Oh god, my second grade teacher (I went to various Baptist-run private schools through fourth grade because the public schools in our area were terrible -- or rather because my batshit religious grandmother convinced my mom that I would wind up in a gang at the age of six if I went to public school) used to read us Chick Tracts as story time. And the class ate them up, which ... ew.
My own moment of "Oh HELL no." came in high school, when I decided that any deity who demanded my fear-driven worship -- not respect, not adoration, but fear -- wasn't worth my time, and that the thought of spending eternity with such an individual was just as bad as whatever hell said individual could throw at me. (Grandmother continues to fear for my soul; I managed to convince my mom that no, really, The Rapture is nonsense that got made up in the 1850s and revamped in the 1950s and the hell we know was inherited from Dante and Milton rather than the real true actualfacts Bible. My father is a lost cause, thanks to having read Grandmother's entire 15-year backlog of Prophecy Magazine when mom & he were staying at grandma's place last year.)
But yeah. It took me years to realize that I didn't have to follow the religion I was raised in in order to be a Christian, and that Christ would probably be more interested in my being a decent human being rather than, well. The idea that we are all horrible people, doomed forever to be horrible people, because we cannot choose but to be horrible people and the only way that any of us will not be damned is because Jesus took pity on the human race just ... it messed me up, man.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2010-07-11 01:23 am (UTC)My own moment of "Oh HELL no." came in high school, when I decided that any deity who demanded my fear-driven worship -- not respect, not adoration, but fear -- wasn't worth my time, and that the thought of spending eternity with such an individual was just as bad as whatever hell said individual could throw at me. (Grandmother continues to fear for my soul; I managed to convince my mom that no, really, The Rapture is nonsense that got made up in the 1850s and revamped in the 1950s and the hell we know was inherited from Dante and Milton rather than the real true actualfacts Bible. My father is a lost cause, thanks to having read Grandmother's entire 15-year backlog of Prophecy Magazine when mom & he were staying at grandma's place last year.)
But yeah. It took me years to realize that I didn't have to follow the religion I was raised in in order to be a Christian, and that Christ would probably be more interested in my being a decent human being rather than, well. The idea that we are all horrible people, doomed forever to be horrible people, because we cannot choose but to be horrible people and the only way that any of us will not be damned is because Jesus took pity on the human race just ... it messed me up, man.