[WideRight05]

Ok, now to continue. I got back involved in that same church around the age of 19. Something just led me to go there...I ended up getting heavily involved. At the time, like I said, I had lost a lot of my high school friends and was making new friends, and trying to find my direction. I ended up doing a lot for the church, but when I got heavily involved I started questioning things. The pastor had been at that church 20+ years - and still is there today and does an excellent job. But to see some of these holier than thou people in the leadership made me sick. They always gossiped about the pastor, about people that had left the church - I had enough and left, to the current church I am at today. It's a much larger church, but there is no "dress code" and the "holier than thous" are a very, very minority that are almost unnoticed - in fact, the one or two I do know there that are like that are nowhere close to the level the people were at while I was at the other church. I currently attend this church and am happy here. My family is really what kept me in my previous church - but sometimes you just have to move on.

Now, some in between things during college...

I decided to take a comparative religion class in the fall of 2007 at the community college I went to. I thought it would be a pretty cool thing to study. That's when I started getting heavy into studying the Bible. I remember friends, people I knew telling me they would try to turn me away from Christianity and all this stuff. I just rolled my eyes and laughed thinking, what do they know...well, my first day in that class I couldn't believe what I had seen. The professor took numerous "shots" at Christianity while he was teaching. Let me first say that he was a good guy, he didn't put anyone down, and I can assure you that any church would be blessed to have a guy as good as him in there provided he would start coming. Also, he did not grade unfairly - it was not hard and you practically had to try to get below a B in the class, no matter what faith you were. However, him and this other girl in the class (an agnostic) would constantly put down Christianity. If anybody spoke up in class to debate, he often would tell them to "keep an open mind."

I later found out that this guy used to be a Baptist preacher. I was wondering what was up and thought I would find out for myself. I often went to his office and talked to him. I played stupid and asked him questions a lot about the material in class. He would not tell any of us what his religion was. On the last day, I approached him and asked him what his religion was. He said, "come to my office here in a bit after I get through grading papers." I came up, and he told me he was an athiest. He told me his whole story - how he grew up, how he got involved in the church, and what led him to where he is. He pastored a church for several years, and unfortunately it was a church that had a congregation that acted similar to the one I previously went to. After several years, they ran him off. He remained in the faith for a few more years, and finally decided to go against it. He admitted to me that he used this class so he could steer people away from Christianity while they were young. It truly was sad to see, because 3 - 4 people in the class ended up second guessing and leaving their church. Me? It really made me believe that much more. We had a conversation that day that probably lasted 3 - 4 hours. It didn't have a great impact on him, but it felt good to leave there with him knowing that he dealt with somebody that actually cared about him and wasn't there to try to tell him he was wrong or that he was a bad person.

I really don't know where to start when it comes to playing the "blame" game. Based on my experience and the experience with the professor, it's easy to understand why someone would want to leave the church. At the same time, I get sick of seeing a lot of these "athiests" that are offended over the least little thing and want it taken down because of its religious nature. Personally, like with the whole gay/lesbian thing as well, I think it's just a rebellion and people just want to argue and fight. IMO someone that's truly athiest/agnostic, or better yet, somebody that has a life would have better stuff to do than go around being a busy body and trying to get stuff taken down. Those people have nothing better to do, sadly.

I think most athiests/agnostics think the way they do because mainly they have had a bad experience with the church, or are looking to rebel. I don't have a complete answer on this - and I think it's tough to come up with a full, concrete answer. I can tell you why I believe in Christianity, other than the historical facts. I'm not perfect. I don't plan on ever being perfect, and I don't plan on trying to be. I fail so much every day. I have so many faults. I think of Romans 7:15 where Paul pretty much talks about how he wants to do good things, but ends up doing bad things. It's the free gift of eternal life that God offers that gets me through. If I were to be truly judged, there's no question that I do not deserve to go to Heaven. That's one reason it makes me sick when I encounter people like the ones at my previous church, is because the reason we are there is NOT because we are perfect, or to look good in a suit, or to gossip about our relatives who aren't Christians. It's because we struggle every day, and we need Jesus. And that's the bottom line.

I am too lazy to look back and edit this, so please excuse any lack of organization or grammatical errors.