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Sunshine36616
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Registered:
01/10/2003
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(Date Posted:06/16/2003 15:21:47)
Hi Victoria! Welcome. I am glad you found this place. I know I felt so relieved when I found it.
I understand about "going through the motions." I was saved at like age 7. When I was about 11 my mom and step dad sat me down to pray with me to receive the holy spirit. I couldn't leave until I got it, so of course I got it. I always felt kind of silly praying in tongues.
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Sunshine36616
Doyle from the movie "Sling Blade" on the bible: Well I can't understand none of it. This one begat that one and that one begat this one, and lo and behold someone sayeth some shit to someone else--just how retarded are you?
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katseye
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Rank:none
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Registered:
10/04/2002
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(Date Posted:06/16/2003 21:18:21)
Reply to : Victoria-Escaped
Hello,I'm Victoria -- a 46-year-old who, well, escaped fundamentalism (Southern Baptist in South Carolina) more than 20 years ago. It took me until about five years ago to realize that I had recovered -- mostly...
Hi Victoria!
I'm glad you found us. I'm forty, and I left the faith almost fifteen years ago. I relate to a lot of what you are saying. The bogus altar calls, the peer pressure, the parents that use religion as an excuse to be hyper-controlling. As a Southern Baptist in South Carolina, did you end up in or around Bob Jones University? I was there for half a year during the fourth grade.
It's not a simple thing to leave a faith like the one we were raised in, and it definitely helps to find others who have had a similar experience.
I hope you will find this forum as useful as I have.
kat
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gregpstone
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3# |
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Registered:
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(Date Posted:06/16/2003 21:26:07)
Reply to : Victoria-Escaped
Hello,I'm Victoria -- a 46-year-old who, well, escaped fundamentalism (Southern Baptist in South Carolina) more than 20 years ago.
Welcome, Victoria.
I'm 47 and I too grew up in South Carolina. You weren't in Charleston in the 60's by any chance, were you?
Greg
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We've all got holes to fill
Them holes are all that's real
Some fall on you like a storm
Sometimes you dig your own
Where ya been is good and gone
All you keep is the gettin there ..... To Live is to Fly - Townes Van Zandt
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Victoria-Escaped
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4# |
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Posts:21
Registered:
06/16/2003
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(Date Posted:06/16/2003 21:26:26)
Reply to : katseye
Hi Victoria!I'm glad you found us. I'm forty, and I left the faith almost fifteen years ago. I relate to a lot of what you are saying. The bogus altar calls, the peer pressure, the parents that use religion as an excuse to be hyper-controlling. As a Southern Baptist in South Carolina, did you end up in or around Bob Jones University? I was there for half a year during the fourth grade.It's not a simple thing to leave a faith like the one we were raised in, and it definitely helps to find others who have ha
Hi Katseye,
Fortunately, I never once set foot on Bob Jones U. territory! I graduated from the University of South Carolina in 1980. By then, I had pretty much left the Baptist church, except for weekend trips home. I started going to an Assembly of God during college, back to the Baptist church afterward, and then finally the Episcopal church in my late 20s. I really enjoyed the Episcopal church in Atlanta -- a very liberal venue.
I'm happy to have found this site; I've been looking for a similar one for some time now.
Victoria
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Victoria-Escaped
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5# |
Rank:none
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Posts:21
Registered:
06/16/2003
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(Date Posted:06/16/2003 21:28:25)
Reply to : gregpstone
Reply to : Victoria-EscapedHello,I'm Victoria -- a 46-year-old who, well, escaped fundamentalism (Southern Baptist in South Carolina) more than 20 years ago.Welcome, Victoria.I'm 47 and I too grew up in South Carolina. You weren't in Charleston in the 60's by any chance, were you?Greg
Hi Greg,
No, I grew up near the coast -- very near Myrtle/North Myrtle Beach. I was in Charleston only for day visits. I love that area. I return to my hometown twice per year from Portland, OR.
Do you still live in SC?
Victoria
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gregpstone
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6# |
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Posts:237
Registered:
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(Date Posted:06/16/2003 21:54:26)
Reply to : Victoria-Escaped
Reply to : gregpstoneReply to : Victoria-EscapedHello,I'm Victoria -- a 46-year-old who, well, escaped fundamentalism (Southern Baptist in South Carolina) more than 20 years ago.Welcome, Victoria.I'm 47 and I too grew up in South Carolina. You weren't in Charleston in the 60's by any chance, were you?GregHi Greg,No, I grew up near the coast -- very near Myrtle/North Myrtle Beach. I was in Charleston only for day visits. I love that area. I return to my hometown twice per year from Portland, OR.Do you still live in SC?Victoria
Victoria,
I've lived in St. Louis, Missouri since 1969. I haven't been back to South Carolina since the 70's but hope to get back there on day. Charleston was a great place to live, despite running into lots of folks that wanted to help me convert from Judaism to Baptist or Pentacostal or jehovah's Witnesses. There was a lot of racial and religious prejudice, but I was fortunate to have parents that cared about people as people and opposed categorizing them.
"I don't believe that God created only one religion or one savior or one straight and narrow path. Rather, I believe there are many pathways to the creator -- whoever, he or she might be. In any case,"
I'm dubious about any claimed knowledge of god(s) but I do feel inspired by much of Jesus' teaching. I'd agree with Thomas Jefferson that the writers of Bible and the Christian religions totally misunderstood his message. I think you'd enjoy "The Varieties of Religious Experoence" by William James, based on your quote that I have extracted above. Take care.
Greg
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We've all got holes to fill
Them holes are all that's real
Some fall on you like a storm
Sometimes you dig your own
Where ya been is good and gone
All you keep is the gettin there ..... To Live is to Fly - Townes Van Zandt
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Wise Child
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7# |
Rank:none
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Posts:130
Registered:
03/02/2002
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(Date Posted:06/16/2003 22:06:39)
Hi Victoria,
I was also raised Southern Baptist. I wasn't until I was a teenager when I really knew what that meant. Lack of ritual makes things difficult for Southern Baptists, leading some to go through a second salvation experience. I said the sinner's prayer with my mother when I was really young and I never came forward for Baptism. All three of my younger brothers have, and they also did so with relatively long delay between the salvation experience and coming forward for baptism.
And like your mother, my mother pretended to hold the keys to the gates of Heaven and Hell by just asking the rhetorical question "Are you a Christian?" My mother did not even consider herself a Christian during her Lutheran upbringing. Which I consider a disrepectful attitude to Lutherans. I suppose her lack of pressure for me to make a public profession probably was a result of her disillusionment with her Lutheran upbringing. Yet, she has gone at my stubborness with a passive-aggressive approach, especially in recent years. It's my choice, and she has put pressure on me to follow through.
Right now, I just turned twenty-six years old and I find myself back at home, and she wants me to join a church I have visited a few times and the rest of the time I used that church as a decoy when I am somewhere else on Sunday morning. Coming back from college, I found out that they are attending a different church because they got tired of the pastor from our old church. So, I took advantage of the situation and went somewhere else, didn't like it, it's just "Old Wine, New Bottle" so often when I am not working, I'll sneak off somewhere and use that church as a decoy.
I need to leave the house soon, I'd like to get back to the university I was attending, but my parents don't like that idea. I do feel Iike leaving and going back to that college town (actually a city of 150,000) in about a month.(when my parents will be on vacation) I really don't know if I could do it, the economy being in a hell hole and such. I'm thinking it's worth the risk. I'm embarrassed to say that my parents still have some control over my life. My mother has stated that if I live in their house, I have to attend church. Fortunately, I take advantage of the fact that they go to a different church now. They are trying to use passive-aggressive tactics to get me back into college, but right now I just don't feel like it. I really should have posted this in the Support Forum, sorry. It's like living an extended adolescence. I really don't feel so bad about this, other kids who have graduated from college are coming home, and I read an article that young people don't "grow up" until about the age of twenty-six, and I feel like I have been given more time for some reason.
I stopped giving money to the Southern Baptist Church when they made that sexist statement, which was actually, almost five years ago. I have also taken a laid back approach to spirituality as well.
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Victoria-Escaped
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8# |
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06/16/2003
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(Date Posted:06/16/2003 22:14:52)
Greg,
I read "The Varieties of Religious Experience" in my Psychology of Religion class in college -- oh, about 23 years ago -- which means that I've forgotten everything in it. I'll get it out and read it again. Lately, I pick up books on the teachings of Budda and the writings of the Dalai Lama. Now, I just need to sit myself down and read...
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Victoria-Escaped
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9# |
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(Date Posted:06/16/2003 22:21:31)
Brother_V,
Getting out on your own will change everything. I could never have walked away from church while living with my parents. I never really enjoyed it and the only time I still go is when I visit my family in South Carolina. My mom makes it a point to remind me (I'm 46!) to bring either something warm or something lightweight to wear to church, depending on the weather. I still cannot get out of church when visiting my family!
When you are totally out from under your parents, I hope you won't pretend that you're still going to church -- that is, if you stop going. Adults have no need to apologize or make excuses for leaving the religion of their parents.
The thing that always got to me -- and only now can I articulate it -- is that my mother's requirement that I attended church had really nothing to do with MY salvation. It had to do with HER salvation. As long as she was requiring me to go to church, God would never have to question her about it.
Oh, gosh, I could go on and on. And I probably will now that I've found this board.
Later,
V.
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