I think I'm done w/Christianity

sent in by MsBok

Luckily, my parents did not force religion down my throat. My mother was raised w/o religion, heck, she was never baptized. My father was raised Presbyterian, but backed off when his church sent a collection agency after my aunt who was on her deathbed because she couldn't keep up with the pledge she made. My mother did send us on a bus to a Baptist church. That was a nightmare. My sister's purse must've got stolen twice & we always got our bibles ripped off. The vacation bible school was the last straw. They actually had scary monsters on the bus (I was only 6 at the time) who told us our parents were going to hell because they weren't going to church with us and only gave us a quarter to put in the collection plate. We stopped going to church all together except for Easter with my grandparents and whenever we spent the night at a friend's house & had to go to church with them.

In my late teens, I started to meet Catholics, listened to their beliefs & felt more at home with them. I went through the conversion & at 23, I was baptized, confirmed, and received first communion. Everything was well until I moved to a new area & couldn't find a parish I could relate to. Then September 11th happened, both my grandparents died, I lost my job & had to take a lower-paying job, found out my aunt made out like a bandit on my grandparents' estate (to the tune of $250K) and I suspect her in having a role in both of their deaths, had a bad breakup, trying to live the single life and don't know if I'll ever marry and/or have children, and now I have a serious illness that I don't know if I'll ever recover from. My faith has completely gone down the toilet. I feel like I never had a connection with J at all. I haven't been to church in a long time, and I am requestioning everything in the bible like I did during my teen years; the Bible has been translated so many times over, does anybody really know what the original scriptures really mean? One of the things that bothers me the most is that because my mother was never baptized, she's never going to heaven. I get so sick when I hear that. Although we got no religious upbringing from my Mom, I love her very much. Religion should be filled with love, not hate. Another thing is that all of us are born with original sin. I don't get it. Sometimes, I think that J was just another Jim Jones or David Koresh (sp?).

I am totally down with Protestantism (they're a bunch of money grubbers, imo), but will say if you are going to be a Christian - be a Catholic. Unfortunately, I don't believe that Christianity is for me; I still believe there is a G-d though. I am learning more about the Jewish faith and a lot of my personal beliefs fall into it, and I believe that is the avenue I should go down next, but very, very, very, very slowly. If you can/will, please pray for me that I will find the best path to worship G-d.


Sex: F
State: IL
Became a Christian: 4
Ceased being a Christian: 30 - I think
Labels before: Baptist, Presbyterian, Catholic
Labels now: worshipping G-d on my own terms
Why I joined: Friends were
Why I left: no longer feel a connection to J and Christianity