Raised batshit looney Funditard Pentecostal. Snake-handling, speaking in tongues, possessed by the spirit, dressing like the Amish in the middle of the 1960's, all of it.
Had to memorize Bible verses to quote to my parents before dinner every night. Attended a xtian school. It's amazing how long it takes this stuff to shake loose.
But I saw bits and pieces of hypocrisy in my early teens. How folks would think up a lie in order to "testify", and make up cool-sounding phrases before services to
pretend to speak in tongues. I saw a lot of judgmental attitudes, bigotry, and hatred. I heard family members pray for the day God would return and kill most of
humanity, and they would get to watch and sing praises. I knew that some supposedly "perfect, written by GOD" parts of the Bible seemed positively evil,
some ridiculous, and some verses actually contradicted other verses.
And then I went to college. I met people from all different backgrounds. I started my own comparative religion research.
It was a slow process. I still played piano and organ for church services. But the readings just kept sounding weirder by the week, and during one long Easter reading
I just realized that I didn't believe ANY of this bullshit. It was all just too fucked up.
The more I read Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, Kelley, Boghossian -- Sagan and Hawking and Brian Greene and a lot more stuff -- the more convinced I got. It took
a long time. I feel like I somehow managed to escape from a vicious, anti-intellectual cult. Thankfully, my only brother made the "journey" with me.
Had to memorize Bible verses to quote to my parents before dinner every night. Attended a xtian school. It's amazing how long it takes this stuff to shake loose.
But I saw bits and pieces of hypocrisy in my early teens. How folks would think up a lie in order to "testify", and make up cool-sounding phrases before services to
pretend to speak in tongues. I saw a lot of judgmental attitudes, bigotry, and hatred. I heard family members pray for the day God would return and kill most of
humanity, and they would get to watch and sing praises. I knew that some supposedly "perfect, written by GOD" parts of the Bible seemed positively evil,
some ridiculous, and some verses actually contradicted other verses.
And then I went to college. I met people from all different backgrounds. I started my own comparative religion research.
It was a slow process. I still played piano and organ for church services. But the readings just kept sounding weirder by the week, and during one long Easter reading
I just realized that I didn't believe ANY of this bullshit. It was all just too fucked up.
The more I read Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, Kelley, Boghossian -- Sagan and Hawking and Brian Greene and a lot more stuff -- the more convinced I got. It took
a long time. I feel like I somehow managed to escape from a vicious, anti-intellectual cult. Thankfully, my only brother made the "journey" with me.
"The family that prays together...is brainwashing their children."- Albert Einstein
