somethingsomething
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User ID: 1123
somethingsomething
9mo ago
In a sense I knew what I was getting into, in another sense I really am a godless liberal with almost total naivete regarding what each church is "really like". I thought I'd start with the one who at least is most aligned with my belief that Jesus was not resurrected. And I was legitimately surprised with just how miserably it all went.
somethingsomething
9mo ago
I feel im missing something with your links, could you help me understand the lie, and what his own idea was in your view?
somethingsomething
9mo ago
A godless liberal goes to church
I knew in advance that my frustration with the godless progressive milieu that did everything but (ok, not but) cheer a horrifying political assassination, would be unlikely to be assuaged by attending my local Unitarian church's sunday service, but since I had read it described as the most intellectual church, and because of its sensibility towards Christ's (obvious lack of) resurrection, I felt like it would be the most likely out of the various sects to be a spiritual home for me.
I had no idea how bad it is in there.
The introductory speaker began the service reading very slowly and deliberately through various housekeeping items in a kind of "this is why boys in school have ADD" teacher voice. It was revealed that this was a special "all ages" day that they do every month. Could this be why she was reading to us in a voice like we were all babies, or is she always like this, I wondered. The last thing she did before passing the mic was asking us all to stand up and get the wiggles out.
The choir then got up and sang "Liberty and Justice for all" by Brandon Williams. Could this be an old Whiggish protestant church song, I wondered. But as it started "We are frightened... we are angry... we are rising..." which came across as a bit modern to me.
Then they sit down and they are followed by some ceremony to induct new people to serve as some kind of counselor role, which involves some vow reading that takes a while. Then they sit down and the choir gets up again, to sing "One Foot/Lead With Love" by Melanie DeMore which again contains words about being "scared," but it's a bit catchier than the first song.
Then they go sit down and now the two apparent church leaders say they are going to tell us a "story." Very slowly and deliberately they read out a baby story about two brothers trying to find God. They go up to the mountains, but they don't see God there...
I have to leave. The whole experience has felt like being Dracula confronted with a crucifix. Every cell in my brain screaming to get out of this holy place. Exiting the door I'm confronted with pouring down rain on a street with cars going by and I'm struck by the beauty and calm. THIS is where God is, is the thought that occurs to me.
So now my thought is, culturally, WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON!? How is THAT what church is? Jesus Christ! How fucking horrible was all that? I could not believe only 30 minutes had passed.
I looked up the two choir songs and they are both basically anti-Trump protest songs written in 2016/17. Why are we singing about how scared we are? Why don't we fucking man up?
Why in every aspect is this a church for babies? Where even the children are bored by their pandering to them?
I was raised as a godless liberal but I had an idea that if things felt really dire and miserable, or if I felt like I needed God for whatever reason, any one of these places would at least do a serviceable job of keeping me connected. Holy hell was I wrong, there are some fucking bad, miserable churches.
somethingsomething
10mo ago
It's not 1:1 with your example, because he's not swinging while he is hefting it. He would heft it first, then swing. So it would be more similar to "going for a run, he showered off the sweat and went to sleep".
somethingsomething
11mo ago
I feel like your last point is basically the social safety net and pro-union wing of the left (and now right?). In that respect we already do have a lot of pushback against pure capitalism in a practical sense, and a lot of it came from socialist strains.
somethingsomething
11mo ago
I have depression as well, which I blame mostly on a stressful, lonely childhood that gave me attachment issues, using marijuana as a go-to coping mechanism through young adulthood to the present day, and failing to land in some kind of realm of family/community in adulthood to smooth over the various psychological rough edges I have. A little over a year ago I did a ketamine sequence over 7 weeks which I found to be beneficial, but it didn’t quite result in a lasting fix for me, and I ended up going on an SNRI about half a year ago which has felt more reliable in the long-term so far.
The ketamine experience was truly beautiful and fascinating though, and I will probably do it again, but I want to have a significant amount of time between using it to avoid it feeling like a crutch or a recreational drug experience.
I got into meditation in the past, and doing so I feel like really benefited the trip because I was able to go into that zone and really relax, while following different paths my brain was going on. I had explored Jhanas on my own in an amateurish way, and I was definitely able to experience some piti eruptions in ketamine land. I felt a connection to the Eleusinian Mystery rituals, and in moments of awareness I felt a lot of appreciation that I got to live in a time where this mystical state was accessible. It reinforced a feeling that life has meaning, because I was experiencing “meaning” in such a profound-feeling way, that it seems truly odd to imagine a universe devoid of meaning that could produce such states.
All that wasn’t enough to really deeply change me, as I was still spending days alone feeling like my life is still “shit,” so to speak. Possibly that’s because I already kind of knew these things that ketamine was revealing to me through past meditation experiences. Once I was on the SNRI, it felt like the non-marijuana coping mechanisms I had developed were easier to implement, like understanding feelings are temporary and not getting too attached to negative spirals. I don’t have a feeling of why they are easier, they just kind of are, which I’m thankful for, although I’m not sure what the future holds in terms of actually trying to make a better life happen for myself.
Yeah more or less, it is a bummer to me how insistent Paul was on that but I suppose it was probably necessary to keep the project together and convert the Pagans.
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