What is the worst experience you had with religion and how did it affect you or what was your response?
I have no bad experiences to relate regarding being involved in religion, for i was not raised religious, realized at age 15 there are no gods, and furthermore have never even nominally been christian -- the religiosity most lIkely, in america, to torment its followers. Alas it is also the most likely to torment others too, and so in that regard i have too many tales from which to choose, from being hit and chased and mocked for being jewish to losing friends because their mothers were horrified at the very sight of a jewish child to at least one job all but in the bag until the boss heard my jewish surname.... There is more, but it all has to do with christians' reaction to me as a jew. The crap i encounter as an atheist is merely ignorant and annoying.
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I raised my children to think. When they were about 15 they wanted to go to church for about 3 months. I took them. When they asked questions about the beliefs I answered from a Christian perspective without talking trash about it. They released that it was indeed trash without me saying anything.
Every day when I see lots of religious posts in social media asking for amens or sharing. Just irks me to see how futile these requests are, how useless waste of time that accomplishes nothing and the stupidity of people who blindly fall for the shit.
That really annoys me too. I often respond to them and say no I will survive the day fine and know thst passing this along will do nothing.
A reason I almost never go to facebook.
I was smart in grade school in the 50’s and felt that it was silly to pages of adding, subtracting etc., so I deceived to just do a select # of these problems, my teacher was very angry, I said to her if there are any wrong I’ll do them all! I still refused and as a 3rd grader was sent to the principals office.
He told me as well “ you have to do all these problems otherwise you will go to HELL, when you die! “
You see I went to Christian School, I told him “ Fine, I wasn’t crazy about going to heaven anyways, because I didn’t want to be singing forever and forever” He was shocked! I continued to do my math problems as I had been doing them, I got an F for attitude!
I don't think you are one to "CROSS" !
As a child back in the late 60s, we were encouraged to pray for the starving children of Biafra. So like a good little Christian, I did, they died. Why did God do that?
I began to question if there was a God. I'm sure you all know that I worked out the truth.
Like Langston Hughes in his short story “Salvation,” my worst experience with religion was to discover it was a colloquial palliative and in no way true at all. The cost of my intellectual awakening was the comfort my pretend world of a caring, loving god afforded me. And I regret not a single moment.
I had much the same experience. It was devistating at first, then it was liberating!
My biggest pet peeve with religion, is when you are in the shower, the doorbell rings, and it's the Jehova's Witnesses passing out 'Watchtowers'!
If that happens to me maybe I'll just let the towel "accidently drop.
Many years ago I WANTED to become a Xtian. I read and studied the bible, cover to cover at least 4 times, had a baptist mentor, and got "save" numerous times, because I had doubts. I prayed for faith which never came. I was going thru alot at the time and had severe depression. It started to happen. I would pray after reading the bible at night and after I prayed, I heard a cackling laughter. This happened night after night. I prayed to jesus to get rid of these demons, but they continued to cackle. Continued to pray for faith, but never came. The demonic laughter continued night after night after prayer. I now know that it was from my severe depression. The cackling stopped after I stopped reading the bible and praying and getting medication that I really needed for my depression. Now I am an agnostic-athiest with diest tendencies. I am sure glad that part of my life is over........so much terror in a religion that preaches that jesus will stamp out demons underfoot........never happened......
I prayed for more faith daily for a great many years. I thought that I lacked it as I did not see Jesus doing anything in my life.
I prayed lord help me to have faith in you and to have unconditional belief in you.
Preachers will tell you that pryaing is an act of faith and this is true as it is acting on the hope that god will answer said prayer. This does not translate necessarily into belief that god will answer said prayer. So according to Christian theology it is correct to say that I did not truely "believe as my prayers were not answered. In my case I did belive thst simple prayer would be answered. It was not and I realized that my prayer would never be answered. This was a major step to my unbelief.
My worst experience was being ignored. When I was a teenager, I designed and made an armband with a symbol (of my own design) and the incorporation of three sixes within it. 666 being the number of the Anti-Christ. I then attended the weekly young people's meeting at the Baptist church in our small community, wearing it. It was only a small group of less than a dozen people there and I had hoped to stir things up. I was just ignored and left quite crestfallen.
My first college degree was from a Lutheran U and it also had a church and elementary school across the street from it. In my intro to education class the 'professor' was the across the street principle and in that class with him myself and one other student, of the 25+, received A's on his midterm test. He then got called into the college presidents office because of his over testing. Because of my observation I witnessed that, I then went to his office at that school and told him to keep doing what he was doing and he told me he was ready to be done with that college. Then a few years after my graduation from that college, news reveled that he and another religious counselor that were members of at that church were molesting children. That man that I am referencing shot himself in the head before attending his conviction trial.
Well, Sunday school teacher sexually abuse our son, and they applied huge pressure on my/our insistence of maintaning an equal martial relationship. Spouse was passively excluded from social groups.
After leaving the Evangelical church building we faced all sort of crap from legacy relationships when we 100% supported our LGBT daughter.
So, I guess it could of been worse.
I am really sorry your child and fmily had to go through that.
Not so much experience with religion, but I once gave a work colleague in a factory my opinion on my experience of prayer. I said it waste a waste of time. I was then sent to HR office and threatend with disciplinary. Even though, that was my opinion of my experience. What was a meant to do, lie and say, 'Yes, prayer is great and works every time, I now have a 20 bedroom home and Rolls Royce thanks to prayer". Apparently so.
Not to be flippant, but my worse experiences with religion are happening now, on here.
With trolls and the exchanges between them and their antagonists (of whom I am one).
AND reading all the attachments about what terrible things Christians are doing to perpetuate their hold on the hearts and minds of others, who may have otherwise seen the folly of their beliefs.
When I was a kid I was in church and I could not stop laughing. I felt real guilty after word
Haven’t had any bad experiences with religion, never had one. I have had a few individuals say they will pray that God will reveal himself to me...still waiting for that though!
I have been, and am still being, vilified by my atheist and agnostic relatives because of my opposition to the propagation of Islam. Go figure.
Good!
@DavidLaDeau Outing yourself as a lover of Islam. You should add it to your profile.
@PBuck0145 I am an anti-theist. I do not believe religion does anyone any good.
A funny situation for me was many years ago as a child where I'm praying with the preacher's son and kids get stupid ideas. I came up with believing that if I left that room the devil would kill me. It was sort of like "step on a crack and break your mother's back" sort of thing. The preacher showed up and his son told him of my fears. The preacher then said he would pray with the adults and his son should stay and continue to pray with me.
The point I want to make here is that a concerned preacher would be telling his congregation how dumb ideas like this are and how it is ridiculous. Maybe they do not do it coz they don't want to lose people from the church.
It appears the Devil did "kill" you. You got infected by him and stopped believing and will go to hell. Do not worry, I will pray to the magical unicorn that lives in my butt for your salvation!