In terms of religion, I (C.) am agnostic, Zack is either Christian or Catholic, were not sure, Nic is forced into Christianity by his mother, David is (I think) Catholic, JR2 is atheist and TK is atheist. I believe God exists, because nothing makes sense without some sort of explanation of a God. Why are we here? Big Bang. What started the Big Bang? Swirling dust. How the ###$ did the dust get there? WE DON'T KNOW!!! But I can't side with one church or another. If I side with the Catholics, well, the whole boy-rape thing doesn't exactly work for me & Zack (the raped, mind you), and we can't side with the Christians because they're ######6 extremists who have no idea what the ###$ they're talking about, and I like a group to have a basic goal and a leader smart enough to guide them to it. They have so many issues with so many things I cannot side with them because if I agree with one thing, another thing of theirs crops up and I go back to being stuck in the middle. I am stuck in the middle, because until I fully understand Hinduism or Islam as well as we know Catholicism or Chirstianity, I refuse to go near them. Its not a race thing, its just that we'd rather play it smart and join the side we agree with most, and although we love Muslims, their religion is kinda crazy.
But HuffPo put out this article today on why young people are leaving the church. "New research by the Barna Group finds they view churches as judgmental, overprotective, exclusive and unfriendly towards doubters. They also consider congregations antagonistic to science and say their Christian experience has been shallow..... One in four 18- to 29-year-olds said "Christians demonize everything outside of the church." One in three said "Church is boring."...One in six young Christians said they "have made mistakes and feel judged in church because of them." And 40 percent of 18- to 29-year-old Catholics said their church's doctrine on sexuality and birth control is "out of date." (Huffpo, link below).
I agree with most everything there. EVERYONE in my church is a Republican except me. EVERYONE. EVERY. ONE. I cannot stress that enough, its ######6 everybody in my "Church Family" is right, or far right. The ######6 Pastor is the only one with sense to see both sides, and I love the guy for that, but the ######6 congregation is so stuck in their ways of hating gays and loving wars, saying they love the bible while saying that someone should be executed if he or she commits a crime, young people are looking at them, then looking at facts brought up by Jon Stewart & Bill Maher and such, and all these contradictions and say "###$ them! They're ######6 stupid!" And I know that for a fact, because that's why Nic's best friend is agnostic. He won't touch a church EVER because of the hypocrisy.
But we still go. Every Sunday. Nic goes because he has to, and likes to talk to some of the churches older people he's gotten friendly with, like Wilma L., who eats pizza with us every 3 weeks or so. He does love her like a Grandmother, and she loves him too. But EVERY TIME we are over there, Fox News is always on. And when Politics pops up in a conversation, its always "Obama is the great Satan" or whatever. So, on one hand, he gets to see her, but on the other, she doesn't see the truth.
I personally like church. They hand out this SUPER FAR RIGHT (Caps because damn is it biased) magazine called "Todays Pentecost Evangelical". They hate on everything for no good reason at ALL. But thats not why I love it. They contradict themselves more than Lindsey Lohan in an interrogation room. They have this section in the back called "World View" that has quotes from this week on it, all of them gay hating or anti abortion or what-not. Then they have these statistics in the back from Pew Research and $#%^, and its all like "How Many People hate #######1?" and such. But the BEST is their movie reviews section. They grade movies just released on DVD on some scale that I do not understand, and grade it on 5 things: Profanity, Violence, Disrespecting God, Sex Content and some other thing. They grade it on something, I don't know what. I thought for years they were counting the number of times someone cursed or how many punches were thrown, but no. No idea what the ###$ they're doing. And each grade is on a 5,10,15 basis, so you can have scores on 25+, and have no idea what the ###$ they're talking about.
So, with all this confusion, I have emotionally left the church while still attending. All they're lovey-dovey Christ #######4 won't matter to a single young person if on one hand, they have a just and loving God, but on the other, they have Rick Perry, executing 200+ people in Texas in God's name. How the ###$ do you compete with yourself, when yourself sucks?
-C.Nic
Sources:
(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/09/teens-leave-churches-seen-as-judgmental-unfriendly_n_1001528.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000009)