I’m a strong believer in parish shopping. I might start with the parish closest to where I live, but I’ve driven up to an hour each way on a Sunday to get to a congenial parish. It gets me into trouble occasionally…

I’ve changed parishes over the music. If the hymns are all or mostly from the ’60s and ’70s, I’ll switch, especially if the hymns extoll the virtues of “solving” poverty by handouts. Poverty isn’t just monetary. There’s also spiritual poverty. You can’t fix that with soup kitchens.

Some of us don’t have functional families or networks of friends or neighbors that are neighborly. That’s where a congenial parish comes in handy: you can ask a fellow parishioner for a favor, for advice, for sympathy. But to get to know your fellow parishioners you have to show up regularly and participate in some activity or activities.

And pay attention to what it is the fellow up front is saying. If it’s good or memorable, let him know. If it stinks, let him know. If what he has to say is lousy or doesn’t belong in your church, get out the phone book or check the church page in the Saturday paper. You might get fussed at by the folks in the church office, but they can’t stop you from checking out other parishes.

The NT says that there is no mediator between god and man except Jesus Christ. You couldn’t tell that from looking at organized religion. To my knowledge, Jesus didn’t ask for money to wash away a person’s sins, but even the tiniest backwoods church expects you toss gold into their coffers for the preacher’s prayers. Jesus also instructed his followers to carry a soldier’s armor two miles if he was instructed to carry it one. I wonder how many men of the cloth would even consider carrying someone’s overcoat to the front door?

Like I said before, organized religion wasn’t created to help a person find god or become a spiritual being; they were created to turn a profit.

NOT SPAM

I never laugh as hard as i do when visiting a church. Why just this past Sunday God visited my local catholic church in the form of a Filipino priest to deliver his latest pronouncement. He droned on and on about us, the multiracial masses around me, being “brothers and sisters”, how God told him to join the priesthood and spread his message, helping the poor, and several more topics lost to my mind. By the time we were to pray the our father I felt it would be more appropriate to sing “we are the world” and cast my wallet towards the alter while yelling to the heavens praise Jesus. This seems to be a recurring feeling as with my disgust at how the rest of the flock follow the Judas goat.

I refuse to allow religion into my life besides a basic belief in God and Jesus and I think the above helps define why. I cant help but wonder how many lives these people have ruined and how many people will line up to make sure they are properly punished.

-Brian

Thanks Bob for correcting many of the errors I made, I write alot of things off the cuff because my time is limited. You sumed up what I was trying to say. I guess I need to take more time to present my ideas more clearly. Bob hit the nail on the head, men use the name of god to set ajends and munipulate the followers, and this is evil, these bastards ARE evil. These jerks do more harm to our nation and people than the PC crowd in terms of distracting from the real issues that threaten our country. The churches are corrupt, trendy and and to goddam tolerant. They are headed by psycopaths and grand standers.