the TRUTH about why i'm not religious anymore... | #grindreel

[Music] and i know a lot of you guys need blessings in here new house new car jesus name a new house and miracle money and a new car and like welcome back to another video uh disowned the series at this point i've made a few videos talking about this subject before they sent me to a church camp to speak in tongues all day every day and if you couldn't do it you were ostracized and put in a corner to sit on your knees on a cold wood floor to confess your sins because something was wrong with you because you couldn't do it i've also made videos talking about how my grandparents tried to predict the rapture which is when everyone gets sucked away into heaven except for the people who are bad christians and so they gave my parents and my family a bunch of pamphlets for how to survive on earth while the rest of my family was in heaven i know these topics are taboo you're not supposed to be divisive you're not supposed to talk about religion politics that sort of stuff let me make clear that this video again is not anti-christianity at all and i think if you stick with me through the video you would agree with me that this is not christianity at all so you're thinking why are you making another video about it josh what's new this time i googled my grandparents church out of pure curiosity and i found pictures of everything that i've talked about in the other videos pictures of the church camp pictures of the kids in the corner being ostracized pictures of everything that i experienced when i saw these things it was just an overwhelming amount of emotion anger resentment flashbacks of suppressed memories things that i had forgotten about you might be asking the question josh why are you making this video why are you putting this on a public forum again nobody cares well when you're a kid and you grow up in a very religious charismatic environment and you have questions about those things you're very limited to the people that you can ask these questions to your usually you can only ask your teachers your parents or your friends which will rat you out for questioning the faith is at least what has happened to me when you ask your parents they just say oh just don't think about it just just pray if you ask your teachers your teachers are going to tell your parents that you ask questions and if you ask your friends that aren't in the same religion as you you're told to stay away from those people anyway because they are not the same religion as you there are a lot of people out there who have probably experienced this but who have suppressed this in their memories because they didn't have anyone to talk to about it without seeming crazy i guess that's where i'm at so i did a little digging did a little research and i found a clip pastor at their church talking about how you should stay away from people who ask questions the bible says in romans chapter 16 verse 17 watch out for those who cause division among you have nothing to do with them watch out for people that come in with a critical spirit that have a judgmental spirit that want to tear everything down this is god's church god's in the business of building his church i never want to be in the business of tearing his church down that's what they would say whenever i would ask questions i have a judgmental spirit or whatever it is they would say things like you're part of the enemy you're trying to divide us trying to divide the family adam over here just like i don't know if jonah could actually survive inside the stomach of a whale that doesn't seem really realistic and i'm over here like 11 years old getting this thrown in my face i will never attack the church of the lord jesus christ ever say one negative word about it i know we're imperfect so that's what they would say whenever i would say well i don't really agree with what the pastor said they'd be like oh you're attacking the church you're saying negative things about it the pastor said never say negative things about it and i don't know how many of you out there have really religious parents or are really religious yourself but when you have questions that's okay but me growing up you weren't allowed to have questions i mean you were but they would just give you answers like because god said so or because the bible says so and they would never engage with you any further than that and if you tried to that's when you would get this stuff he wants to get you away from your friends he wants to isolate you he wants to separate you from people that pray for you and teach you and care for you that's what they told me when i would make friends that weren't part of the church or i wanted to play video games or i wanted to listen to certain types of music they would say it's the devil there it's the devil's trying to isolate you away from all of us and it's like i don't really like being around any of you anyways like it just you know when you're going through a difficult time don't be separated from the church when you're going through a struggle don't get separated from your christian friends come together with people who love you that's what they would say right it'd be gas lighting they would say something like you know don't don't leave us don't move away from us you know we love you we care about you and then they would throw those verses in your face and say questioning the church you're trying to tear it down and then right after that but we love you do not find yourself all alone you come together with other believers and you make as much noise in prayer and praise as you can i was always put off by that no thank you this is very strange to me and then again if you are like that if you're that type of person that doesn't buy into this you're ostracized you're isolated you are told that you have unconfessed sins or you're not a believer and suddenly um instead of being welcomed back in you're pushed back out even though they keep talking to you about love now i don't know if any of this is ringing a bell with you guys but i you know i i watched a few of these videos and it just brought back all the guilt tripping that i had experienced and it was the hypocrisy that really put me off of church that pastor of a 13 000 member church has a book called i'm spiritual not religious how how can that be true if you're the the pastor of a religious organization of over 13 000 people this church also has a private school and they make all the teachers sign a document statement of life and conduct is what they call it the one i want to point out is number six certain attitudes are expressly condemned in scripture these include but are not limited to greed jealousy pride lust needless anger and unforgiving or rebellious spirit harmful discrimination and prejudice how many times i heard rebellious spirit growing up because i just wasn't interested in church but anyways you see here greed and prejudice this is the price of that school twenty thousand dollars a year to go to high school we're against greed and prejudice while twenty one thousand dollars a year to go to ninth grade at a private school sounds pretty greedy to me it sounds pretty prejudice against poor people that can't afford to go to this and it was things like that that i would ask questions about and then i'd get those verses thrown back in my face i sometimes thought my memories might have been exaggerated i'm sure you guys probably thought that oh he's just exaggerating and then i found on their website they have a pdf that just shows how important it is to them to speak in tongues but if you know anything about speaking in tongues and speaking in tongues is basically pointless unless you have a translator there but at this church it was purely for the unbelievers and they say that here tongues are a sign not for believers but for unbelievers and so at church camp they would use speaking in tongues as a way to show you who's boss and to show who's authentic and who's not so here's the picture of what church camp looked like everything is the same except for the floor was hardwood and not carpet you could see all these kids on the ground screaming crying praying in tongues and if you couldn't do it you were isolated you were put in a corner and you can see that here as well with the two kids in the back against the wall now this is a newer photo but i was made to kneel on a hardwood floor and to confess for things i didn't even know that i needed to confess i was just it was anything you know forgot to feed my cats dinner one night or i was late or stepped on a crack broke my mom's back you know stuff like that and they really made you feel terrible for not being able to speak in tongues become filled with the holy spirit or whatever this is what it looks like but let me show you what it sounds like these kids don't understand what they're doing but they have to or you go to the corner but you know it's pretty easy to just want to fit in right but why would you want to do something to fit in at church you want to be true to yourself true to the lord right so i never did now occasionally they would have some of the children that were sitting down here come up to the stage and then they would get a microphone and those kids would be told to convey the holy spirit or fire of god and they would be told to preach and this is what that looked like and they'll just receive it in jesus name [Applause] hallelujah come on i don't know if you heard that but you can hear the pastor in the side like pray in other tongues just go ahead just do it just go ahead go ahead tear them into tongues pray in other tongues lord i thank you that they'll just receive tongues if they haven't received it and i thank you yo just starts praying in tongues right now relation in jesus name just start speaking it come on the thing is the devil can't understand you so he can't interfere with you they could say that to me because i i couldn't do it so whenever i would uh try to ask help from the pastor like this is just one of those things that i've been like i've suppressed for so long i remember specifically i asked the pastor for help on how to do it and he's like shh the devil can hear you please speak in tongues and i'm like that's the whole problem i can't speak in tongues so i want you to just keep off being in tongues don't stop brushing that's when the blessings come in and i know a lot of you guys need blessings in here new house new car jesus name i'm personally not buying it i don't know how many of you are are buying it but again there's no point in doing this biblically unless you have a translator to translate what she's saying to help someone out who can't understand the native tongue around which would be english so after they would give one of the other children a church camp a microphone to come up there and get everyone else to speak in tongues they would let that kid come down and pray over other people and some kid would just come up to you and start putting his hands on you and start screaming in tongues at you and you didn't even know what he's saying there's no translator there but apparently you're supposed to be healed from something or be blessed by something and usually the blessings were in terms of monetary gain and this is what that looked like [Music] you hear that guy in the background laughing like it's some dude that put that laugh track on the back it's like a meme or something that's not that's not a meme that wasn't added to the video that is called holy laughter and you can see that here on the wikipedia article uh holy laughter describes religious behavior in which individuals spontaneously laugh during church meetings it has occurred in many revivals but to me it kind of sounds like the joker is there and it's it's really creepy i was the only one to to feel really out of place [Music] go ahead a new house and miracle money and a new car and like what about physical or health ailments or mental health or or other things like there's a lot of this when the kids would come around you know i pray that you get a new xbox and you get a new playstation and then your game boy doesn't use the battery kind but it has a rechargeable battery pack it was obviously they were just making this [ __ ] up here's another clip of what this realistically looked like a lot of times people would be crouched down crying screaming in tongues [Music] all i hear is yodeling now after going through that church camp where we did this basically every day all day for two weeks i remember thinking to myself if these are the types of people that go to heaven if and if this is what evan sounds like i don't want to go i i i'm good i'll just be a ghost i guess but the thing is these experiences weren't just exclusive to that one church camp one time in my life these experiences were throughout my entire life for example at wednesday night middle school worship they would do these really strange things at the end of singing the songs and they would say okay we're going to ask you to pour your heart out to god and to our pastors and the other people here or your friends or your fellow brothers and sisters i found this on their site at the end of the day it's always brought to a close with a time of prayer and reflection where students and staff huddle together in small groups pouring their hearts out to god and each other now maybe it's just me but i think that's really weird i don't want to pour my heart out to my teacher i don't want to pour my heart out to my friends or my family like this should be a personal relationship right that's what everyone says for most of my life my parents didn't really take me to church it was usually my grandparents or my aunts and uncles and for this specific church my aunt would usually take me because it was very important for them to make kids go to church so what they would do is they would say hey if you come to church with us on wednesday night we'll buy you wendy's and me being a fat 13 year old kid how can you turn down a spicy wendy's chicken sandwich you know what i'm saying so obviously i'd go but now as an adult i can see that's just basic bribery they just wanted me in church because that was the number one thing important to my family at all cost and i would constantly hear about the verse of you know start children off the way they should go and even when they're old they will not turn from it this verse was obsessed about by my grandparents you had to get your children in church and your grandchildren in church because you know if they grow up in the way of the world they'll never want to come back to church well i have news for you grandparents i grew up in church and i i'd rather go the way the world this is actually on their website again for the christian school for little kids and you can see it here on the side start children off the way they should go you know i don't want to call it indoctrination but basically you got to get them while they're young so that way they'll question everything that's not biblically related and that's what they tried to do to me and it didn't work it just made me angry and resentful towards them and their church here's another image of what church looked like they would make you hold hands like this with people that you didn't know and then they would come around and they try to push you on your head and make you fall over i just want my grandparents to know that they are the reason that people like me exist because i'm not really religious anymore i know i'm gonna get a bunch of comments that say well don't let this get in the way of your relationship and i want my grandparents to know that they're the reason i was probably depressed throughout middle school and high school because i thought something was wrong with me because i was afraid and felt guilty to make friends that had the same interests as me i felt guilty playing video games and doing things that i enjoyed because it didn't align with their views of it biblically i always fought with the thought of can i do that i can't be friends with him no i can't i can't like that i'll probably go to i'll probably go to hell i can't listen to this music i can't watch that show i can't read this book i can't do this or that everything was taught out of fear when all they spoke of was love and again this just goes back to the hypocrisy of their church anytime i remember making a decision as a kid it was only out of fear it was will this get me in trouble will i go to hell for this will i burn for this can i do this i never remember thinking oh yeah that's church and they love me i've come to the conclusion i guess throughout this video and looking at these images and videos is that my grandparents are religious narcissists they use the church and they use the bible to manipulate and make themselves look good in their church it's all about their image it's all about how devout they look as a family unit in their church and i guess they get more points for the more complete their family is in their church but they were so concerned about everyone being sheep to the world when they themselves are sheep in a church of wolves and you might be wondering i guess what has happened since my grandfather said i hope you can live the rest of your life without talking to your family in july my birthday they sent me a letter in the mail or a little postcard and it said we love you and you're always welcome at our house the car did not say sorry didn't have anything to do with an apology you see one of my dad's aunts i guess reached out to me and said i spoke to your grandfather about what happened since you started making all these videos josh and i said is he sorry does he feel [ __ ] sorry does he feel anything at all and she said you'll have to ask him about that so i'm going to assume the answer is no and my grandparents feel absolutely nothing i don't know if they watch these videos anymore but i really really resent you for making me go through all of this and you ruin people's childhoods basically by making them do this stuff forcing them into it when they're not interested or guilt-tripping them threatening them with eternal burning for having questions so i'm going to assume the answer is my grandparents feel guilty for putting me through this no i don't think that they do i don't think that they're sorry about it at all and i'm sure there are a lot of other people out there that go through this too who are afraid to talk about it because they don't want to be ostracized by their family but i don't really have one anymore so i'm free to talk about whatever i want i imagine my family always just thought of me as too nice and i can clearly see these patterns now if we go way back seven months ago to when they disowned me they always started off with we love you you're our first grandson now please do x y z every single time they wanted me to do something we love you you're our first grandson and they try to manipulate that way and when that didn't work they would say the bible says do x y z so you better do x y z or else your eternal salvation is up for grabs and when that didn't work my grandparents just cut me off and they say i hope you can enjoy the rest of your life without talking to your family so i called their bluff here we are fluke vs fluke grandson versus grandfather and at this point i'd even say good versus evil and it has basically destroyed any desire for me to associate in any religious organization or any of that stuff and i just want them to know that they're at fault for this yeah [ __ ] you as you can tell this stuff really brings back a lot of memories really makes me a little bit angry i just want to share it more content that you didn't subscribe to thank you so much for watching i'll see you in the next one

Channel: Joshua Fluke

Views: 151,692

Rating: 4.9111943 out of 5

Keywords: joshua fluke, code bootcamp, javascript, how to code, web development, brand, developer interview, developer jobs, corporate cringe, divorce, story i dont talk about, entrepreneurship, digital brand, disowned

Id: R1IDQyJUG8Q

Length: 19min 23sec (1163 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 25 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/Tmp_Guest_1]

i have to say this seems to be even more cult like than the witnesses.

[u/ModaMeNow]

This makes me so angry. I hate religion

[u/AntiochusTheFourth]

Great video, see a lot of similarities with watchtower. Thanks for sharing