A Small Religious Ranting

Today's religious angst is brought to you by Random New Clergyman at church yesterday, whom I'd never seen preach and didn't even know who he was. But he was definitely preachin' it yesterday morning. Good grief! Among other things, the sermon claimed that sending your kids to public school is basically morally wrong, and that homosexuality is inherently "compulsive" and "addictive." AHEM. While I do not think that homosexuality is God's plan for anyone and I do believe that homosexual behavior is morally reprehensible, homosexual relationships are no more "compulsive" or "addictive" than any other sexual relationship. In other words, yes, some homosexual relationships are undoubtedly "complusive and addictive," but so are many heterosexual relationships, while others are not. (What brings further irony to this is that the sermon was about the importance of Truth-with-a-capitol-T. - How about we get our facts straight before preaching, hmmm?)
I guess what pisses me off the most, though, is that the God he protrayed is so similar to the picture of God my mother gave me: hard, angry, arrogant, and completely unconcerned with my feelings. Now hold on. I'm supposed to want to have a relationship with a God like that?!? - Part of me is very angry that people have fed me this image of God for so long, and that I've bought it hook, line, and sinker. And yet, there's this other part of me that whispers, "But what if they'r right? What if God really is like that?" Because somehow to just seems too good to be true, and too far outside my experience to be believed that God actually is loving and actually does care about my feeligns. It seems too risky to hope because, well, "What if He's not?" And, like so many other things, it seems that if I dare to hope, then I must be disapointed.