The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully. - Richard Dawkins

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Being raised religious is a form of child abuse. The very worst kind, in my opinion. Being told your whole life that you are born worthless and defective. That you are a degenerate who is worthy only to be burned alive forever. That you have no intrinsic goodness or worth. That you cannot trust your own thoughts or your own reason. That the only path to truth is to believe whatever you are told without question or evidence. That it is a sin to think. That it is wrong to be what you are made to be. That your only hope for redemption is that someone innocent suffered the punishment you "deserve". That "love" and "free choice" means being forced to love in return on pain of eternal torture. Worse yet, when you finally do get free from it, you realize that most of the world now thinks you are a demon for doing so, and even your closest friends and family cannot understand what to you is the most obvious thing in the universe. This is a form of systematic brainwashing that causes deep traumatic emotional wounds for some people that can take years to heal.

1 comment:

  1. I can remember, as a child going to a Seventh-Day Adventist church school, laying up at night and crying in terror that I might be bad and on my way to hell.

    Finally, Mom discovered what was happening, and worked to help me overcome the fear. It still lingers in deep dark places though.

    Sophia's school just closed, and I'm considering a Christian church school. One of the questions I asked the program director there was whether hell, sin, or the devil would be a part of the curriculum. She assured me it wouldn't. I can't stand the idea that Sophia would suffer from the same fear I had.

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