General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsI was raised Fundamentalist Christian. I know you all know stories, but here's mine:
As an example of the Insane Crazy Immature Toddler of a God they believe in:
I had left the church by the time this happened, by the way, but it certainly helped make me feel good about my decision.
My mother was dying of dementia, and an old church friend, with whom I had been VERY CLOSE, best friends all through high school, etc. calls me up to see how my mom was doing.
I described how my mom didn't recognize anyone anymore, couldn't speak, just sat with a confused look on her face, day after day.
My friend said, "Wow, you must be really sad that she's going to hell."
"What?" I said, aghast.
"Well, she doesn't know she's a Christian, so there's no way she can go to heaven."
I literally could not speak. I just sat there with the phone in my hand. My pupils probably read TILT!!!
When I could finally breathe and speak again I said, "I have to go." and I've never spoken to her since.
I remember thinking, "What kind of horrible God have you been believing in all this time?!?!?"
What a horrible way to live your life. I'm so glad I'm free of it now.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight:
NoneDon't highlight anything
5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
debm55
(39,801 posts)
OhNo-Really
(3,996 posts)If whatever we speak or do isn’t Loving, it is certainly not defined as “Christian”
“Judge not……..”
My faith increases year after year. However, I’ve lost patience with organizations.
Jesus is quoted
“Neither shall they say: Behold here, or behold there. For lo, the kingdom of God is within you.”
Those who love inclusively & unconditionally know this. They can feel the inner Peace created by “doing no harm”
Well, these beliefs have kept me sane in the face of abandonment & cruelty. All praise to the Love & protection I feel.
elleng
(137,251 posts)
MineralMan
(148,150 posts)
70sEraVet
(4,273 posts)But I recognize that there are good Christians, and there are .... people like your 'friend'.
LiberalLovinLug
(14,386 posts)I also grew up in a strict fundamentalist Christian family. Maybe that's why I have more of a hard core opposition to organized Christian churches.
But those "good" Christians help to prop up the crazies, and those politicians who use the crazies to further their political agendas. It gives them legitimacy. No way an organization like the Westboro Baptist Church could exist without them aligning themselves with the largest, most accepted religion in America.
I understand there is a need for humans, some more than others, to fellowship together with others who just want to be good people when comes down to it. To gather in a place where one can both commiserate with others if you are going through a rough time, or conversely celebrate with others in the miracle of life itself and be thankful for that.
Just understand that if you do help to perpetrate the religion industry by being part of a congregation, you are indirectly giving cover for those who use the popularity you are helping to stoke for that religion, to be used for their own nefarious purposes.
Sorry if that makes some feel uncomfortable. But I've paid enough dues to feel I can say those things.
Too bad there hasn't been some kind of tradition instilled where people still go to a place to gather on Sundays, to have speakers, and fellowship, and friendly debates about metaphysical topics......under the condition that no one there has the right to define God, or even if there is a God. A world where no organized religion exists. "Imagine no religion...".
I know there are denominations like the United and Episcopal where this atmosphere exists. I just wish this was the norm, not the exception. Humankind would be so much further ahead.
sakabatou
(43,363 posts)
3catwoman3
(25,847 posts)…things I’ve ever read/heard.
I, too, would have been dumbstruck.
BlueWaveNeverEnd
(10,624 posts)
634-5789
(4,344 posts)
AZ8theist
(6,607 posts)and slammed the phone down.
But that's just how I roll....
3catwoman3
(25,847 posts)…say it to a real person.
AZ8theist
(6,607 posts)And not give it a second thought.
3catwoman3
(25,847 posts)…things I’ve ever read/heard.
I, too, would have been dumbstruck.
emulatorloo
(45,646 posts)
SheilaAnn
(10,253 posts)was and he said to me (Well, you did have her for 23 years.). I was stunned, like 23 years was a good enough long life. I left there shortly after.
Coventina
(28,055 posts) SheilaAnn
(10,253 posts)
barbtries
(30,040 posts)my daughter was killed at 21. i could make a list of the dumb things people said. my MADDwoman taught me how to say mean things to them without talking out loud or moving my mouth, because they did not know the damage they did. I think people get very uncomfortable around people who lost a child. as if it may be contagious, when in reality it's random and can happen to anyone and thankfully does not happen to most.
i did have a "friend" tell me that the reason all of her children were alive was that gawd knew she couldn't bear it if she lost one. She's sitting there saying this to a mother who did.
Effete Snob
(8,387 posts)I know others who have lost children, and it's not that I think it's contagious, it's that I truly cannot express the sorrow I feel for them.
barbtries
(30,040 posts)a very good friend was very distressed, and just honestly said, "I don't know what to say to you." I said, "It's enough that you're here with me right now." And it really was.
the most offensive comment coming from a person who couldn't possibly was, "I understand." She said it twice to me expecting it to be a comfort. I just said thank you. She didn't know how hollow those words were.
SheilaAnn
(10,253 posts)
DENVERPOPS
(10,330 posts)"Blithering Idiots"............ describes so called "friends" like them perfectly........
LoisB
(9,056 posts)from your employer (glad you left).
SheilaAnn
(10,253 posts)
Sky Jewels
(8,842 posts)My relative lost a young family member in a car accident when he was a kid. A minister told his parents that the reason for the teen's death was "their [the parents’] faith was not great enough." The entire (formerly quite religious) family stopped going to church and drinking the religious Kool-Aid. They suddenly saw how ridiculous the whole belief system is. They all became atheists and those who are still alive remain atheists to this day.
SheilaAnn
(10,253 posts)die hard.
napi21
(45,806 posts)what to say & chose the absolutey wrong words.
mgardener
(1,929 posts)When my baby died, I was told I had an angel in heaven.
Like I was lucky.
Ligyron
(7,917 posts)I suppose it's their version of a consolation prize.
PoindexterOglethorpe
(26,921 posts)I wasn't there, but I'm guessing he was trying to comfort you. Yes, 23 years was far too short, but it was 23 years, not 21 or 16 or 5.
My son committed suicide at the age of 30. As the final sentence of his obit reads, he left us far too soon. But at least I had those 30 years.
I also recognize that losing her in a car accident is in many ways worse than what I went through. He made a choice. I wish he hadn't made that choice, but he did. Your daughter didn't choose a car accident. Her life will always be brutally cut short.
As I said to a sister-in-law, we all know that losing a child is the worst possible thing, and it's even worse than you can imagine.
relayerbob
(7,075 posts)but you are clearly going to Hell, you evil, sick demon."
Yes, no since in talking to that "friend" again. What a nut case.
NewHendoLib
(60,621 posts)We were flying to the UK for a meeting. This fellow told me that it's a shame I'll be going to hell because I've not been born again. He meant it. Southern Baptist with 2 ministers for sons.
Our friendship suffered after that.
barbtries
(30,040 posts)how did you respond? my mother always said there was enough of hell in this life so she never felt threatened by the concept.
oh those poor persecuted "christians" who get laughed at and mocked. why the fuck not when they come with this crap?
NewHendoLib
(60,621 posts)barbtries
(30,040 posts)lol.
SheilaAnn
(10,253 posts)no hell. OMG, pray for him, he's going to hell. It was laughable.
ShazzieB
(19,054 posts)
wnylib
(25,038 posts)deserves to be laughed at and mocked.
My own experience with religion has, for me, been more positive. I've encountered individuals who were cold, bigoted, and cruel in their beliefs. Sometimes it was due to things taught in their church. Sometimes it was their own personal interpretation that their church did not teach. So I'd hold it against the person but not their church.
I grew up in a mainstream Protestant denomination. My neighborhood as a child was very predominantly Roman Catholic. I was often told by playmates that my religion was false and I'd go to hell if I didn't convert. By the time we were in junior and senior high, most of them no longer parroted what some of the old nuns and priests had told them.
I remember that, in my teens, I told the pastor of my church that I could not literally agree with or believe everything that I read in the Bible. He said that I didn't need to and should consider the context of the times for some things and consider others as symbolic or "lesson stories" whose message was more important than the literal story. Several of the kids in the church's youth group also went to my school, so the youth group was a fun social experience for us as well as a lesson on caring about people and being active in community service. We sang Christmas carols for people in nursing homes or confined to their own houses. We visited a children's home for kids who had been removed from their homes for various reasons. The purpose was to make friends and be a positive, caring influence in their lives, but NOT with religious talk or pamphlets. The goal was to find common interests and just be friends to kids who had few of them. We also had fund raisers for various causes and met sometimes strictly for our own social events, like beach parties and picnics
No hellfire and damnation. Just a lot of "do unto others," "love is the greatest commandment," and "What you do to the least of these, you do to me." Also, take stands for social justice and act on them. We were specifically taught to never assume or say that other people were condemned for their religion or lack of it. We were told that it was God's business, not ours.
My first husband was Catholic. His family was fanatical about it, especially his mother. I was constantly told that I "had to" convert, that I was destroying my husband's soul. They alternated between patronizing attempts to teach me the "true faith" and sharply critical attacks on me as pagan, heathen, and generally inferior.
And yet, I've also known Catholics whose values and spirituality are admirable. Two that I don't know personally but respect are Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi.
AZSkiffyGeek
(12,672 posts)And I went into my usual spiel about being Lutheran, baptized and confirmed, etc. And was told "You know that doesn't count, don't you?"
I told the person to fuck off.
Jedi Guy
(3,324 posts)
Backseat Driver
(4,643 posts)My "mother" asked to never speak to me again some years before 9/11. I asked for sure that was what she wanted and she said yes and that dad and her were on the same page - that, at our marriage in the church we grew up in, both baptised and confirmed, they had quite literally given me away, so I was HIS problem now, whatever I "needed" from them. What had I done? Certainly I was angry and depressed that day...We had moved OOT and abandoned them I guess. How about some loving hope for the future of that marriage under the extreme stress of putting food on the table? Of five educated people, I was once the only one not between jobs. Did I live in the wrong zip code?
She called me once later saying my dad was calling out for his kids on his dementia death bed and I should come, but explained that he likely wouldn't recognize me. I told her my DH was also in the hospital, so I could not come; DH recovered nicely. I did not attend dad's funeral; I read his obit.
My siblings took their side all those years, so I heard from no one for years. Hey, no news was good news to them, I had long been told, and I sure had none to share except our struggles with continuing serial unemployment, kids at college, and DH's parental illnesses. Both seldom visited their grown granddaughters after their graduations from HS, and never even saw their great-grandson.
Finally, I got a call from my sister. My brother and my mom found themselves both dying across the aisle in a hospice facility, ages 92 and 64. Mom could not bear that her son who had never had his own family/SO/or partner nor even ever had his very own phone number, a guy who had never left home (in-closet guilty gay?...I didn't care...what kind of BS did she tell him?), having promised dad to take care of her, might die first--so she did die first--with her medicational "dignity' intact by self-suicide, refusing all food and water. He died several months later, NASH and pancreatic cancer. I went to his funeral service in church, but My Dear Sister never called to say he had been buried ("It was quick" she said. Covid made it that difficult?). She got the whole estate(s), furnishings, home, all the assets, and all the admin trouble she deserved (for that, there's lawyers, lol." So, we're both seniors; she's agnostic, and I continue to disregard an organized church life. I got questions but no guilt!
paleotn
(19,702 posts)That's how those evil people roll.
vlyons
(10,252 posts)There is no bronze age invisible creator sky god, who waves a magic wand to suspend the laws of physics. Thousands of telescopes, amateur and professional, around the world have never located heaven. There's also no Hell. Heaven and hell are projections of mental constructs, ideas -- not real physical places.
erronis
(17,349 posts)But there are apparently quite a few who still believe in something - something external and bigger than just our existence. Might be nature or noodly appendages.
I see by your avatar that you might have some spiritualism. I don't know that I do - I don't know how to define or describe it so I just assume it's not part of me.
vlyons
(10,252 posts)There is no creator god in Buddhism, because all things arise from previous causes and conditions. A creator god begs the question, who or what created a creator god? We are supposed to use our reason and analysis to figure out things.
Interestingly, the Dalai Lama has for some time now been advocating for a secular ethics that is beyond religion and works for the whole world.
https://www.dalailama.com/news/2014/discussing-secular-ethics
erronis
(17,349 posts)Dios Mio
(429 posts)I think. I don’t feel the need for a higher power.
Maeve
(43,079 posts)"Judge not.." apparently never made it into your friend's theology (nor did "God is love..."
But I left all church life behind me when my kids were getting stupid lessons instead of Bible lessons on Sundays and seldom look back. (Except when I went to a Black Baptist church the other week for the most joyful funeral I've seen in ages, but that's another story)
barbtries
(30,040 posts)not that i go to church or believe in gawd, but i was raised around many people who did, that this woman was/is stupid and also has a mean streak in her. i can't believe that dementia would be considered by a church to be grounds for going to hell.
if i'm right, she's the one headed there according to her own beliefs.
i'm sorry that happened to you while you were struggling in a terrible situation. glad you're smart enough to know better than whatever this asshole told you.
soldierant
(8,079 posts)she's locked in on a fast track to heaven, because if she cannot remember, she cannot renounce Christianity.
I consider myself a Chistian, but nod a fundamentalist - but there are so many of them around - I cannot really think like they do, but I think I have a bit of insight into how they think. But i have no idea what hole she pulled that take out of.
gratuitous
(82,849 posts)I call it the Hawkeye response, after the scene in the first Avenger movie. Black Widow remarks that the finsl battle is like Budapest all over again. Hawkeye answers "You and I remember Budapest very differently. "
He doesn't say she's wrong or he's right, just different.
harumph
(2,437 posts)or doctrinal for Christians - she just pulled it from her ass. I'm not defending her - but making the
point that much of current Christianity is about making it up as you go along. These folks
would not even recognize Christianity as it was understood in the first or second century - much
less the 17 or 18th centuries. Whatever its questionable merits, the average intelligence level of adherents
has plummeted in the last 100 years.
RVN VET71
(2,805 posts)Christ said he brought a new law to his people: to love god and to love your neighbor as you love yourself. That's it. And it wasn't long before the mobs attacked each other in unspeakably blood riots. I cry for Hypatia's monstrous murder by "Christian" monks sent by bishop who has long since been canonized by the Holy Catholic Church. I grinf my teeth in Nger over the .ore recent canonization of "Pope" who ignored the murder of a latin american archbishop and who associated/endorsed a murderous fascist Chilean dictator, murderer of 10s of 1,000s of chilean leftists and suspected leftists -- I speak of "saints" Cyril and JPII.
Love your neighbor! So simple a law. So forgotten and ignored by every christian church.
LoisB
(9,056 posts)
NBachers
(18,224 posts)
crud
(857 posts)its a good thing that people NOT "born again" think they are still going to heaven, because if they believed opposite, they would commit every heinous crime imaginable and make life harder for them.
It's all about rules, authoritarian fire and brimstone bullshit, I'll get mine, you go to hell etc... It's never about morals, and what's right or wrong. Funny how atheists aren't crime-ing all over the place.
Orrex
(64,422 posts)They see it as a prime opportunity to deploy their cruel, exploitative sales pitch.
And if you don’t fall to your knees in effusive gratitude, then they act like THEY’RE the victims, because the only think they love more than other people’s tragedy is their own persecution fantasy.
I know, I know. “nOt AlL cHrIsTiAnS.”
I’m sorry that you had to experience that. Just know that you’re not alone.
LymphocyteLover
(7,062 posts)Jesus F Christ!!!
calimary
(84,811 posts)I’m sorry you had to hear that, Coventina. It was totally uncalled for!
Maine Abu El Banat
(3,479 posts)I'm pretty sure not that.
hatrack
(61,347 posts)QED
eppur_se_muova
(37,863 posts)something that revealed itself to me at a very young age.
keithbvadu2
(40,772 posts)Sometimes we offer condolences, but we talk too long and it comes out awkward and way different than we intended.
Sometimes!
That comment about going to hell was neither awkward nor different. They meant it that way.
MarcA
(2,195 posts)
AllaN01Bear
(23,557 posts)sent home with the black sin of the devil. mom put me back into public school. your friend isnt christian at all.
TNNurse
(7,183 posts)but the story I know and did not learn until I was an adult is this.
My mother's childhood friend ( who once prayed over the phone with me and freaked me out) when the nurse brought her newborn to her for breastfeeding (this would have been in the 1940s), she told her she was not through with her morning prayers and take her back to the nursery. The nurse who became my aunt later was furious with her. The rigid beliefs are often heartless.
JanLip
(858 posts)She said that to you. It’s people like her that gives Christianity a very bad name. I don’t attend church now because of things said about politics. We live by example but she’s not my idea of a good example.
Jan
NotVeryImportant
(578 posts)Last edited Wed Apr 5, 2023, 03:20 PM - Edit history (1)
That's not how God operates?
Martin68
(24,805 posts)
LiberalFighter
(53,529 posts)Good thing you didn't have time to think of a response that would tilt her.
StarryNite
(11,011 posts)So it stands to reason that their God is an "Insane Crazy Immature Toddler of a God".
IbogaProject
(3,899 posts)It isn't like all of the stories about Jesus were him healing not just the sick but the scorned lepers, and hanging out with the lowest regarded tax collectors and prostitutes? Oh wait that is all he did. It's weird how focused these nitwits are on all you have to do is say the right phrase and be saved rather than do any actual good deeds beyond an occasional publicity stunt. They've totally abandoned the love thy neighbor, give refuge to the strangers (immigrants), treat the sick no matter the illness, and help the poor parts.
Hekate
(95,574 posts)
keithbvadu2
(40,772 posts)
Renew Deal
(83,242 posts)Do Christians believe that people arrive at the pearly gates in their very last condition?
Doesn't baptism account for this situation?
Jedi Guy
(3,324 posts)When I was a kid in confirmation class (Missouri Synod Lutheran), we were discussing baptism.
Pastor: People who aren't baptized go to hell when they die.
Me: What about stillborn babies?
Pastor: They never drew the first breath and so were never truly alive. [Editor's Note: Yes, I know.]
Me: Okay, so what about babies who die immediately after being born?
Pastor: Well, they would go to hell.
Me: How is that fair? It's not their fault they didn't survive long enough to be baptized. Doesn't that seem cruel?
Pastor: Well, that's just how it is.
Very, very perplexing, indeed.
634-5789
(4,344 posts)dchill
(40,898 posts)Heh.
Jilly_in_VA
(11,251 posts)The church I was briefly associated with in my youth believed that babies were innocent, as were children under about the age of 7 or so, and if they died, they went to heaven because they were innocent. So I asked once about people with dementia, and I was told that they were like babies, because they could not remember any sins they had ever committed, so of course they would go to heaven. This was also a fundamentalist church, but apparently yours must have been Calvinist in nature or something equally awful.
jerseyjim
(129 posts)Many religious motivations are actually very selfish. Not just Christianity. For many, it's about what you ARE GOING TO GET!
Your REWARD, PARADISE, eternal happiness. It has often puzzled me as to what motivates, say, shaming of women going into a health clinic. After all, why should they care what someone else DOES. An answer I keep coming up with is that they have been taught to reject what they think of as "evil" people because doing so will open the gates to heaven or paradise.
Why not do things without the damned expectation of getting rewarded? Do good, because you care about others, not because you are going to go to paradise. It is such an evil side of religious beliefs.
Besides there really is no "up" except in reference to the surface of the Earth.
Jedi Guy
(3,324 posts)Most Christian denominations teach that good deeds don't matter in the who-goes-where calculation and that it's impossible to buy one's way into heaven. I'm far too lazy to look for it, but in the Bible it says, and I'm paraphrasing, "All your good deeds are as filthy rags before God."
Christians are supposed to do good deeds and treat others well because that was Christ's greatest commandment to the disciples: "Love one another as I have loved you." And, "that which you do unto these, the least of my brethren, you do also unto me."
The most charitable interpretation for the mindset of those who protest outside abortion clinics is concern for the immortal souls of others. The least charitable (and more likely) interpretation is that some people are just shitty assholes.
paleotn
(19,702 posts)Those with any sense, leave, like you and me. Those who like their horrible god, because they're just as horrible, stay. God or gods are created in the image people want them to be. An expression of people's minds and hearts.
Effete Snob
(8,387 posts)Is that of the religious people I know, God shares ALL of their opinions.
Now, I've never met anyone one who agrees with me on everything, but it is amazing how many people who manage to find a God that thinks the same things they do.
keithbvadu2
(40,772 posts)Have you ever noticed that those who want to share their religion with you do not want to share yours?
Whatthe_Firetruck
(606 posts)... I knew a Mormon girl in chorus that I liked. Mom was old style pentecostal but she never took me to church (nor went herself) allowing me to find my own way. I shopped around, went to babtist vacation bible school and couldn't make heads or tails of it, studied greek & norse myths, and talked to Mormon missionaries. I was confused by them too, and finally decided that religions were like spots of paint on a canvas, with bigger faiths having bigger spots, and all the spots were different colors. If you were too close, you could only focus on the clashes between the colors and the disparity of sizes. But if you drew back to see the whole it formed a harmonious collage. Basically I decided no one religion could capture all of the diety, but you find truths by choosing from the array. I disappointed the missionaries by thanking them for helping me decide I was agnostic.
Later, my family visited a more urban area and I was amazed by all the different kinds of churches and temples and whatever. I had already figured that the christs described by the different sects were different, some loving and some unforgiving, etc. I realized that people either picked a faith that had a god that agreed with their prejudices, or they twisted their church to accomplish the same end if their identity was bound up by belonging to faith a) while their preference was closer to Christ b).
I still enjoyed reading ancient myths, so this second epiphany yielded another. Humanity was naturally polytheistic (including agnosticism and atheism within that definition). If someone could not pick the god of their choosing because they decided there was only 1 God, they would fracture that God into as many versions as necessary to fit the needs of the many worshippers.
Weird, I know, but it made sense to me.
woodsprite
(12,263 posts)I felt like I lived my whole young life looking over my shoulder for God to smite me for the least little infraction or thought. I would cry, be sick (from nerves) when I was a little girl and my mom would make me go to church with our neighbors. I was taking nerve/anti-anxiety meds by the time I was in 3rd grade. Truthfully, they probably sent my brother and I to church on Sunday so mom and dad could have the mornings kid free. I would pretend I was asleep on the ride to/from church (or maybe it was the meds), but the neighbors were always talking about how it was the end times and soon the streets would be running with blood up to a horses bridle.
I told my mother that experience amounted to emotional child abuse.
My uncle (Baptist lay preacher) once told me that Native Americans would never be let into heaven because they didn't know the Bible. I set him straight enough that he didn't bother me with that crap again. By 13-14yo I was learning to speak my own mind.
I do go to church now, but it took many many years before I stepped foot back in one. I look at it more as a social experience - a liberal Presbyterian church - a place including a couple of governors and their families, a couple of Superior court judges, friends of Joe and a good number of Dem supporters. The few fundy Bible thumpers who were members there left when we voted down to renew a minister's contract (too conservative, ex-military) and we hired a wonderful divorced female as a minister.
hunter
(39,114 posts)Such of these gods they worship are obviously reflections of themselves.
My mom was a Jehovah's Witness when I was a kid. I ignored the flag salute in school. One of my most awkward moments as a kid was in fourth grade when my teacher pointed me out as an example of religious freedom in the United States. That only added to my aura as a weird kid. My mom got kicked out of the Witnesses shortly after that because she couldn't stay out of politics. Then we were Quakers. I continued to ignore the pledge...
I was fortunate, perhaps, that my extended family wasn't uniform in their religious beliefs. The only religious identity of my Wild West family was "NOT MORMON!" The cool not-Mormon kids hung out together when my grandparents were young. But none of them could agree, for example, when, how, or if Christmas should be celebrated. I had only one grandparent, one of my grandmothers, who believed in the traditional Santa Claus television Christmas. Christmas in our home was always a time of religious strife.
What the adults in our family had in common was their antipathy to anti-intellectual authoritarian religious beliefs. If anyone was going to hell, it was those who couldn't love their neighbors, no matter how eccentric those neighbors might be, no matter their religious beliefs.
There were kids in our neighborhood who weren't allowed to visit our home for their parent's fear their children would be corrupted.
My parents are artists who met while working in Hollywood. They had very diverse friends and family who had all sorts of religious and anti-religious beliefs. The homes they've made have always been safe places for LGBTQ people, and this was so even when my mom was in her Jehovah's Witness phase, which in itself was her strong reaction against the worst of the Catholic Church. My mom is, at her core, a Catholic Social Justice Warrior, her political beliefs comparable to California's former governor Jerry Brown. She loves Joe Biden. My wife is a similar sort.
One of my brothers married into a fundamentalist Christian family and that's currently a source of great conflict within our families today.
In my family it's okay, even expected, to argue with God.
Like 
now, God Dude!!!
Those who don't believe in gods can argue with the raw universe itself.
None of that is blasphemy. When my mom's at the Pearly Gates she'll probably start a riot and the trap doors to hell will be opening all around her, swallowing up all sorts of people who'd lived lives of boring ignorant piety. She'll remain, awaiting entrance, by sheer force of will. My great grandmas were all fierce like that, even the one taken by dementia.
As I was raised, the greatest possible sin is to have a brain and not to use it.
erronis
(17,349 posts)I've been atheist/agnostic since I was old enough to think about these things. My mother attended services (episcopal or lutheran?) but more as a social thing. My father told me "I don't have time to think about it."
For some reason (sex?) I actually married a born-again who said she was lapsed (and as far as I can tell she was very lapsed.) Once she found "god" again I was no longer good enough, even tho I supported her and her children for many years.
Good riddance to bad rubbish.
Mickju
(1,812 posts)I’m 79 and never returned except for a funeral or a wedding. I was raised Southern Baptist and I am repelled by them now.
Haggard Celine
(17,066 posts)I also haven't gone back to church since college, except for funerals. I never go to weddings. I might go to church if it was Unitarian or something like that, but we don't have a Unitarian church around here. Have thought about attending a liberal church in order to possibly get involved with charity. I think the large Episcopal church down here is pretty liberal. But I'm not really a Christian in the usual sense. I believe in the teachings of Jesus, but I don't believe he was God, just a very special man. But my early life makes me hesitant to get involved in any church.
SouthernLiberal
(408 posts)Christianst claim that they follow Jesus, but I see fewer and fewer who do.
highplainsdem
(53,042 posts)it was the only way to heaven. I asked him what that meant for all the non-Christians, including those who'd died before Christ. He just shrugged, and it was obvious he didn't care. Only Christians and those he might convert mattered to him.
debm55
(39,801 posts)
Celerity
(47,151 posts)twodogsbarking
(12,288 posts)
world wide wally
(21,835 posts)Goodheart
(5,760 posts)the vocal diarrhea of a lone individual should really not be the lone basis of a deconversion.... and probably wasn't. That was probably just the straw that broke the back of the camel you already had felt was growing inside your intellect.
What's valid for a change in worldview is the total lack of evidence for nonsense.
dchill
(40,898 posts)...going to heaven and who's going to hell? IMO, they prove every day that their religion is false.
Warpy
(113,131 posts)but I'm glad you didn't bother with them. Some people are so far gone it wouldn't make any difference, so save your breath for your birthday candles.
Likely that twit's life is littered with people who don't speak to her any more.
Ditto that nasty, naked Santa Claus figure on a cloud, with his green eyeshade and account book and bony finger pointing the way to eternal torment---but he loves you and needs money (thanks, George).
I've been a heathen since I was 10.
mountain grammy
(27,435 posts)when I was 11, one year after my dad died, I was told by a Catholic that because he married a non catholic and we weren't being raised in the church, my dad was burning in hell.
These people only live to make other people miserable.
oldsoftie
(13,538 posts)I've NEVER heard any of them say such a horrible thing before.
There really IS a special place for her
Scalded Nun
(1,343 posts)ask what 'red letter' words in the Bible back up that particular claim.
Your friend probably does not even know what Biblical red letters represent.
LakeArenal
(29,888 posts)Jesus weeps….
FakeNoose
(36,186 posts)... and you are well rid of her.
Condolences on the loss of your mother.
Marius25
(3,213 posts)They're some of the most morally bankrupt people on the planet. Their ideology is no different than the Taliban or ISIS, in same cases worse (the Taliban has less restrictions on abortion than Evangelicals for example).
Religious conservatism is truly a plague on humanity and I can't wait until conservative Christians are the minority.
Richluu
(104 posts)When my dad died the evangelical relative told my mom, "sorry about G, but it's not too late for you."
When we visited them at a different time my 10 year old daughter was playing with her younger cousins and they really liked her. They suddenly got very concerned and asked if she was saved. My daughter said yes, so they wouldn't be upset. I was so proud of her! Caring for others!
yardwork
(64,939 posts)
claudette
(4,764 posts)when a priest told a friend of mine that his unborn grandchild would go to hell if not baptized in the church because his daughter was married to a Jew. This Catholic god was lost to me.
The Jungle 1
(4,552 posts)I would have to sign a contract with God promising to raise my children Catholic.
Silver Gaia
(4,918 posts)Her interpretation of the church teachings may have been incorrect. But I can imagine churches where this would be the actual cruel belief.
My own story is an odd one. My parents were, for all practical purposes, agnostics. They did consider themselves to be Christians, but did not belong to any church. We did not say bedtime prayers or grace at supper. We were taught right from wrong, the difference between good and evil, but we did not worship anything.
However, my paternal grandparents belonged to a Pentecostal church that was radical, even for a Pentecostal church. They spoke in tongues, were sometimes "possessed by the holy spirit" in church services, and sang and shook and danced their way up and down the aisles. Women were not permitted to wear jewelry, makeup, or short sleeve dresses. Dresses and skirts must be below the knees and they could not wear pants or shorts. Women were also not allowed to cut their hair, so they wore it piled up in elaborate hairdos. No church members were allowed to watch movies or television, and the only music acceptable to listen to was gospel.
The preacher's word was considered to be the actual word of God, and they actually believed that the ONLY people who would be admitted to heaven were the members of their one, tiny church. Seriously. That was their belief. So, unless you were baptized in their church by their preacher, you were doomed to hell! Needless to say, this created a conundrum for my grandmother, who loved her grandchildren deeply.
She wanted her grandkids baptized in her church, and she would not give up trying to convince my parents to let her take us to church with them on Sundays. My parents eventually relented, to "keep peace in the family" they said, so at around the age of 3, I began going to church on Sunday with my grandparents.
Obviously, this created a very weird situation for me. We loved watching TV in my home, but the church told me it was a sin. I once made the mistake, when my Sunday School teacher asked each of us to tell about something we'd done lately that was fun, of cheerfully telling everyone how much fun I'd had going to see Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs on Saturday with my Mommy and Daddy. Oh boy. I did not understand why they all gasped and moved as far away from me as they could get. The teacher told me I had to repent for that sin or I would go to hell! I cried. It was messy.
There was one Easter when they pestered my parents to go to church with them on Easter Sunday. My Dad refused. Mom eventually agreed to go, but she warned them that she was going on HER terms, not theirs, and would not alter her appearance for them. My Mom was beautiful. She dressed fashionably. Her hair was cut short and curled. She wore makeup, and was rarely seen without her trademark red lipstick. That Sunday was no different. I proudly sat next to my mother that Easter who wore a lovely short-sleeved spring dress, earrings and a necklace, and, oh yes, red lipstick. I thought she was so beautiful! I was around 7 years old, and I understood, when the preacher didn't preach about Jesus arising from the dead, but preached instead about painted harlots, that he was aiming hateful arrows straight at my Mom. She did not flinch. She held her head high. I was so proud of her. I'm glad I finally told her before she died how much what she did that day meant to me, and what an important lesson she taught me.
When I was about 8 years old, my grandparents started pushing for me to be baptized in the church. My parents were steadfastly against it. My Mom made me promise I would never let them do that. Well, my grandparents finally convinced them to let me go with them to Wednesday night church. They said I would have fun because there would be lots of kids there. They knew, I'm sure, but my parents did not, that the focus that night would be on baptizing children. It didn't take long for the preacher's wife and daughter to take me aside for "counseling" when they realized I wasn't going to go along with the plan to baptize me. They drilled me over and over about it, and finally told me that if I did not allow them to baptize me there and then, that night, that Jesus was going to come by morning and I would burn in hell forever. They said there was no saving my mom or dad or my brothers (who were too young) but *I* had a choice. I could be baptized and go to heaven with grandma and grandpa OR burn in hell with mom and dad. They convinced me that they KNEW Jesus would come by morning because he had told them this. I was terrified! But I chose my mom and dad. I cried. I cried all the way home. I barely slept and cried all night.
The next day, my Mom finally got me to tell her what had happened. She was livid! I don't know if I have ever seen her that angry any other time. That was the end of my brothers and I being forced to attend church with our grandparents. The family did survive, though. No one disowned anyone. I still carry those scars within, but I also know that the experience taught me important lessons that have served me well.
So, that's my story.
Coventina
(28,055 posts)My mother was raised in a church just like your grandparents.
I mean, down to the last little details.
Do you live in Wa. State, perhaps?
I am so sorry that happened to you and your mother.
It's not a good look when a religion can trigger PTSD!
Silver Gaia
(4,918 posts)I was born in Washington state (my Dad was stationed at a base near Seattle), but home was Arkansas for my parents and that's where this happened. I do want to say that my grandmother was a good woman. I still love her dearly. My memories of her are good ones. Grandpa dragged her into that church. He was a strict authoritarian. She was doing the best she could, and she was wise in so many ways. I am fine today. I understood things like hypocrisy at a very young age because of that experience. It led me to study world religions in college because I wanted to try to understand why people believe the things they do. So, all in all, I am healed from it. It never got its hooks deep in me because I always had parents at home whose beliefs were different. They taught me to walk my own path. But I share my story when and where I can. It helps me to write it out, and it may help someone else to read it.
Whatthe_Firetruck
(606 posts),... All infants and young children are going to hell.
What a POS.
Celerity
(47,151 posts)
jimlup
(8,008 posts)I am sorry that some of my fellow humans are that confused about reality.
NullTuples
(6,017 posts)WestMichRad
(1,931 posts)This is one very worthwhile thread, thanks for all the contributions, y’all.
My BIL, a baptist pastor, back when I used to talk with him, told me repeatedly and publicly that I, a non-believer, am going to hell. I bear no malice to him, but i sure won’t mind not spending eternity with that sanctimonious gas bag.
electric_blue68
(19,146 posts)your mother's dementia! 😔
So sorry you experienced that!
lpbk2713
(43,201 posts)So sorry you had to experience that.
vercetti2021
(10,414 posts)One thing to say something like that to me. But someone like my mom especially if she had dementia and was likely going to pass on? Nope. Someone is about to have a broken nose or missing teeth for a remark like that.
I'm sorry you dealt had to go through that with a psycho like that
Kennah
(14,465 posts)It's one of the biggest giveaways about real Christianity.
There is so much in Christianity that is nothing but hatred.
It's a cult of hate.
meadowlander
(4,776 posts)My parents used to drop me at Sunday School for free babysitting while they ran to the grocery store. One day I asked the teacher “Why would billions of people go to Hell just because they were born in a country that wasn’t Christian?”
They responded with some waffle about Purgatory and I distinctly remember thinking “That sounds like the kind of thing I would make up if I didn’t know the answer.
So sad for your friend that most five or six year olds have developed more empathy and logic than she has. Glad you made it out in one piece though.
mwb970
(11,724 posts)I wonder this all the time. These idiots have made up a god to worship who is an even bigger jerk than they are. He is despicable.
TreasonousBastard
(43,049 posts)she was helping, so what to do? You made a choice, one that worked for you.
My grandfather died before I was born, but when he died, the local parish priest announced to my grandmother exactly how many years he would suffer in Purgatory for not going to church enough.
Never heard if Grandma actually threw him out that day, but she never went to church again. My father eventually became a Lutheran, but that still didn't move her. Perhaps a god that does that to grieving widows does not deserve worship. Or at least a church that does that does not deserve members.
twodogsbarking
(12,288 posts)Hell is full up of religious people.
Ferrets are Cool
(22,046 posts)She can't go to heaven because it doesn't exist. The rest of what she said was just fucked up. 
BlueMTexpat
(15,511 posts)but not surprised.
They are just so sure that their delusions are real.
If there is actually an afterlife, Hell for me would be anywhere such people are.
PatrickforB
(15,131 posts)My mom was born in 1920, and her dad was evangelical. Mom stuck a button in a gum machine and got caught, so she told me Grandpa 'confessed' it before the congregation, and while looking down at her (4 or 5 at the time), he pointed and thundered, "It's a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the Living God!"
The minute Mom got old enough to leave, she left this evangelical church for good. She taught me good things, like kindness and compassion, but never really stopped serving that creative force the Christians call God.
A few bad apples - Falwell, the Bakers, Roberts, Robertson, Huckabee started it. They allowed their egos free rein and forgot who they were serving. Instead of helping their congregants seek first the Kingdom and righteousness within, they instead sought political power and wealth.
It was insidious - the 'creep' to the right. GOP politicians hastened this by appearing to be anti-abortion. Now we have that guy on daytime TV selling miracle water. Sigh.
To my mind, this is a church whose leaders have been seduced by pride, wrath, greed, envy, gluttony, lust and sloth (which doesn't quite mean what we read into the word). Too bad they didn't read some of the literature about what it all actually means - Thomas a' Kempis, John of the Cross, St. Augustine, Theresa of Avila. These old mystics knew at least as much about human psychology as we do today, if you read them.
This is the thing about Jesus, you know. He was an inconvenient guy. He was the king no one wanted. The zealots expected a king that would lead them against the Romans and restore Jerusalem to its Davidic and Solomonic glory days. Instead Jesus bade them to seek first the Kingdom within. When asked the greatest commandment, he said, "Love..."
Funny how that all got lost in the worship of the Wall Street bull. Here in this 'christian' capitalist utopia we call 'Murika, shareholder PROFITS are always king, not God! We hold profits over the needs of workers, consumers, communities and the very earth itself. Our whole society seems to be ruled by the seven deadly sins.
Well, enough. Fundamentalism, like any zealotry, makes me sad.
Martin Eden
(13,648 posts)I don't believe in the Heaven and Hell of religion, but of this I am fairly certain:
If those afterlife realms really do exist, the tickets to Heaven purchased by self righteous hypocritical Christians ain't worth a damn.
Haru
(39 posts)Base on this person's belief........ all with alzheimer's & dementia will go to hell..geez
malaise
(279,491 posts)Most of them
Playingmantis
(280 posts)Let me add yet another story of the Christian life I was brought up in..
My father was very religious..in fact a priest once called him a religious fanatic..
I was just a child when he told me the following story...
There were two little boys who were friends but one of them died..One night the little boy whose friend had died had an apparition.. his dead friend appeared to him and told him,, "You better be good or what happened to me will happen to you!" The boy asked what that was. The other replied,, "I am burning in Hell for all eternity!"
The first boy wanted a sign to know this was not a dream and the other boy agreed to leave one..
'
The next day the living boy awoke and found the sign.... A LITTLE HAND PRINT BURNED INTO HIS BEDROOM DOOR!"
Don't think that didn't affect me..I had nightmares for years about hell, hearing voices of demons talking to me and once awakening to find what I thought was blood all over my sheets.. i frantically tried to wipe it away only to realize it was only shadows from the tree outside...
On a lighter note..
Now they say the family that prays together stays together. One evening my mother and father and myself knelt down to make a novena....that is saying the rosary with readings from a book about the various mysteries of the faith. My mother was doing the reading and she suddenly developed a British accent! She thought she was being sophisticated... My father and I started to snicker and tried not to laugh but she saw us.. She slammed down the book and said , "I'll be a son of bitch! You think this is funny!!? " and stomped out!! ha! ha ha!
Oh the wonders of prayer!!!
Bettie
(17,479 posts)What a terrible person to say something like that to anyone!
But, I was raised among them too, so I've seen and heard things...so many terrible beliefs.
And they think that their god is all powerful, all present, and all knowing, but you have to declare that you believe or he won't know....except he knows everything and is everywhere...so why doesn't he know? Note: asking that question in Sunday school will earn you a talk with the minister, the teacher and your parents.