Reply To: Reeling from Christian friend's bigotry
@Strega: You lucky bastard! Nine years old??? I was still getting swatted with rosaries in Catechism at 9! Growing up (and thankfully, OUT of) Catholicism was so dreary and foreboding. I used to stare in horror at the statues and artwork. I remember thinking to myself how fucking silly it all was… stand up, sit down, kneel, stand, strike your chest, bleat & repeat. I vowed to get the fuck OUT as soon as I was able. And my parents allowed this at 13. Whew! I’ve never looked back.
I did, however, succumb to the siren song of the “god-shaped hole” in my heart when I was about 26 or so. Mostly out of wanting to get married and not really thinking ANYthing through rationally, to be honest. SO crazy (if not understandable) why we often drift back to our roots and how we were raised. THIS time, though, we were CHRISTIANS…. not CATHOLICS!! hahaha!!!
The fear religion (Christianity, anyway) invokes is real, as you know. It’s such a scam to raise kids on all the LOVE Christianity (or much religion) espouses, only to Paul Harvey them (“The REST of the Story!”) when they have little social options left open to them… so they must accept the whole HELFIRE & DAMNATION horseshit or face a family and friend circle that has been carefully crafted to keep their curiosity & inquisitiveness in tow. What a terrible, horrific thing to do to kids. To ANYone, really.
I’m so glad to be free — truly free — from all of that smarmy mess. Proof that, in some way, an atheist’s words, attitude, letter, conversation, book, etc. reached me somehow. So much so that I want EVERYone to see it for what it is. I can get so accustomed to thinking rationally (at least about this topic) that it’s sometimes hard to remember what being “in it [Christianity]!” was like. I was a Born Again Holy Rollin’ Pentecostal BelEEVER, brutha! and, until I could no longer account for the inconsistencies and lack of evidence for what I was told was THERE but for which I needed FAITH, I was done in, like, 3 minutes. That’s all it took. 35 years and 3 minutes! 🙂 Better than never.
