Hi Clare,
Although I DO think it matters what persons believe and how they go about determining what is “belief-worthy” my reason for posting here is specifically to do with the harmful effects of SMC and other similarly destructive churches and cults.
I should reiterate that MY experience in every charismatic church or fellowship that I was part of was pretty much all positive and I occasionally get nostalgic about much of the social and communal “fellowship” that went along with it. Everyone that I considered a close friend when I was a church attender STAYED a friend after I left, and it was only the fact that I no longer shared the same belief systems that stopped me from “fellowshipping” or meeting up with other church members. As ones interests change so does ones social circle. Its inevitable i think.
So my experience of leaving the last church I attended. or the onset i attended before that, is nothing like the bad experiences other people have shared here - who unlike me were members of SMC for a long time - some times more than 10 years apparently.
I dont intend to explain or justify my reasons for why I became an atheist here, but am happy to discuss things further with you via private message to answer any further questions you have, if you like.
But here I will just give you a link to a web site where ex-christians are encouraged to post their de-conversion testimonies. My story/reasons are on there too, but you’ll have to PM me and ask me which one of those "testimonies" is mine if you want more background:
[
new.exchristian.net]
But here in this thread I don’t wish to get into any discussions about the matter. I think it would just be diversionary. Far as I can gather - Rick Ross and this thread - contrary to what posters may believe does not exist to promote any particular belief system( or non-belief systems for that matter ) , it is about preventing harmful styles of church leadership, cults and the like. No more no less.
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/10/2011 08:29AM by Clive.