So it's not late at night and I haven't had a blowjob today (damn it), but I'm still going to pour some ramblings out of my head. Just as fair warning: There is nothing humorous in this post. I'm not kidding. If you are in a particularly good mood, wander away and read it later. It's actually just boring (but important) memories from my childhood. It will (hopefully) lead into another post I am writing about my current beliefs in a higher being(s). You have been warned.
You would not know it today, but I was raised in a fairly conservative and religious household. My mother and my brother regularly attended church. I went to Sunday School from the age of 5 until 6th grade, got confirmed (which was a very big deal for my family. At least as big as when I graduated high school), then continued going to church pretty religiously (pun intended) until I went off to college. I attended Church lock-ins and went to church camp (which I can attest is nothing like band camp) twice as a kid. My middle brother Steve went to college at a private Lutheran college and studied to be a pastor for quite a while (he now works as the youth leader for a larger church in Ohio).
The funny thing about Sunday school is that I still remember some very odd things about the people and events that surrounded that part of my life. I remember memorizing the ten commandments around 2nd or 3rd grade. There is no way I understood what adultery was at the age of 9, but I could recite the 7th commandment then without real thought. I noticed this latter on in life when I went to church also. Most of time, I was repeating things like the Lord's Prayer without even thinking about the words that I was reciting.
My point is that I was taught this stuff pretty early on and that I more or less accepted it until around my freshman year in college. I say more or less because I had a year or so in sophomore year of high school where I was really not so sure anymore. I just started delving into my ideas about free will, and I was having real trouble combining the Christian message that God is omnipotent with the idea that I have real choices. What really set me off on this little rebellion was oddly enough a trip with my church group to work with Habitat for Humanity.
The group we worked with had two type of volunteers. Temporary volunteers like me and my group came up for a week of work. We were lead by longer term volunteers that worked for an entire summer. Anyways, one of these longer term volunteers turned out to be gay (dun dun dun!) Not flaming homosexual; it's not like he told anyone explicitly, but somehow my youth leader guessed at it. I came upon them having a somewhat heated but muted argument. I remember asking her what that was about. I've never forgotten my youth leader telling me that despite his obvious acceptance of God and all the good work he was doing, he was not going to heaven because of his "decision" to be gay.
That has always stuck with me. Even at 15, I knew that something about that statement did not gel with my idea of what it took to get into heaven. But after a few months of thinking about all of these issues, I just sort of fell back into the fold (although even here I was defending evolution and questioning the whole God knows everything tenets).
That's just one of my more pronouced memories. Another one I remember quite vividly was at a local camp doing our annual youth planning retreat with my then soon to be girlfriend Melony. She had just started coming to our church and I had met her through a mutual friend. I was up one night very late with her and my youth leader and we were talking about her conversion. I remember her crying because she had just realized that the fact her conversion saving her and allowing her into heaven meant that her grandmother, who was not a Christian, would not be there when she eventually died. This is the part I will never forget: My youth leader telling her that that was correct without any real compassion. Me, I was really torn up for this girl and I remember being really angry with God for putting her through this sort of thing. It was an issue that I had never considered because both my grandparents and family were religious as far back as I can remember.
Then of course there was the fact that the pastor who confirmed me was thrown out shortly after I left for college. Apparently he had been giving comfort to some of the ladies of the congregation in the biblical sense of that term. If that wasn't bad enough, he was also married at the time...whoops.
There are probably 100 other memories I could delve into, but these are the ones that really stick to me. This post is already way to long. If you even made it this far, you are probably angry about the fact that you drove all this way for absolutely no point. But I promise I have another post coming about what I believe now about all this reglious stuff. This one is mostly back story.
You would not know it today, but I was raised in a fairly conservative and religious household. My mother and my brother regularly attended church. I went to Sunday School from the age of 5 until 6th grade, got confirmed (which was a very big deal for my family. At least as big as when I graduated high school), then continued going to church pretty religiously (pun intended) until I went off to college. I attended Church lock-ins and went to church camp (which I can attest is nothing like band camp) twice as a kid. My middle brother Steve went to college at a private Lutheran college and studied to be a pastor for quite a while (he now works as the youth leader for a larger church in Ohio).
The funny thing about Sunday school is that I still remember some very odd things about the people and events that surrounded that part of my life. I remember memorizing the ten commandments around 2nd or 3rd grade. There is no way I understood what adultery was at the age of 9, but I could recite the 7th commandment then without real thought. I noticed this latter on in life when I went to church also. Most of time, I was repeating things like the Lord's Prayer without even thinking about the words that I was reciting.
My point is that I was taught this stuff pretty early on and that I more or less accepted it until around my freshman year in college. I say more or less because I had a year or so in sophomore year of high school where I was really not so sure anymore. I just started delving into my ideas about free will, and I was having real trouble combining the Christian message that God is omnipotent with the idea that I have real choices. What really set me off on this little rebellion was oddly enough a trip with my church group to work with Habitat for Humanity.
The group we worked with had two type of volunteers. Temporary volunteers like me and my group came up for a week of work. We were lead by longer term volunteers that worked for an entire summer. Anyways, one of these longer term volunteers turned out to be gay (dun dun dun!) Not flaming homosexual; it's not like he told anyone explicitly, but somehow my youth leader guessed at it. I came upon them having a somewhat heated but muted argument. I remember asking her what that was about. I've never forgotten my youth leader telling me that despite his obvious acceptance of God and all the good work he was doing, he was not going to heaven because of his "decision" to be gay.
That has always stuck with me. Even at 15, I knew that something about that statement did not gel with my idea of what it took to get into heaven. But after a few months of thinking about all of these issues, I just sort of fell back into the fold (although even here I was defending evolution and questioning the whole God knows everything tenets).
That's just one of my more pronouced memories. Another one I remember quite vividly was at a local camp doing our annual youth planning retreat with my then soon to be girlfriend Melony. She had just started coming to our church and I had met her through a mutual friend. I was up one night very late with her and my youth leader and we were talking about her conversion. I remember her crying because she had just realized that the fact her conversion saving her and allowing her into heaven meant that her grandmother, who was not a Christian, would not be there when she eventually died. This is the part I will never forget: My youth leader telling her that that was correct without any real compassion. Me, I was really torn up for this girl and I remember being really angry with God for putting her through this sort of thing. It was an issue that I had never considered because both my grandparents and family were religious as far back as I can remember.
Then of course there was the fact that the pastor who confirmed me was thrown out shortly after I left for college. Apparently he had been giving comfort to some of the ladies of the congregation in the biblical sense of that term. If that wasn't bad enough, he was also married at the time...whoops.
There are probably 100 other memories I could delve into, but these are the ones that really stick to me. This post is already way to long. If you even made it this far, you are probably angry about the fact that you drove all this way for absolutely no point. But I promise I have another post coming about what I believe now about all this reglious stuff. This one is mostly back story.
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3 comments:
He is not lying when he says his family is religious. They are crazy religious! His brother is especially religious. I once had an argument with him about premature babies. He thinks that any preemie, or child for that matter, that is not christened is going to Hell! I have a problem with that one. How can God, a great and loving being, punish an infant or child that doesn't even understand the concept of religion because the parents were unsure. Oh and he was preaching this to his cousin that just had a baby 4 months premature to force her to have a christening even though she was so distraught and still had hope that the baby would live. Of course while this cute, innocent baby is on her deathbed, he goes and knocks up his girlfriend at Christian college. He is studying to be a pastor and she is the daughter of a pastor! Screw them! No, I do not accept that. It is what began to throw me into disbelief. People like him that are so religious and yet the biggest hippocrates piss me off to know end! Sorry I rambled...
What a great comment Kien. Quantity AND quality!
Yeah, I hate the door to door guys. Just last week, the Mormons came by and I hid and pretended like I wasn't here and let Bob bark like mad. I think he scared them off... Damn Mormons. If I had more time I would have dressed up and answered the door and said, "Hi, we're making a porn right now. Wanna join. No I have not found God. Why is he lost again?"
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