i've only been to church once and it was enough to last me a life time. after being talked into going with an enthusiastic "friend", me being mainly curisous to see what could get someone in such a state of enthusiasm and curisosity about what a lot of my friends did and accepted every sunday morning and a wednesday week-night, i accepted his invitation to go to some special speaker all the way from australia. i thought it couldn't hurt, especially when most people asked me if i was religious then were surprised when they found out i wasn't. i thought to myself that i might find a group of people that i could relate to- you know, the person that christian people always talk about being yet always falling dismally short of being themselves. so i went to this night and came away dreadfully more aware of the type of people out there that i never knew existed. the night was an induction night- a bring the unwitting friend then convert them night where the peer pressure is so amazing, so great, that i was forced, not quite literally but almost that i was taken up the front by my "friend" to be converted. luckily i wasn't singularly up there by myself but to this day i have never forgiven my friend for taking me into a situation i had no idea about even though he probably had my best interests at hand. that is a great turn off for me. i had gone through a similar incidence of deceitfullness with religious people before this one but was to naive to believe that it wouldn't happen again. that turns me off at churchs- so much so that you would find it a hard time persuading me back into one of those places. such behaviour is disgusting, especially when those people who are taking advantage of younger people (which i was) was appealing to the "cool", in group mentality. i was free of any angst against religion until it invaded my mind and tried to microwave it so it fell into a religious school of thought. someone referred to viruses early in this thread and i think this type of religious action is exactly that.