Originally posted by EN4CER
Hello Seagoon,
Thank you for the response. I was raised in a strict Roman Catholic Household. I graduated from Catholic H.S. and a Catholic University. I would consider myself Semi-Agnostic for now. I believe that some higher being or entity is responsible for our existence (Design and Cosmological Argument are suffice for me), I just don’t buy the Bible word for word – never have never will. For the record, in all my years of asking this question (Recently had the dust blown off it thanks to you – haven’t discussed this one in quite some time) – Best answer to date. I wish my Theology teacher in H.S. would have responded with that answer – might have saved me a suspension.
Just thought it might be worth noting, I also went to a Roman Catholic school for some of my elementary and all of my middle school education (St. Rose of Lima, Millburn, NJ). At the time, I was a skeptical unbeliever, but the "Religion" class coupled with the general hypocrisy of the students and staff (for instance we had a Priest the boys referred to as "Father Touchy McFeeley" for obvious reasons) actually moved me from skepticism about Christianity to open antipathy. I too was disciplined for asking irritating questions, and I wish I could say it was only once. Religion was taught by a Nun whose pat answer to everything was
"its a mystery" - the final straw came for me after she taught that
"the change that occurs in the Mass is a mystery to us, just like the change of colors of the leaves. We don't know how either of them happen, but they are both marvelous." I didn't even wait to raise my hand, but just blurted out "That's ridiculous! Of course we know why the leaves change color, what you mean is
you don't know why the leaves change color." This resulted in an immediate trip to the principal, where I was lectured on respect, and told that if the Sister said we don't know, then I should keep my trap shut. I left the school determined that if that was Christianity, then I heartily despised it.
Suffice it to say, that while I was a thoroughly rotten kid, I later discovered that what I had observed there was a bad caricature of the Christian faith.
I'd encourage you to do what I eventually did and unlearn the bad lessons and examples of youth. I've found as a pastor that you and I aren't the only people whose impressions of Christianity were tarred and warped by childhood experiences of lousy teaching, blatant hypocrisy, and baseless tradition. If you can do that, and actually begin to examine the truth claims of the Christian faith from a fresh perspective you might be surprised. Finding people whose living out of the faith is authentic rather than contrived doesn't hurt either.
