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  1. #1
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    Oh For God's Sake....

    In my never ending quest to find some sort of organized religion that I can somehow tolerate....in my ongoing efforts to find a church where I can sit through a sermon without wanting to retch, without coming out of church actually feeling worse than I did when I went in....this guy is not helping....

    JoelOsteen.jpg

    What a disgrace, imo. For the love of God. Seriously. What a disgrace. I would be EMBARASSED to be a part of that church, I seriously would.

    This is a pastor, Joel Osteen....someone who has (supposedly) dedicated his life to spreading the word of god. And his net worth is over 56 million dollars. He lives in a home that's valued at over 10 million dollars. Not his church. His HOME is valued at over 10 million dollars. His church is worth many, many times more than that.

    Ffs, man. Get a clue. You're spreading the wrong message with the way you're leading your life.

    This pastor, this man who has (supposedly) dedicated his life to spreading the word of god, which, by the way, includes helping the poor, the downtrodden, the less fortunate....closed the doors to his church to Hurricane Harvey victims.

    This was a political move. Let me assure you it has nothing, nothing to do with "safety concerns".

    What a disgrace to anyone, anyone who truly does dedicate their life to trying to follow in god's footsteps. Joel you should be ashamed of yourself.

    I didn't dream up or make this stuff up.....
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joel_Osteen

    This is just one of the many, maaaaannnnyyyy reasons why I cannot stand organized religion.
    You're going to lose people in your life, and realize that no matter how much time you spent with them or how often you told them you loved them, it will never seem like it was enough.

    Hug the ones you love.

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    I couldn't agree more regarding that 'man'. Actions speak the truth. My daughter attends a southern baptist church in Harlem, NY and she finds love and support amongst those very humble people. Don't give up. JO is gross.

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    I'm glad your daughter has found a community where she feels welcome, where she can worship without being judged and without being extorted or threatened or guilted into giving money lol. I really am glad for you and for her that she's found a place to call home.

    I find that it's pretty rare to experience no matter what church you're a part of, tithing is common practice and in a lot of cases expected in a lot of churches, at least at the ones I've been a part of. And I have no problem contributing to charities. I do. I just did for the Red Cross to help Hurricane Harvey victims, three times over. Sometimes I just don't know where the money I put in the collection plate is going and I have a problem with that.

    Besides....as I've said before, my relationship between me and my god is....between me and my god. I don't need anyone else in between lol. But that's just me I guess.

    I don't have to worship in a building that used to be a concert venue that holds tens of thousands of people, and is worth hundreds of millions of dollars. When I was Catholic, years ago, I once went on a retreat where we held an outdoor mass, out in the middle of nowhere. No walls. No huge forty foot stained glass windows. No jumbotrons. It was me and my family and about a hundred other people and we held mass, we worshiped that Sunday morning in the middle of nowhere, on a retreat lol.

    I can't find an organized religion that's not corrupt in some way and I guess that's why so far I've chosen to keep my relationship with my god between me and my god. And no one else in between. It's a very, very personal relationship. And why wouldn't it be any other way?
    You're going to lose people in your life, and realize that no matter how much time you spent with them or how often you told them you loved them, it will never seem like it was enough.

    Hug the ones you love.

  4. #4
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    I once asked my religion teacher (catholic country so no choice but to attend class) which would be worse

    Not go to church but believe in God
    Go to church but not believe in God

    She said not going was worse. I was shocked. All the crap the catholic church has done in my country I am amazed anyone goes.

    I agree with you. Your relationship with what you believe is personal why should it matter how you do it.
    life---> <---me

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    Quote L View Post
    I once asked my religion teacher (catholic country so no choice but to attend class) which would be worse

    Not go to church but believe in God
    Go to church but not believe in God

    She said not going was worse. I was shocked. All the crap the catholic church has done in my country I am amazed anyone goes.

    I agree with you. Your relationship with what you believe is personal why should it matter how you do it.
    It's pretty hard for anyone to defend an answer like that. Wow. I mean, even if I was still Catholic, I'm not sure how I'd defend that position, that is just ridiculous. There is a phrase here in the US wrt some Catholics....they're referred to as "emergency room Catholics". They go to church. When it's convenient. They pray in the ER when a loved one is dying and it's the only time they ever do. Or when it's "expected". Once a year at Easter Sunday, once at Christmas Eve midnight mass (maybe). Palm Sunday if you're really devoted. Oh, and Ash Wednesday. That shows everyone you're a really devoted Catholic, imo. You get to walk around with the "mark" of a devoted Catholic that day.

    I haven't set foot in a Catholic church for....wow....17 years now. For reasons I just won't go into now, I just don't have the energy and tbh I could fill up pages and pages of reasons why, ffs....and I just don't want to spark some kind of debate, I just don't want to go there.

    I've said before many times that my ex-wife and I let our kids choose their own path. I'm so, so glad we did that. My oldest daughter is very, very active in her church group. She recently went out of state, thousands of miles away to go to a retreat and I think it was a pretty amazing experience for her, it was pretty awesome. I never "led" her to that church, and neither did my ex-wife.

    I'm so, soooooo glad I did not force feed Catholicism, or any other religious dogma to my kids, I am so happy I did not indoctrinate them in that way.
    You're going to lose people in your life, and realize that no matter how much time you spent with them or how often you told them you loved them, it will never seem like it was enough.

    Hug the ones you love.

  6. #6
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    Don't even get me started!

    TOO LATE!

    I went to a church that was almost as bad as this one. We all struggle in life and sin is sin, but if the preaching strays from the Word, then there is a problem.

    They tried to kick me out......twice......and didn't even do it the way the Bible instructed!
    I left that church nearly having a nervous breakdown....using the money I gave them during my unemployment.....to build a 50-ft statue of fiberglass.

    I left in 2004......they actually sent me an application packet to rejoin in March 2005.....I was still taking FIFTY MGs of Paxil a day and 20mg of the antipsychotic Geodon (to put me to sleep) at the time they sent me that!

    A few months later, the brother of the pastor's wife (the MAIN assailant!) died and she made herself the executrix instead of HIS wife and children! A two year legal battle ensued because she wanted his money, and the family said that she told him not to go to a doctor because God would heal him the way he healed her of breast cancer (she admitted under oath that she had never been officially diagnosed with it!) He ultimately died of throat cancer! She finally gave up the fight after the family went public.

    Then three years after that - 2010 - the fiberglass statue was struck by lightning and combusted completely. The next year, the pastor passed away (and I actually liked him!). The power and money hunger was enough to make me sick and there were a lot of people there who should have been on medication!

    I still have trouble trusting people - although I am beginning to FINALLY work through that - 13 years later!

  7. #7
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    In the US there are many different types of Churches. We have all heard of the Bible Belt. Some are made up. Person wakes up one day and decides they want to start their own Church. I think I would only stick with real Churches, if I was sticking with any at all. Not these made up ones. I don't see them as been real at all. That Westbro Baptists Church is the best example. That is one mad family. Here in Ireland we do get them on our late night radio shows. The rubbish they come out with. We get others as well from other made up Churches. Thing with them all is that they live by the bible. They can't hold a normal conversation without having to quote the bible. Everything has to be the bible. To us hearing them talk this can sound strange. Just the way they go on and what exactly it is they believe in. Some are waiting for their second coming. They even have a date when it will happen. In my own opinion these should be classed as sects, not Churches. They all seem to have one leader who they follow. Apart from God. This man is normally rich. They normally give him money. Yet they don't see anything wrong in what they are doing.

    The Church in Ireland has gone to ruins. People will still believe in a God. They will still pray. But they don't trust the Church or priests. So much has come out that dates back decades. None of good at all. The Church ignored when it was happening. Then when it came out all they done was took out a 1 page advert in a paper and said sorry. Like that was going to make people forget. In the area I live in they had to cancel Masses because people were not showing up for them. Was as simple as that. Typical of the Irish traditions though, funerals and weddings will still be held in Churches. This has caused the Church to react though. Few people were told they could not use the church for a wedding because they never attended the Church for Mass. I think we are a country who will hold onto some customs. Funerals have always been important. Even back in historical time when a famine hit the country. People accepted death and asked only one thing. For a proper religious burial. They did never get it. Road side graves were the things used. Hundreds of bodies just dumped into the ditches. The funeral is still a big enough custom in Ireland. Sort of going backwards again. Back to the coffin been kept in the house the night before the funeral. Good bit of drinking. Songs and stories. Which I think is a good thing. Church is only been used for the funeral Mass. Used to be that the coffin would be brought to the church the evening before the funeral Mass. Not many people doing that these days. Less involvement the church has the better. People don't want them involved.

    Having said what I did above, it may be hard to believe that people in Ireland do still pray. Some are finding other outlets. Might set up a group. Not like setting up your own church. Will have about 20 members. I think the older people will always continue to use the church. Along with traditions can also come fears. Younger people would not have been raised as the older generation was. This was a Church run Country for so long. The Church still owns a lot of the schools. They can still lay down their laws for people trying to get into some schools. Slowly it is changing though. New schools been built. Were religion is an optional subject. Learn it if you want. In the church owned schools it is like a normal school subject. They are trying to change that as well. People don't want the church to have any say in how the State is ran. The law of the land should not include and religious laws at all. Which means you make your own mind up on religion. You will still have those who want the Church. You will have those who don't want the Church. That is not saying that both lots don't believe in the same God. They will just do their religious things in their own ways.
    The Lovable Irish Rogue

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    This is not, not something I am proud of, in any way, shape or manner....but it's the truth. My ex-wife wanted to get married in this very, very old, very well-known historic church. It's somewhat of a landmark in this part of the country. We had to book the church well, well over a year ahead of time and there was a huge waiting list. The thing is....my ex-wife was not even Catholic then. She converted. Yes, you heard me right. She converted, just for the sole purpose of getting married to me, in that church. You heard me right. I'm not kidding.

    To be honest, I could not have cared less if we got married by a justice of the peace in a two minute ceremony attended only by ourselves. I seriously didn't care. Don't get me wrong....getting married was a very big deal to me, it was a huge deal. But as far as the ceremony and the church and how many and what kind of flowers there were and what kind of wine was served at the reception??? I didn't give a fuq. I'm just being honest. The ceremony, the commitment to my girl is what mattered to me, not the atmosphere, not how many guests attended lol. Btw, it was a huge wedding with hundreds and hundreds of people and we took a limo from the church a few blocks away to a historic landmark in Houston that cost thousands and thousands of dollars per hour to rent out and there was an open bar and dance hall and dj and.....you know what? I didn't care about any of that. And I still don't.

    I won't bother to look it up (but please, feel free to tell me if I'm wrong)....but the Catholic church is losing people in historic, never-before-seen record numbers. I do NOT regret leaving that church years ago. I have zero regrets. None. The list of reasons why I left.....I don't have enough time, or the energy, to go into them all. I seriously don't. It's a long, looooong list.

    But at the top of that list...why is it so necessary to be a part of an organized religion when I can have a relationship with my god on my own terms, in my own way?

    Edit: The punchline to this joke is....neither me, nor my ex-wife, nor any of my kids are Catholic now. None of us. My ex-wife and I went through all that....months of classes to have her convert, to become Catholic, and we are not now. I don't know what it was all for. So that she could get married in that fuqing church, I guess. And....another punchline....we're not even married anymore.
    You're going to lose people in your life, and realize that no matter how much time you spent with them or how often you told them you loved them, it will never seem like it was enough.

    Hug the ones you love.

  9. #9
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    Consider what a church is? Some people will tell you it is the house of God. In my opinion it is a place were like minded go to pray to a God they share. That same praying can be done at home. Like a football game. People like to be with others in a crowd. Who are all there for the same thing. My mother is into religion. Not the sort of person who would preach to you. Tell you that you are doing anything wrong. She simply likes to read her bible in the house here. From that bible she might take notes. It is not a competition to see who is the better Catholic. Her who might sit at home and knows the bible inside and out. Or a person who goes to mass in the local church on a daily or weekly basis. There is no right way or there is no wrong way. If you have a belief, you have a belief. A church is not needed for you to have that belief.

    Here in Ireland numbers are down at an all time low in churches. That is not saying that everybody has giving up in their faith. It is saying they have giving up on the church. The things people belonging to the church done in Ireland were horrible. Mass grave found with a lot of dead babies. Babies would have been taken from the mothers and who knows what happened next. All the sex abuse. The church knew it was going on and ignored it. It would move the offending priests to another area. So they could start again there. It is the whole cover up that has sickened people. The church lied about things for decades. I will add in that not all priests are bad people. There are some good ones out there. It is not like I view them all the exact same way. it was simply the way things were handled by the church in Ireland. Like it was no big deal. This pushed people away from the church. Our local priest tried to address the issue at one mass and found himself lost for words. The world is a changing place and the church does not want to change with it. Thus it is been left behind.
    The Lovable Irish Rogue

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    Yeah. I don't have a problem with organized religion, so much....it's the people that screw it all up. So. Yes, actually I do have a problem with organized religion. Put two or more people into a church and you will immediately have problems. I guarantee it. I would bet my fucking life on it. It's like a bomb waiting to go off. Just wait, just give it time, there will be problems. I promise you.

    Am I jaded? Maybe. Am I skeptical? Probably. It comes from life experience though. I'd be more than happy to go into details but I just don't want this to turn into a book about my religious experiences lmao. I'll just say it's a lot of different experiences. I spent a year in a very, very strict Catholic school. Beds made up by 5:00am, church service at 6:00am, breakfast then classes started. Then back to dorms. Chores in between. I nearly fucking suffocated in that place. I almost didn't survive. Literally. I was sent home, expelled after a suicide attempt. I'm very serious.

    Some of what has made me so skeptical is the two-faced way that a lot of the Catholics I've known over the years live their lives. Go get drunk Saturday night, have reckless, unprotected sex with multiple partners in the same night. Get drunk, messed up. Then put on your Catholic face in time for church services Sunday morning. I'm very well aware that is not just a Catholic thing. I'm very well aware that all Catholics are not like that. It would be very immature and close-minded and judgmental of me to think that they are all like that. I want to make it clear that's not what I'm saying. But. Based on my personal life experiences, some of them are. In fact many of them are imo.

    Fwiw, I was never sexually abused by a priest....it's almost comical that I should need to type those words out. And that's another reason why I don't even feel like I need to explain to most people why I'm a "jaded Catholic". If I tell people I'm a former Catholic I usually get a nod, an acknowledgement and then we move on in the conversation. Most people seem to understand there are a whole variety of reasons why you'd become a former Catholic. They get it. The priest that led the school I was in btw, just disappeared. He was very, very emotionally abusive and manipulative towards me. No one knows where he is now. The school was closed. I'm not sure why. I have never tried to find out why, and that's mostly because I think I'm afraid to find out the reasons why. I don't want to know. I seriously don't.
    You're going to lose people in your life, and realize that no matter how much time you spent with them or how often you told them you loved them, it will never seem like it was enough.

    Hug the ones you love.

  11. #11
    Cuchculan's Avatar
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    To me what you are talking about is more the types of Catholics who want to live their lives by the bible. That is not all Catholics. Loads of do drink. Have children outside of marriage. Those sort of people don't take the bible at face value. To them it is not an instruction book on how they should live their lives. Their are others who see it as an instruction book for life. Is those sort of people I would not have much time for at all. My own mother reads her bible for much of the day. I see no harm in that at all. She would not tell me or anybody else they are doing wrong by the bible. It depends how each person wants to take the meaning of the bible. Some live by it. Some don't. But they are all still Catholics. Just like some go to mass and some don't. Neither can tell the other they are doing wrong. Both might have views on the other and how they view the bible. Just look at how some Muslims view their holy book. Depending on who you ask you might get a thousand different meanings for the same passages. No matter what the religion you will always have people view the holy book in different ways. So you might have seen a contradiction with people drinking and having sex. Because it went against how you viewed the teachings in the bible as it was taught to you. Not everybody was taught in the same way. If that was the case half of Ireland would be heading for hell. LOL.
    The Lovable Irish Rogue

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    I think I understand what you're saying. But just to clarify, I don't necessarily have a problem with drinking, or with having sex before marriage. Hell I've been guilty of both, many times over. I have a problem with people that do that and then pretend to be holier-than-thou. I have a problem with all the hypocrisy....that's what I was getting at. I cannot tell you how many people I knew in the church that would be raising hell on Saturday night and then be in church Sunday morning with their halos on. There's nothing wrong with raising hell on a Saturday night lol. It just really irks me when those same people are in church pretending they're better than everyone else. It's just something I have a difficult time tolerating. The whole two-faced thing really gets to me, I don't like it. It's enough to turn me off to all of organized religion. And like I said before, very clearly, I realize not all Catholics are that way. But there sure are a lot that are, in my experience.
    You're going to lose people in your life, and realize that no matter how much time you spent with them or how often you told them you loved them, it will never seem like it was enough.

    Hug the ones you love.

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    I'll just throw in one of my favorite quotes while I'm on my rant lol.

    I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.
    ~ Ghandi
    You're going to lose people in your life, and realize that no matter how much time you spent with them or how often you told them you loved them, it will never seem like it was enough.

    Hug the ones you love.

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    IG, Catholicism and organized religion has really done a number on you. Stay in your zone of "it's between me and my God". I like that quote from you. It really IS between us as individuals and our God. I'm a lapsed Catholic myself, although I try to go to church. I just never feel good enough when I do go. There is a church in our town that is called The Unitarian Church and I've heard wonderful things about the people there. I might try that although deep down inside I'm a Catholic. It's very much a part of me. (((((((((HUGS)))))))

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    (((Hugs))) back to you Jamie. I don't want to come across like I'm disrespecting anyone's belief system or church, that's the last thing I want to do. I just see the same behavior repeated after years and years over and over again and it's like there's a pattern there, I can't just pretend it doesn't exist...and it gets to me, it has totally changed me not just wrt my religious beliefs, but it's changed who I am in some ways. I think some of the stuff I've been through has really made me kind of jaded, like I said, and I'll be the first to admit that.

    I actually was a member of a UU church here in Houston, and if I had to call a church home it would be that one, though I haven't been in a while. From what I experienced it was a very, very welcoming community, very all-inclusive. Imo you won't find a church that will welcome you with open arms like they do, pretty much regardless of your background. Your sexual orientation, religious background, race, color, creed, sex, none of it matters. As a member you're expected to be very open minded and tolerant of people of pretty much every walk of faith you can think of. My ex-wife introduced me to it and we had our kids in Sunday school classes for years (it's ultimately what led us to believe that it was best to educate them as much as possible and let them decide what church to call home, when they were ready). I've worshipped there and held hands and prayed with people from every religion you can think of, all under one roof.

    I wish I could say there wasn't any conflict there but there was. That's always going to be the case when you have opinionated people (as opposed to "sheeple")....people are just not going to always see eye to eye on everything. But it was a very welcoming community and their services on a typical Sunday morning just blew me away. As a former Catholic it was most def not what I was used to.

    When my ex-wife introduced me to everyone she did so by saying I am a "recovering Catholic". And everyone got a good laugh out of that, including me. But there was sort of a stigma attached there. Or maybe it was just more in my head lol, IDK. The people I worshipped with there were in many cases, very open, free, honest giving people. Many of them reminded me of hippies....not hipsters lol, but hippies like from the 60's in the truest sense of the word. So I hope that kind of paints a little bit of a picture wrt what it's like. I hope you give it a shot. I actually miss that church in some ways.
    You're going to lose people in your life, and realize that no matter how much time you spent with them or how often you told them you loved them, it will never seem like it was enough.

    Hug the ones you love.

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