I'm not arguing the legitimacy of religion. I choose to believe in my own way. I'm trying to bring attention to the problems with the entire Christian congregation. From the inside.

Okay, so, recently my church, a massive congregation, began a 2 million dollar building project. They were going to build "a family center" or a place for "fellowship." Now, 2 million dollars seems a bit excessive, right? I had a problem with this building from the start. Both my parents pledged a certain amount of money to the congregation in order to facilitate the church's "forward progress."

Jesus preached the purest form of belief. An entirely untainted, unshallow belief that one should be friendly and love their God. He also preached that you should preach to others in order to spread the word. Okay, somehow, today, we've become this massive congregation, entirely money-centric, that does little to actually preach the actual belief. It has become a massive group of people preaching for money and to massage their massive egos. All the people are fake and all of them are simply believing because they're afraid or they're brainwashed. They don't practice what they preach and they focus on the most obscure, horrible parts of the religion. Death and damnation. Riches and the Kingdom of Heaven. Intolerance and hate. They preach death and damnation because they're afraid that they'll be doomed to a life of death and damnation. They preach that you will receive innumerable riches in the Kingdom of Heaven because they're greedy and looking out for themselves. They preach intolerance and hate because they like to believe they're better than those who don't believe or those who believe in their own way.

Back to the money, I am mortified that I've done little to voice my complaints to my congregation. I am ashamed of my church and I honestly can't believe they're doing this. Shouldn't these funds be allocated more responsibly? Don't act as if numbers don't matter. It doesn't matter if one person is saved if 2 million Africans are starving and Godless. Shouldn't we try to reach those out of the "Christian community's" reach? Shouldn't we preach to those who have never been preached to and if we do preach to them, shouldn't we make sure it's Christianity at its purest and not some shallow pseudoreligion in which no one truly believes or practices? All of these questions are rhetorical. The answer is yes to all of them. Christianity is a humanitarian religion at its heart and should be there to facilitate forward progress for everyone, not just the congregation.

My parents are thoroughly angry at me for having this opinion. I'm only 17 and don't know what I'm talking about. I'm an idiot who doesn't know what to believe. I don't fulfill my responsibility as a Christian because I don't shove my religion down peoples' throats. My parents claim they were saved because of a softball field the church built and they claim that the building is justified if it saves just one person. I refuse to prescribe to this belief, there was too massive an opportunity cost and we've given up too much to preach to one person.

The church is corrupt and I refuse to attend. I refuse to prescribe to some idiot congregation who cares about nothing but themselves and money. I refuse to accept anything less than a humanitarian, selfless religion. I refuse to be just another Christian. I'm going to interpret it my way and I'm going to practice it my way. Everyone else is an idiot.