Why I stopped going to church

 I have nothing against religion- any religion. Religion should bring you peace and the strength to get through the storms of life. I never found that in a church. Every single time I went to the church for help nothing. No help at all. 

As a teen playing in the church orchestra I was there for every service. So I heard the same service repeated several times every Sunday morning. I started reading not just the versus that was a part of the sermon but the entire chapter. The number of times those verses were twisted to mean something else was high. Once I started writing research papers, I learned it’s easy to take a comment from a completely unrelated article to make my point. Even if that sentence was used to demonstrate the opposite of the intent  of the article. 

I took it upon myself to read the Bible not as a religious, handed down from a higher power but as a collection of commentaries on the purpose of religion. As none of the New Testament was written until 50+ years after the events. They were stories passed down orally. Did you ever play telephone in school? Teacher whispered to one student and they whispered it to another and so on and so on? Did it ever make it to the last person the same? Not in my experience. So why shouldn’t I take the Bible as nothing more than partially remembered stories? A secular example - George Washington didn’t chop down a cherry tree. I always thought Nixon was impeached - nope he resigned before the article was written.

Then the people in the church. On Sunday morning they are kind and loving - Monday morning they are selfish and indifferent. More worried about the amount in their bank account than the welfare of their fellow man.

It took years but I finally found a path for myself. It’s pretty simple - I will be as good of a person as I can be, ask for forgiveness when I fall short, and uplift those that need and deserve it. I don’t have a “religion”. I have a belief system cobbled together by research and experience. It works for me. I don’t need a building to follow the path I’ve set.