That was one of my triggers, Cecelia. One of the first ones.
I was raised fundie Protestant. I remember assemblies in the Church school I attended, that proclaimed why Evolution was a lie. My parents believed (even my Father, a very intelligent, college-educated man) that all of the "fossil evidence" was either deliberately faked or misinterpreted.
Then I changed schools. I went to a public high school and made friends with a girl whose parents were biologists. When I told them what I had been taught about evolution, one night over dinner . . . they were kind, but I will never forget their faces. They clearly were looking at me with a mixture of horror and pity. That - - was significant. These intelligent scientists were looking at me like I was somehow mentally deficient.
It took a few more years, science classes, and reading, for me to be SURE that my Parents and those Preachers had been very wrong. That, of course, paved the way to more questions about science and religion. First stop . . . fundamentalism was wrong. But even more mainstream liberal Christianity gradually lost its hold. The idea of Deism and Polytheism and Spirituality and all of that . . . tried, studied, and abandoned. But I was in my mid-40's before I finally proclaimed that I was an atheist.
I was raised fundie Protestant. I remember assemblies in the Church school I attended, that proclaimed why Evolution was a lie. My parents believed (even my Father, a very intelligent, college-educated man) that all of the "fossil evidence" was either deliberately faked or misinterpreted.
Then I changed schools. I went to a public high school and made friends with a girl whose parents were biologists. When I told them what I had been taught about evolution, one night over dinner . . . they were kind, but I will never forget their faces. They clearly were looking at me with a mixture of horror and pity. That - - was significant. These intelligent scientists were looking at me like I was somehow mentally deficient.
It took a few more years, science classes, and reading, for me to be SURE that my Parents and those Preachers had been very wrong. That, of course, paved the way to more questions about science and religion. First stop . . . fundamentalism was wrong. But even more mainstream liberal Christianity gradually lost its hold. The idea of Deism and Polytheism and Spirituality and all of that . . . tried, studied, and abandoned. But I was in my mid-40's before I finally proclaimed that I was an atheist.
"The family that prays together...is brainwashing their children."- Albert Einstein
