Member-only story
How Religion Causes Self Loathing
*Warning* This will be a controversial piece, but also something near and dear to my own personal experience. I appreciate the freedom that I have to express myself here on medium.
I was raised in a Christian church — but not just any Christian Church. It was some sort of weird mashup between Christianity, Judaism, and Seventh Day Adventist. We believed in Christ but didn’t celebrate Christmas. We went to church on Saturday because “on the seventh day God rested”. We celebrated Passover but not Hanukah. We read the new testament but didn’t celebrate other holidays like Easter or Halloween because they were either pagan or Satanic.
I was pretty confused growing up. But not as confused as everyone I told about my religion. Why did I have to take 10 days off every year? To go to “The Feast of Tabernacles” talked about in the Bible.
No one got it. And I didn’t blame them. I hardly got it myself.
It was hard enough being so different from everyone and not really fitting in with any one group or religion. On top of being an outcast and feeling isolated, I was also being fed a steady diet of brainwashing from the ministers. They would tell me how all humans are inherently sinful, there’s nothing they can do about it.
