Reaction to watching my church's youtube years later

[PepperBlossoms]

I haven't gone to my childhood church in years.  I clicked on one of the youtube videos of my church.... So I started typing almost everything that was said or sung. This is up to nine minutes.  This sounds like the biggest cult omg.  Summary - We are sinning but we worship you, please hear us lord. We are so happy for you.  Please don't judge us negatively, we are trying to be good Christians.  Please, please.  Look how much we are worshipping you.  Don't send us to hell.  Please forgive us.  We love you please.  - It sounds like people who have been hijacked and are tied up and are begging to please not be shot with a gun.  They sound blackmailed.  I can't take the priest seriously.  Whoever wrote the songs the choir sings and the stuff the priest says knew exactly what they were doing and knew how cults work and modeled the language very closely to that- either that or they ended up being close to a cult anyway.

 

It starts here and I bolded some of it.

 

"We worship you"

"We honor and adore you our great and mighty lord"

"O gracious savior accept the love we bring"

"That we who know your favor may serve you as our king"

"and rise to bless you still"

To marvel at your beauty and glory in your ways

And make a joyful duty our sacrifice of praise

Love faith and gratitude for our god

I confess to almighty god and to my brothers and sisters that I have greatly sinned in my thoughts and in my words, in what I have done and what I have failed to do.  Through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault, therefore I ask blessed ever Virgin all the angels and saints, and you my brothers and sisters, to pray for me the lord our god.

May almighty god have mercy on us forgive us our sins and bring us to everlasting life.

Glory to god in the highest and on earth and peace to people...

We praise you, we bless you, we adore you, we glorify you, we give you thanks for your great glory lord god, heavenly king.  Oh god almighty father, lord Jesus Christ, only begotten son.  Lord god, lamb of god, son of the father, you take away the sins of the world have mercy on us.  You take away the sins of the world, receive our prayer.  You are seated at the right hand of the father.  Have mercy on us for you alone are the holy one, you alone are the lord.  You alone are the most high Jesus Christ, with the holy spirit in the glory of god, the father of him. Amen. 

Let us pray.  Almighty god, give it of all good things for generation upon generation.  Peoples of this land have sung your provident bounty we do offer you praise for all the blessings we have received at your hands.  Make us truly grateful for the many blessings we receive each day: life, family, friendship, and joy of human life.  Bless us and the food we share this day with grateful hearts.  Continue to make our land fruitful and let our love for you be seen now, purse of peace, and justice and our generous response to those in need. We ask this through Christ our lord, amen.

Edited December 15, 2021 by PepperBlossoms

[PepperBlossoms]

So I decided for fun to look at my church's website.  Woah. I never actually thought about ANY of the prayers they had us say.  I said some of those every single day........

It makes it sound like we are not good enough as we are and that we are sinners and need help

It makes it seem like there is evil and evil is super bad and please push those evil people away and all the souls that are getting ruined by evil.  God please do something help.

It makes it sound like we could get tempted and when we do, we need your help as we can't do it alone and please let us be free from hurting others instead of not trying to do it in the first place

Wow it says Jesus went to hell. I never noticed that.  And why and how do they know that this Jesus person will judge people and how will they be judged and what is considered a sin and how is one born to a virgin and how is the creator a male

Wow the pope says sin is a failure....

Christianity has a superiority complex - destined for eternal life, inheritors of the kingdom of god

People think that the religion is like golden chocolate.  Look what I have found!  Look at this great chocolate and see how great it tastes!  I will live forever and so can you! Taste the chocolate and see how lucky we are to have it and to have been born into it and not into something else. Lucky us!! 

Edited December 15, 2021 by PepperBlossoms

[SgtPepper]

Yeah man, its Good.

It's good to realize you are a sinner so you can wake up and develop to be Christ-like. 

Are you going to look at a rapist and be like, "yeah man, it's all good bro! Keep raping dude!" ??

The Hail Mary Prayer is often used in conjunction with the Rosary which is essentially a mantra to envelope you in love, humbleness, and forgiveness; 3 excellent energies that lead you closer to being in union with God. 

are you confused by the language? Did someone hurt you in church? 

It's okay to not vibe with the model, you might prefer another, but I'd disagree if you said there's no value in it. 

 

Edited December 15, 2021 by SgtPepper

[vladorion]

It's even better to realize that there is no such thing as sin.

[SgtPepper]

3 hours ago, vladorion said:

It's even better to realize that there is no such thing as sin.

Actually that would be worse thing to realize.

This is akin to saying, there is no such as thing as immoral or harmful behavior which practically speaking is not true. I'd bet there is behavior that you believe, or at least act as if there is harmful behavior/events like factory farms, burning down the rain forests, and all organisms within it.

Even if it is not ultimately true, it does not serve everyone to act like there is no such thing as harmful behavior. 

What's better to realize is that you can be free from these harmful behavior by practicing quality virtuous like temperance, justice, wisdom, and courage. 

Which is why we have the 10 commandments and/or the Dharma.

If we chose not to make distinctions about our behavior, we would be dead. This is why rituals, practices, and cultures have developed, for harmony and survival which is essential for the health of a society. 

Edited December 16, 2021 by SgtPepper

[Boethius]

6 hours ago, vladorion said:

It's even better to realize that there is no such thing as sin.

Like this guy did?

Edited December 16, 2021 by Boethius

[Opo]

52 minutes ago, Boethius said:

Like this guy did?

Lol did you watch the movie? 

[Boethius]

@Opo Of course. My point (similar to SgtPepper's comment) is that to deny the reality of sin is to risk becoming a nihilist, just like the joker.

[Opo]

2 minutes ago, Boethius said:

@Opo Of course. My point (similar to SgtPepper's comment) is that to deny the reality of sin is to risk becoming a nihilist, just like the joker.

?‍♂️

He was literally punishing the sinners. 

[Boethius]

@Opo Well, lol, I hadn't thought of it that way, so yeah, fair point! But still, the joker is what a person runs the risk of becoming when they "exempt themselves" from the moral system, which is what comes to mind by the comment about "realize that there is no such thing as sin".

[Opo]

46 minutes ago, Boethius said:

@Opo Well, lol, I hadn't thought of it that way, so yeah, fair point! But still, the joker is what a person runs the risk of becoming when they "exempt themselves" from the moral system, which is what comes to mind by the comment about "realize that there is no such thing as sin".

Nah this feels like a scarecrow. 

I never believed in sins and  I still didn't kill anyone. 

If tomorrow someone proved that all that sin and God stuff was fake I bet you wouldn't go out raping and killing. 

[Boethius]

@Opo Isn't killing someone a sin?

I'm not using the word *sin* to refer to things like consuming caffeine or watching R-rated movies (activities that went against the Church of Latter Day Saints, for example), though I do recognize that probably many people hear the word in those ways. Instead, I would say that the word *sin* in Christianity plays much the same role as does *suffering* in Buddhism -- it is an essential aspect of how a believer experiences the world, and it is something to be struggled with, either by avoiding sin as in Christianity or by transforming suffering as in Buddhism.

[vladorion]

8 hours ago, SgtPepper said:

Actually that would be worse thing to realize.

This is akin to saying, there is no such as thing as immoral or harmful behavior which practically speaking is not true. I'd bet there is behavior that you believe, or at least act as if there is harmful behavior/events like factory farms, burning down the rain forests, and all organisms within it.

Even if it is not ultimately true, it does not serve everyone to act like there is no such thing as harmful behavior. 

What's better to realize is that you can be free from these harmful behavior by practicing quality virtuous like temperance, justice, wisdom, and courage. 

Which is why we have the 10 commandments and/or the Dharma.

If we chose not to make distinctions about our behavior, we would be dead. This is why rituals, practices, and cultures have developed, for harmony and survival which is essential for the health of a society. 

Sin is a religious term that has a connotation of guilt and punishment by God.

Of course there are actions that are harmful for oneself and/or others, and there are consequences for those actions. This has nothing to do with the religious concept of sin.

The original meaning of the word sin is simply error. But that is not what this word means today.

By believing that your'e a sinner, you're just helping your ego survive because that belief is just a part of the ego structure.

[Yarco]

I've recently come to the conclusion that demons are real through personal experience. Not as a metaphor for addiction or personal struggles, they literally exist.

At the same time, God is a dick. He's a narcissist father that will lock you in the basement to suffer forever if you're bad.

Given this revelation and a conviction that both God and the devil are 100% real, it seems to me there are two choices. 

You can give God the finger and choose to burn forever instead of sucking his dick to get into heaven. This is what I would've done as an edgy atheist teen, I would've said I'd rather burn in hell than worship a God that would do that to people.

Or you can worship him and beg your captor for mercy and hope he spares you.

Personally if it's a choice between cowering in fear and pretend-smiling for an okay eternity, or an eternity where I burn and suffer forever, I'm thinking that after 20+ years away from the church it's time for me to suck it up and put the chains back on.

Even to myself as a skeptical person I sound like a schizophrenic right now but it's true. I fucked around with Orthodox Christian prayers just to see if anything would happen, and the demons just couldn't stand it. I've never seen something spiritual be so immediately effective. If they just let me do it for a bit I probably would've got bored of it and gone back to atheism. But instead I was getting nightmares and physical attacks and having weird paranormal shit like the TV turning on in the middle of the night every time I prayed. So fuck you demons, we're going to war. You shoulda just let me believe you didn't exist but now it's too late, you revealed too much and I can't go back.

I dare you to say "Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me a sinner" about 50x before you go to bed tonight and be sincere about it, and see what weird stuff starts manifesting.

If the alternative is demons I don't care any more dude, I'm gonna do what the mob boss (God) says as long as he keeps me safe. I will happily join that protection racket because it's the best game going.

Edited December 17, 2021 by Yarco

[Boethius]

5 hours ago, Yarco said:

I dare you to say "Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me a sinner" about 50x before you go to bed tonight and be sincere about it, and see what weird stuff starts manifesting.

I think this is the last thing Orthodox priests would recommend anyone do -- they seem pretty protective of this form of prayer and fearful of the consequences of people taking it up willy nilly. As far as your comments on God, don't you think he wants people to come into the light instead of just rotting in the dark in the basement?

[SgtPepper]

16 hours ago, vladorion said:

Sin is a religious term that has a connotation of guilt and punishment by God.

Of course there are actions that are harmful for oneself and/or others, and there are consequences for those actions. This has nothing to do with the religious concept of sin.

The original meaning of the word sin is simply error. But that is not what this word means today.

By believing that your'e a sinner, you're just helping your ego survive because that belief is just a part of the ego structure.

I disagree. Actually what you described in your first two sentenced are accurate and is exactly what the concept of sin entails. Except to make it full circle, you are God punishing your ego, for going against your true nature and the guilt is the result of self-honesty about your behavior and nature.

It's the same radical feelings that vegans feel when they realize they've been eating tortured animals and they feel disgust with themselves.

It may not be what the word means to surface-level fundamentalist christians, but it doesn't change the true origin of its word imo. When I try to understand christianity, I don't look at Joel Ostein, Baptists, evangelicals, or our family's on Facebook (lol); I study Jesus, saints, monks, mystics, and the Bible. 

By believing one a sinner, one is actually being honest about one's ego, especially to one's ego. It's essentially an alcoholic admitting to oneself that he/she is an alcoholic. That's the value of it.

It's opposite of what you say, by believing you're not a sinner, you're helping your ego survive actually and continue selfishness. You set no boundaries except whether something is good for yourself or not. "there's no such thing as sin" - so let me lie to protect myself, let me steal to survive, let me fuck this prostitute (because she chose this profession, I don't need to examine why she is here in the first place)

By believing you're a sinner, you're challenging to ego to unravel into unselfishness. Perhaps we have different conceptions of what an ego is.

Even if you say, I don't believe in sin, but I believe that lying is wrong, stealing is wrong, etc, then we are agreement anyways. You just explain it different in your personal mind.

 

That being said, I still think its okay if the model does not vibe with your personality, and even if we disagree on what sin means, I hope you can see that people such as myself who do subscribe to Christian theology view sin as a way to identify selfish/excessive behavior, which is good so that you can self-actualize. 

@Yarco

No offense, but I personally think you have corrupted way of seeing Christian's model of God. It's not sucking God's dick, it is aligning with who you actually are, which is Love. I invite you to explore a deeper understanding of the religion.

Edited December 17, 2021 by SgtPepper

[Iesu]

On 12/14/2021 at 8:15 PM, PepperBlossoms said:

So I decided for fun to look at my church's website.  Woah. I never actually thought about ANY of the prayers they had us say.  I said some of those every single day........

It makes it sound like we are not good enough as we are and that we are sinners and need help

It makes it seem like there is evil and evil is super bad and please push those evil people away and all the souls that are getting ruined by evil.  God please do something help.

It makes it sound like we could get tempted and when we do, we need your help as we can't do it alone and please let us be free from hurting others instead of not trying to do it in the first place

Wow it says Jesus went to hell. I never noticed that.  And why and how do they know that this Jesus person will judge people and how will they be judged and what is considered a sin and how is one born to a virgin and how is the creator a male

Wow the pope says sin is a failure....

Christianity has a superiority complex - destined for eternal life, inheritors of the kingdom of god

People think that the religion is like golden chocolate.  Look what I have found!  Look at this great chocolate and see how great it tastes!  I will live forever and so can you! Taste the chocolate and see how lucky we are to have it and to have been born into it and not into something else. Lucky us!! 

There's this video on YouTube of a shootout with a guy and the cops. The cops shot him in the side. And then they shot him over 9! Times. And then as a message to the public the cop say. "For all you idiots asking why we shot him so many times, evil can't be dead enough"

[Iesu]

1 hour ago, SgtPepper said:

I disagree. Actually what you described in your first two sentenced are accurate and is exactly what the concept of sin entails. Except to make it full circle, you are God punishing your ego, for going against your true nature and the guilt is the result of self-honesty about your behavior and nature.

It's the same radical feelings that vegans feel when they realize they've been eating tortured animals and they feel disgust with themselves.

It may not be what the word means to surface-level fundamentalist christians, but it doesn't change the true origin of its word imo. When I try to understand christianity, I don't look at Joel Ostein, Baptists, evangelicals, or our family's on Facebook (lol); I study Jesus, saints, monks, mystics, and the Bible. 

By believing one a sinner, one is actually being honest about one's ego, especially to one's ego. It's essentially an alcoholic admitting to oneself that he/she is an alcoholic. That's the value of it.

It's opposite of what you say, by believing you're not a sinner, you're helping your ego survive actually and continue selfishness. You set no boundaries except whether something is good for yourself or not. "there's no such thing as sin" - so let me lie to protect myself, let me steal to survive, let me fuck this prostitute (because she chose this profession, I don't need to examine why she is here in the first place)

By believing you're a sinner, you're challenging to ego to unravel into unselfishness. Perhaps we have different conceptions of what an ego is.

Even if you say, I don't believe in sin, but I believe that lying is wrong, stealing is wrong, etc, then we are agreement anyways. You just explain it different in your personal mind.

 

That being said, I still think its okay if the model does not vibe with your personality, and even if we disagree on what sin means, I hope you can see that people such as myself who do subscribe to Christian theology view sin as a way to identify selfish/excessive behavior, which is good so that you can self-actualize. 

@Yarco

No offense, but I personally think you have corrupted way of seeing Christian's model of God. It's not sucking God's dick, it is aligning with who you actually are, which is Love. I invite you to explore a deeper understanding of the religion.

My mom is a Christian fanatic if God told her to goatsie him and give him a rim Job she'd do it in a flash 

[PepperBlossoms]

20 hours ago, Yarco said:

I've recently come to the conclusion that demons are real through personal experience. Not as a metaphor for addiction or personal struggles, they literally exist.

At the same time, God is a dick. He's a narcissist father that will lock you in the basement to suffer forever if you're bad.

Given this revelation and a conviction that both God and the devil are 100% real, it seems to me there are two choices. 

You can give God the finger and choose to burn forever instead of sucking his dick to get into heaven. This is what I would've done as an edgy atheist teen, I would've said I'd rather burn in hell than worship a God that would do that to people.

Or you can worship him and beg your captor for mercy and hope he spares you.

Personally if it's a choice between cowering in fear and pretend-smiling for an okay eternity, or an eternity where I burn and suffer forever, I'm thinking that after 20+ years away from the church it's time for me to suck it up and put the chains back on.

Even to myself as a skeptical person I sound like a schizophrenic right now but it's true. I fucked around with Orthodox Christian prayers just to see if anything would happen, and the demons just couldn't stand it. I've never seen something spiritual be so immediately effective. If they just let me do it for a bit I probably would've got bored of it and gone back to atheism. But instead I was getting nightmares and physical attacks and having weird paranormal shit like the TV turning on in the middle of the night every time I prayed. So fuck you demons, we're going to war. You shoulda just let me believe you didn't exist but now it's too late, you revealed too much and I can't go back.

I dare you to say "Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me a sinner" about 50x before you go to bed tonight and be sincere about it, and see what weird stuff starts manifesting.

If the alternative is demons I don't care any more dude, I'm gonna do what the mob boss (God) says as long as he keeps me safe. I will happily join that protection racket because it's the best game going.

@YarcoThe TV turn on thing - are you sitting on the remote? If the TV is unplugged, does it not work?  Were you in a dream that the tv was on or can you verify you were awake?  When you say physical attacks (like other people hurting you) and nightmares - could those just been coincidences?

Have you talked with a therapist or tried to learn more about these demons?  Could you be concocting them yourself? 

That seems wild and scary to experience.  

On 12/16/2021 at 7:47 AM, vladorion said:

It's even better to realize that there is no such thing as sin.

@vladorionyeah and like how all the rules and morals are made up.  That was a fun time.

It can be freeing like the joker.

@SgtPepperI think the sin stuff is more that one feels more free in that one can decide how they want to be rather than have pressure to conform to some notion that is considered bad that some institution said.  In the hail mary, when it says "pray for us sinners", it could for some feel like it implies that we are already "bad" and not okay as we are and need to be saved... and create low self esteem, dependency, judgement, unsure, etc.

I guess what religion gave me was discipline but that discipline, yes I did get stuff done, but it was also kinda not freeing enough for me to get to try a bunch of ideas and stuff

[Salvijus]

People should replace the word sinner with stupid and unconscious. And then pray:

"Lord, forgive me for being unconscious, forgive me for being ignorant, forgive for doing stupid things every day. I'm a stupid guy, and deserve the consiquences that come with that. Please all the forces in the universe pray for me and help me overcome my stupidness/ ego/ignorant/arrogant/sinnful nature" 

I think it's a very powerful prayer, makes you humble, invokes a desire to improve yourself and overcome your unconscious stupidness, and fills you with enourmous love if done genuinly. 

Acceptence of your stupidness(sinnfulness) is the first step towards overcoming it. It's an essential step. Without admitting that you have flaws, progress is impossible.

I used to dislike this model before and argue against it like many. It took me a lot of time to see the wisdom and beauty of the whole thing. 

Amen

Edited December 18, 2021 by Salvijus