Finding My Humanity
By Larry ~
Well this has been a long time coming! Funny thing is it hasn't... my walk away from Christianity only began three years ago yet I have packed so so much into my lovely life that its seems like so long ago. That's how time has progressed for me,as a Christian; I was one for nearly twenty years, time progressed differently. My life was so empty.
You see I really did take it seriously and embraced a life full of "shalt nots" because I thought they were sinful and church society was against such things. So I missed out on night clubbing,drinking in bars, sex, meeting women in all the ways a teen or twenty something in the UK would normally grow and learn important skills.
Of course I am making up for that big time now, needless to say!!!
By the time I left school, at 16, I was way gone. I was seriously screwed up; basically all due to my upbringing which was very nuetral. What do I mean by that? Well I expect its normal to pattern after your parents; life was a bit different for me. My father was a womaniser (like father like son, now) he spent most of his free time doing this and we;my sister, myself and my mother were in full knowledge of this. When he was home he was shouting;and Jesus he could shout loud. no one else could speak at the dinner table and life was a list of ... well... shalt nots. Not that he was Christian; in fact dad was very humanist. As he has gotten older, he is an old fool now and a white head, he has become slightly new age with a fringe belief in Gaia etc. We were very strongly discouraged form having friends and most of our childhood friends were scared of the fat fool. He never had breakfasts with us;he was always out the house before we got up,and when school holidays came round, year after year he made sure he was away on a "field trip" with his work; daddy was a botanist,a well published one too and an expert in his field. Folk used to think he was great, so gifted and how lucky we were to have such a wonderful and charming father. At home he was a cruel, bad tempered ass hole and used those field trips to seduce female university students.
My mother; she grew up in a very strict house, again a humanist one. She was an MD and worked nights. She took us to church as kids but accepted it when I said I no longer wanted to go and let me stay home. She never told us she loved us ner touched or hugged us. My sister spoke about it a few years ago and we could only recall one time when my mother hugged one of us; it was me, but just that one time.
I don't think my upbringing to be anything unique, but I tell it for two reasons. One to set the scene, for some reason it affected me very badly. Two, it shows a need that I was conned into believing Christ and god and the church could fill. We all know the answer to that sorry con trick, don't we?
I was "saved" at 17 after a couple yrs of travelling and searching for a way of life that would satisfy me; I found an evangelical tract and said the suggested prayer and my Christian life began. Because I converted alone and because of my interest in other religions I spent the first two yrs of my walk not going to church but reading Christian books avidly along with the bible of course and mixing T.M with prayer to make a fairly mystical form of Christianity which to be fair worked quite well for me. I used to go out into a forest before dawn and light insence and meditate and pray. I was very drawn to the christian mystics across the centuries and hermits and monks etc.however brain washing from C books finally got me going to church along with a big fear I had committed the unpardonable sin. I need some counsel and was counselled the whole problem was that I needed the fellowship of other Christians to grow along with various metaphors about coals going out and lamps etc. All complete bullshit.
Funny word: "fellowship". It was my first Christian word. I realise now there are many Christian words that "they" and formerly "I" used that we all make common place but actually none of us really know the meaning. phrases too. We all think we do, we all agree on some ascribed meaning which we vaguely ascent to together but actually deep down no one really does know what it means and when pressed we stammer because ewe don't know. Like Christians in prayer meting; we bow our heads and pretend to pray but we are not really praying just agree that that is the body posture we will all adopt. We all know none of us our honestly deep in prayer for that 20 minutes, we just play that we are because church culture has agreed non verbally that that is what "we" do.
Fellowship then. I honestly, and I really do mean this, I honestly thought Christian fellowship was having a cup of tea/coffee and a plain, very Christian biscuit, at the end of the service. "Come and enjoy some Christian fellowship; don't rush away," I was urged. So I tried, but being very lacking in confidence and anxious socially it became a torture. Everybody rushed from person to person like some disgusting swarm of bees trying to visit as many flowers as possible before fucking off. If you did happen to get a decent conversation going it was sure to be interrupted by some rude ass hole (that’s OK tho as a Christian ,apparently) who just ''had'' to say something to the person you were talking to before they left. I think now Christian fellowship is meant to mean a genuine friendship, but I am not sure. It matters little now anyway.
Eventually I think there wee some suggestions and prophecies too that I might be ''called'' to be a minister. Guess I was weird enough to be called.
I believe Christianity [...] a disgusting subculture with a vested interest in sustaining the self proclaimed superiority and snobbery of a social class. [...] I don't want any part of it. Gosh there goes that chrisitianism again! ''Called!'' What the hell does that mean? It's like ''striving'' and ''resting'' etc. It was like the well meaning fuckers who came up to me and said,''The Lord has a plan for your life and has something he wants you to do''. OK so logically you should ask Him, right? Wrong. God has something but He is not going to tell you. I thought that was bullshit and wasted 20 yrs asking him; even fasted. He never said. Not believably so. My mind eventually generated some stuff and I had some dreams. I found out that actually no one really does know what that all means. What they do is they say this, then they do what ever the fuck they want. It works out and they say God did it. If it doesn't work out they pretend it never happened, or the more honest ones like me confess they must have ''heard god wrong''. Jesus what the fuck were we all doing?
But you can't just do anything! No a Christian young person; god they were fucking obsessed with ''youth'' weren't they? Had to go to university and the marry and then have a profession. Um I am a rebel and had not been too impressed by all that I had seen of that. My parents had finally divorced by the way. So I worked... and got zero respect for it. Apparently work was OK for Jesus, but a Christian needs to go to university first. ok.
Its that unspoken rejection you get during Christian fellowship.
Christian" ''What do you do?'',
Me: ''Well Christian, I work as a handyman'',
Christian: ''Oh, oh right... um.''
You get the idea? Now if I had said I was a student, then the red carpet would have been rolled out for me coz British churches love students BIG TIME. And if I went to the young peoples fellowship I would have been IT. But I wasn't too impressed by what saw of Christian youth. They did not seem to take their faith so seriously .i mean I was living in a bedsit in London,I was working full time,supporting myself,I read the bible for an hour each morning and prayed for 30 mins after. Yet I was nothing; just an asshole. But the church youth were really something, they would have their Christian event then go off down to the pub and all sit together and they were just amazing because they all went to university and lived at home with mummy and daddy and played in the church worship band; oh look at her/him they're glowing for the lord!!! Uh yeah right, you want to have seen what they were doing after youth groups last night outside; that’s why they are glowing you sycophantic idiots. But such is the esteem church holds its youth in; that was OK!! You see what every church is desperate for is youth; because they know its their future attendees and tithers. It DOES NOT want youth who are quiet, studious and maybe a bit messed up. It wants youth that glow, youth that is going somewhere that it can be proud of. Youth who will grow up to be doctors and teachers and get married and give the church children. Well, I know that now at least.
So what does a Christian young person do about sex? Well I think they must do it. If they don't and are ''holy', lol like I was then they masturbate like it's going out of fashion and then repent each time and vow never to do it again. I took it a stage further and started seeing women in saunas and brothels. I was so highly sexed and was so guilty. No of course I don't care. Funny thing was it was here that I found out that I was not as repulsive to women as I thought. Now bear in mind in the church women would stare through me or walk past me as if I didn't exist, and if I spoke to them either would hardly reply or would tell me in there very first sentence that they had a boyfriend. OK, thanks. I actually thought going to prostitutes might help me a bit and it did. I know you think' oh of course they said they liked you, you paid them. But they never. It was just nice to have a conversation after sex and be spoken to naturally like an equal; a new experience for me. God bless those prostitutes; they were very Christian to help a struggling unconfident young man like I was. lol
I went to bible college at 22, Capernwray Hall it was called in north of england.alot of rich parents in the USA sent they're wonderful christian offspring there as a kind of finishing school if you like before they go to niversity back in ''the states''. They were mostly the rudest bunch of critical, backstabbing people I have ever met. In other words they were great Christians; the pride of their churches. It was a wonderful time; male and female bitches, from all denominations, gathered together in one school. What else can I say. I wish I had left it all then. But I really believed in god and was quite brainwashed; I had started to use the excuses everyone else uses. The internet was not widely used then. Maybe more so in the USA but here it was still quite rare for a home to be online. Now I see them on facebook. I see evil, evil people whoo would lie and back-stab and mock people and now they are missionaries -- believe it or not -- and glowing Christian professionals. Shall I excuse it and say they were young then? I dunno. They were 21, 22 that’s old enough to know better, in my opinion. You know what the most common thing that was said to me then and in fact all thru my Christian life? And it was always by women. Typically a woman I had never even spoken to before would come up to me and say with a smile or giggle, ''Ooh you're awfully quite''. Jesus if I had a £ for every ass hole who said that to me! It's really the last thing any shy young man wants to hear. Mostly stunned I would just walked away. Later I challenged a few and said, ''Because I don't speak to you?'' which was met by more giggles and ''Sorry''. My god. What the hell was all that about?
After bible college I went back to work. I was pretty jaded by all that and never really settled in a church. I did try but had the same experiences of well meaning Christians coming up to me and delivering their opinion of me; to me, helpful advice etc. Now I see that Christians are just the same as the ''world'' they claim to avoid and dispise. Actually "the world" are a lot nicer folk.
I got married to a manipulative fucked up christian woman. We divourced after two years and happily had not had kids. I was at theological college; she was too. Alot of folk took her side. I finally gave it up. It was partly that the Christian men, wonderful heroes that they were all seemed to think my wife need defending and an advocate. She had two sides, two faces; very much the little Christian woman for them, in private she was a manipulator and verbally violent. I couldn't believe they could not see thru that. Even when I told them what she was like they still could not see it and took her side. In truth they were just as much brainwashed as I was. Just about different things.
The other thing that helped me to drop my Christian faith was that I began to open up a little to my inner self; my sinful nature. I found out very quickly that it was my humanity and it was the best thing I ever did. I suddenly started seeing a lot of females, having great sex and feeling good about myself. I remember going to a nightclub, but for the first time it was on my own. I experienced more healing and love that night than I had in 20 yrs in the church. I still recall that night. It was amazing.
I have nothing I could compare to life as a non-christian. I believe Christianity as we experience it here -- British evangelical/charismatic Christianity, born again etc. -- to be utterly, utterly poisonous and full of lies; a waste of anyone’s time. It is a disgusting subculture with a vested interest in sustaining the self proclaimed superiority and snobbery of a social class. Those who do not share that social class but who ascribe to it seem to aspire to become one of that class. I don't want any part of it. I’m done with it.
You see I really did take it seriously and embraced a life full of "shalt nots" because I thought they were sinful and church society was against such things. So I missed out on night clubbing,drinking in bars, sex, meeting women in all the ways a teen or twenty something in the UK would normally grow and learn important skills.
Of course I am making up for that big time now, needless to say!!!
By the time I left school, at 16, I was way gone. I was seriously screwed up; basically all due to my upbringing which was very nuetral. What do I mean by that? Well I expect its normal to pattern after your parents; life was a bit different for me. My father was a womaniser (like father like son, now) he spent most of his free time doing this and we;my sister, myself and my mother were in full knowledge of this. When he was home he was shouting;and Jesus he could shout loud. no one else could speak at the dinner table and life was a list of ... well... shalt nots. Not that he was Christian; in fact dad was very humanist. As he has gotten older, he is an old fool now and a white head, he has become slightly new age with a fringe belief in Gaia etc. We were very strongly discouraged form having friends and most of our childhood friends were scared of the fat fool. He never had breakfasts with us;he was always out the house before we got up,and when school holidays came round, year after year he made sure he was away on a "field trip" with his work; daddy was a botanist,a well published one too and an expert in his field. Folk used to think he was great, so gifted and how lucky we were to have such a wonderful and charming father. At home he was a cruel, bad tempered ass hole and used those field trips to seduce female university students.
My mother; she grew up in a very strict house, again a humanist one. She was an MD and worked nights. She took us to church as kids but accepted it when I said I no longer wanted to go and let me stay home. She never told us she loved us ner touched or hugged us. My sister spoke about it a few years ago and we could only recall one time when my mother hugged one of us; it was me, but just that one time.
I don't think my upbringing to be anything unique, but I tell it for two reasons. One to set the scene, for some reason it affected me very badly. Two, it shows a need that I was conned into believing Christ and god and the church could fill. We all know the answer to that sorry con trick, don't we?
I was "saved" at 17 after a couple yrs of travelling and searching for a way of life that would satisfy me; I found an evangelical tract and said the suggested prayer and my Christian life began. Because I converted alone and because of my interest in other religions I spent the first two yrs of my walk not going to church but reading Christian books avidly along with the bible of course and mixing T.M with prayer to make a fairly mystical form of Christianity which to be fair worked quite well for me. I used to go out into a forest before dawn and light insence and meditate and pray. I was very drawn to the christian mystics across the centuries and hermits and monks etc.however brain washing from C books finally got me going to church along with a big fear I had committed the unpardonable sin. I need some counsel and was counselled the whole problem was that I needed the fellowship of other Christians to grow along with various metaphors about coals going out and lamps etc. All complete bullshit.
Funny word: "fellowship". It was my first Christian word. I realise now there are many Christian words that "they" and formerly "I" used that we all make common place but actually none of us really know the meaning. phrases too. We all think we do, we all agree on some ascribed meaning which we vaguely ascent to together but actually deep down no one really does know what it means and when pressed we stammer because ewe don't know. Like Christians in prayer meting; we bow our heads and pretend to pray but we are not really praying just agree that that is the body posture we will all adopt. We all know none of us our honestly deep in prayer for that 20 minutes, we just play that we are because church culture has agreed non verbally that that is what "we" do.
Fellowship then. I honestly, and I really do mean this, I honestly thought Christian fellowship was having a cup of tea/coffee and a plain, very Christian biscuit, at the end of the service. "Come and enjoy some Christian fellowship; don't rush away," I was urged. So I tried, but being very lacking in confidence and anxious socially it became a torture. Everybody rushed from person to person like some disgusting swarm of bees trying to visit as many flowers as possible before fucking off. If you did happen to get a decent conversation going it was sure to be interrupted by some rude ass hole (that’s OK tho as a Christian ,apparently) who just ''had'' to say something to the person you were talking to before they left. I think now Christian fellowship is meant to mean a genuine friendship, but I am not sure. It matters little now anyway.
Eventually I think there wee some suggestions and prophecies too that I might be ''called'' to be a minister. Guess I was weird enough to be called.
I believe Christianity [...] a disgusting subculture with a vested interest in sustaining the self proclaimed superiority and snobbery of a social class. [...] I don't want any part of it. Gosh there goes that chrisitianism again! ''Called!'' What the hell does that mean? It's like ''striving'' and ''resting'' etc. It was like the well meaning fuckers who came up to me and said,''The Lord has a plan for your life and has something he wants you to do''. OK so logically you should ask Him, right? Wrong. God has something but He is not going to tell you. I thought that was bullshit and wasted 20 yrs asking him; even fasted. He never said. Not believably so. My mind eventually generated some stuff and I had some dreams. I found out that actually no one really does know what that all means. What they do is they say this, then they do what ever the fuck they want. It works out and they say God did it. If it doesn't work out they pretend it never happened, or the more honest ones like me confess they must have ''heard god wrong''. Jesus what the fuck were we all doing?
But you can't just do anything! No a Christian young person; god they were fucking obsessed with ''youth'' weren't they? Had to go to university and the marry and then have a profession. Um I am a rebel and had not been too impressed by all that I had seen of that. My parents had finally divorced by the way. So I worked... and got zero respect for it. Apparently work was OK for Jesus, but a Christian needs to go to university first. ok.
Its that unspoken rejection you get during Christian fellowship.
Christian" ''What do you do?'',
Me: ''Well Christian, I work as a handyman'',
Christian: ''Oh, oh right... um.''
You get the idea? Now if I had said I was a student, then the red carpet would have been rolled out for me coz British churches love students BIG TIME. And if I went to the young peoples fellowship I would have been IT. But I wasn't too impressed by what saw of Christian youth. They did not seem to take their faith so seriously .i mean I was living in a bedsit in London,I was working full time,supporting myself,I read the bible for an hour each morning and prayed for 30 mins after. Yet I was nothing; just an asshole. But the church youth were really something, they would have their Christian event then go off down to the pub and all sit together and they were just amazing because they all went to university and lived at home with mummy and daddy and played in the church worship band; oh look at her/him they're glowing for the lord!!! Uh yeah right, you want to have seen what they were doing after youth groups last night outside; that’s why they are glowing you sycophantic idiots. But such is the esteem church holds its youth in; that was OK!! You see what every church is desperate for is youth; because they know its their future attendees and tithers. It DOES NOT want youth who are quiet, studious and maybe a bit messed up. It wants youth that glow, youth that is going somewhere that it can be proud of. Youth who will grow up to be doctors and teachers and get married and give the church children. Well, I know that now at least.
So what does a Christian young person do about sex? Well I think they must do it. If they don't and are ''holy', lol like I was then they masturbate like it's going out of fashion and then repent each time and vow never to do it again. I took it a stage further and started seeing women in saunas and brothels. I was so highly sexed and was so guilty. No of course I don't care. Funny thing was it was here that I found out that I was not as repulsive to women as I thought. Now bear in mind in the church women would stare through me or walk past me as if I didn't exist, and if I spoke to them either would hardly reply or would tell me in there very first sentence that they had a boyfriend. OK, thanks. I actually thought going to prostitutes might help me a bit and it did. I know you think' oh of course they said they liked you, you paid them. But they never. It was just nice to have a conversation after sex and be spoken to naturally like an equal; a new experience for me. God bless those prostitutes; they were very Christian to help a struggling unconfident young man like I was. lol
I went to bible college at 22, Capernwray Hall it was called in north of england.alot of rich parents in the USA sent they're wonderful christian offspring there as a kind of finishing school if you like before they go to niversity back in ''the states''. They were mostly the rudest bunch of critical, backstabbing people I have ever met. In other words they were great Christians; the pride of their churches. It was a wonderful time; male and female bitches, from all denominations, gathered together in one school. What else can I say. I wish I had left it all then. But I really believed in god and was quite brainwashed; I had started to use the excuses everyone else uses. The internet was not widely used then. Maybe more so in the USA but here it was still quite rare for a home to be online. Now I see them on facebook. I see evil, evil people whoo would lie and back-stab and mock people and now they are missionaries -- believe it or not -- and glowing Christian professionals. Shall I excuse it and say they were young then? I dunno. They were 21, 22 that’s old enough to know better, in my opinion. You know what the most common thing that was said to me then and in fact all thru my Christian life? And it was always by women. Typically a woman I had never even spoken to before would come up to me and say with a smile or giggle, ''Ooh you're awfully quite''. Jesus if I had a £ for every ass hole who said that to me! It's really the last thing any shy young man wants to hear. Mostly stunned I would just walked away. Later I challenged a few and said, ''Because I don't speak to you?'' which was met by more giggles and ''Sorry''. My god. What the hell was all that about?
After bible college I went back to work. I was pretty jaded by all that and never really settled in a church. I did try but had the same experiences of well meaning Christians coming up to me and delivering their opinion of me; to me, helpful advice etc. Now I see that Christians are just the same as the ''world'' they claim to avoid and dispise. Actually "the world" are a lot nicer folk.
I got married to a manipulative fucked up christian woman. We divourced after two years and happily had not had kids. I was at theological college; she was too. Alot of folk took her side. I finally gave it up. It was partly that the Christian men, wonderful heroes that they were all seemed to think my wife need defending and an advocate. She had two sides, two faces; very much the little Christian woman for them, in private she was a manipulator and verbally violent. I couldn't believe they could not see thru that. Even when I told them what she was like they still could not see it and took her side. In truth they were just as much brainwashed as I was. Just about different things.
The other thing that helped me to drop my Christian faith was that I began to open up a little to my inner self; my sinful nature. I found out very quickly that it was my humanity and it was the best thing I ever did. I suddenly started seeing a lot of females, having great sex and feeling good about myself. I remember going to a nightclub, but for the first time it was on my own. I experienced more healing and love that night than I had in 20 yrs in the church. I still recall that night. It was amazing.
I have nothing I could compare to life as a non-christian. I believe Christianity as we experience it here -- British evangelical/charismatic Christianity, born again etc. -- to be utterly, utterly poisonous and full of lies; a waste of anyone’s time. It is a disgusting subculture with a vested interest in sustaining the self proclaimed superiority and snobbery of a social class. Those who do not share that social class but who ascribe to it seem to aspire to become one of that class. I don't want any part of it. I’m done with it.
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