Christians: how do you sleep at night?

[Norman Humann]

This has probably already been done to death, but I don't care.

I have a question for all of you Christians out there. How the fuck do you sleep at night? You're subscribing to a religion which bases its survival on people's weaknesses and exploits them. Does that bother you at all, or do you refuse to acknowledge it?

The very idea that you need to baptised before you're a human being is disgusting. We're god's perfect creation, but we're born sick? God is merciful and forgiving, but won't let you into his VIP club in the afterlife if you don't get water poured over your head?
The idea of confession isn't any better. Because the priests are obviously such better people than you, they will listen to all your human little misdeeds and oh so mercifully forgive you. It's sickening.
Religion also enforces the idea of thought crime. That's nothing more but a neat little trick to make people feel even more guilty for something they can't control. Your very thoughts are sinful. It does make a lot of sense, though: if you punish people for thinking, they might stop doing it, eventually.

The question that bugs me is, do all those priests, pastors and bishops really believe the bullshit they're preaching or did they just get a neat deal of deceiving the gullible and making money off of it?

[vorlon13]

Further compounding the sleeplessness would be anxiety resulting from concerns about cherry picking the WRONG scriptures to obey.

"Gee, what if Jesus was right about that . . . ? "

[robvalue]

How can I be sure my denomination is the right one out of the 40,000?

That must be a grinder.

[Norman Humann]

"What if that one wasn't a metaphor?"

I'm seriously expecting an answer, though. I really want to know what our resident theists think about that.

[robvalue]

"God lied to man in the first book of his own story. What else has he lied about?"

[Chad32]

I have heard stories of people actually not sleeping well at night because they're too worried about hell. It really depends on what part of the bible you're taught, and if you can condition yourself not to care about people outside your group.

Then there's battered wife/stockholm syndrome. When you're told that it's all your fault, you get convinced that your slave master is so generous for any kindness you think he's showing you.

[robvalue]

Yes, I've heard of lots of kids scared to death because of hell. It's utterly disgusting and the parents should be ashamed of themselves. No children should have to be worried about imaginary eternal torture. If your parenting skills hinge on this fear tactic, you shouldn't be a parent.

[Norman Humann]

Then there's battered wife/stockholm syndrome. When you're told that it's all your fault, you get convinced that your slave master is so generous for any kindness you think he's showing you.

Been there, done that. It's a part of why I'm so disgusted by it.

[Kitty Galore]

Thanks for the thread Norman. I like it.

I was given some pamphlets when I was a kid about Revelation... I had so much anxiety and fear over it. I did have sleepless nights. And my family wasn't really all that religious.

[Norman Humann]

I was given some pamphlets when I was a kid about Revelation... I had so much anxiety and fear over it. I did have sleepless nights. And my family wasn't really all that religious.

When I was a kid, I had religious education in school. A nun showed us a documentary about satanists, which involved many bloody details about body mutilations and other gory rituals.
Couldn't sleep for a week.

And it's not an isolated case. I've been fed many stories to purposely induce fear about things the catholic church didn't like.
You know your arguments are poor when you have to resort to threatening children into your doctrine.