Being Atheist at church

Once again, I'm not atheist, but I know this feeling. I attended a funeral last year, and the preacher turned the mourning and weeping (I dunno WHY Christians do that, they're supposed to be looking forward to Heaven!) into an attempt to save the souls of all of the deceased's teenage friends. "Pray with me, so you can see Steven again someday!"

What, is he being held hostage or something?

 

I feel the same way when in a church. All the chanting and praying makes me feel like I'm at Jonestown or something. The thing that has always weirded me out the most, even as a kid, is when people raise their hands in the air and close their eyes and chant or pray.

That and whoever is speaking at the front of the room is giving their own spin on the religious text. How can someone elses interpretation possibly be right for everybody?

 

Because god told them what to say.

...duh

 

As long as you're listening. What to hide is a matter for the moral people to know.

 

I'm agnostic and I just think religion is interesting so I've visited a couple of different places of worship. My favorite is Buddhist temples. I feel both welcomed and like an outsider in a christian church, but it seems like some people can just tell who the 'non-believers' are, lol. They stare at me and want to talk to me. These people creep me out and annoy me. "Is this your first time?"..."Are you coming back???" Argghh!!

 

I was raised in a southern baptist church. Some of my family is still pretty religious so on very rare occasions I have to go to church for various reasons. Its usually something ridiculous like my uncle is playing Jesus in the church play and my mom wants me to go with her so she doesn't get stuck talking to the annoying church ladies haha.

Yeah, its a strange feeling. I always end up tuning the preacher out and rolling my eyes at anything he says that I do happen to catch.

Southern baptists are very traditional. They've softened up over the years so there's not really fire and brimstone-type preaching anymore, and thankfully there isn't any of the weird, culty shit either. I used to get hysterical giggles when I would go to a church where people closed their eyes and raised their arms in the air while swaying and singing. What is that shit? Weirdos...

I did have a strange moment in church right after Osama was killed. I've been going to Zumba classes held in the gym at a local church (zumba is a dance/aerobic workout, not some weird religious thing lol) and the zumba instructor is a member of the church so she always tries to fit in a passage from the bible and a prayer before the class begins. In the class held right after Osama was killed, she rambled on for like 10 minutes about how there is a time for war and a time for peace (actually, a pretty cool verse from the Bible. The Bible does have its merits), and then went on to say that we needed to send up a prayer to glorify God for leading us to Osama and allowing justice to be done.

I don't really care what your personal opinion is about Osama and how we handled his death, but what the fuck....praising God for the murder of a man, any man, just struck me as really strange. I got the impression that Christians like her probably think we really are engaged in some Holy War in which we'll prevail because God is somehow greater than Allah...

I agree. I absolutely love old religious architecture, whether its a Catholic cathedral, a Buddhist temple, or an ancient mosque.

 

Meanwhile, those Christians probably don't even know their god's name.

 

Once a favorite teacher of mine asked me to attend a meeting at the schools christian youth club. So I went and the people were all very nice so I was like oh this isn't so bad.....I was wrong they had this like guest speaker from some like local church thing. Any way he went on and on about how great it was that this girl during the columbine shooting when asked if she believed in jeasus she said yes knowing she would get shot. He then went on and on about how we should all be so devout and how he would be so proud of his children for doing this and how he encourages them to do so. This made me very uncomfortable and I walked out I couldn't take that shit. Its fuckin ridiculous

 

I've grown increasingly crass over the years when it comes to religion

If this shit doesn't turn around I'm gonna be one riteous granny

 

i work with an atheist and he always makes fun of our hard core christian manager for going to church

 

I tried UU once, much more tolerable yet at once... still church

 

They enjoy the silence in your head. It, I believe, was wondered that the system needed to immerse you yet. Progress was not in the ritual, but in the routine of it's observance effecting you.

It's just realizing the guilt in yourself, as a Catholic for me. And I am never guilty for chastising someone else.:devil: