This topic hits close to home and is the reason I have not posted in awhile. I recently went through a very painful breakup that was brought on by religion, or to be specific, a false church. I am a non-believer, or what you might call a reformed believer. I was raised in the Anglican/Episcopal church, went to a private (US) school that was based on such, yet had an enormous tolerance for all systems of belief and non-belief. I studied the Bible and New Testament in English and Latin as both a religious work and as a work of literature. I have read those books in excess of fifty times. English translations, old and new English and Latin. Each translation is different than it's predecessor. Each revision has been changed and reflects the opinion of the religious and or political power* in control at the date of translation or revision. In other words the meaning is changed to suit the need of those in charge, subtle but changes non the less. During my life as a believer I started to notice thing going on around me that appeared just a little out of kilter. I asked questions and got the standard "It's always been that way" response. I looked deeper and found it had not always been that way. The point here is that these people had been conditioned to believe that it had always been that way. Now let's look at the Mega Churches sprouting up like the weeds they are around the globe. For starters they want your money, and truthfully they want that more than your salvation. Why a Mega Church? What's wrong with the quaint small church? Have you ever gone to a concert by a band you didn't really like? I'm talking big venue concert. I have and after I was awe struck, I suddenly liked that band. It only lasted five to six days, but for those days I thought about how wrong I was to not like that band before, or was I? Mega churches use that big grandiose venue to suck you in to con you out of your money and take your soul. (I use the word soul for the believers, I use the word life for the rest of you). And that is what they did to my fiance. They do complete background check on all members and their families, with the claim you have to be careful and make sure these people in your life are who they say they are and not criminals. After all god doesn't like those who have sinned in his house, right? They condition you to believe they are protecting you from evil. They conditioned my ex into thinking that I, as an atheist worship the devil. She knew better than that. She is now back to the old, what she used to call Evil (insert her name) that was shallow and all about money. That was the girl no one liked that became an alcoholic, drug using stripper. I miss the girl I knew, the 4 times a week AA meeting emotionally healing moody hard to deal with "I don't know why you stay with me, hold me" girl. But they did that to save her and now she has Jesus in her life so it's good, right? Nothing like a rewrite of the word of god to save your soul from evil.
*the Pope or king depending on the era.
did I piss you off? I will.
