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That is 76 full days of my life devoted to something that doesn't exist. If you think of it as 8 hour workdays, that would be 228 days I'll never get back.
Alter... nice play on words.
With a five day work week, since 5/7 = 71%, and 228/365 = 62%, 228 days ends up like working for the government for a year. Once you add in two weeks vacation, ten sick days and ten holidays, it becomes 258/365, which equals 71%.
Another thing is, of late, I have been on contact with a few of my old church friends. One of them, in particular, is now going through a painful divorce (he got married at 21 which was not surprising since we were taught that it was "better to marry than to burn [with lust]). More than HALF of his life later, he began to notice things amiss in his marriage that were ALWAYS there but were covered up under the pretense that him and his wife were Christians and, like me, if he could just hit the right combination with God, God would move on the behalf of the marriage. Well, that has been a flop since the start.
Now he seeks a divorce, he is seeing another side of his wife (also part of our teen church years) who is taking him to the cleaners. She graduated with a degree, but pretty much opted to sit at home and live off his military check and raise their daughters, in part, until he moved them to S. Korea, Germany and a few other places in the U.S. Now she is telling the judge, basically, she wants part of his pension, wants to keep the house, the car (him paying for the insurance), his current income, him paying her healthcare and so on. This also after he paid for one daughter to attend Duke and another that he is supporting in Paris. I point those things out because he is one of these super good guys and he has always been this happy go lucky guy who, like me, took his faith seriously to the point of even being a fiery preacher. Now he is really down and out and he has prayed to the point of exhaustion and nothing is going in his favor. Heck, he is also paying HER lawyer fees.
So, he has followed my on Facebook for a few years now and he sees me, a former Christian who grew up in the same faith as him, being more confident, outspoken, grounded, accepting of my humanity and now with a new smoking hot, passionate, expressive loving wife and he now sounds defeated and you can hear the regret in his voice. So we talk, yet I keep my atheism out of our conversations, yet he keeps bringing it up as if he admires something about it. He is right where I was a decade or more ago, but the difference between he and I was that I came to my atheism on a intellectual level and THEN the futility in the marriage was seen in all of its raw details after that. He, on the other hand, does not sound like he has arrived there, but rather, seems to be sensing this empty feeling that there really is no one out there listening to damn thing he is saying and is going to help him in this time of trial.
I do step back with a sense of marvel and wonderment that I no longer feel bound to any of the commitments I once felt. Right now, it's a form of relief when I see people caught up in their religion because I don't have to put the energy and time into it. It's like a gift of time to myself. Many weekends I actually get a day of rest, something that wasn't possible while a churchgoer. With a job, errands that don't get done during the work week, and Sunday activities, a day of rest was a rare event.
A day of rest is when I have no obligations and get to do whatever I feel like without having to lose sleep later in the week as a price for having rested. Losing sleep later on because I rested.... that makes no sense.
I think I mentioned it earlier, but this was my week. 52 weeks of the year:
Sunday:
1. 1 hour Sunday School followed by a 2-4 hour service. break, youth service at 4 pm and then evening service at 7:30 pm. This often amounted to about FOURTEEN hours in church.
2. Tuesday nights - bible study
3. Wednesday nights - Prayer meeting
4. Friday nights - Youth Service
5. Saturday - choir practice
This does not take into account the 1 or 2 week "Revival services" where every night was a service.
While this eased when I moved to the states, back on my home island, it was not easy escaping this routine of hiding out in the congregation. In such a small community, you had to keep up appearances and always put forward a front that you were a good Christian church attendance was a KEY indicator that you were living right. You gave Stan no space in your life if you spent ,ost or ALL of your time in and around church. This was the message.
I think I mentioned it earlier, but this was my week. 52 weeks of the year:
Sunday:
1. 1 hour Sunday School followed by a 2-4 hour service. break, youth service at 4 pm and then evening service at 7:30 pm. This often amounted to about FOURTEEN hours in church.
2. Tuesday nights - bible study
3. Wednesday nights - Prayer meeting
4. Friday nights - Youth Service
5. Saturday - choir practice
This does not take into account the 1 or 2 week "Revival services" where every night was a service.
While this eased when I moved to the states, back on my home island, it was not easy escaping this routine of hiding out in the congregation. In such a small community, you had to keep up appearances and always put forward a front that you were a good Christian church attendance was a KEY indicator that you were living right. You gave Stan no space in your life if you spent ,ost or ALL of your time in and around church. This was the message.
Yes, indeed. It was certainly about control even though I don't think this was an intentional design. In those early years of my faith, I went to church, at first, because I felt I had to then later on, because I was the bass player and loved (love) music. As a young adult, I used to go because I wanted to, but in a large city like New York and then in South Florida, both in large churches,it was easy to hide out or just not show up and no one would really miss you.
In that small church, small community setting on my home island, you felt like part of a family. Many people knew each other beyond the church and because everyone looked alike and grew up alike, there was a trust issue and you just felt that they had your best interest at heart. When I look back, I now recognize that while the "cult" word was not used for us, we had very strong cult similarities. The biggest similarity was the idea that we had to cut off from the rest of society because that society was "the world." There was also the "us" versus "them" notion.
So, in echoing what others have said so far, I look back and kick myself for being duped and mostly wasting so many years. This is where it also gets interesting because the critics are often quick to say, "well, all this proves is you were never REALLY saved" (like how saved I am saved). While it might sound silly to even take them up, it is an insult to people's integrity. So much effort and time was put into living that life under tremendous pressure, fear and guilt.
And because I was in "the faith" so long, I went through all kinds of phases and some are so embarrassing to look back on. but here goes:
1. Seeking to be "filled by the Holy Spirit" in my teens.
I managed to mostly avoid pentecostalism / the charismatic movement but my first wife flirted with it and got involved in a "deliverance ministry" run by one of the elders of a large AOG megachurch. They tried to cast demons out of her to cure her mental issues. Yeah, really. Desperate people do desperate things. We bailed on that before it got TOO ridiculous (and yes it can be even more ridiculous than casting out demons, trust me).
Quote:
Originally Posted by InsaneInDaMembrane
2. Used to be a part of street services.
While a student at Grand Rapids School of Bible and Music, I was drafted to play piano for a prison ministry and for the local rescue mission. I weaseled out as soon as I could though because I could see that our "audience" was feeling patronized and it felt wrong to me.
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Originally Posted by InsaneInDaMembrane
3. Started a "Bible Class" in high school.
Taught release time classes and vacation bible school. Check.
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Originally Posted by InsaneInDaMembrane
4. Bought into stupid ideas like, believing the old Proctor and Gamble logo was actually satanic because Billy Graham said so.
I remember hearing that claim but not believing it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by InsaneInDaMembrane
5. Believed (back in the late 70s/early 80s) that the USSR was Magog and was going to invade Israel in fulfillment of Ezekiel 37 and 38. Spread the fear mongering in my preaching to others. Believed the mark of the beast was imminent and that Jesus was soon to return for the rapture.
Heard and believed it although I always figured it was safely in the distant future.
Quote:
Originally Posted by InsaneInDaMembrane
6. Fell in love with anything Jewish and Israel. Even attended a few Jews for Jesus services, always the only black guy there (oddly enough, in recent years, I actually found out I do have Sephardic Jewish roots on both sides via my great, great grandparents via Portugal). I believed that God blessed those who loved Jerusalem and overlooked Israel's nonsense.
Yes, god's chosen people can do no wrong ;-)
Quote:
Originally Posted by InsaneInDaMembrane
7. Attended a service where I drove 50 miles to hear some dude, claiming to be a former high priest of Satan, give his testimony. At the time, I was really into the whole demons and angels mindset, especially after reading Frank Peretti's, This Present Darkness. The guy, I found out some years later, turned out to be a fraud and made up his stories.
I think the same guy might have visited my midwestern (at the time) neck of the woods. I don't recall if I actually went to see his dog and pony show or not though.
I remember reading This Present Darkness, it was probably handed to me by the exorcist at the AOG church.
Quote:
Originally Posted by InsaneInDaMembrane
8. Used to listen to Bob Larson on radio; a man who has made a living off a radio and TV show where he claims to rid people demons via phone and in person.
Yes I used to listen to him too, although we're talking the 1970s and early 80s or so if I have it dialed in properly. There was a time when he was only conventionally nuts rather than bats__t nuts like he is now. I don't recall exorcisms back in the day, just ordinary conservative talk radio withs some preaching tossed in. Or maybe I was just not perceiving him as that nuts because of my own nuttiness, who knows. Truthfully I have forgotten more of this stuff than I remember.
Quote:
Originally Posted by InsaneInDaMembrane
9. Arrived at a stage where I took a more sublime approach and all I was interested in was "the love of God" and how he loved everyone. Hell fire talk ceased. Oddly enough, it was THIS high point in my Christian faith, when I thought it could not get any better, was when the wheels fell off. lol
Mine was more of a slow "fade to black" where I ran out of rationalizations for unanswered prayer, conversationless relationships, and bogus transformed lives.
All in all though there are remarkable similarities in our experiences, perhaps the main difference being that you were in a more culturally and geographically isolated situation growing up.
I'm with Freak, Mordant, IIDM, NoCapo, Ms Mathlete and Kayanne, in that I don't really share that feeling, although there sometimes is a little bit of smugness that creeps in.
I do step back with a sense of marvel and wonderment that I no longer feel bound to any of the commitments I once felt. Right now, it's a form of relief when I see people caught up in their religion because I don't have to put the energy and time into it. It's like a gift of time to myself. Many weekends I actually get a day of rest, something that wasn't possible while a churchgoer. With a job, errands that don't get done during the work week, and Sunday activities, a day of rest was a rare event.
A day of rest is when I have no obligations and get to do whatever I feel like without having to lose sleep later in the week as a price for having rested. Losing sleep later on because I rested.... that makes no sense.
Oh I can relate to this! I LOVE Sunday mornings with my husband now, and I frequently think about the chaos I used to go through on Sunday's with my 3 little boys, trying to get everyone dressed up and out the door for church and Sunday school (took up the whole morning, home around noon), then back at 6:00 for evening service. Yeah, some "day of rest" THAT was.
Someone mentioned Bob Larson---I'd forgotten about him, but I used to listen to him on the radio. I think it was a call-in show. I also listened to John MacArthur, Rush Limbaugh (not religious, but you get it), and attended the seminars by Bill Gothard back in the 80s.
I homeschooled my kids so they wouldn't be corrupted by the evil public schools (thankfully I am well educated and actually did a good job educating my children, except for the creationism part, which thankfully they never fully believed anyway. And now they are well-adjusted, college grads with a masters and one working on doctorate). So this ties in with the OPs point, about the fact that even well educated people can get sucked into religious nonsense. I was a medical science major, for pete's sake, yet I bought into the whole literal Genesis story, 6 literal days of creation, 6000 year old earth, people & dinosaurs coexisting, literal world-wide flood, the whole enchilada. Now I say, tongue in cheek, "thank god I have seen the light!!"
I love how the original linked article explains the "compartmentalization" of our intelligence, because I never had an explanation for how I possibly fell for all those ridiculous myths.
Insaneinthemembrane, it wouldn't let me rep you again, so I'll do it here. I can so relate to your posts.
I was just thinking yesterday how much of life I missed out on. No movies, no dances(wish I had gotten to dance-now I don't think my arthritic hips etc would let me), always having to "judge" others(if they were ok to run around with, or if it was unequally yoked thing-our church carried that over to all friendships, not just marriage), Endless church services where they said the same thing over and over and over. I wish I could have just had fun.
The thing that finally pushed me over was 19 years in an very emotionally abusive marriage. It finally made me see it for what it really was. I didn't matter at all, it was my burden to bear for the cause(Christianity). I couldn't leave, what would other people think?, I would be a stumbling block for some other poor woman causing her to loose her faith. That was the turning point, did I really in any way shape or form want to encourage anyone to have the soul sucking life I had? I left the marriage and the church and haven't looked back.
Oh that creepy Bill Gothard. I went to his seminars in Mpls in the 70's. I drove up with friends from Rochester and ended up volunteering to work overtime so I didn't have to got to the last few. He made my skin crawl.
I sure can relate to the whole time thing too. I was already exhausted because of a life long arthritic condition. I love my Sunday mornings now, sleeping in, making a big pot of coffee and slowly reading the paper in the summer on the patio, in the winter with the fireplace on. During the week it was always too late for me to go to a service, not get home till late, I always needed some down time before going to bed and then having to get up for work the next day.
When I moved to South Florida in the mid 80s. I got into the whole contemporary Christian thing. At the time, I became a Moody Radio listener also and became a fan of ministers like MacArthur and a few others who were trained at the conservative Dallas Theological Seminary. From my teens, I read the bible vociferously and had a vast library of apologetic books from writers like Strobel, McDowell, Ankerberg and Morris. I was into prophecy, the end times, rapture, tribulation and other such topics. Even went through a "once saved, always saved" phase too. Oh, did I mention that in my late teens had a moment with the "prosperity Gospel/name it, claim it" movement too?
Yes, so looking back, I sure do not look back with a great deal of pride on those ridiculous moments. Sure, I made some decent friends and I had a few memorable moments here and there, but I missed out on so much and I don't mean wild parties, boozing, womanizing and the likes. I mean, trips I could have taken, more time in higher education, saved having children for later and so on.
In looking back it was a lot of work. Took a whole lot out of me and the only "saving grace" I had, was that I kept somewhat grounded in the actual world because I played basketball at a high level and through others, I pretty much kept up with "the world" and what was actually going on. So when I left the faith, I was not totally lost and out of place. I know some others, that if they left the old church, they would be totally clueless on how to function in the world. You can see they are simply lost in time.
I managed to mostly avoid pentecostalism / the charismatic movement but my first wife flirted with it and got involved in a "deliverance ministry" run by one of the elders of a large AOG megachurch. They tried to cast demons out of her to cure her mental issues. Yeah, really. Desperate people do desperate things. We bailed on that before it got TOO ridiculous (and yes it can be even more ridiculous than casting out demons, trust me).
While a student at Grand Rapids School of Bible and Music, I was drafted to play piano for a prison ministry and for the local rescue mission. I weaseled out as soon as I could though because I could see that our "audience" was feeling patronized and it felt wrong to me.
Taught release time classes and vacation bible school. Check.
I remember hearing that claim but not believing it.
Heard and believed it although I always figured it was safely in the distant future.
Yes, god's chosen people can do no wrong ;-)
I think the same guy might have visited my midwestern (at the time) neck of the woods. I don't recall if I actually went to see his dog and pony show or not though.
I remember reading This Present Darkness, it was probably handed to me by the exorcist at the AOG church.
Yes I used to listen to him too, although we're talking the 1970s and early 80s or so if I have it dialed in properly. There was a time when he was only conventionally nuts rather than bats__t nuts like he is now. I don't recall exorcisms back in the day, just ordinary conservative talk radio withs some preaching tossed in. Or maybe I was just not perceiving him as that nuts because of my own nuttiness, who knows. Truthfully I have forgotten more of this stuff than I remember.
Mine was more of a slow "fade to black" where I ran out of rationalizations for unanswered prayer, conversationless relationships, and bogus transformed lives.
All in all though there are remarkable similarities in our experiences, perhaps the main difference being that you were in a more culturally and geographically isolated situation growing up.
The Fates spared thee a worst fate, sir. :-)
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back in the 80s. 
