I guess I am a theist, if that is the term. I still believe in the Christian God but I can't see eye to eye with organized religion and of course with people just trying to get under your skin because you don't think like they do.
"I grew up with a mixed bag of beliefs from different sects of Christianity and after college I stopped going to any church altogether."
I grew up surrounded by people of different religions and I was an avid reader so I grew up with a Mixed bag of beliefs, a bit from Jehovah witnesses a bit from catholicism a bit from Pentecosts and so on. I was a goody two shoes believer kid. The crack started after puberty when I started to resist some ideas. Simple stuff. I naively still wanted to find the right religion so I tried a bit of everything. It turn out religions have a very specific set of beliefs you must have in order to fit to either but I just couldn't be convinced to shred any of the ones I had to fit.
The last time I went to organized religion it started with small meetings at homes of some college studies. It felt way better being in an informal setting. They were from that famous Temple. My grandma knew it by name and I was kind of excited to actually be invited there. Visiting it changed my perception of it all, it was when the crack turned into a fissure. The place was so huge it has basketball courts and frigging Table tennis just behind where the preaching was taking place. They had this "rock" bad playing songs and it was too commercial. They reminded me of the passage when Jesus flips a table because the Temple was a brand and they had in the entrance shits, pen and stuff, at least the guys Jesus flipped at were selling things required in church like animals for offerings this was just sad, unrelated, cynical merchandise.
Then the sermon was guilt tripping people for donations and basically saying they were to blame if other people were still in sin for not insisting enough. Jesus never give up on you so you don't give up on them because when you die he will ask you for each of the person you knew during your life that didn't share your point of view and will demand to know why you gave up on them. Even for my standards this was pretty low. It wasn't empowering, it wasn't hopeful and it felt like the only message being told was" If you're not constantly bringing more people and giving at least the real 10 percent of what you earn then you're a horrible Christian and you should feel really ashamed and consumed by the guilt. I just saw clearly how it was all another business not really caring for it. It also was like a pyramidal scheme. The purpose of meeting is find another candidate to start meetings at their homes and keep spreading it and then get more ranks into the church and get missions like flying overseas and stuff. I saw real passion from some people entering the place and even some of the ones giving the talks. I just couldn't take it and had to stop going. It was awkward and hard given that they used to pick me up. There were already details I disagreed like the frigging anti homosexuality prayers and stuff. Other than that the guys were positive, caring and genuine and came to me at my lowest.
If it wasn't for some experiences around my parent's family I would probably would have stopped altogether from believing. Even those experiences have been from re-telling. I was either asleep or in a different location. It is more who has told me they experienced them that makes me believe them. It is people I just wouldn't believe capable of lying or playing with something like that. There is also a very specific one that I was indirectly involved with, that incident is the thread that keeps me a theist.
All in all I am pretty chill when it comes to religion and jokes. People often assume I am atheist because I didn't bark at them for making fun of Jesus or God. I just think that it is all in the intention. If they are just trying to have a good time is fine to laugh, laughing doesn't mean you truly believe each thing. It is many times the absurd of it makes it funny. Anyway I just don't think we should feel guilty if we find an image funny or something a friend says. Guilting yourself over feeling something you think shouldn't just damage your self esteem, can't help a natural reaction. With things other people say if you agree great if you don't then don't sweat it. We all think differently.