LET’S TALK ABOUT SEX, BABY..

 Premarital sex is a sin.

Ok…. Today we start on my journey through my “ crisis of faith”

Here are some sins that my mother was warned about:

It’s a sin to….

Wear pants

Dance

Swim with boys

Wear makeup

Smoke cigarettes 

Drink alcohol 

Attend a school dance… just in case

Say the word “ hate”

Hold hands

Premarital sex

Not pray after every sin all day long.

Disrespect adults

Be “ of the world”

Listen to music 

No movies at a theater 

Cussing

Etc….. basically be afraid all day long until you die.

Sins that I was warned of….

Listening to music. Well, with the exception of Elvis and anything on AM radio.

Pre-marital sex

Smoking

Drinking

No movies

Cussing

Not to Pray for forgiveness all the days long.

Say the word “hate”

Now, at some point as a child it occurred to me that I could wear pants and swim and dance and eventually I could listen to music( 14 yrs old I think?) and go to movies ( my parents to me to Grease and then my mom took me to…. FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH…. That’s quite the leap!)

Then my parents started smoking and drinking and buying me cigarettes at the age of 14! You think that’s fucked up? My brother was 12!!!! They’d buy us alcohol and we’d have our friends over and my parents would go across the street to our neighbor’s house. This is also the time period where I have a lot of holes in my memory regarding my mother SA’ ing me. I mean, we were drunk so… what else was she to do?

We were allowed to trick or treat which surprised me that my mom and aunt had been allowed to and when I was little we’d go to my grandparent’s house after for hot chocolate. 

So, slowly I began seeing that most sins were just made up, flexible, ever changing….. And it was man, not God deciding these things. I mean, he definitely says what’s a sin, 10 Commandments and what not, but most of the sins I grew up with were just controlling bullshit. In fact, according to Jewish law, there are 600 sins to try and avoid every day.

I asked about that once and was told that the Old Testament is for the Jews and the New Testament is for us….. except like, tithing, we need to keep that or churches would go broke, being gay, which Jesus ( New Testament) never spoke of and the verses + language barrier + editing the Bible a ton of times equals…. What? A nothing burger from the Old Testament ! And I was told it was a sin because it was premarital sex…. Until it was legal for a gay couple to marry……A whole lot of focus on one thing so they don’t have to talk about who’s mixing fabrics, sitting in church in their periods, DIVORCED…. The whole murder thing unless it’s the prison you pay tax dollars to and that’s really just fine. Divorce… BIG SIN! Unless you were beat or cheated on but remarrying, sin. But.. again, we don’t talk about that. The pews would be empty.

So, no Old Testament unless we need it to make money and control people. Right?

Is abortion a sin? Well, if you hear any media today you’d think it’s the numero uno worst sin of all except the Bible doesn’t even count killing a full term baby as much more than stealing from your neighbor, in fact! The punishment for that could be the loss of your hand, being tortured, becoming a slave. Killing the fetus of a woman landed you a fine, but killing her well, that was a bigger fine. By the way…. DIDN’T BABIES DIE WHEN GOD FLOODED THE EARTH?  You need to take that in faith…

If I had a deep question I was either told to take it in faith or some bullshit that’s passed down from pastor to pastor …. Seriously, ask me a complicated Bible question and I can answer you in pastor speak. Start typing. I’ll wait.

I noticed that my youth pastor’s wife left her family for a 14 yr old boy she’d been counseling…. FOURTEEN. That’s called rape , sweetie. I noticed my pastor throw a cast iron pan at a 13 yr old girl because she hit him with a water balloon. I saw my grandfather who preached that the Bible says not to sue, sue the shit out of businesses, hospitals and my freaking uncle. I mean, he should have, the hospital surgeon left a sponge in my grandma’s head during the removal of a cancerous brain tumor but….. isn’t that hypocrisy?? 

My faith started to wane… except for the praying. It took me decades to stop praying all the time. 

I asked why we couldn’t drink when not only did Jesus drink wine but when they had an abundance of water and no wine he made wine from the water….I mean, think about that.

I was told that wine was basically grape juice back then. No, my dude! That shit was like Mad Dog! Highly fermented and crazy high alcohol content. 

But that was the pastor answer. Whenever they don’t have an answer they… Lie. Or make shit up. And the weird thing is that they’ve all gotten the same memos. 

I noticed. 

I noticed when I was shunned. Ya, I really did. I didn’t receive one phone call, I was 9 months pregnant when I was invited for Christmas. I had gone nine months without contact from my friends and family. 

So there’s really the beginning. Right as soon as I could talk and ask questions, I was the thorn in the side.

I decided a few years ago that not asking questions, walking in lockstep, never veering off path was one way to certainly never be a real Christian. If you didn’t search you wouldn’t find. So, I gave myself the permission to question all the things. If it’s in the Bible, I’ll talk about it and the say “ but, didn’t God kill Babies in sodom and Gomorrah? Jesus didn’t sin and he drank wine, that apple that Eve ate? highly unlikely to have been an apple, in fact the Bible says nothing about an apple, that snake was not Lucifer nor was it a snake… fight me! 

I decided to challenge the validity of the Bible. Not the entirety of the Bible but to learn that the Bible was passed down by stories for decades, then men who’d never even met Jesus wrote most of the books in the New Testament. Noah wrote most of the Old Testament. Then there were language barriers, entire books removed, especially the ones that women wrote and the book of Enoch because he’s got a wild story to tell about Angels that look like UFOs and who sits next to God. My aunt said it was just crazy ramblings…. Because he said that it was him, not Jesus that was on God’s right hand side…. That’s not gonna keep many people in the pews….that counsels took parts out and kings changed things so they could have more power it even be able to divorce. That Martin Luther ( Lutherans) changed the Bible. Ancient lost words twisted into more and more modern words…That do not have the same meanings…

I’ll get more into that. Have I lost my faith? No. I mean, look around you. It’s not random that you’re able to read this instead of laying in a Lilly pad or a dog or a chicken. It’s so complicated, complex, to me, it’s not possible to think this is random. 

Also, the Christians basically absorbed paganism. It’s the basis for much of how we celebrate, believe, and the names of the weeks and months…

One more thing! Isabellamaggie.etsy.com !!!

This has been long.

Song: Even in Arcadia By: Sleep Token

Listen to the lyrics. So good, so interesting and smart. 

Luv,

Me