I have been reading the bible

... huh. Why's that?

 

Huh. Yeah, makes sense!

 

I've had weirdly positive experiences with Catholics when most of my friends and the like have quite the reverse. Namely that my home life has never been particularly great, but I have this lovely tendency to bump into very, very nice Catholic families. Who actually care about what they preach? It means a lot to basically be adopted by a family and have something nice and stable. Which is what basically happened to me in middle school and led to me having a brief period of wanting to be Catholic. Just because the Catholics I knew were honestly the best people I knew. The Catholics I know and what I've learned from them has left me with a good impression of the church. It definitely has its problems, but I do respect it. Especially when it gets shit done as Beldaran said. Organized religion can and has caused problems, but at the same time it can and has helped things.

My Catholics (yes, I have laid claim to them) have also been the best to talk to regarding my religious things. The Irish Catholics I know in particular since they've taught me little bits of Irish culture. Which is important to me given the whole Irish reconstructionist polytheism thing.

And now I'm thinking again on how the thing I don't care for with Irish recon the most is a lack of the community thing. I'm meeting more people which is nice, but it's not like the Theravada temple whose community I'm part of. For me large organized bodies are just kind of. Really nice. I like being a cog in the machine.

 

I get really frustrated with the folks whose take away from 'acknogledge we all fuck up' is not, "have patience with other people's fuckups and try on your part to fuck up less" but "Im right so my fuckups dont count"

And yeah, i think this is less a christian community problem and more a people problem. I had the same issues when i used to go to temple. Most people are jerks.

 

I am perfectly alright with the community.
the reason I am not openly atheist is that community.
but a community that kicks people out bc doubt doesn't seem so great.

 

wait, what's the "sinner's prayer"?

 

I was a Christian until the whole "I'm gay" thing happened and every Christian I knew fell over themselves to tell me that I was going to Hell. I also really fucking hate the idea that you're going to BURN FOR ETERNITY because you didn't believe in the right god for like, what, roughly 80-90 years of existence??? That warrants and eternity of suffering??? REALLY???

That said, I do have Christian friends now who are lovely and their reaction to my sexuality is, "Eh, it's not up to me to judge anyone," which is VERY REFRESHING. And I appreciate Jesus's messages and I think they are important. I am just not a Christian, but I am still religious.

A lot of the Christians I know also talk about how Jesus is going to return soon and the end times are coming which is, uh, I am mostly wondering how they would know that.

 

I think a lot of my atheism comes from brainfuckery that makes believing hard.
Also very harshly trying to Not Be The Girl My Mom Sees Me As.

 

I think it's, "Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner."
No, that's the Jesus Prayer...

Oh wait, is it the thing at the end of Chick tracts?

 

Ah. Skepticism. I think skepticism is a good thing. A skeptic is slow to come to belief and even then the belief is provisional.

 

Huh, this is a pretty good explanation of my atheism too, so there you go. Like, on an objective level, I think Jesus had a lot of really good things to say and I'm glad that, in theory at least, people are taking his lessons to heart and trying to be kinder to those around them. However, I have real trouble believing in a higher power. It just doesn't really gel with my brain somehow. (Also my morality is very much instinctive and I find the idea of following a particular set of rules kind of weird, but hey, if it works for other people good for them.)

 

Huh. Is it the specific idea "say this particular prayer => God forgives you" that he takes issue with? Because I can think of verses that would imply compelling God to do something, e.g. "19Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven. 20For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them."
But I might not have grasped this, since I'd never heard of the Sinner's Prayer (not a thing in Anglicanism, apparently.)

 

According to this Wikipedia page, the concept of a sinner's prayer is more comment in Protestant churches and is a very evangelical thing. I'd never heard of that kind of prayer before, so it's interesting! I probably have actually heard variants of sinner's prayers before, the wording is kind of familiar. Being all, "Jesus I am a sinner and not worthy of You but You love me anyway. Please help me to become someone who is worthy of Your love and grace." I've definitely heard things like that.

 

"It is intended to be an act of initial conversion to Christianity, and the only way to receive salvation according to some Protestants."
Ah. Yeah, that's...that's.

 

Admittedly my knowledge of Christianity is not fantastic, but that does not sound like a Correct Thing.

 

I was raised Christian in various mostly-Protestant denominations and I never actually encountered the Sinner's Prayer that I recall, but yeah, people in some Protestant denominations put a lot of emphasis on the whole Conversion Experience thing. As far as I know, it's leftovers from the Puritans, who only allowed people who had had a conversion experience to become full members of the church - and partial members weren't allowed to have communion, so they were basically being treated as excommunicants or non-Christians.

 

Catholics are like "evangelize, tell people about Christ!"
And I'm like, no that's now how you get people to convert.
Telling me I'm going to hell will likely not bring me back to belief.

(I mean, there's also the whole, if god creates all of us individually, and lovingly crafts us ect ect, THEN WHY AM I AFAB? but that's a tiny reason)

 

Wee Roman Catholicism! We were given Mount Carmel ones in school with the explicit story of, "some sinner tried to use this once on his deathbed to avoid his punishment and Mary made him choke but not to death until it was removed and he died." So the times I'm familiar with the compelling God are usually giving the faith room to avoid that actual intent.