kind of Christianity seems to be more of a security blanket.

 

My point is that you have to accept that it's possible that one is true rather than automatically concluding that they are all false.

 

But also yes it's the only true religion. That's why I believe it. If I thought they were all the same why would I choose one over all the others?

 

Couldn't have said it better. Everyone holds fast to what they believe to be the truth until they are convinced otherwise, if they ever are. So far, no one has ever shaken the faith I found in the 80s, and I doubt anyone ever could. I believe it's the true religion. If I didn't, I would have abandoned it.
It FEELS true to me, deep in my heart.