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I was invited to go to church with a girlfriend I had at the time. It was a Wednesday night service. The preacher called everyone there sinners, worthless and bad. He kept up his rambling abuse of the congregation until I had enough. I whispered to my date that I had to leave. I was on the aisle so it wasn't hard to get out. I walked to the side of the church and entered a hall that led to an exit. On the way two women approached me and asked in a very ugly tone "Where do you think you're going?". I told her I'm going outside to be with God. Their heads almost exploded, but I just calmly walked by them and out into the night air. I just walked around the dark parking lot looking up at the crystal clear sky full of brilliant, bright stars. And I felt so good about leaving all of that evil inside that brick building. I'll never forget that ecstatic feeling I had knowing what I did was the right thing to do. I was a bit shy at the time so it took every bit of courage I could muster to get up in front of all those people to leave. And I thought for sure that preacher would single me out to spew his venom on.
I've never been back to a Baptist church again. It's sad how abusive and demeaning that preacher was and how he was victimizing all of the people in the congregation. My friend Marsha later tried to commit suicide, but thankfully she was brought to a hospital in time. She cut both of her wrists badly. The reason for her torment: She had no identity of her own. If she had a good thought she thought it was god. If she had a bad thought, she thought it was satan. She felt like she was a bad person for even having bad thoughts and I suppose she felt like she was evil because of the constant drumbeat of hate from evil preachers and from her own parents, who were religious fanatics. She finally tried to end the war going on in her mind between 'god' and 'satan' and cut her wrists.
I feel sorry for all the people who are locked up in that world Marsha was a prisoner in. I wonder how many other people have been successful in committing suicide because of the mutant religion they were being forced to listen to and the pain it caused them. People do so many evil things in the 'name of god'. Just ten miles from where I live a mother drowned her five children to death because she thought god wanted her to do it. I have read story after story of people falling victim to the evils of religion and doing similar things.
Marsha was taken first to a county mental hospital and then the state mental hospital. Through a lot of intensive therapy Marsha was finally able to find her own identity and eventually marry and have children. But religion, and those who abuse it and victimize others with the Bible, almost killed a beautiful person like Marsha. I was the only person to visit her at either hospital. I drove to Austin to stay several days at a time, sleeping in my van and taking Marsha out into the real world for a few hours on passes.
Even though the monsters at that Baptist church did nothing for her after Marsha attempted suicide I was there for her all the time, writing her letters, sending her cards and driving 240 miles to visit her every week for over six months. But according to fundamentalist Christians I will go to hell, while all those who sit through abusive sermons from evil-minded preachers will go to heaven. I don't need religion to be good or do what is right. And I certainly don't want to end up in a hereafter filled with the monsters who can fluently quote scripture, but have no understanding of what they are reciting.
I like John Lennon's song 'Imagine' where he sings about a world without religion. What a better world we would have and one less reason for people to kill themselves or others.
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