Got to get some things off my chest

[sweet_tna]

Congrats on breaking free! You're not the only ex-clergyman on the board here, I know of at least two. So you're in great company. I totally understand believing in Christ but being disenchanted with "the church." I used to teach confirmation classes at my church, but realized somewhere along the way (could it be when teaching history of the church?), I didn't want to go to to the "fan club" meetings anymore. (Well put, Alura!). And that was a year before I started swinging.

So go ahead and be yourselves--your real selves. That's who Jesus wants us to be, anyway.


=)

[lustylearning]

Thank you for sharing your story, cupl4fun, truly. John Shelby Spong wrote "the heart cannot accept what the mind rejects," and this basic truth started my husband and I down a path similar to yours years ago. We were never church employees, but we tithed, participated, worked... It was a transition I fought internally, because there is a comfort in being told "absolute truths" and being part of a "protected" group, but even that comfort wasn't enough to prevent the illogic and hypocrisy of the church institution and the inconsistencies in the bible from gnawing at me.

As I read what you wrote, I thought about how we have become outcasts - or at least would be, if we were exposed. Nevertheless, there comes a time when what you truly believe outweighs what you've been taught, and that is firm foundation upon which you can build.

Peace and joy to you, and again, thanks.

[knb2004]

I've said for a long time that while I do believe in God, I do not believe in religion, and it sounds like you're joining my wing. Perhaps we should start a "God not Religion" church lol

[cupl4fun]

"I've said for a long time that while I do believe in God, I do not believe in religion, and it sounds like you're joining my wing. Perhaps we should start a "God not Religion" church lol"

Just as long as i don't have to be the pastor

[intuition897]

Originally Posted by cupl4fun

...I know a lot of good christian people who are kind, loving people. but I hate the institution of the church. I hate the religion of christianity.

What's funny is that I am amazed by the person of Jesus. I look at the gospels and I see a kind, caring, compassionate person whom I would much like to emulate. Then I look at the religion which is supposed to be based on his teachings and I see judgment, narrow mindedness, misogyny, greed and the like. I can't help but think "What the f@ck happened?"

I look at Jesus and see a person who would love and accept me as a cussing, sex loving person who desperately wants to help make the world a better place and just love people (which is why I got into the ministry). But in "his church" I can't be me. I would first be fired and then ostracized and viewed as a deviant. I actually believe (despite the church's teachings) that I'm a good person.

The church creates a bunch of fake, unreal people who live in fear of judgment from other christians and from their angry God. It's so exhausting and I'm just sick of it.

Now I'm not sure where I fit in. I want a place where people will let my wife and I be who we are. This desire is a lot of what draws me to swinging and to this board (there's the sex thing too). Yet, when people hear that we work at a church we fear they'll close up and run away (and I don't blame them). They fear exactly what I do.

I hope this doesn't cause problems because that's not my intent. I just needed to vent. I hope that's okay.

It's more than OK with me. I'm Christian, but I haven't been to church in nearly 2 years. No offense taken, since I share your views and feelings. Jesus was a blue-jean-wearing, beer drinking, backyard BBQ, blue-collar kind of guy. He had a sense of humour, He was a Renaissance man, He was fully awake and aware of the buzz of life around Him. The church paints him as this delicate, serene and ever-gentle figure to glowingly adorn mantles and walls alongside that cherished velvet Elvis painting. No one mentions that he was naked under his robe. No one mentions that he had bodily functions like the rest of us. And as far as the blessed institution of the traditional church is concerned, Jesus' penis is none of our business...in fact, I'm sure their stance is that he probably didn't have one.

But he did. He was human while he was here. You don't hear anything about Jesus' sexuality, which must've been present if he was human; after all it IS a big part of the human experience, no? If he chose to be abstinent, it was purely choice and I'm sure he had common-sense, practical reasons for it.

Responsible "playing" is one of the benefits of being human, and I'm sure God wasn't so uptight that he told his son that he wasn't allowed to play with the riff-raff. God delights in our joy. Intimate physical human contact is healing and nurturing. It can be such a positive thing, but the church will have none of that.

I TOTALLY agree! The church has produced nothing but stigma and negativity in its extremist doctrines. The whole world is so sick of the wretched, bitter medicine of Christian principles that have been force down its throat that the mere mention of "faith", "religion", or "Christian" evokes a knee-jerk recoiling. It's sad. Yet..."onward Christian soldiers..." They don't question it. It's not working?? It must be the wicked world's fault, so they must simply try harder. In the church's attempt to save humanity from itself, they have fully disengaged themselves from it to the point where they aren't listening to the very real arguments. Instead, they just try to shout louder, thus foolishly thinking they'll win the argument and the world will "see reason."

What the fuck happened, you ask? It's quite simple really. Jesus' church is no longer the church of his heart. Human blindness has held it back long enough to allow it to rot into a moldering pile of obsolescence and I have little time or patience for it.

I do miss some of the people at the last church I was at, though. It was wonderful, and the most alive church I've ever been to. Teaching the same skewed values and morals, but I don't judge people for their ignorance if their hearts are in the right place. And they were! Wonderful church. But I find it so difficult to get involved because after a time, questions are put to me. And I HATE that I would have to lie.

Dude, it must royally suck to have to preach on things you can't say with conviction. I extend my sincerest sympathy.

[intuition897]

Originally Posted by SnowwwWhite

Looking back I really feel pretty stupid for buying into religion, but I forgive myself when I realize that I had been brainwashed from a very young age. I was brought up shielded from the "real world" and my parents probably just expected me to grow up and be a preacher's wife someday. Funny thing, we were always taught how other religions were cults. I'm sorry to say, but if you compare practices and beliefs it's obvious that Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, Catholics, etc. are no different from Jehovah's Witnesses or Scientology. If your mind is being indoctrinated to reject science, to follow obscure laws and teachings, and to believe you're going to heaven and everyone who doesn't believe your version is going to hell... IT'S A CULT!

Don't feel stupid for believing it. Something like 98% of the world's population believes in a form of universal Intelligence...some people call it God.

I'm a pretty smart girl (I think, anyway), and I think of a lot of big questions that few people in my everyday life bother to entertain. It's not hard to dig one's self into a funk of existential depression. Science does a good job of explaining many things but it's a helluva long way from answering the burning questions I have. If nature makes such sense and follows such undeniable logic, then what the fuck happened with human beings?? We're a sick infestation. We form a film around the planets water bodies, like scum around the tub. We secrete toxins that poison our host. We make the whole planet sick. And we're so screwed up, we can't even cooperate! Ant colonies and bee hives operate with perfect precision, working toward a common goal. What's our excuse?

My mind would fry to a crisp if I couldn't find some peace somehow, and so that's why I choose to believe that there's something greater than myself out there. There's no harm in this - and in fact much good in it - as long as I can conscientiously maintain its positivity. If I don't, I've just joined the clusterfuck that is "The Church". Keep it positive, and it allows me to live in child-like wonder at the world around me, let go of the questions that humankind is simply not equipped to answer (trees falling in the forest and that kind of stuff), and live my life with hope, joy, love and freedom. If atheism brings you this, I won't shove anything else down your throat. It's just none of my business. And if you're right (that we all just turn to dust and extinguish when we die), then what are you going to do? Gloat? LOL You can't say anything, and I bloody well couldn't hear you anyway. Living with hope and faith is more valuable to me than living without it. It's a deliberate choice, not the default.

[Chicup]

Originally Posted by cupl4fun

Yet, when people hear that we work at a church we fear they'll close up and run away (and I don't blame them).

Well normally that would be a turn on for me, since I'd try to sway you to the darkside. We have cookies and better parties.

Since you seem to be moving there on your own it would be less of a turn on

This is a hard conversation for me to partake in, as I've been an atheist for 30 years and I'm not even 40 yet. At an intellectual level I understand peoples need for a God and I even have theories for it on an evolutionary level, but at a gut level I just don't understand how grown adults can think they have an invisible judge in the sky, whos actions seem arbitrary, reads their minds, expects complete obedience, and expects us to not use logic and reason but instead just trust what we are told is his word by other men.

If there is a God out there, I don't think we quite 'get it' and I'm not too worried about meeting it.

[ktimephoenix]

Originally Posted by intuition897

If nature makes such sense and follows such undeniable logic, then what the fuck happened with human beings?? We're a sick infestation. We form a film around the planets water bodies, like scum around the tub. We secrete toxins that poison our host. We make the whole planet sick. And we're so screwed up, we can't even cooperate! Ant colonies and bee hives operate with perfect precision, working toward a common goal. What's our excuse?

we are no different to the rest of the animals. every animal is bred to try to gain an advantage in the world, despite the cost to the surrounding environment...

Usually the surrounding environment is in the same "arms race", so no one species grabs a huge advantage, or if they do, they end up destroying things, and wiping themselves out (dinosaurs anyone?)... we did, by some twist of fate grab that advantage moreso than any other species.

the "autrocities" that humans do unto other humans is no more extreme than that of other animals. lions kill entire litters of lion cubs just because they aren't his children, ants deliberately sabotage parts of the nest to usurp the queen, etc.

[funcpl4life]

Originally Posted by Chicup

*snip* At an intellectual level I understand peoples need for a God and I even have theories for it on an evolutionary level, but at a gut level I just don't understand how grown adults can think they have an invisible judge in the sky, whos actions seem arbitrary, reads their minds, expects complete obedience, and expects us to not use logic and reason but instead just trust what we are told is his word by other men.

If there is a God out there, I don't think we quite 'get it' and I'm not too worried about meeting it.

My invisible friend can beat up your invisible friend!

Seriously, after getting a couple of degrees in science, I will admit that we have no proof that there is not the influence of an external creation spark during the first 10^-33 seconds or so of the big bang and during the last 10^-15 meters or so approaching a black hole. If you want to call that God, great. It works for me. If you want to call the big bang and evolution just a theory, stand under this anvil because gravitation is just a theory too.

I was raised front-row-hard-shelled-Baptist. (Yeah, I'm namin' names.) It took me quite a while to shake it all off. The trappings came first. Then the "magical thinking" went away. Then the guilt finally left. It took years.

So when I'm laughing my ass off at a cum-filled condom that slipped off half-in half-out or watching my lovely wife have her 3rd or 4th orgasm of the evening or pounding the heck out of our good friend's backside: It is well with my soul.

Mr FC4L

[cupl4fun]

Thanks so much for all the supportive responses guys they really meant a lot to both Mrs. Cupl and I. Special thanks to Sweet tna, alura, and LFM2 your posts were very important to us. But definitely thanks to all. We stepped out there and found very friendly and kind people, you have no idea how much that means to us.

[mnbryant]

I can understand exactly what you are saying. I am not a minister but have been in and out of churchs for years and left a few years back never to return. I still believe but very differently now. The hypocrisy is what got me and the lack of understanding the truth and how it worked. Which could not be explained by ministers I knew..For example the southern baptist mission to boycott the gay and lesbian comunity with there hatred of sin.......yet there behavoir toward them is biblicly defined as hatred..Which is also a sin..they have made up to many commands of men over the years as was posted earlier that it began to change with Constantinople. Learning to love by changing your thoughts and getting rid of selfishness is what the bible teaches and that is all I am interested in with it. Christ is perfect love. Which can be learned by us and which is what a mature christian should be. Paul said But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.......this is the result of weeding out our selfish thoughts and replacing them with right ways of thinking.....this man offends no one.....this man has friends in all circles and truly loves his neighber as himself......even if his neighbor is gay,ugly, drunkard or what have you.....this state of mind is heavan here on earth....you reap what you sow....you can't reap suffering for doing what is right.....you can't reap peace of mind for doing what is wrong.....Many things defined as love today is actually selfishness.........If Christ facinates you by his behavoir then I suggest you go to the James Allen free library and read his books......here you will find a man who is known to few but can teach you more about being Christlike than any seminary will ever do....

[bryanlee]

Congratulations for following your heart. I am not a religious person, but I was raised in a religious environment. I even went to a christian school up until 7th grade (not a great time). My lady is however what I would call non-practicing. She has many beliefs, although i will not speculate whether they are her own or just ingrained from childhood, but she rarely attends church. We are polar opposites in the area of religion, but it is our respect for one another that allows us to accept the others beliefs without question. It is a shame that this is so hard for most people.

It is always great to see someone shake free and truly accept themselves for who they are. I wish you great luck in whatever you do.

Bryan

[cocpl2007]

Not a problem at all. Thank you for pouring your soul out to us, here. WE feel your anxiety.

We are on a huge road trip, every time we pass one of those fancy, fancy palaces to our Gods we are amazed at how many times we are met with fierceness out on the highway, aggressive, rude drivers a huge majority of which are on their cell phones. Makes one wonder where all those "love your fellow man" church-going folks are, when we are out on the freeway!

Welcome back to reality

Mr & Mrs Co

[intuition897]

Originally Posted by Chicup

Well normally that would be a turn on for me, since I'd try to sway you to the darkside. We have cookies and better parties.

Since you seem to be moving there on your own it would be less of a turn on

Chicup, for you I'd fake it!
Cookies, eh? Hmmm..

Originally Posted by Chicup

This is a hard conversation for me to partake in, as I've been an atheist for 30 years and I'm not even 40 yet. At an intellectual level I understand peoples need for a God and I even have theories for it on an evolutionary level, but at a gut level I just don't understand how grown adults can think they have an invisible judge in the sky, whos actions seem arbitrary, reads their minds, expects complete obedience, and expects us to not use logic and reason but instead just trust what we are told is his word by other men.

If there is a God out there, I don't think we quite 'get it' and I'm not too worried about meeting it.

Chic, from reading this, it sounds like you've bought into the extremist/fundamentalist theory just as hard as the most hard-core churchie. Maybe we all just need to re-examine our perceptions. We get ideas in our heads of who and what "God" is, and we let the world's perceptions define it for us. For example, you have the impression that God is some unrelenting judge in the sky, which makes it seem really creepy that he reads minds. And apparently we're not supposed to think for ouselves..but did God actually say that? Or is that just something that was filtered through humans? Sounds more like you just have an opinion about what Man's religious habits, and not necessarily about the existence of a Higher Being.

All I know is, evolutionarily created or not, I DO have a need for God in my life. I'd be totally fucked up and a real wet blanket at parties if I were compelled to believe that we weren't as precious as we imagine, or that we weren't loved and capable of divine love.

I wouldn't let my views interfere with a good party in any case. I'd encourage everyone to forget I mentioned any of it if it meant that we could all get silly and have fun. I drink. I laugh. I love to have fun. I just love people. To me, that's what it means to be Christ-like. Period. Let's just leave it at that... where's the lube!?

[gatorvol64]

Originally Posted by Alura

Jesus was a way-cool dude! It's his fan club that puts me off.
Mr. Alura

I totally agree!

Cupl4fun, we most definitely would not run from you. We are sorta where you've been and are going, so, we'd feel right at home with you both.

Gator and I were both raised in the Baptist church of one kind or another. He mostly Free-Will Baptist and I mostly Missionary Baptist. We were married in a Southern Baptist Church. Started a teacher's training class before we were married and finished soon after. We taught all ages of Sunday School and Discipleship Training classes for over 20 years. I was Vacation Bible School Director and Sunday School Director at different times for many years apiece. Gator filled a few years as Sunday School Director himself. He is an ordained deacon. Get the picture? We were heavily involved in the church, raised our children in the church (and that is why they don't approve of our lifestyle and poly relationship). We were "brainwashed" for years and helped do the same to others.

The dissolution started setting in several years before we left the church. The judgmental people were the worst for us at the beginning I suppose. The "I'm better than you attitude" because I don't do this or this was probably next. Things like that and what you've mentioned yourself. It all was just so contradictory to the loving God me knew. To the Jesus that walked this earth as a human. We thought that it could be just some of the people in the church we had attended together since before we were married. Or that it was us because we were just so tired and stressed from all we did at church. We first tried to stop working in so many things. People just couldn't stop coming to us for that even though they were jobs we had given up. We decided to leave our home church. Where many of the most important things in our life had occured. We looked at and visited several other churches in our small town. Finally found one we thought the four of us could live with (us and the boys) and joined. At this one, our biggest disappointment was the pastor. He gossiped about other members to us on more than one occasion. While I know that pastors are just human also, I still had a problem with him preaching frequently against what he participated in often. Without ever apologizing. We just quit going then. Haven't been back since. We do miss the fellowship some.

For years while we attended church, Gator had these fantasies of sharing me with other men. So, we had gradually dealt with that and how it went with out beliefs. Once we left the church it was at least a year before these talks of his fantasies lead to us seriously considering swinging. We didn't really have trouble reconciling swinging with our faith. I had more of a problem reconciling our poly relationship with it. Go figure. The same with how I felt watching Gator do both. Him having sex with another woman was a hell of a lot easier for me than him loving another woman. That has been hard at times.

Anyway, I just felt the need to say you weren't alone and that I'm happy for you that you felt you could finally share it all with us. I understand how difficult that was.

Vol