[WideRight05]

Ok, here goes. I grew up in a Christian church. I was raised on the Bible. I had this natural assumption that everyone out there just about believes in God. I never really thought about it that much. I just assumed it was true. For years I went to a small church in my hometown. It's a weird story. I'll tell this because I'm sure there is some athiest or agnostic that grew up with a similar experience. I grew up with the impression that Christians were on a "holy" level. I got involved in my Church when I was real young, and was expected to be a great leader in that Church one day. This Church had an invisible dress code. Suit and tie every Sunday, I always wore. As with every congregation, this one went through a major change in the late 1990's when I was going into my early teens. Some of the great, wise, older members had passed away, and several new people came in, that I hate to say caused a lot of problems. I didn't get along with a lot of these new people, and they were also causing some of our good members to leave. This is the judgmental, I can't do anything wrong, that type. These people, blended with what used to be a minority of the members were now a majority that caused trouble. Then, we got a new youth minister that was nuts. He always yelled at the kids, things like that. I come from a church where Baptism is important to go to heaven. Not to turn this into a debate, but I ended up still hold that belief to this day (but Baptists, Methodists, most denominations, will be in Heaven! I go to those churches sometimes when they have events locally). I remember talking on the phone with this youth minister at night (it was really late...or at least for a 13 year old, 9:45 or something lol). He ended up throwing a bunch of scriptures at me and scaring me into being baptized. Yeah, I should've known better, but at the time I was 13 lol. I talked to my parents and they were shocked and didn't really know how to handle the situation, and understandably so because they sure didn't expect that to come. So, we went to the church late that night and I was baptized. Needless to say, I did go forward as well that next Sunday. Only for him to put me down in front of the congregation and say that I was "doing stuff I shouldn't have." ***for what it's worth, I never drank, never smoked, always made A's and B's in school...never was in trouble. And I don't look down on anyone who does do that.*** He scared a couple of more kids into baptism, really what he was doing was trying to get his numbers up so he could keep his job there. I found out a few years later there was another kid that wanted to get baptized one night after hearing what happened with me, but the youth minister told him to "wait until Sunday." Ironic isn't it. It wasn't until a couple of years after he had got on that the church ended up letting him go. He ended up getting a job at another church for a short time until they fired him, and in fact now is a minister, scary to think. He came under several attacks from PETA on a national level recently for one of his antics.

That aside, I ended up getting fed up with church by the time I was 15 years old. I didn't like the way Christians acted, the impression I was getting was you literally had to be perfect in just about every way to be a Christian. I knew I couldn't do it, so I avoided church whenever possible. I hated it. I always had that belief that God existed, that God was there - but I didn't think I had what it took to follow him, and didn't want to at the time given how some of the people in the church acted. My focus was strictly on football, and doing everything I can to be as healthy as possible and achieve in that area. While I was gone, to throw it all out, several people in the church started rumors about me (as well as a couple of the other kids that had left) despite the fact we were doing very well in school.

By the time I was 19 years old, I had already graduated and was extremely driven toward finding a direction in life and being a dominant force in whatever field I was going to choose. However, I was also starting to see some of the other beliefs in college. I stuck around at a local community college for two years I will add. A lot of my friends from high school went to the universities, so I didn't have as many friends at the time. I ended up studying some, and actually ended up coming back to that church and rededicating my life. I felt lost at the time still primarily because I didn't really have a purpose, and had no direction and felt depressed a lot. I felt like that was the only church for me, and despite the fact I still did not like a lot of people there, the pastor and I were really close - and still are to this day even though I don't go there now.

You probably wonder why I'm practically spilling out my life story here with the Church...the reason is that an athiest/agnostic probably had some kind of an experience like this, and probably 7 out of 10 people that went through what I did in that short period of time would not be Christians right now and would be slinging everything they can to try to bring the church down.

You probably also wonder why I cut it off short - I've typed and thought a lot here. I need a break here. It gets better, and I'm not trying to put some sob story on here. The reason I'm putting this, again, is to show that this probably is the type of experience that most people that lead them to believing what they do. I'll type later on what made me stay with church that I hope someone will read. No work until Tuesday, so the time I don't spend with my friends this weekend will be taking it easy on here with Stardust and Spud and all my buddies posting lol.