I'm a preacher-who-became-a-missionary's kid. First 17 years of my life were in a highly religious environment. I became an atheist in college, though I found Episcopalians were much nicer and easier to tolerate than fundamentalists. So I spent about 20 years as a believer.
It's been 30 years or so since I stopped believing. I don't have residual fear of eternal damnation or of god punishing me, but I do feel angry at the Christians who are trying to assume political and legal and "moral" control of the USA. Regarding brainwashing, I feel that my parents were trying to teach me what they believed themselves, and I don't resent them for that. Both of my parents are severely fucked up people and couldn't, for emotional reasons, look critically at their religion.
It's been 30 years or so since I stopped believing. I don't have residual fear of eternal damnation or of god punishing me, but I do feel angry at the Christians who are trying to assume political and legal and "moral" control of the USA. Regarding brainwashing, I feel that my parents were trying to teach me what they believed themselves, and I don't resent them for that. Both of my parents are severely fucked up people and couldn't, for emotional reasons, look critically at their religion.
