Hello, everyone.
I should not be here right now. 
You see, I am supposed to be writing lessons and coming up with creative things to teach my ESL (English as a Second Language) students, but I'm just not in the mood. After giving up on any attempt to be productive this evening, I am sitting here naked (No idea why!) surfing the Net for information on Christian cults. I came across this site semi-accidentally, having seen it a year and a half ago, and this evening I feel like talking about my Fundamentalist past... And here I am. 
My name is Mark, and I am a 41-year-old gay Native New Yorker who has lived in Brooklyn all his life. Here's hoping you find something interesting in my writing; I know without doubt that I will be mesmerized by much of what my fellow ex-Fundies write.
I was raised as a conservative Presbyterian, not a Fundamentalist, and as a child I gave my heart and soul to my faith. Actually, my natural inclination even at ten years old was to be an atheist; however, the church instilled enough guilt and fear in me to prevent that. No sooner did I hit puberty that I realized I was attracted to men and would have to remain celibate to be loved by God. For this reason, I killed my capacity to love and be loved in order to be a loving Christian. To this day, it is hard for me to love and trust, as I have been hurt over and over in the name of Jesus and love. I have a couple of close gay friends whom I know I love dearly, but I have never been able to have the type of committed relationship I crave, that most of these gay friends have been in for more than ten years. It has in fact been so long since I have had sex that I ain't admittin' the date. A couple of women have come on to me fairly recently, and I am so hungry for affection that I have been tempted... Hee hee...
I would never do that to a woman--and it's the same with men. If it's sex without anything else, merely to get off, I won't toy with someone else's feelings or my own. I know that there are good gay men out there, but at my age the pickings are slim. Masturbation is psychological survival.
As is usual for me, I am way off topic (even though I am the one who started the topic). Back to my religious past...
There was a lot of hypocrisy in my racist church, and I did not know what to do about it. As a teen, I prayed for help and guidance... And suddenly a friend in high school introduced me to a Christian cult: The Worldwide Church of God (the late Herbert W. Armstrong's group based in Pasadena). Believing that was God's answer to my prayer, I joined "the one true church" and shunned my Presbyterian family and roots. Involved with those nuts for a while and then seeing their own hypocrisy, I also tried other Fundamentalist groups and internalized a lot of ex-gay ideology. Finally, I gave it all up and became agnostic, eventually coming out of the closet. Two years later I finally got laid.
A few years ago, still agnostic, I decided that I wanted something spiritual in my life, and I joined GayChristian.net as an open agnostic. Although I made two good gay Christian friends there and am still in regular contact with them, I was treated terribly by many on the board. Some--definitely not all but too many--believed all gays had to be celibate and only Christians went to Heaven. ("I'm right and you're wrong" said a lesbian minister with a wife when I told her how offended I was by her idea that gays went to Heaven but unconverted Jews and Muslims did not.) Eventually, I posted about the hypocrisy I saw, and that caused me to butt heads with the board's butt of an owner.
By that point, I had already gotten into trouble there many times. For example, there was a gay Mormon guy trying not to be gay and going on and on about how he masturbated and had lost touch with Christ because of it. I posted that masturbation was a necessary physiological and psychological release, then quoted information from sites where experts discussed how masturbation kept us healthy. I got hell for that (pun intended). Don't even get me started on evolution...
It would have been all right for a real Christian inspired by Jesus to say something like that, it seems, but not me. I could go on, but I have a long-winded nature and must be brief here--and I admit to being too aggressive for my own good, anyway. It takes two to tango, and I usually sear the dance floor. At any rate, I was banned when I posted the owner's nasty e-mail to me on the board. It seems the message board had its own board that approved my removal. (Why the hell does a message board need a government?) On that day I became an atheist, and I still am.
I consider myself a spiritual atheist, however, as I hold true to my morals and willingly do volunteer work because I consider it the right thing to do (not because some bully God demands brownie points). I actually have more Christians in my life than fellow atheists, and I treat them with the same respect with which I wish to be treated. However, while I respect the individual Christians who happen to be good people and have the right to believe what they wish, I don't pretend to respect the religion itself.
I also have more heterosexual friends (both male and female--almost all of whom know that I am gay) than gay friends, but that is another story...
Ironically, my mother is church secretary, and sometimes I proofread or even write things for her--including prayers. If only the Presbyterians knew who was writing the devotional words that come out of their mouths...
Yes, I am going to hell for that. Of course, I am going to hell anyway merely for being gay, so I may as well have my fun while I can. Just ask most Christians if you don't believe me. I respect gay Christians in gay relationships who hold onto their faith and heterosexual Christians who treat them with love and say they are going to Heaven as they are, but it has been made clear to me by others that even if I were celibate and kept the Bible shoved so far up my ass that I would never need toilet paper, I would still go to hell based on my biology. I'd have to BECOME heterosexual to be saved, and, no matter what the ex-gay movement says, that is a physiological impossibility.
Or I could be a good Catholic and be gay without committing "gay acts."
Oy vey! It's a good thing I don't believe in hell.
When I am not stoking the infernos with brimstone, I teach English as a Second Language at a university and spend far more time than I should helping foreign students with issues that extend beyond language acquisition. I am also a key presence on an OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder) message board run, ironically enough, by a conservative Christian. There, I help a large number of heterosexuals, many of them Christian, deal with sexual issues related to OCD. I have been successfully treated for my own OCD, which used to be the living hell I experienced while still on earth and is in large part the real origin of my extremist religious views. I am also responsible for helping to take care of my parents, as they are both over 70 and have only my sister and me.
On my own time, I devour science fiction books and movies and am a lifetime Star Trek and comic book fan. (Sci Fi, 'Trek, and comics are what kept me sane and prevented me from committing suicide during the worst of religious abuse, OCD, and being in the closet.) I have published a book on teaching ESL and am currently in the process of finishing book number two; I have also published some articles on super-hero comic books and, one day, will get around to writing something about Archie comics. Finally, I have learned to speak, read, and write Italian and French well, and I always welcome the opportunity to write to native speakers of either language.
Sadly, though, since I don't have Jeeeeee-zus or the baaaaaah-buuuhl in my life, my accomplishments are nothing and I have no value.
Anyone care to dance over hot coals with me? Bring your pitchfork!
