WTF memories of religion when I was a kid. What are yours?

[singsingsing]

I don't really have any, because I was raised wishy-washy mostly secular/vaguely spiritual/Jesus loves you and so does Santa Claus Anglican. It was nice. :)

Once in Sunday school the teacher was trying to tell us that wine was made out of grapes. But I thought she was saying GRAVES. So I said, "Wine is made out of GRAVES?!" But she thought I was saying GRAPES, so she said, "Yes, wine is made out of grapes!" And I still thought she was saying GRAVES - that continued for a while. :shock:

Around the same age I asked my grandma how many years ago Jesus lived. And she said, "One thousand, nine hundred and ninety four years ago." I was absolutely stunned that she knew with such accuracy right off the top of her head. Did not make the connection to the current year.

[EmiGirl]

southern baptist here.

that whole rapture thing was terrifying as a kid. I was mostly afraid it was going to happen right before Christmas and I wouldn't get my new toys. priorities...right?

Taking a purity pledge while in middle school. We had to go to the front of the church- in front of the whole congregation- and pledge to not do the dirty until marriage. so weird looking back on it. they also talked about courting instead of dating.

literally burning- with fire- any non christian CD's we owned with my church youth group.

Not being allowed to read Harry Potter because it was supposedly about real magic. I would sneak the books in my house to read them. I eventually got caught so my Dad decided to read them himself to see if it was acceptable. He came to the conclusion that they were pretty much just science fiction and I was allowed to read them.

I have so many weird memories growing up about the church we went to. Oddly my Dad was not raised in a church at all and while my mom was she wasn't super into it. I'm not sure how they got so swept away in it all. The pastor was super charismatic and loud. He ended up screwing a lady in the choir and embezzling money from the church so he had to step down.

I was raised in and still attend an SBC church and the only similarity I experienced was the rapture/hell thing. I'm an adoptee with lots of separation anxiety and abandonment issues so my biggest fear was being separated from my parents by being "left behind." That pastor growing up loved to preach about both subjects. Our current pastor doesn't believe in preaching like that. He hates altar calls too.

[SPHASH]

I can't recall any WTF memories when I was young, but when I was nine I was thought I was going to hell for getting poor grades and getting in trouble at school. I hadn't really done anything wrong, but my third grade teacher was verbally abusive in class and would fly off the handle over any little thing. She was pg that year so the hormones were raging. I used to think I was a bad girl for upsetting my teacher.

[Sobeknofret]

Yikes!!!11!!omg and WTF. I've heard of British israelism, sick disgusting antisemitic bullshit wtf'ery, man,so sorry you we're exposed to that.

I also went to school with Pete Peters's daughter, who was pretty nice. One of my most vivid memories from junior high school is when she snuck out to go to our school dance, but he found out, showed up, and dragged her out- literally. After that, they moved to Wyoming and she was homeschooled. I later heard that she got pregnant and had a baby out of wedlock, but I haven't seen or heard from her otherwise.

He got more and more radical as the years went on; Newsweek magazine named them most likely to become the next Waco. He died several years ago, but the church is still there.

[K'Z'K]

I was raised without religion. It was just a total nonentity.

I knew that people were described as being Jewish or Christian (other religions were too unpopular in my area for me to have heard of them), though didn't know the details of what that meant. At one point I found out that there were two basic types of Christians--Catholics, who care what the pope says, and Protestants, who don't. Then I found out that there are a few kinds of Catholic, and about eleventy million kinds of Protestant. Never bothered beyond that, as it's all the same to me.

So no religious trauma. One funny anecdote though. I grew up listening to the music of Tom Lehrer. One of his songs is "The Vatican Rag," which was his suggestion to help the church become more commercial. One part goes: "Get in line in that processional / Step in to that small confessional / There the guy who's got religion'll / Tell you if your sin's original." I knew that sin was the religious name for bad behavior, but had never heard of the whole "Original Sin" thing, so I figured that it meant that the Catholic church assessed your creativity--that an original sin was one that no one had ever come up with before. How nice of them.

[Jana814]

These stories r great no big issues for me. I'm Jewish, & a twice a year temple person.

[busdrivingmom]

Roman Catholic. Favorite WTF memory was being told by nun in high school that we do not question our faith and I needed to shut up and stop asking her stupid questions.

Background, I was raised very Catholic (church, religious ed) until I finished 4th grade. My dad got into a fight with the RE director because RE time was changed and I would be 10 minutes late every week (it started at the same time I got our of public school). So my dad declared that was that, no more church or RE. One morning in 7th grade, my dad woke me up and said we were going to church. Fast forward a year and half later, I'm in Catholic high school cause I did not want to go to boarding school. I asked a question about the Trinity and that was the response I got. I made sure not to ask her questions and if I got called on, I would just parrot back something she said to be left alone. Next year, I got a much better nun for religion who did like questions and sometimes she would not have an answer, but never made anyone feel stupid.

[Crocoduck]

Another recovering Roman Catholic here. My family didn't start regular church attendance until I was in 1st grade. I went to public school, so every Sunday I had to attend 8:30 am Mass, followed by an hour or so of Catechism.

The priest when I was a child was a gentle, elderly man who interacted well with us kids. (Insert pedophile joke if you must.) One week he must have been sick or something and we had a substitute priest who proceeded to tell us only Catholics could go to heaven. At the time one of my best school buddies happened to be Jewish. I agonized over Joshua not be able to go to heaven, but in the end I decided because he was smart and nice to other kids the mean priest HAD to be wrong.

As small as that incident might seem, it was probably the beginning of the end of organized religion for me!

[Closed Womb]

I was raised Catholic and that all went fine for me. I mean, there were things I didn't know were in the Bible since they relied on Catechism books. They had so many man made rules -- so, I figured when they were against nuclear war, test tube babies (as they were known back then), and premarital sex, none of that was actually in the Bible. I made a fool out of myself stating something wasn't in the Bible (when it was) when I first started attending a Protestant church in my late teens, so I decided I best get to reading that thing -- the WHOLE thing (I've done so in several translations by now).

But, when I started attending a kind of Charismatic, Protestant, non-denom type of church, I was shocked (and rather appalled) at the blatant manipulation they used in holiday productions. If I'm inviting someone to an Easter show or a Christmas show, I want it to be kind of lighthearted. Sure, based on the death/Resurrection and birth of Christ, respectively, but not some horror show where Christ dies (or is born) to save us and, bam, a bunch of people "die" in horrible situations, some to be heaven bound (because of magic words, often uttered just moments before the lightening strike or whatever they portray as the death, often uttered by horrible people who were living an ugly life up to that point) and, the opposite, some nice, decent every day Joe who loved his wife and kids, but no magic words, so BAM, depths of HELL for you, buddy. (Bonus: fake haunted houses that show people burning in hell for things like having an abortion! One very famous one in my area was "Judgement House" and it was the thing for Christians to go to around Halloween.)

I'm still disturbed by it all. Catholic guilt was much, much more subtle than those BS productions.

[sparkles]

I was raised without religion. It was just a total nonentity.

I knew that people were described as being Jewish or Christian (other religions were too unpopular in my area for me to have heard of them), though didn't know the details of what that meant. At one point I found out that there were two basic types of Christians--Catholics, who care what the pope says, and Protestants, who don't. Then I found out that there are a few kinds of Catholic, and about eleventy million kinds of Protestant. Never bothered beyond that, as it's all the same to me.

So no religious trauma. One funny anecdote though. I grew up listening to the music of Tom Lehrer. One of his songs is "The Vatican Rag," which was his suggestion to help the church become more commercial. One part goes: "Get in line in that processional / Step in to that small confessional / There the guy who's got religion'll / Tell you if your sin's original." I knew that sin was the religious name for bad behavior, but had never heard of the whole "Original Sin" thing, so I figured that it meant that the Catholic church assessed your creativity--that an original sin was one that no one had ever come up with before. How nice of them.

Words cannot express how much I love Tom Lehrer (and That Was the Week That Was). I used to sing Vatican Rag all the time.

In all its glory…

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[nellautumngirl]

I'm so sorry for everyone who had to endure this. You have such a vivid imagination as a child. I wasn't raised with any religion, but I once found a chick tract at the house of a girl from school and I had nightmares about hell for days from that one tract, without being guilt-tripped by anyone. The idea of hell is terrifying, no child should have to endure that fear for years :cry:

[Lady Grass Lake]

Wow, I guess I was not the only one out there. Its funny how the weirdest incidents were from Catholics. I remembered another thing. Have you ever seen a totally overcast day when you can't see any blue in the sky, and theres a small break where a beam of light gets through? I always thought that someone had just died and ascended into heaven and punched a hole in the clouds on their way up.

[formergothardite]

I remember praying for years for an elderly relative to get saved and then being so upset when they died without making a formal confession of faith. Of course, people said that we could never know for sure that he didn't get saved at the last moment, but it was really upsetting.

[Mamato4]

I grew up in the Worldwide Church of God (Armstrongism). Too much wtf to even remember it all. Here's a list of what I recall off the top of my head...church on Saturday (no tv, or other forms of "entertainment" from sundown Friday night until sundown Saturday night), no celebrating Christmas, Easter, Birthdays, or any other day with "pagan" roots, no eating pork, or "unclean" meats or seafood, observing the Old Testament holy days (no eating on day of atonement, cleaning the house of all leavening for the week of unleavened bread).

We weren't really allowed to have friends from outside the church. My sisters spent their teenage years sneaking out our basement window to hang out with their friends on the weekends. My friends were mostly from the church but none of us were buying the whole thing so we pretty much stuck together and did our own thing.

We weren't allowed to play sports in high school, mainly because we would have missed the games because of the Friday night/Saturday rule. Thankfully pants and bathing suits were not an issue but makeup was not allowed. That changed a few times over the years. First you couldn't, then you could, then you couldn't again. So weird.

I had checked out pretty early on so I don't remember a lot of the theology of it all. I quit as soon as I graduated high school and turned 18. My parents and oldest sister still attend a splinter group that follows Armstrong's teachings. There was a split in the early '90s but that was after I had stopped going so I don't really know much other than what I've read online over the years.

Oh, I remember one other thing! They required not one, but THREE tithes. That's right, 30% of the members income goes to the church. Also my parents recently bought a new home and when searching for their new address online I saw that it is jointly owned by them and my sister and her husband. My guess is so when they pass away my sister will be able to make sure the money from selling it will go to the church without me or my other sisters being able to stop it. I'm just guessing that but I can't think of any other reason they would have done this. They have followed Armstrong since the early '60s so they are in deep! :angry-banghead:

On another note, this church is the same one that ran Ambassador College that Gothard now owns in Big Sandy, Texas. I remember visiting there a few times growing up. Thankfully I never attended their college. :roll:

[mstee]

I grew up catholic and Jewish. My mom would drag me to church every Sunday. But she wasn't very conservative. She grew up catholic and thought I should as well. I just remember there were 2 priests at our church. One nice, one mean. Well my mom had invited all these non catholic friends to the mass for my first communion. And mean priest happened to be the one saying the mass. He went on and on about going to hell and how he hoped us kids getting our communion would help us not go to hell. My mom was so embarrassed to have all her friends there. Usually the church message was pretty benign (this is a "progressive" Catholic Church).

As far as the Jewish influence, I remember being served Gefilte fish for the holidays. As a kid I thought my grandma was saying "filter fish". And I pictured these dirty fish swimming around in a dirty tank with a bunch of filters. And I was grossed out and wouldn't eat it. So random but I laugh looking back on it.

[pamplemousse]

My mother was Lutheran, from Chicago; Dad was from Kentucky and I think either Methodist or Baptist -- I'm not sure. He joined the Lutheran church and our family lived as Lutherans while I was growing up.

Along about when I was 9, 10, 11, somewhere in there, suddenly my parents started talking about how if you weren't saved, you would go to hell. If you committed suicide, you'd go to hell. Even at that age, there were times I thought about offing myself (I believe it was undiagnosed depression). Sure enough, they told me if I killed myself, I'd go to hell.

When I was in 7th grade, my parents joined a local Southern Baptist church. No pants for women, immersion baptism, pastor said women should submit to their husbands...you get the idea. My sisters got baptized. Not wanting to be left out, I did, too. That phase lasted for a couple of years until dad decided he didn't like that church anymore. Eventually, we joined another Lutheran church. Got confirmed there and everything. But the threat of going to hell if you weren't saved...that stuck. Sure enough, dad decided he didn't like that church, either...didn't like that the pastor was smoking and drinking beer...he thought they weren't preaching the "right" gospel.

From 6th grade through my senior year of high school, my parents had me use my grandfather's address to attend a decent school (the alternative was Chicago schools where I almost certainly would have been beaten up because of my skin color). So we didn't join churches that other kids I went to school with went to. Eventually, we stopped going. Good for me because I didn't like church anyway...right? Wrong. During the summer before my senior year, my parents decided that we all were going to gather around the living room TV and watch Jimmy Swaggart on Sunday mornings, and that would be church. I protested, to no avail. I was sure the kids at school would laugh at me if I said anything (I was a bully magnet...I never said anything to them and therefore they didn't laugh; but years later, when I told a therapist what had happened, she would laugh raucously. The bitch suffered a horrible death a few years later. Good riddance.).

Sure enough, we stopped watching JS when he started telling his followers that we should reelect Ronald Reagan. The RR first term was not kind to us. From then on, we didn't go to church as a family, although Mom kept saying we needed to do so.

I've attended a few churches since then but never joined. To this day, I consider myself a nondenominational Protestant. I believe that Jesus did die on the cross for all of us; therefore, He died for me, too. But I just am not fannish on attending church.

BTW, everyone in my family and my sister's family, except for my niece, has gone very right-wing/conservative. They wouldn't vote for a Democrat if they had guns pointed at their heads. They believe being gay is a choice. You get the idea.

[divadivine]

.....My own WTF moment happed long after I grew up and became a Christian.

I'm sorry, but Catholics are Christians......

[Jana814]

These stories r very interesting. My temple is consertive but many people who go r "2 times a year Jew".

[MatthewDuggar]

These stories r very interesting. My temple is consertive but many people who go r "2 times a year Jew".

Many Catholics are like that and part of the reason I was never confirmed. They never go to church except for Christmas (maybe) but if a baby is born - Get that kid baptized ASAP... someone's seriously ill in the hospital - Call for the priest!!! Convenience Catholics. Or even worse, the ones on Facebook who have to give up their one candy bar a week for lent. Puleeeze... like Jesus cares.

[Mom2teacher]

I grew up in a fairly nonreligious family for the most part...I went to Sunday School at a Congregational church for a while when I was in 2nd and 3rd grade because my aunt took me. I mostly remember doing crafts and hearing Bible stories, nothing traumatic whatsoever.

My big WTF moments came when I met my best friend in Junior High. She told me about the Rapture, which I had never heard of, then invited me to her church, one of the "Church of God" affiliated churches. The pastor was shouting about being saved and going to hell, people were crying and shouting out and holding their hands up during the services, speaking in tongues, etc. I was like :?. I had never seen anything like it and it scared me, especially all the talk about burning in hell unless you got "saved". As a 12 year old I had no idea what that meant.

For some reason I went with her to church a lot throughout our Junior High and High School years. I guess that was because it was the only way her mom would let me do sleepovers at her house. My dad and brother called them "holy rollers" and told me not to roll around on the floor too much when I went along. Once when I went to a family wedding at a Lutheran church, my brother said " You can't roll on the floor here."

My friend was also pretty limited in the things she was allowed to do. No jewelry, no makeup, no shorts or miniskirts (but women were allowed to cut their hair). She also wasn't allowed to swim anywhere unless it was only females. She couldn't go to the movies or sporting events because sinful people would be there. Alcohol and smoking were not allowed for any church members. Her older sister had to hand over all her rock music albums to be burned. Plus lots of other stupid rules that I can't remember. I always wondered why someone would go to hell for wearing a necklace or putting on makeup. She ended up sneaking around and breaking all of the rules anyway, with my help of course :dance: .

The biggest WTF of all was when she told me that ONLY members of "the Church of God" would go to heaven. Thankfully I didn't buy into it, and I don't think my friend did either, but I could see how that would fuck up a kid whose family all belonged to a church like that.

[nibbles]

I was born into a Catholic/Protestant family. I was baptized and attended Catholic school until second grade. However, I was never confirmed and drifted away fully by the age of 15. I then found my niche in Paganism and never looked back. HOWEVER, my father found my tarot cards once, and doomed me straight to hell very casually as if to say, "Sucks to be you".

Back in Catholic school, at the oh so imaginative age of five, a few girls and I decided giving the finger meant you hated God. But if you did it upside down, it meant you loved God. After badgering my mother for hours about it, she finally screamed what it meant. LOUD. It's been my favorite cuss word ever since.

[MatthewDuggar]

....a few girls and I decided giving the finger meant you hated God. But if you did it upside down, it meant you loved God. After badgering my mother for hours about it, she finally screamed what it meant. LOUD. It's been my favorite cuss word ever since.

What does it mean? I guess I never learned that one! :shock:

[smittykins]

It means "fuck you."

[Mamato4]

I remembered something else. We were not allowed to listen to contemporary Christian music, or even traditional hymns (the church had it's own hymns written by the founder's son), but we were allowed to listen to secular music. Apparently Aerosmith was better than Amazing Grace, because at least we wouldn't get any ideas about other people's brand of Christianity. :shrug:

[MatthewDuggar]

It means "fuck you."

With the middle finger up, right? I knew that. But is it the same with it down, or does it mean something else?