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Sick. This person tries to defend being a racist and a bigot. According to him, it the other person's fault for bigotry.

Can I please just finish my associates degree and get a career?

I am not interested in going for a bachelor's degree... or racking up more expenses than I can currently afford. sweatdrop

I just got off the phone with four schools wanting to enroll me in a bachelors program they have. gonk I barely have the money to make it to my school, which is less than an hour drive... now they want me to enroll, in a school that would be 2 hours each way... or move 5 states over!!! I am already depressed that my last day will be on the same week my mom passed. I don't need new worries to be added to that.

Anyone know of a way just to walk off the face of the earth? I am very interested in it... and do I really sound like a girl?

For some reason, it seems like I have posted something about this somewhere already... but I couldn't remember where... and I need to get out a bit more... I know that for most people, this will be a tl;dr...

SO....

The church that I grew up in, and call my own (when I do go to church) is doing a study... On demons, the devil, and possession............................... stare

I am sorry, but the way misinformed idea that the devil is the cause of all problems on Earth is a big issue with me. It sickens me and pisses me off when a church decides to do a whole big 'study' on the subject, but uses uneducated traditional ideas that are held to be true because that's how it's been preached for a hundred years....

I had come to grips with the fact that they were doing so, even after I sat down with mom, opened the book they were taking commentary from, and pointed out some of the misinformed s**t it was claiming about the subjects it was written about... I showed her a couple Biblical passages to back up what I had to say, and I beseeched her to check it out for herself instead of believing that just because a preacher said it, it makes it true.

I pointed out that the man who wrote it was a 4th generation baptist preacher and besides that, there was no educational background in any of his ancestral line... the author seemed to be proud that he was the fourth generation of a long line of preachers who started their career before they were out of high-school (if in fact any of his line graduated)...

I listened to mom tell me that I hadn't been to college either (mental slap in the face)... I listened to her rant at me for not going to their "Bible study"... or for that matter church in general... then she went on to accuse me of neglecting my children's spiritual needs and the way she did that was nearly enough to make me want to do something I would never have thought to do to my mother... and finally, she pretty much said that my life was loaded with demons and that she was afraid for me and angry at me for letting it happen, because that isn't how I was raised. eek

She pretty much ended with, if anyone knows anything about this subject, I would listen to our pastor over you. God set him up there for a reason...

The problem is, the pastor seems to be getting lazy in a way. I mean the man has a job outside of the church, at the factory I used to work at. I know the man's hours, and I know how the factory will keep people for hours after their shift has ended, so I know he doesn't have allot of time to devote to family when he gets home, let alone sermons, and free-time....

I do respect the man, but he is only a man (as in human). He has flaws that pretty much disinclined me from church. I have had too many pastors that look at me like I have a third eye when I approach them to ask questions. This man told me when he first came to his office that he takes a segregated approach to spiritual teaching. He feels women better learn from women in one-on-one teachings and so I should go to his wife when I had deep questions. LOL

His wife always looked uncomfortable when I approached her, and she had to tell me that she couldn't answer me, and she finally broke down and said that I was better informed than she had any want to be.

After that, I started sending my brother to him with questions. The pastor now thinks my brother a pretty wise man and devoted Bible scholar. The last time I tried to approach the pastor with some of the subjects he will spend hours talking about with my brother, he straight up told me that since I didn't make myself a common weekly fixture in the church, no one could take what I had to say seriously. That was the end of my near regular church going.

I kept my experience to myself with the exception of my brother. He pretty much keeps me keyed in on what happens there, so I have a heads up on what mom might try to drill me with.

So.. it has been...that over the last year, or a little longer... it seems he has turned the church into a Christian book club, instead of actually feeding the flock... He picks out books that he feels the congregation could benefit from, and he suggests the book, and then he parallels it for a month or two... nothing bad, he has actually read a few books to the people that I would endorse.

Well... I say nothing bad... until now... The whole demonic thing is too much.

I heard about his disclaimer... My brother came over to my house the night that the pastor announced their next book study... He told everyone to take what the book had to say with a grain of salt, and that he didn't want people going out, buying the book, and reading ahead of the group, because he was going to address certain issues long held as tradition in the church... SO I was like, "it sounds like he might actually have a common sense, educated discussion about what devils, demons, and free will..." yet my brother and I both expressed our concern that he had given a warning to NOT read ahead, and that the subject is something that whole congregations tend to run with when brought up...

And running with it is exactly what people did. My mom and two other ladies went out the next day on their girl's day out, and bought the book, They had it read by the weekend and were discussing it. Mom went to my aunt (who is Catholic) and started discussing the book to her like my aunt isn't a true Christian, and that her problems are the result of demons afflicting her household... My aunt knows better... I thought my mom did... scream

My aunt calls me later, after what my mom had to say really sunk in and started to bother her... That was when I got the whole scope of the folly of this congregation...

It seems that the book claims the best remedy for demonic s**t is regular church-going... EVERYTHING that is undesirable is the cause of a demon whose specialty is that particular undesirable thing... Free-will is a fragile thing that is so easily swayed by demons that you might as well not have it... or at least, by the end of the conversation, that is what my aunt believed the book pretty much summed up as... and it is an old tune I heard before... a tune my mom didn't put up with when I was younger... but after recent events, I believe she has broke down to it now.

I also learned how this whole mess started... Apparently, the pastor's wife, who is a teacher at school, started noticing behaviors in some of the female high-schoolers. Somehow, she associated their behavior with a news story about some kind of trend in the Northeastern US and somehow she came to the conclusion that it was demon possession related... So she talked her husband into doing a study on this book... I think he initially was trying to gently correct his wife (and thus all the women due to his segregated congregation policy) but they already got it in their heads that they know the problem... He isn't getting anywhere... and his attempts to correct are becoming fewer and farther between...

My aunt and I are both pretty irate at this point. The pastor hasn't done anything to effectively stop the charade, and people in the town are starting to talk. I know that my mom isn't the only one taking this s**t and running with it.

I kinda want to go to the church next week and scream at them to wake up and reclaim their common sense. I can't even get through to mom though. I am at a loss.

I told her after we got into it (basically after she accused me of neglecting my children's spiritual needs) that if anyone was suffering from demons it was her, and that she was giving power to them by believing they could do so much...

But really, as much as I tried to control myself, she knew I was angry, and I think she has deluded herself into thinking that it would be some sort of demon who got me to that point... Well, if it was, it wasn't my demon anyways....

I find this whole escapade absurd. I laugh, because it is so incredibly stupid, but it isn't funny. It also brings back infuriating memories of people trying to cast a demon out of me... I seriously think that is where this is headed...

My brother is itching for a confrontation between mom and me. Mom went to him and opened up some family history that no one previously knew, because of the allegations put forth by the book that the "sins of the father" passage refers to hereditary demons... and that since he is nearly 30 and has never had a steady committed relationship, she is concerned that he could fall prey to a ***** demon or some s**t...she is worried that he has already been struggling with it... because our grandmother's grandfather had been that way. He didn't know what to say, so he said nothing, but he is seriously hurt by it... I was aghast.

I haven't confronted mom since I looked through the book, and I am afraid that I will lose allot of respect for her if I do follow through with the confrontation that it seems a few of the people in the family are expecting of me now...

My dad even said something about the bullshit mom is bringing home from church... Apparently the book and some of the congregation went on a rant about the Freemasons one night that he happened to be there, an organization to which he belongs... because of the fad claims that so many trend religious writers are latching to these days... He was so ticked that everyone believed the tripe, he got up and walked out, and refuses to go back to church... I can't blame him... there are people praying for his soul now...when there are actual things they should be focused on.

My aunt has several issues in her household between her fiance and her 4 year old son, and she is having problems deciding what to do about them, and the demon speech mom gave her has only served to hurt and confuse her more...

Now everyone is kinda looking to me like I can put an end to mom's delusion... but I know that the more I talk to her, the more she'll convince herself that I am a tool of the devil...

And the pastor has already made himself very clear that I don't have a voice in the congregation... Even if I did go to church every day the doors were opened, I still don't have a d**k, so I need to stay within the bounds of propriety, and stay silent...

My main problem at this point is that I know that if I go up in there and do what I want, it would go beyond the limits of Godly actions and turn into self-righteous anger and self satisfied retaliation...

I do plan on confronting the pastor, but I am pretty sure this is going to end ugly, and nothing but a RL vent will be accomplished, to which he will once again patronize me as a child and a woman, and my ugly side that has been kept under control for several years will once again see the light of day, and a reputation I have worked so hard to undo will once again be remembered.

I kinda think that is a dead end, seeing as she is the one who convinced herself that the girls at school were suffering from demonic influence, and she was the one who convinced the pastor that the study needed to be addressed...

I may still try it though... Just see what she really thinks about it...

I also thought I might make myself present at the next couple of study nights. See if the pastor is really making an attempt to correct the misconceptions. My brother says he is making somewhat half-hearted attempts to do so... I know the man is not given to teaching things just because it's the way it's always been done... but I really think he is getting tired... so I don't think he is trying much anymore...

His father was a pastor since before he was born, and is now an evangelist and part of the congregation... He is a good man, but a bit of a traditionalist, and I know that in the beginning of his son's pastoral career, they bucked heads about the old and the new way.... That is why I tolerated the idea that women go to women sort of thing, because I knew that was a carry-over from the father...

I can't help but believe that he is just getting tired of having to lead a congregation, balance a family, work an overly demanding job, and live up to the traditional standards his parents expect, and bucking traditions that he feels hinders things, and so forth...

So, I am guessing he has dropped the ball on this... but I get the feeling that the wife is a driving force behind the ball-droppage... and instead of swimming upstream against the current that has been created... he is giving into the flow, and hoping it will eventually eddy out into calmer waters again...

This issue has escalated so fast, and hurt my family so much that I don't know if I can stay calm when I decide how to confront though.

It's normal to feel that way, I hope you feel better soon.

It has to be, cause I am getting the same feeling today... crying

emotion_hug I'm sorry