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CT Vermont, Threeve: I wish I could figure it out but the world's upside down

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Yeah we never grew up going to church and I've been an atheist since my teens if not before. We would read bible stories that were largely introduced in the same way as any other book so I just never took it literally, just figured it for fiction and that's the way I've always viewed it. At its core I think the ideas behind religion are worthwhile but I largely find organized religion to represent some of the worst about our society.

My father-in-law is still pretty religious (catholic) and my wife says if we ever have kids that his side of the family will absolutely try to do anything they can to baptize the child so it avoids going to purgatory/hell. But obviously we both agree that will never happen.

To DF27's point, hard to look at organized religion as a whole these days as anything other than a front for bigoted belief systems with the amount of financial donations/ideology trending so far right wing. Perhaps that's unfair since there are clearly churches out there with charitable wings and "love they neighbor" as a meaningful sentiment, but just hard for me to find it's a net positive for society at large. Of course there will always be religion or some substitute, but it's definitely not for me. Love what you love but growing up with so many Southern Baptists and all the proselytizing and going to hell speech, it's a no for me dawg.
 
My parents were not regular church goers but they forced me to go every Sunday as a young child, to the little Baptist church up the street (my family, other than me and my little sister, were transplanted Canadians living in eastern NC and I don't think they had any idea what they were doing). I hated it. I'm not even sure how I eventually stopped going, but it was probably around middle school or maybe even a little before. I still maintained a little exposure to organized religion through boy scouts until I quit that in junior high. We had both of our children baptized in the Episcopal church when they were infants to make my wife's parents happy but other than those two times, no one in my immediate family has voluntarily gone to church (for anything other than a funeral) in about two decades. I've never missed it or felt like my life is lacking in any way without it. Neither of my children, who are both college age, have ever expressed any curiosity about organized religion or any desire to check it out (their emerging political views are probably the main reason) and we certainly haven't tried to steer them towards it. I don't think I'm quite ready to say I'm an atheist or agnostic, but I can say with 100% certainty that I have absolutely no interest in going to church.
 
I didn't find out about Revelation as a part of the Bible until my teens but I gotta tell you that was a real "wait, this isn't just the Bible but the New Testament? We're all on board with this?" moment
 
DeacsATS said:
I lived in Tampa for years and this is not surprising in the least.
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I was only single in Tampa for about 20 months and ran with a relatively tame crowd, yet Windy's stories don't surprise me at all.
 
I went to Catholic school from 3-10 grade and from 3-8 went to Mass twice a week during the school year.
 
WindyCityDeac said:
I live in a Condo/Apartment in St. Pete just across the bridge from Tampa. I've noticed several times a younger (20's) woman on the balcony caddy corner from mine. We've spoken a couple times and she is very attractive...oddly attractive and too young to be able to afford a place like this IMO, but what do I know. Couple times i;'ve seen her on the balcony in VERY sheer clothing and the lighting in their unit is odd. But it's Tampa..maybe she's just headed to the pool or something.

A week ago i had to pick up a package in the package room. all packages are sorted in an area by floor. as I'm rummaging through packages you see peoples names..tim, donna, mercedes. One i noticed was Nika Venom. So i said "well Windy" i refer to myself as Windy "let's check the unit number." and sure enough Nika is the woman from the balcony.

So I got back to my apartment, googled Nika Venom, and yep...you guessed it. Pornhub..first search result.

Tampa Bay is quite the area...
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you should offer to fix the cable
 
leftcoastdeac said:
I appreciate you sharing that. It's been an adjustment, for sure. My parents are quite religious still so my family's lack of religion has been a bit of a wedge issue. I'm also coming up on 40 so with all of the anxiety and existential questions that come with hitting that milestone this is another ingredient in the mix. Hard to unwind many decades of religious indoctrination, even if I didn't practice with conviction prior to walking away from it all.
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Oh man, the transition stage was very depressing. My parents are very Catholic still, my sister too. We had huge blowup fights over the religious content of my first wedding, to the point where dad told me to “get the fuck out of my house.” Only one of 2 times I ever heard the man use a swear word. I was only 24 and still under their influence, I probably didn’t handle it great either.

Anyway, if I can ever be of help feel free to reach out.
 
I’ve said this before. The biggest problem with Christianity is Christians.

One of the things I love about the church I attend is that it’s all of the message of Christianity without the judgement of people. The warmest most accepting church I’ve ever been to and still holds to the Bible very diligently.
 
WindyCityDeac said:
this is the amazing part. I'm pretty much a homebody. i go to a local bar maybe once a month...
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I was in my late 20s and went out 2-4 nights a week. But even at that age, you can see this area is a pretty wild place for a single person in their 40s, 50s, or 60s.
 
Deacsfan27 said:
I went to church a month or so ago for my wife's grandfather's 90th birthday (he wanted the family together). When we walked in they highly suggested that we take our child to the daycare they had, which no way in hell (all puns intended) am I leaving my child with a random ass person in church. She started gibbering like 5 minutes in, so I just left and walked around with her the entire service.
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I never understood why people don't take joy from all god's little children making some stupid noise during a church service. That tells me a lot about a church when they are that uptight.
 
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