Day 3 Today’s Nudge: Write about something you used to believe

Day 3 with Blogging Along with Effy!  
Today’s Nudge: Write about something you used to believe that you no longer believe and how that shift in belief has changed things for you. 
If you would like to blog along click the link to the right!

I think the biggest thing I used to believe in and no longer do and its impact on my life has been the belief in God and religion.  As a kids we were brought up in a Pentecostal Holiness/Assemblies of God church.  It was a safe haven when I was a child.  My home life was a little screwed up and different then most and I broke off from the church when I was about 17 years old because I woke up one day and realized they condoned the screwed up differences.

What kind of screwed up differences?  Racism, xenophobia, sexism, faith healing over medicine, wife beating and subjugation...you know that kind of differences.  They believed in faith healing, speaking in tongues, purification by the holy spirit, baptism by fire and water.  From a small child I had been told I was lesser then man cause I was made from man and therefore not as good.  I don't remember how many times I was told the story of the Great White Throne and how I would be judged as unfitting to go to heaven.  The AG believed that when Jesus came back that all the dead would rise and walk the earth for 1000 years with Jesus as its ruler.  

I still can't believe I bought into that doctrine.  That I allowed myself to be used and manipulated like that!  My sister brought a black girlfriend to church with us one Sunday and they wouldn't let her in because she was dressed inappropriately!  She was wearing a skirt and sleeveless shirt...but truth of it was her skin was dark.  The deacons stood at the doors and shook hands with those coming in but looking back I realize it was to keep the undesirables out.  I think that's the first time I realized something wasn't right in our little church.  I loved going to church and all the fellowship, the pot luck dinners, the interaction with friends and family it was the highlight to my life during some troubling times.  

My Grandmother and Mother were the ones that would take us to church.  My Grandfather didn't want any part of what he called "that religious bullshit!"  When my Mother divorced the church treated her like she was toxic.  I was 13 at the time.  I actually heard a couple old gossipy bitches saying my mother was "a harlot and would burn in hell for not doing right by my father!"  How can it be 'not doing right' when it was him who went out and had sex with other women and left us at home without much money or anything?  He was in the Navy and would be gone for months and months and my mother worked 2 jobs trying to stay afloat.  My mother refused to go to church from that day on and I started watching what was going on around me a little closer.  


I didn't just 'quit believing' I tried going to other church of protestant beliefs.  I went to Baptist, Methodist, Church of Christ etc. but I saw the same type of subjugation and control in all of them that I had seen in the Pentecostal Holiness/Assemblies of God church.  It was the 1960's and early 70's and a lot of change was going on.  I decided I could change.  I felt from time to time to give it another chance but I never felt the spirit and I just didn't go back.  It just wasn't for me!  I could keep going on but I won't. 

I don't like the term Atheist and tell people I am a Secular Humanist to avoid the flak that comes with telling them you don't believe.  How can you believe in just one god when there are thousands or millions as some believe.  How can you condemn those that don't believe in the same god you do? I have found out that I can be spiritual and not believe in something I can't see!  I take responsibility for my own actions and don't take the attitude that a Deity made me do it.