Hmmm.... not easy to pin down exactly. Number 1 would apply more to the teachings of the groups that adopted the teachings of the religion. To try to put that into words, I like what Ghandi said, "
'I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.'
Had I been exposed to a more grounded, reasoned, and mystical understanding of the Christian religion, I might have been able to find the nutrients I needed to grow on my spiritual path I had begun. Instead it was more about being on the 'winning side' of good versus evil, correct beliefs vs. the heresies of everyone else but us, evangelizing everyone to convert them to the religion, and all that fledgling war on culture garbage of the Christian Right beginning in the early 80's. Yuk.
Belief in God was not the problem. Belief in their teachings about God was. Finding my spiritual path through that bramble patch of self-righteous otherism, back to what I was hoping to find in the first place was a pretty lone path spanning decades.
I like what
@SalixIncendium had to say about encountering someone like
@Vouthon back then. I think that would have probably been a better beginning. Instead, most whom I encountered were either clueless about the mystical, or mistook ecstatic experience as God affirming that they were the chosen ones in some ego-validation effort.
But perhaps, all that was what needed to be for me. Who really knows. Growth and strength sometimes requires hard obstacles to overcome.