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Notes -
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.
Can I be annoying Catholic for a second? Here's the general timeline of Christianity.
Christ upon death, entrusts Saint Peter with the formation of a church.
This church exists for about 400 years, doing philosophical work, being murdered by romans, and assembling the gospels
400 years into it, they start calling some councils so that they can assemble a book which encompasses and explains their theology.
They assemble the bible
One thousand years later, and one thousand and five hundred years after Christ establishes a Church on Earth, a retarded autist named Martin Luther decides that he doesn't like the Church that Christ founded, and wants to start his own, with his own [stupid] philosophical beliefs at the center. Marty creates a lie about bible translations so that he can insert his own idea by "translating" the bible into German.
This effects of this are...negative. 500 years after this, we have the things you experienced.
tl;dr - you didn't go to a Church. You went to a weird narcissism cult that is wearing Church as a costume.
If you want to go to a Church, then go to a Church.
My goodness even on the Motte Catholics are insufferable. I don't mean that mainly as a personal attack, that's my observation of every Catholic I encounter - an absolute arrogance and a tendency to twist things to support the required dogmas of the Roman church. I don't entirely blame you, since the church requires you to believe these things it's only natural to reason backwards from the dogmas to the evidence, but it's so frustrating to see here. Anyway:
Of the three main Christian branches, in my opinion Roman Catholicism is by far the least convincing, and its apologists by far the most annoying. Still love you guys though! I earnestly hope you will find comfort knowing that Christ's sacrifice has already justified you, and you don't need to do anything to earn his grace.
Interesting to note that miracles which can withstand scientific scrutiny are exclusively associated with Roman Catholicism.
What miracles can withstand scientific scrutiny?
The existence of the universe?
To my layman understanding of miracles there has to be an established understanding of a secular mechanism which is then defied by the alleged miracle. The existence of the universe does not match this because we have no established understanding of a secular mechanism according to which the universe couldn't (or could) exist.
Can that which encompasses all ever be extraordinary?
I don't think that this is the definition of "miracle" used by the Bible, or any other religious text, written before the scientific method was established.
Isn't that literally what secular humanism was trying to sell as an alternative to religion?
I do not think "you can't explain what is literally beyond known existence" is a criticism that destroys secular humanism.
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