IMHO, this has been the problem with churches and "Christians" forever (at least 60 years). The church we went to occasionally was the fire and brimstone, God is gonna get you, church. Pretty scary for a small child. What about the song, "Jesus Loves Me?" Maybe Jesus did, it was never mentioned, but evidently God didn't/doesn't love any of us! The people weren't friendly either, as they would stand staring over at you while whispering. The Pastor would stand at the door on your way out, shake your hand, and thank you for coming, with a fake smile on his face. Then there were the harassing "Christians" everywhere. Looking down their noses at you because you didn't go to THEIR church, didn't believe EXACTLY as they did, didn't dress like they thought you should, shaming you for breathing wrong. AND it obviously hasn't gotten any better, but now at least the churches are on board with the hypocrisy.
I keep my beliefs to myself to this day, because of being treated as less than by "Christians." What I believe, think, and feel is between God, Jesus, and I.
Yep. I've experienced everything you mentioned and I believe many others have had a very similar experience in their lives. I often think of those movies where a couple of "outsiders" get stranded in a small town somewhere and walk into the local diner and everyone stops talking, and turns and looks at you like, "who in the he** are you?" What a turn off right? It's so easy to get caught up in some kind of "clique" when we are in any kind of group whether it be a church or even an online community like substack. I'm not sure what the answer is, but I'm working on it the best I can in my own life. Thank you for sharing your experience Bandit and contributing to the banter. Much appreciated.
Bandit, that's a shame that your church experience was so bad. I've had some negative experiences too, from fire and brimstone type churches and from New Agey type as well. Nowadays, I attend a church with a good pastor and a lot of caring congregants. It's not perfect because it's made up of people but I've never felt like just a number, or not good enough to be there.
This is interesting. I'm 35, so I grew up with the classic millennial "Jesus loves you and you're perfect the way you are" message shoved down my throat. I would argue that this has produced far worse results than fire and brimstone. I think people *need* to be reminded that they're messing up because they almost certainly are. The role of a shepherd *should* be to criticize.
Oh wow FRI. I agree. When I "found the Lord" I was 8 years old. It was a little Baptist church and there was lots of "fire and brimstone." What made the difference for me was that the message was tempered with love! Not just from the Preacher, but the congregation as well. It's one thing to hear "you're all going straight to hell!" And another entirely to hear, "you're all going to hell, *but* here's a way out!" It's much more complex than that of course. But I agree, we live in a world now where if someone's conscience gets pricked and they feel that little twinge of guilt they instantly become offended. I look at that twinge of guilt as an opportunity to be better. Typically when we feel that, it means we *know* that we are doing something we probably shouldn't be. Thanks for stopping by!
"What ends up happening to people like that is they reach out to government for help, get a bit of help and become addicted to their new god, which is said government."
And therein perhaps, lies the truth. Many churches, sadly, seem to have become social(ist) clubs. Like the one to which we belonged for years. We didn't attend church to listen to rock music, or support 'recovering' addicts in countries, or cities, we could only find with difficulty on a map. We didn't attend church to curse the evils of capitalism. We certainly didn't attend to see Sunday School turned into "drag queen story hour". Our former church, and many others, seem to have become platforms for preaching the glories of the modern hedonistic lifestyle.
Our grandparents (born in the 1800's) believed all things come from God. (I still recall a sermon from my teens, by a guest Pastor, "God giveth, and the government taketh away.") Our generation seems to believe all things come from the Government. Our generation has truly 'lost it's way".
I personally grew up Catholic but I never fully "grew" into it, so I also stopped going to church long before I even became aware of (some of) the existing problems within the Catholic Church and the hypocrisy that seems to surround Christianity (and many other religions). This is not a personal attack against any religion or anyone practicing a religion, it's just the way I've been seeing things as of late.
Some parallels can also be drawn from this article: first, the obvious shutting of the doors of churches when COVID hit, thus doing away with the idea of church being a sanctuary for the homeless, poor or anyone seeking comfort.
Second, you also bring up a very good point about people being denied assistance from a church because they aren't "members". Honestly, who gets to decide who's a member and who isn't? To me it goes hand-in-hand with needing to be "confirmed" as a member of the church which was one thing I always found ridiculous -- along with the "certificates" of baptism and holy communion (and you weren't allowed to receive the "body" or "blood" of Christ without them....seriously?).
Third and maybe most importantly is people being denied assistance from a church turning to the "government" as their "god" for assistance, creating a very "profitable", per se, avenue for people to get hooked on government assistance. Need I remind myself just how much governments want us to be 100% dependent on them for every facet of our existence?
Fourth, religions to me have always been used, explicitly or implicitly, to justify senseless wars throughout the world. We could look at the damage the U.S. did to Iraq and Afghanistan in innumerable forms, which may be irreparable in my opinion.
As you said, these days religion seems to be practiced in name only and not through our actions (or maybe even our beliefs). Perhaps re-educating ourselves about what it means to be truly part of any religion, through our actions most importantly, is also another step we can take in helping humanity recourse from our current path(s).
Brilliant observations Daniel. I really appreciate you expounding on my post the way you did. You really "got" what I was trying to say. I remember in my life time (at a much younger age), Christians, Catholics, etc being respected by non-believers. Often I would hear something like, "well, they are a little weird, but they are good people and they care about others." We don't hear much of that now and I believe it's because of the very things I mentioned in my post and that you clarified a bit more in your comment. I was reading the New Testament today and Jesus said something to the effect of "you will be hated because of me." It's one thing to be hated for being a believer, another entirely to be hated because of not doing what we should be doing as a believer. Non-believers watch those who claim belief in something better like hawks. They are ready to point out anything a believer does that is contrary to what they claim to believe. It's one thing for the non-believing world to be accused of hypocrisy, but shame on those of us who claim to be believers when we are hypocrites. We should be setting an example and a standard that others may consider emulating. It's not always easy, but at the very minimum, we should be making that heartfelt effort and be willing to say, "oh man, I messed up!" when we don't. Thanks again for stopping by and taking the time to participate.
I'm glad I was able to clarify some things for you (and myself by extension lol) because religion to me has always been a touchy topic of discussion. I also never read (or much less opened) the Bible (Old or New Testaments) so I personally have no idea what's even in the pages lol; although i'm familiar with just a few scriptures that a colleague of mine sent to me but that's about it.
I doubtless share your belief that many believers may want to re-evaluate their beliefs to where it becomes easier to **authentically** exercise the teachings of said religion through their actions, which is primarily why I don't really align with any religion. We've even seen some politicians express their religious, primarily Christian in my view, "beliefs" over the years -- and I think it became a bit more noticeable around 2012, closer to Obama's 2nd term.
I think hypocrisy as a whole is also very prevalent not just in religion but also in nearly every realm of American politics which, to me, seems to have lost virtually all veneer of authenticity and empathy -- and any politician espousing any religion would only add to that hypocrisy from my perspective. I'll have much more to say about politics (and possibly religion) in future blogs and videos after I get out of this current writer's block lol.
I hate writer's block. I typically have about 20 subjects going on in my mind at any given time and don't know how to express them in a way that's easy for others to understand. And choosing what subject may be relevant to others is difficult for me as well. It's a really good thing I don't do this for a living! Haha. I hope your writer's block is quickly resolved! :)
I swear my brain works the exact same way. Lol my mind is always flowing with ideas and information from every angle that I really feel like there should be some sort of "slow-down" or "off" switch for overactive imaginations. My own writer's block is slowing coming "unblocked" lol so I'll likely write about RFK Jr. (and possibly Marianne Williamson in one blog) cause I've been wanting to write about them for some time now. So that'll happen as soon as I can fully delineate my thoughts some more haha
re-'And can we blame them?' lest we forget the other side of the coin [sic] , explaining why many churches are towing TPTB dictats...'Thousands of Churches Have Received Millions of Dollars in Stimulus Cash
Churches constantly say they want the government out of their business — and I would agree provided that was true the other way around as well — but apparently that’s not the case when it comes to taxpayer money.
The U.S. government recently passed the “Paycheck Protection Program” (PPP) offering small businesses a loan of up to 2.5 times their average monthly payroll — a loan that they don’t have to pay back if 75% of that money goes to payroll and not rent, utilities, etc. The big PPP scandal you may have heard about was how large businesses (like restaurant chains) were receiving millions of dollars while many actual small businesses received nothing at all.
But here’s a different scandal: Because non-profits were also eligible for the money, many religious institutions also applied for the cash. And they’re scooping up millions upon millions of taxpayer dollars ...' friendlyatheist.patheos.com /2020/05/08/thousands-of-churches-have-received-millions-of-dollars-in-stimulus-cash/
Yep! I think I wrote a piece mentioning some of this long ago (I'd have to search for it). I often think of the scripture "you cannot serve God and money" (paraphrased). It's impossible to preach the true gospel and preach about the woes of our age if we are way too worried we may have to pay taxes or we might lose out on a goody from the father of lies (government/devil). My recommendation? Home churches. Small groups of people getting together and studying the word together and saying no to "the man." Thank you for chiming in with that great information dar. So glad you stopped by.
taa,muchly, prof Rob...was that long lost post on the c0nvid scandal THIS? ...
'Huge cash bonanza for US churches slammed by American Atheists
AMONG places of worship in the US that received between $6 to $10 billion of taxpayers’ cash due to COVID-19 lock-downs in America was the First Baptist Church of Dallas, led by Trump-loving multi-millionaire Robert Jeffress, above, whose net worth is $17-m.
His church, which hosted Bible-thumping Vice President Mike Pence at a rally at the end of June, was approved for a forgivable loan worth $2 million to $5 million by the Trump administration.
The extent of the bail-out to churches, which were a major source of COVID-19 infections in America, was revealed in long-awaited government data released yesterday (Monday).
American Atheists are appalled, saying that cash award to churches under the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) run by the Small Business Administration (SBA) was “unconstitutional.”
AA identified a minimum of between $3.5 and $7 billion in forgivable loans of $150,000 or more that have gone to specific houses of worship...The Trump Administration’s decision to only release broad ranges of loan amounts makes it difficult to be more precise. For houses of worship receiving loans of less than $150,000, American Atheists found that they were awarded at least $2.7 billion, putting the church bailout total at between an estimated $6.2 and $9.7 billion at a minimum.
IMHO, this has been the problem with churches and "Christians" forever (at least 60 years). The church we went to occasionally was the fire and brimstone, God is gonna get you, church. Pretty scary for a small child. What about the song, "Jesus Loves Me?" Maybe Jesus did, it was never mentioned, but evidently God didn't/doesn't love any of us! The people weren't friendly either, as they would stand staring over at you while whispering. The Pastor would stand at the door on your way out, shake your hand, and thank you for coming, with a fake smile on his face. Then there were the harassing "Christians" everywhere. Looking down their noses at you because you didn't go to THEIR church, didn't believe EXACTLY as they did, didn't dress like they thought you should, shaming you for breathing wrong. AND it obviously hasn't gotten any better, but now at least the churches are on board with the hypocrisy.
I keep my beliefs to myself to this day, because of being treated as less than by "Christians." What I believe, think, and feel is between God, Jesus, and I.
Yep. I've experienced everything you mentioned and I believe many others have had a very similar experience in their lives. I often think of those movies where a couple of "outsiders" get stranded in a small town somewhere and walk into the local diner and everyone stops talking, and turns and looks at you like, "who in the he** are you?" What a turn off right? It's so easy to get caught up in some kind of "clique" when we are in any kind of group whether it be a church or even an online community like substack. I'm not sure what the answer is, but I'm working on it the best I can in my own life. Thank you for sharing your experience Bandit and contributing to the banter. Much appreciated.
Bandit, that's a shame that your church experience was so bad. I've had some negative experiences too, from fire and brimstone type churches and from New Agey type as well. Nowadays, I attend a church with a good pastor and a lot of caring congregants. It's not perfect because it's made up of people but I've never felt like just a number, or not good enough to be there.
I'm glad you've found somewhere good to go.
Maybe if the "Christian" beat downs hadn't started when I was so young and continued for so long, maybe I'd trust more.
Edited for misspelling.
This is interesting. I'm 35, so I grew up with the classic millennial "Jesus loves you and you're perfect the way you are" message shoved down my throat. I would argue that this has produced far worse results than fire and brimstone. I think people *need* to be reminded that they're messing up because they almost certainly are. The role of a shepherd *should* be to criticize.
Oh wow FRI. I agree. When I "found the Lord" I was 8 years old. It was a little Baptist church and there was lots of "fire and brimstone." What made the difference for me was that the message was tempered with love! Not just from the Preacher, but the congregation as well. It's one thing to hear "you're all going straight to hell!" And another entirely to hear, "you're all going to hell, *but* here's a way out!" It's much more complex than that of course. But I agree, we live in a world now where if someone's conscience gets pricked and they feel that little twinge of guilt they instantly become offended. I look at that twinge of guilt as an opportunity to be better. Typically when we feel that, it means we *know* that we are doing something we probably shouldn't be. Thanks for stopping by!
"What ends up happening to people like that is they reach out to government for help, get a bit of help and become addicted to their new god, which is said government."
And therein perhaps, lies the truth. Many churches, sadly, seem to have become social(ist) clubs. Like the one to which we belonged for years. We didn't attend church to listen to rock music, or support 'recovering' addicts in countries, or cities, we could only find with difficulty on a map. We didn't attend church to curse the evils of capitalism. We certainly didn't attend to see Sunday School turned into "drag queen story hour". Our former church, and many others, seem to have become platforms for preaching the glories of the modern hedonistic lifestyle.
Our grandparents (born in the 1800's) believed all things come from God. (I still recall a sermon from my teens, by a guest Pastor, "God giveth, and the government taketh away.") Our generation seems to believe all things come from the Government. Our generation has truly 'lost it's way".
What a beautiful and poignant comment AndyinBC. Thank you!
Good one, Rob. I saw you on Kyle's stack the other day about this issue of religion. How Dare You! lol. You did a nice piece of work there. Here, too.
Thank you serafino bueti. Always appreciate your input. :)
I personally grew up Catholic but I never fully "grew" into it, so I also stopped going to church long before I even became aware of (some of) the existing problems within the Catholic Church and the hypocrisy that seems to surround Christianity (and many other religions). This is not a personal attack against any religion or anyone practicing a religion, it's just the way I've been seeing things as of late.
Some parallels can also be drawn from this article: first, the obvious shutting of the doors of churches when COVID hit, thus doing away with the idea of church being a sanctuary for the homeless, poor or anyone seeking comfort.
Second, you also bring up a very good point about people being denied assistance from a church because they aren't "members". Honestly, who gets to decide who's a member and who isn't? To me it goes hand-in-hand with needing to be "confirmed" as a member of the church which was one thing I always found ridiculous -- along with the "certificates" of baptism and holy communion (and you weren't allowed to receive the "body" or "blood" of Christ without them....seriously?).
Third and maybe most importantly is people being denied assistance from a church turning to the "government" as their "god" for assistance, creating a very "profitable", per se, avenue for people to get hooked on government assistance. Need I remind myself just how much governments want us to be 100% dependent on them for every facet of our existence?
Fourth, religions to me have always been used, explicitly or implicitly, to justify senseless wars throughout the world. We could look at the damage the U.S. did to Iraq and Afghanistan in innumerable forms, which may be irreparable in my opinion.
As you said, these days religion seems to be practiced in name only and not through our actions (or maybe even our beliefs). Perhaps re-educating ourselves about what it means to be truly part of any religion, through our actions most importantly, is also another step we can take in helping humanity recourse from our current path(s).
Brilliant observations Daniel. I really appreciate you expounding on my post the way you did. You really "got" what I was trying to say. I remember in my life time (at a much younger age), Christians, Catholics, etc being respected by non-believers. Often I would hear something like, "well, they are a little weird, but they are good people and they care about others." We don't hear much of that now and I believe it's because of the very things I mentioned in my post and that you clarified a bit more in your comment. I was reading the New Testament today and Jesus said something to the effect of "you will be hated because of me." It's one thing to be hated for being a believer, another entirely to be hated because of not doing what we should be doing as a believer. Non-believers watch those who claim belief in something better like hawks. They are ready to point out anything a believer does that is contrary to what they claim to believe. It's one thing for the non-believing world to be accused of hypocrisy, but shame on those of us who claim to be believers when we are hypocrites. We should be setting an example and a standard that others may consider emulating. It's not always easy, but at the very minimum, we should be making that heartfelt effort and be willing to say, "oh man, I messed up!" when we don't. Thanks again for stopping by and taking the time to participate.
I'm glad I was able to clarify some things for you (and myself by extension lol) because religion to me has always been a touchy topic of discussion. I also never read (or much less opened) the Bible (Old or New Testaments) so I personally have no idea what's even in the pages lol; although i'm familiar with just a few scriptures that a colleague of mine sent to me but that's about it.
I doubtless share your belief that many believers may want to re-evaluate their beliefs to where it becomes easier to **authentically** exercise the teachings of said religion through their actions, which is primarily why I don't really align with any religion. We've even seen some politicians express their religious, primarily Christian in my view, "beliefs" over the years -- and I think it became a bit more noticeable around 2012, closer to Obama's 2nd term.
I think hypocrisy as a whole is also very prevalent not just in religion but also in nearly every realm of American politics which, to me, seems to have lost virtually all veneer of authenticity and empathy -- and any politician espousing any religion would only add to that hypocrisy from my perspective. I'll have much more to say about politics (and possibly religion) in future blogs and videos after I get out of this current writer's block lol.
I hate writer's block. I typically have about 20 subjects going on in my mind at any given time and don't know how to express them in a way that's easy for others to understand. And choosing what subject may be relevant to others is difficult for me as well. It's a really good thing I don't do this for a living! Haha. I hope your writer's block is quickly resolved! :)
I swear my brain works the exact same way. Lol my mind is always flowing with ideas and information from every angle that I really feel like there should be some sort of "slow-down" or "off" switch for overactive imaginations. My own writer's block is slowing coming "unblocked" lol so I'll likely write about RFK Jr. (and possibly Marianne Williamson in one blog) cause I've been wanting to write about them for some time now. So that'll happen as soon as I can fully delineate my thoughts some more haha
I'm looking forward to your next post. They are always thought provoking! Thanks again for contributing here. :)
re-'And can we blame them?' lest we forget the other side of the coin [sic] , explaining why many churches are towing TPTB dictats...'Thousands of Churches Have Received Millions of Dollars in Stimulus Cash
Churches constantly say they want the government out of their business — and I would agree provided that was true the other way around as well — but apparently that’s not the case when it comes to taxpayer money.
The U.S. government recently passed the “Paycheck Protection Program” (PPP) offering small businesses a loan of up to 2.5 times their average monthly payroll — a loan that they don’t have to pay back if 75% of that money goes to payroll and not rent, utilities, etc. The big PPP scandal you may have heard about was how large businesses (like restaurant chains) were receiving millions of dollars while many actual small businesses received nothing at all.
But here’s a different scandal: Because non-profits were also eligible for the money, many religious institutions also applied for the cash. And they’re scooping up millions upon millions of taxpayer dollars ...' friendlyatheist.patheos.com /2020/05/08/thousands-of-churches-have-received-millions-of-dollars-in-stimulus-cash/
Yep! I think I wrote a piece mentioning some of this long ago (I'd have to search for it). I often think of the scripture "you cannot serve God and money" (paraphrased). It's impossible to preach the true gospel and preach about the woes of our age if we are way too worried we may have to pay taxes or we might lose out on a goody from the father of lies (government/devil). My recommendation? Home churches. Small groups of people getting together and studying the word together and saying no to "the man." Thank you for chiming in with that great information dar. So glad you stopped by.
taa,muchly, prof Rob...was that long lost post on the c0nvid scandal THIS? ...
'Huge cash bonanza for US churches slammed by American Atheists
AMONG places of worship in the US that received between $6 to $10 billion of taxpayers’ cash due to COVID-19 lock-downs in America was the First Baptist Church of Dallas, led by Trump-loving multi-millionaire Robert Jeffress, above, whose net worth is $17-m.
His church, which hosted Bible-thumping Vice President Mike Pence at a rally at the end of June, was approved for a forgivable loan worth $2 million to $5 million by the Trump administration.
The extent of the bail-out to churches, which were a major source of COVID-19 infections in America, was revealed in long-awaited government data released yesterday (Monday).
American Atheists are appalled, saying that cash award to churches under the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) run by the Small Business Administration (SBA) was “unconstitutional.”
AA identified a minimum of between $3.5 and $7 billion in forgivable loans of $150,000 or more that have gone to specific houses of worship...The Trump Administration’s decision to only release broad ranges of loan amounts makes it difficult to be more precise. For houses of worship receiving loans of less than $150,000, American Atheists found that they were awarded at least $2.7 billion, putting the church bailout total at between an estimated $6.2 and $9.7 billion at a minimum.
While funds awarded under PPP are structured as loans, the fact that they are 100% forgivable makes these payments, in effect, grants to the funded businesses and organizations...' https://www.patheos.com/blogs/thefreethinker/2020/07/huge-cash-bonanza-for-us-churches-slammed-by-american-atheists/