if your turdiosity gets the best of you: my religous experience, excerpt on religion written for my "cultural autobiography", which i was required tp write in order to graduate with a business management degree:
On Religion
As far as religion is concerned, I was brought up Baptist because my grandmother is Baptist, and she is the one who took us to church. When I was child, there was a big ?to do? one Sunday night when the church had movie night. So we all went to see the movie. It was about the coming of Christ. All the people who were ?saved? went up to heaven and the rest were left behind. It showed pots on the stove boiling over, people disappearing off the street, and people going about their everyday average lives, just disappearing, gone up to heaven. Others that stayed had to be marked. Well, I was sure myself and / or some loved one was not going to make the cut. That was beginning of the movie. The rest was not any less frightening. It reminds me of the Stephen King movie, The Stand, about the super flue.
One Sunday morning, the preacher gave a sermon during which he bitched out the congregation for not putting enough money in the offering plate. My grandmother was on social security and lived on about $350 a month. After church, she told me she was insulted by that and didn?t deserve to be talked at in such a way. There were two things seriously wrong with this picture. First, my grandmother, one of the most selfless God loving people I?ve ever met, giving too much of her precious little income to the church. She was a gift to them that had no monetary value. Secondly, the audacity of a preacher to stand up there and demand more money from his congregation. How unchristian, as far as I am concerned. I asked her what of the church she frequented before that church. She said they thought it was alright to ?beat the evil out? of kids! We have all known people who use religion as a tool to manipulate others or to cloak their deceit. I realize that all things religious are not bad. Events certainly changed my view of religion. You can count on one hand the number of times I?ve taken my 16 y/o son to church. The ten commandments are universal morals that all should abide by. I am not totally anti-religion. As for Grama-- Heaven help you if you speak a bad word about Billy Graham. She loves the gospel, no matter what.
