Delia said:
Hello all
I have a question that maybe someone can realate to.I was rasied Mormon.I was never very informed about other religions until I got old enough to find out for myself.Now that I am trying to learn I feel like Mormonism never even gave me an accurate depiction of Christianity. I no longer claim the Mormon religion and I feel like I got ripped off in a sense.I feel like most of my life was too devoted to learning The Book Of Mormom and not The Bible. So of course now I have a hard time understanding the Bible and I have major doubt in any religion.
Can anyone relate to feeling like their supposed Christian religion has made them less Christian? I am not starting a debate on Mormonism, It has benifited many of my friends and family . But I would like to know if this has happened to others that may hay converted to other religions or shun Christianity because of a previous experiance?
Thanks,
Tara
my first experience of Christianity was within the pentecostal churches. then over time i saw other churches. my parents divorced in 1990, so it was like two different worlds in the faith. my dad was raised methodist, but became an atheist up until 1991. now he's Luthern. but his view of religion, and with the freedom my mom gave me to be me, conflicted and still conflicts. my mom favored Christianity because she was raised Baptist, but still she wanted me to be me.
so my first experience was with the pentecostal church. people jumping up and down, speaking in some unknown tounge. it didn't make sense, but i thought that was Christianity. then during a relationship i had in highschool for around 2 years, i was introduced to a new denomination. a lot more "traditional" or "strict" if you will. her father kicked one of her sisters out of the house because of her behavior, which didn't make sense to me, and i remember bringing it up to my g/f in highschool, and she didn't like how i questioned her familiy too much. her dad was also the pastor of this church, but the daughter that got kicked out usually was able to go home. so it was idiotic to me how i saw Christians act like this. then i eventually went back to the pentecostal churches, and i found out a new problem for me, the fact that i didn't and dont' speak in tounges, or prophecy as far as i know, so strength always seemed to be judged on that. you had to "enough" faith to believe and aquire these spiritual things and if you didn't, then your faith was weak, and the only strenght or encouragement you were given was words, "Just have faith." now i do believe faith is the essencse of Christianity, but there comes a point that it is used in ill meaning from other Christians. then with my father, he would use scripture to try to convince me to live with him, yet we'd always fight, and several of occasions the police had to be called, so the convincing went no where. then a certain church basing help being given to my single mom because of her record with a tax break called titheing. now i'm not against titheing, but when used wrong or whatever, don't get me started. and the help they gave was appreciated, but with the underlining reason behind it, just gave me a bad taste in my mouth, still does everytime i think about it.
then after time, i went through a dark time in my faith. found solance in a couple of churches, but my positive pessimism grew and grew towards the church and religion. didn't help when i had a fellow co-worker tell me that the devil is in me because i view it is ok to get tattoos, or hear that drinking sprite is bad because the word sprite means spirit. too many times a lot of Christians want their turn to speak intead of shutting up and listening. i'm sure that is a human flaw instead of a flaw in Christianity, but it does seem to come out with a lot of Christians because of ones' personal convictions.
so yes i truly admit that i am still a positive pessimist towards the church. it's hard getting past it and as long as i use it for good, i can't see it being any harm to my spiritual life, only room for growth and seeking a church out. now i'm not saying i experienced the worst from the church either. many people have experienced 10x worse than me, but i think we all can say, we've had our share of bad experiences with the church. but i firmly believe Christianity is based upon one life, not a bunch of individual lives