Religious belief vs Reality?

    Since I was baptized as a Christian when I was 16 years old, I decided to dedicate all my time and effort to love my God, Jesus, everyone around me. After several devotion years in Youth Service in KL, I was obligated to leave journal editing services in church as I decided to study abroad in Taiwan after graduating from high school in Malaysia.

    Even though I leave the church services, I still regularly joined the church services every weekend in my pre-university courses until my graduation in Linkou District. One the pastors was quoted as saying, “If everyone prays for him, God will listen.”However, I shouted several times about my loneliness and helpless, he still ignored my request. I met some church member still suffered similar issues as mine. I had been struggling my difficult time to make my end meets. I wondered if God has been listening to my sobbing? I decided to tackle my problems by myself and then took several part times jobs to cover my school fees and living expenses. Eventually, I did not feel guilty if I have not attended the church services anymore since from my sophomore in NTU.

    I started thinking about why I need to offer my income portion to the church? Most of the church members are wealthier than me, especially every pastor in general are about has higher paid allowances than my parents’ salaries. Their children had the better living environments and education background than mine. Why did they spend spent a chunk on missions instead of offering some necessity goods to the poverty? And a church is large enough but still keep asking church members to donate more money for renovation. Why does God need my money, for what? I still do not understand why only the believers could go to Heaven instead of everybody.

    After leaving a church several years, I began to think of course I could be a Christian without actually visiting church. I still could give a penny or food to the poor, hungry, homeless, sick, elderly and thousands of other charitable activities.

    Finally, I realized that the religious traditions can be toxic when they place allegiance to beliefs above individual spiritual experience.