If you were ever a theist...

[Brakeman]

When I was about 15, I liked a girl that was a daughter to a deacon at Trinity Baptist church and her dad ran off with the church secretary, another deacon's wife and fled on a hot weekend love affair to Myrtle Beach, SC for several days just on the surprise drop of a hat it appeared. Both families were stunned and horrified. While they were still gone I had a memorable long phone conversation with the girl in which we discussed why and how her father who had taught her about god and who had been such a "godly" figure in her life could destroy their family and their church family just for a sexual tryst with the church secretary. She wasn't questioning her faith surprisingly, she was questioning her father. I remember in this conversation correcting her strongly when she said that their morals came from the bible and god even though I wasn't an atheist at the time. I told her that no, her morals were taught to her by her parents as she was growing up. She was encouraged to play nice with the other kids and punished by them when she didn't. Her parents taught her the social rules of the playground and of life. I had stunned myself with that revelation. I then realized that in every church setting I had ever been in they had repeatedly lied and claimed that everyone got their morals from the bible. The silliness of people saying that they got their morals from a book they only read snippets from struck me. Why would a falsehood pervade the churches so easily? Why out of hundreds of people, did I never hear any counter to this obvious falsehood? That was another of the gongs that struck the death knell of my belief in god.