Church Hurt - Has it happened to you?

B_Think_Kink

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I hope you didn't take me the wrong way...You said if anyone could prove it you'd believe it...that's why I offered the book (don't worry, it's not the bible and I won't thump you over the head with it), if you want to read it, fine, if not, that's fine too...I'm not going to try and place anything on you. I hate organized religion too and the hypocrisy that goes along with it.
No sweety, I didn't take it the wrong way. Just maybe giving light to the "TK is never going back to religion" kinda deal :p
 

jason_els

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UU services are a blast. Some of the ones I've been to are fun. People get up and argue with the minister! It's a free-for-all. Others are much like regular protestant church services (you generally find these in New England) where you wouldn't know it was a Unitarian church save for the lack of trinity being mentioned and the various religious symbols from other faiths. Unitarians generally subscribe to the idea that there is no trinity, just God or gods, and that Jesus was simply a great man, fully human. The Univeralists kicked it up a notch when the two merged and Unitarianism went from being a staid, if very liberal, New England Christian church to a full-on party. Much really depends on the kind of minister the church has. Some are just brilliant, others don't really lead and you feel there's no cohesiveness. It's challenging to integrate so many faiths under one roof. My sister is a Wiccan and she's part of the Unitarian church where she lives. In her congregation there are plenty of pagans but also traditional New England Unitarians, some Muslims, a few Hindus, and a whole bunch of Buddhists. She loves it.
 

Gillette

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Not a big hurt but still significant to those of the church I attended as a youth. Our minister ran out on his wife and three kids to be with the wife of a congregation member. Nice.

I guess this might count as a near miss (had her aim been better). After a few years of watching the church ladies gossiping about each other during the tea social after church services, listening to the replacement minister drone on about money every Sunday and being called a "Jap" by one of the other kids (you'd think the bigots could at least teach their kids the correct slurs for mulatto) I decided I wasn't interested in attending any longer. My mother hounded me all morning but I refused to so much as get out of bed.
After a prolonged but fruitless round of "You're going" and "I'm not" my mother took my riding crop and whipped it down on the bed inches from my toes. I pointed out how very Christian she was behaving, she turned several shades of red and the subject has never been revisited.
 

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Thanks, whatireallywant and jason_els for your insight into the Unitarian Universalist church. I haven't attended organized church services in over 20 years, but have always considered myself a spiritual person....I just didn't have an appropriate outlet for it. That's why I'm strongly considering a UU church. It will be strange going back into a church setting after so many years out of it, but I'm hoping they will be accepting and welcoming and will let me just "test the waters" to see if it's right for me. I'll keep you posted.
 

Love-it

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I coined a phrase as a result of a run in with one of them. "Never turn your back on someone who tells you they are a Christian! They will stab you in the back everytime."

In business: "To really get screwed, get screwed by a christian, they are forgiven for everything they do, therefore they can do anything."
 

jason_els

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I think you'll like it. Here's a good intro video.

How many Unitarians does it take to change a light bulb?

First, let's decide just what we mean by lightbulb, and how one might be changed . . . And let us examine whether it truly acknowledges the dignity and worth of the light bulb to ask it to change.


Thanks, whatireallywant and jason_els for your insight into the Unitarian Universalist church. I haven't attended organized church services in over 20 years, but have always considered myself a spiritual person....I just didn't have an appropriate outlet for it. That's why I'm strongly considering a UU church. It will be strange going back into a church setting after so many years out of it, but I'm hoping they will be accepting and welcoming and will let me just "test the waters" to see if it's right for me. I'll keep you posted.
 

Dave NoCal

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Much of my family is highly religious, almost unfailingly in a manner consistent with the teachings of Jesus, kindness, compassion, and acceptance of others' life experiences. I was expected to attend church but never cared for it. By the time I was six or seven, I decided that I didn't believe in God. still, I had to go and behave well, which I did. Up to that point my feelings toward religion were primarily of skeptical disinterest.

As it became clear to me that I am gay and with the rise of the religious right as a political movement, my feelings have shifted to anger. Stories such as that of the church in Atlanta or the current story about Oral Roberts University feed that anger and disdain toward organized religion. Still, my family and some of their friends have shown me that there are many people who practice religion and true christianity (love, acceptance, kindess, comapssion, charity, altruism) simultaneously.

However, to me it's all about supernatural belief systems that have no legitimate claim on my life.

Lexingtony, if you have a need for a church, some viable options for you would include unitarianism, the United Church of Christ, and the Metropolitan Community Church.

Unitarians include people who tend to be kind of pleasantly "out there," political activists for liberal causes, and people from other faiths who have come to a very open-minded group fellowship. The Unitarian Church was, I believe, the first relgion in the US to perform gay marriages. It has lots of gay clergy, which seems to be a non-issue. In the wake of the Boy Scouts winning their court case that they have the right to exclude gays, the Unitarian Church started a similar but inclusive group for youth. As I undersatnd it, the origins of the Unitarian Chuch go back to the Deists and it is not Christian. I've always enjoyed attending.

My take is that the Untied Church of Christ is more mainstream, but very accepting. However, I don't really know.

The Metropolitan Community Church was founded by a gay clergyman for the gay community. It is definitely Christian although individual churches seem to vary greatly in their tone and membership. Some are basically like Baptist churches, just full of gay people. Others are very formal with robes, processions, smells and bells. As an agnostic, it has no appeal to me but serves an important purpose for gay people who are attached to Christian denominations that oppress and shun them.

Dave
 

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Thanks, whatireallywant and jason_els for your insight into the Unitarian Universalist church. I haven't attended organized church services in over 20 years, but have always considered myself a spiritual person....I just didn't have an appropriate outlet for it. That's why I'm strongly considering a UU church. It will be strange going back into a church setting after so many years out of it, but I'm hoping they will be accepting and welcoming and will let me just "test the waters" to see if it's right for me. I'll keep you posted.

The UU church here is great. We do a lot of things in unison with them. That's the joys of being a demographically young parish. We don't play by the rules of the old Catholic guard. We love everybody and don't subscribe to a lot of those stodgy pre-Vatican II ideals.
 

jason_els

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I daresay if the Vatican caught you you'd be in trouble. Pope Palpatine is rolling back the reforms of Vatican II.

Unitarianism is still regarded as a heresy by the Catholic church as UUs has always denied the existence of the trinity. I'm surprised your bishop lets you play in the same yard together. Unitarianism was started in Transylvania in the 1500s and rapidly spread through northern Europe and to England by the middle 1600s. Universalism, though crediting its origens to Origen himself, actually was founded in the US in 1793.

Unitarianism, before the Universalist merger, was like any other regional Christian church. There were crosses, steeples, altars, candles, robes, and the works. In New England it was regarded as the religion of the mainstream community, quite popular, very respectable, no raised eyebrows. This fit the New England character of independence and respect for divergent opinions very well. A Unitarian minister wouldn't tell you what to think in his or her homily so much as make you think. Unitarian post-service coffee klatches were notorious for vociferous debates. Despite the openness of it all, the focus was strongly Christian in character. There was no precise dogma on the status of Jesus; one was free to believe he was the son of God or not, and the focus of the services was on Christian actions of charity, forgiveness, and humility. Nothing, however, was off-limits. You could just as easily hear a homily about the Muslim interpretation of God as you were to hear a Christian interpretation.

In the 50s and 60s congregations declined in all faiths rather precipitously. Existentialism had weened its way into the American society and, perhaps predictably, Unitarians took hold of it and the entire church was threatened. This caused the merger of the Unitarians and the Universalists which, in turn, caused a radical shift in the Unitarian church. Where before the joke was, Unitarians pray to whom it may concern, the joke became something of reality. Jews without synagogues, Muslims without mosques, and others began attending. Churches without ministers were founded as meetings, and UU ceased using the word church.

The UU church here is great. We do a lot of things in unison with them. That's the joys of being a demographically young parish. We don't play by the rules of the old Catholic guard. We love everybody and don't subscribe to a lot of those stodgy pre-Vatican II ideals.
 

halcyondays

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Church hurt? Hell yeah! Being raised Catholic, sent to Catholic schools K-12 with religion class every day for 13 fucking years (I envied Protestant friends who only had to endure it once a week at Sunday school) and being threatened with all the hate speech of original sin, shame and guilt then eternal torture in the flames of hell scared the fuck out of me.

Luckily as I grew up the very book we were force-fed sank itself. As Isaac Asimov said:

"Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived."
 
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HorseHung40's

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I turn, and, run for the hills, as soon as I hear "Praise the Lord", "Lord have Mercy", "Have you accepted Jesus" or any other statement, routinely made by Holy Rollers.

They don't want to attend gay pride parades, women's marches or any other event that inspires equality and dignity for all.
 
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Scarletbegonia

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13 year necrothread...is that an LPSG record?

Nonetheless, I wanted to speak to UU fellowships. I’ve never attended one with dedicated ministry, so cannot speak to the UU churches (the divisions I learned).
I’m Jewish and a seeker. I also did my time in ISKCON, sitting in the Zen manner, and through encouragement of a friend nervous about leading her first circle, found my way into CUUPS, the pagan side of UU. Sort of a disconnected connection. Covenant of UU Pagans.
My kiddo was exposed to their whole life sex education curriculum. It is, from what I know of it, the best published curriculum available. We were around during kiddo’s preschool to mid elementary years.

I eventually served on the building committee, which I made basically a open doors, set out coffee, clear coffee, lock doors task for all the non Xtian users of the building, both spiritual and secular.
A group I later knew as Renewal Judaism (and allied myself with) met twice a month.
UU led me back to Judaism, and gave me a model for integrating good ideas from other paths.
The bits of xtianity I respected and use are aligned closely with Jewish values. And honestly, some were ours to begin with. Their Jesus quoted Hillel the Elder, who was speaking a basic truth, to create the Golden rule.
That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the whole Torah. The rest is the explanation; go and learn."
He is also known for
"If I am not for myself, who will be for me? And being for myself, what am 'I'? And if not now, when?"

The House of Hillel strongly impacted how Torah and Talmud would be studied.

As a woman, as a seeker, synagogues have been places of pain and separation.
I have been Orthodox, and been told my life was worth less than a man’s. Because I didn’t have scads of children. Only one, who is more Zen than anything.
I kept the public modesty and left the self doubt behind.
For me, it’s been hard finding a synagogue or shul with which I agree without having to travel beyond an hour.
Granted, the localish Renewal groups are populated with gay and transgender members, cranky feminists, happy feminists (and interesting division) and practice eco-kashrut (basically vegetarian to vegan) and often affiliate ecumenically with the local Tibetan Buddhist university, it’s still more travel than my formerly orthodox self can justify.
 
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halcyondays

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I’m Jewish and a seeker.

I don't understand why any woman would choose to belong to an Abrahamic faith of any kind.

I understand it can be difficult for individuals to reject the faiths into which they were indoctrinated (brainwashed IMO) during childhood. Familial pressure/expectation alone can be downright nasty. My beloved parents went to their graves certain I would be lost for eternity if I did not return to their faith. Freeing myself from all theology is the best thing I've done in my life.

Siddhartha had it right. Go meditate. Then you decide whether there's a deity or not.

From the same tradition: "There's no first step to enlightenment." You are already whole, complete and perfect as you are. :cool:
 

Scarletbegonia

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where did I say I was a theist?


I don't understand why any woman would choose to belong to an Abrahamic faith of any kind.

I understand it can be difficult for individuals to reject the faiths into which they were indoctrinated (brainwashed IMO) during childhood. Familial pressure/expectation alone can be downright nasty. My beloved parents went to their graves certain I would be lost for eternity if I did not return to their faith. Freeing myself from all theology is the best thing I've done in my life.

Siddhartha had it right. Go meditate. Then you decide whether there's a deity or not.

From the same tradition: "There's no first step to enlightenment." You are already whole, complete and perfect as you are. :cool:
 

halcyondays

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malakos

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all the hate speech of original sin

I believe the concept of hate speech entails abusive speech that targets a specific group / identity. Given that original sin is a condition that Christians hold all humans to suffer from, it's unclear how it could be in any way related to hate speech as we commonly conceive of it.
 
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malakos

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I understand it can be difficult for individuals to reject the faiths into which they were indoctrinated (brainwashed IMO) during childhood.

I'm being mildly confrontational because I see the beliefs of others being absurdly mischaracterized in a horribly uncharitable way.

As for you, I'm left wondering why you feel the need to shit on the sincere spiritual journey of another poster who was just sharing her experience in good faith?

Does being a good Atheist in your mind require being a dick to (other sorts of) religious folk?