Hi. I'm Daniel. I'm 23 from Kansas City. I've been an atheist for about 6 years or so. Since I've left the church behind, I don't think I've been to a single service. That is until last Saturday night. For some reason I decided I would go to church the next morning with my parents. I figured I'll go this once to visit their church for the first time, hear what the Christian pastors are preaching nowadays and take notes. Below are just things the pastor said or implied and a little about what I thought. Please comment on them. Tell me what you think or what you've heard preachers say about these topics.

The first thing I noticed was Pastor Mike walks in the sactuary with a little red bottle and announces anyone who needs annointing to raise his/her hand. At least 30 people (out of about 100) raised their hands. He immediately looked a little surprised. He had a look on his face like, Ok guys, do I really have to come around to this many people. So he got a helper. Another man with another red bottle also walked around rubbing olive oil on people's foreheads whispering and chanting prayers. I thought this entire deal was pretty laughable, but I have no respect for things like this.

After that he talked about a certain follower who had been in the hospital for 10 years or something. All the doctors gave up on her, but the Lord didn't. Lemme tell ya. She prayed and prayed and the Lord made her better. I wish I actually knew her circumstances, but never found out. It made me think about how big a joke it is that these people actually believe that whispering to themselves with their eyes closed (praying to God) makes them medically better. Rediculous.

Then he talked about "sensing the touch of God." He kept saying, "You have to sense the touch of God. You have to 'really feel' him. This really bothered me, because What The Fuck does that mean?!? Can someone explain how anyone could possibly define "the touch of God"?

He then began to talk about tithing and donating money. This went on for about 10 minutes. He had powerpoints and everything about how much money their goal was (something like 18,000). In fact he talked about money so much, I decided to count how many times he references money. It was 32 throughout the entire service. He called anyone who doesn't tithe a "theif"! As soon as he said that, I was taken aback. That's a bit much. So I guess I stole from God that day, cause I didn't pay shit. Oh yeah, I wrote down "Faith Promise = Money Promise" as a summary of that part.

I'm with Richard Dawkins (see his book The God Dilusion) when it comes to indoctrinating children. I'm 100% against forcing any religion upon any child. I think it is a form of child abuse. Pastor Mike couldn't be more the opposite. He spoke passionately about how our children must have, "an intimate relationship with God." He said this was more important than knowledge to a child. He said that! Wow! That was a theme that day. He kept saying how knowledge like college degrees don't really matter, but that the better you know God and the more intimate you are with God, the more you gain true wisdom. He called college degrees temporary, whatever that means. He kept saying things like, "We need to stop always trying to figure everything out on our own. We need to stop trying to be sopisticated." Scary.

He said all human thought either comes from God or demons... I'm not even going to get started on this one.

He talked a lot about fasting too. He said he does it over 3 times a year. He said he began one a week ago and is continuing for two more weeks. He encouraged everyone to fast for the next two weeks as well. He said things like, "People have said, 'Isn't that not healthy? Aren't you dying when you're denying your body food?' Well yes! Of course! *chuckle* But you have to die a little to get that much closer to God, see? To be with God, you have to die everyday." Yeah I don't know what he's talking about here.

Lastly, at the end of his message he played a video (seen here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nriov7g4Aaw) that was the highlight of my visit. "How come I can feel the wind, but I can't see it?" LMAO So Stupid! Yes, God did it all! Praise Jesus!