All of them except the one where they handed me a collection plate and I thought they were giving me the money so I took it.
After looking up how much money my local megachurch took in last year ($60 mil) versus how much they spent on charity ($3 mil), I think you were probably justified.
I didn’t grow up in a church that had one of those. So I’ve always wondered what would they do if you came to Sunday service, in a hobo outfit and took some of the money in the collection plate. The defense being, ‘What? I’m poor. I’m homeless. Jesus would have given.’
I’ve seen a collection plate with a tap-to-pay terminal so that would make it more difficult.
I was around 9 or 10 when this happened. I went with my best friend and his mother. Everyone made a big deal about there being someone new at the church. Then i was handed a gold plate bowl thing of money, so i started stuffing handfuls of money into my pockets thinking everyone was welcoming me with cash. My friend was giggling, i looked at his mother and she was shaking her head. I passed the plate along but kept what was in my pockets.
Nowadays? Depends on a whole set of indeterminate variables.
But odds point to tazing. arrest, something on that end of the spectrum.
More likely to depend on region of the country or world than anything else.
That would make for one hell of a NotTheOnion, story.
When I was like six or seven years old, my great aunt Ruth stayed over Christmas eve. She was a nun, so because it was important to her, we were going to open all of our Christmas presents after mass.
Mass was almost three hours. I remember this pretty clearly because I had a cheap casio wristwatch and I was timing it. I probably didn’t hear a word of the sermon.
Making kids wait
toand do anything but open presents on Christmas day is criminal, imo.
All of them
A Mormon service… the amount of brain-washing and misogyny was incredible…
Try Jehovah’s Witnesses. They are like Pepsi and Coke.
Is this available in diet?
Seventh Day Adventists
I dated someone who was raised seventh day Adventist. Being told by a woman that you’re going to hell for going to church on Sunday while your dick is currently inside of them (and you’re not married) was a fun experience.
I was about so say “what about caffeine free” but that’s just the Mormons again.
But only the caffeine free one.
Hello fellow escapee. You might recognize the one I commented on here lol
I was raised religion-free, my mother didn’t push any beliefs on me (one of the few things she did right) so I grew up as a natural atheist. One Easter when I was very young, I don’t remember how young precisely but I was probably 10 or younger, one of our neighbor families offered to take me to church for Mass. I guess they thought they were going to save my soul or something. My mother left the decision up to me. Now, in my mind Easter was bunnies and candy and egg hunts and all that good stuff so hell yes, I wanted to go. I don’t know what I expected but what I definitely didn’t expect was sitting quietly on an uncomfortable bench for (what seemed like to me) four hours while some guy talked at me. If I wasn’t an atheist before that would have sealed the deal.
I’ve blanked a lot out of my memory but I do remember one particularly awkward time where the pastor spent way too long explaining how god designed the asshole and its not for fucking.
It’s always the ones you most expect
I’m morbidly curious about the “arguments”
How about “it’s usually got at least a little poo on it”?
I mean I know it’s not particularly effective, but if it were true of something like ice cream I bet sales would drop. (Tangentially related: https://www.pedestrian.tv/news/coogee-bay-hotel-gelato-poo-2008/)
Oh yuck
Oh my God this brought back a memory. It was probably the time my friend invited me to their church and expected me to speak in tongues. Like wouldn’t let me leave until I was filled with the spirit and speaking in tongues. It was terrifying.
Can you type out a longer, detailed play-by-play so we can eat popcorn as we read it?
It was so long ago, I remember being surprised that such a regular girl belonged to such a terrifying church, I guess if you grow up in it, it seems normal?
We arrived with her parents and sat towards the middle of the pews, there was the usual call and response and singing and a sort of sermon I don’t remember but then one by one the people in the audience started standing up and babbling. Then my friend did and their parents and the pastor was exhorting us that EVERYONE needed to submit and be filled with the spirit, EVERYONE!! Who, me? EVERYONE! I stood up and made some nonsense sounds and that seemed to satisfy them. I was congratulated and hugged and then there was some more churchy stuff not so crazy.
I mostly remember being scared, and also being so confused that this was “church” to my friend. My mom made us go to “church” and it was guys in robes and some singing, a sermon, some praying, a little more singing, a benediction (really pretty - “May the Lord bless you and keep you, may he make his face shine upon you and be gracious unto you”) and then walk out in an orderly fashion. Mostly really boring, not scary because I didn’t believe any of it.
But to her, “church” was this mass of people being crazy and babbling and the preacher yelling, and it never, like, coalesced into order, it was literally a pack of shouting mostly adults, who seemed convinced this was an essential sign that God was speaking directly through you.
When i was six i had to sit in my own poop for an hour long sermon because nobody would let me get up to go. Course they also had to sit in it with no reaction heh
That is outright neglect. That level of strictness is just ridiculous. If they really wanted you to sit and listen, and take the sermon seriously, you certainly can’t do that while sitting on a turd, while also having the attention span and understanding of a six-year-old.
Learning about Jesus while your underpants are full of poop is a good way to make a negative association.
Seeing that religion is generally full of shit, I find some irony in this scenario.
Yeah the 60s were a different world heh
My grandmother’s funeral comes to mind. Some old preacher dude walks up to the podium with a legal pad, flips over a page, drops the “we’re at a funeral, act somber” body language like you’d drop a bath robe, and starts what I assume is an average Sunday sermon, occasionally remembering to point to the corpse behind him and insisting “That’s what she believed.”
He had the gall to offer his hand for me to shake.
“Heh, sure are easy when they’re stiff like this! …and very sad.” (one of the treehouse of horror episodes)
Could be hot Texas southern Baptist sermons running way too long while we all fan ourselves with paper fans we made from the printed agenda, or maybe it was a lively one on some random church-hopping day with speaking in tongues and prophets translating, or maybe it was one where my uncle said shit that was masked condescension cast towards his kids, or or or. It was definitely NOT one where I “went to the bathroom” but actually went hiking.
I’ve got a bunch of horror stories that take some detail to explain, but I remember a couple moments of shock in particular.
Was actually a Methodist service, Easter Sunday. it was when they cut a baby lamb’s throat and it bled. It was great special effects with a real lamb but children started crying.
Also, the time we all went to see Passion of the Christ, 9:00 or 10:00pm showing. There was a mother smacking the shit out of her toddler for crying when the torture started. I’m a different person now and would put a stop to something like that now.
I have clear memories of the pastor at my parents’ church talking about how the gay agenda’s next steps were legalizing bestiality and pedophilia. Probably would’ve been somewhere around 2014-2015. Looking back, it was absolutely the beginning of the end of me having anything to do with religion, so maybe it’s actually the best sermon I ever sat through.
…day eet dah poopoo
The power team. Apparently vast amounts of sweat, tearing phone books in half, bending steel rods and blowing up hot water bottles is godly and there were several alter calls.
Then I had to see them at Jr. High the next day to preach about how bad drugs are.
Here’s an article about a visit.
OMG I had a visit in elementary school from these guys! The school was a sad fundie kid-prison, but these guys were pretty neat. Rolled up a frying pan and did the blowing up a hot water bottle thing.
I find it so weird hearing about them again lol.
IDK, power to 'em. (Lol pun) Unlike a lot of nasty political preaching, I hope these guys are just being straight-edge motivators preaching the Gospel.
I threw up in one once. I actually don’t recall anything any worse than what it usually was. I actually went further into the evangelical baptist rabbit hole as my family drifted a bit from it, but that would reverse and end with me being an atheist-leaning agnostic.
I do remember Sunday school teachers being angry that I was allowed to have D&D books and games. In a different church when I was in middle or high school, I quoted the movie name “Oh God you Devil” and my buddy whose family took me to church slapped me. That was a good time. /s
When I was a freshman in college, I let this youth group convince me to visit their weird church. The “pastor” was a young guy who spent the entire sermon talking about how he squandered his time in college before eventually dropping out. Fortunately, the old pastor took pity on him and gave him a job as an assistant—running errands, cleaning, etc. Then one day the old pastor died, so our hero basically just took over since no one else wanted to.
When it was done he tried to sell us bags of stale coffee.
How do you know the coffee was stale?
Because the youth group was serving it with free donuts—it’s pretty much the reason I went. To be fair, they were really nice; it was just a bizarre experience. I didn’t realize you could just inherit a church and declare yourself a pastor without any formal training.
