Losing Their Religion

pt. 1 Getting to know me
I have been asked to write about my religious and spiritual beliefs.
First off, I do not practice organized religion. I believe, because of our adaptatious human nature, our belief structure and compassion should change with our surroundings. The beurocracy of most religions impede the necassary changes needed to keep the creeds of peace and understanding. This often results in close mindedness, biased compassion, superiority complexess, prejudice, etc., which spawns hate and martyrdom. The pattern has shown itself multiple times in the past few thousand years.

Some personal history: I was brought up in a very conservative, Christian family. I was not allowed to see, hear, touch, say, eat, drink, etc. anything that was not "of God." We went to church twice on Sundays(starting with early morning sunday school) and on Wensday nights, as well. I also attended school at the church, all the way up to the eighth grade, when I started attending public school. That was about the same time we left that church. My family was poor, due to the fact that my dad was an artist by trade and passion. We were going through some very, very tough times. We had no money for food; my aunt worked for Quaker Oats at the time, she donated 150 boxes of Captain Crunch to help us out in our hard times. The cereal was recalled due to defects in the toys, which were all thrown away. We ate that cereal for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for nearly a year. Every so often my parents would treat us to soft tacos at Taco Bell. During this time, our church had a meeting with my parents, they were angry that my parents weren't tithing. We couldn't believe they would treat us like that after so many years of loyalty. They were interested only in building on to their church.

We started attending a small church. The pastor was an old friend of my dad's and they are still very close. This church was great because, the pastor had a hard life growing up. He had problems with drugs as a teenager, then he went to Vietnam as a field medic. He has great stories and understands people from experiences with them, not reading about them in the "preacher schools." The church services were very enjoyable, he believed in the "make a joyful noise" part of the bible. Sometimes he would play his guitar for the whole service, forgetting about the sermon. Other times he would go off on rants for hours, he was filled with so much energy and passion. There was one service, on a Sunday night, that was most unique. The service started off as normal with praise and worship, then he prayed, as most churches do, then laughter broke out and went on for two hours straight. Everyone in the church was just laughing and crying. We all left the church happier and feeling more free than we had ever felt in our lives.

Because my pastor's beliefs were true to those of Christ's, the church began to suffer financialy. We had to get a building with cheaper rent. So we moved to the industrial part of town into a building that was used as a strip club. In fact, the poles were there the first few months of service. The bar is still there, but they use that for pot lucks and things like that.

Since then, I have moved to Lafayette, the church is located in Sulphur, La. I stopped going to church because I knew I would not find another one like what I had there. After moving, I had the chance to start really exploring the questions I have had since a young kid. That was four years ago, I feel I have made great progress.

Part 2 will contain questions I have asked, what I did to get the answers, and the answers I have gotten thus far.