beachbum

I have a funny story for you. One Sunday the lady sitting in front of me had her small son with her. He started to get fussy and she started hitting on him. so I leaned over the back of her seat and said, "If you will just wait a minute I will take of my belt so you can really beat that child." She quite hitting the kind and I laughed my ass off.

cartman

ROFLMAO!

B. H. Manners

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Qoute from expreacher:

I don't really have any horror stories. Sure, I've met my share of idiots and hypocrites, but I've found that they exist in every religion and even among those who have no religion. I didn't leave because of a bad incident, but simply because I became convinced that Christianity wasn't true. A longer version of my story is also on the "Atheists' Testimony" thread. My story is not so much about personal stuff, as it is about the questions which caused me to leave.[/QB][/QUOTE]
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You are right for reminding us that just because something bad happened while we were in the church does not itself dispove Christianity. Our reasond for leaving ultimately should be based on logic and solid arguments against it.

[ April 23, 2002: Message edited by: BH ]</p>

Terracotta

Hello, all. We meet again.

I was also born and bred in the CofC. I attended CofC schools from 5th grade to college graduation (Lipscomb and Harding). I have many horror stories.

Imagine that - 3 former Harding people on an athiest board!

I think that the seeds for my "falling away" (more like "coming to my senses") were planted when the church that I grew up in split when I was 16. It was a horrible, horrible experience that still makes me sad to think about. The main reason for the split was that the older members didn't like the things that some younger members were bringing in, such as singing from overhead projectors and stupid stuff like that. That experience scarred me because of all the rifts that formed in so many relationships between my friends' parents and other adults I loved.

My parents still attend the church I grew up in, and my only sibling is planning to go to Africa with her husband as missionaries for 10 years.

I used to have many friends from college, but they pretty much dumped me after I started dating a man who wasn't a Xian and had a daughter from a previous relationship. To make a very long story shorter, I am now married to that "heathen," am a full-time stepmom to his beautiful daughter, have shed that great burden that was Xianity, and couldn't be happier with life. Good riddance to all those "friends" I used to have. I'm rebuilding my life from scratch.

I still tend to be quite bitter towards Xianity, though.

diana

Hi, BH. Welcome to the Dark Side.

I'm a CoC preacher's kid. Conservative, of course. The only "true" Christianity.

My atheist testimony is <a href="http://sezme.twistedpair.net/misc/my_story.htm" target="_blank">here</a>.

You want horror stories?

In our house, "Spare the rod and spoil the child" was taken as a dire warning. "Teach the child when he is young the way that he should go" was mixed in there somehow, to produce a mother who had no other coping mechanism for disciplining her children than to spank them.

I speak more of my little brothers than of myself; I knew how to be the perfect child for them, and I did. My little brothers' coping mechanisms were of the Fuck You variety, so they got a steady stream of spankings. Nay...beatings. Mother even had my big brother make her a special board for occasions when the belt seemed inadequate. The Board was 1"X5" or so, and about four feet long. Noel (big brother) whittled down the end of it to fashion a convenient two-handed grip for her, and as the finishing touch, drilled several holes down the center.

The she beat them--and we're talking, after a while, three or four beatings a day on a schedule, because she figured they'd done something to deserve it--the more they misbehaved, and the more she beat them. (Why not try a different approach, since spankings obviously weren't doing the trick, you ask? Because the holy scriptures said you should beat disobedient/disrespectful children. Simple.)

At one point (I learned many years later), one of them came home from school, sneaked into the house, got Daddy's rifle, and walked up behind Mother (who was standing at the kitchen sink) and was about to shoot her in the back of the head when the other brother caught him and stopped him. To this day, she has no idea how close she came to meeting her maker that day.

But let's talk about rifling through their belongings because she didn't trust them, and finding those love notes the little girls wrote to them. She figured they didn't make good grades because they were busy goofing off in class. The cure for this was to pin the notes to the refrigerator for everyone who visited the house to enjoy. And, it should go without saying, a beating.

They called the Child Abuse Hotline once and were having a very nice conversation when Mother and Daddy pulled up. They panicked, dropped the phone, and left the number sitting there in their haste. Mother found it, figured out what it was, and told them if they ever did that again they'd be sorry. With, of course, the obligatory beating. (I shudder to think, considering what she already did to them on a regular basis, what "you'll be sorry" entailed, exactly.) The child abuse people paid a visit, but in the end, who are they going to believe? The children who are constantly in fights at school or the preacher and his wife? Oh come on!

She was angry constantly, except when she went to church, where she had a wonderful "life is paradise and oh, there's never a dull moment! Hahaha" facade. The transformation was almost scary.

They left at the ages of 16 and 14 and Mother said it was for the best because, considering all the spankings she owed them yet, they'd have probably never left there alive.

Praise God.

d

B. H. Manners

[QUOTE]Originally posted by diana:
[QB]Hi, BH. Welcome to the Dark Side.

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"Woe to those who call evil good..." &lt;B.H. grins&gt;

The dark side really is the "good side." Really, it is.

It is really funny because since I gave up religion for atheism I have found peace in my life that did not exist before. I really cannot understand why anyone would believe stupid stories like an ass talking, a flood, the dead raised, ect. I also cannot understand why so many still cling to the Bible like they do. I approached my preacher (now OLD preacher) about the arguments Christians make against the Koran. I pointed out how Christians raise issues of textual variants, contradictions, "immoral" morals, false prophesy, et al against the truthfulness of the Koran. He really shit over himself with glee that the Muslims were getting tore up and agreed all the arguments I cited were valid. I then told him how atheists make the same arguments about the Bible with success and how Muslims use the same how-it-could-have-been logic he did to defend the Bible. I asked why wasn't what was good for the goose good for the gander. He became very defensive and said that the Bible was special and what applied to the Koran did not apply to the Bible. Go figure. I still go to church with my dad out of respect for him but that preacher knows my true beliefs and has stopped me from participating in the services, ect. which really does not bother me at all.

[ April 24, 2002: Message edited by: BH ]</p>

diana

He became very defensive and said that the Bible was special and what applied to the Koran did not apply to the Bible.

I might have been forced to say, "Really? That's fascinating! Why is that?" Or anything that might force him to support and defend that inanity.

d

B. H. Manners

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[QUOTE]Originally posted by diana:

I might have been forced to say, "Really? That's fascinating! Why is that?" Or anything that might force him to support and defend that inanity.
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Well, actually I did and he shit himself even more. The thing that really drove the nail in the coffin of faith was when he tried to bluster and threaten me and I dared him to follow through with them. I told him several people I could contact on the net who would love to come to my town and take him on over the so-called inspiration of the Bible. He all of a sudden became meeker than a sheep and has left me alone. Even though I still go to my church for my dad's sake as soon as I find a real full time job and can move I am through with church. I am so pissed that I donated money and time to such a fraud.

[ April 25, 2002: Message edited by: BH ]</p>

vaelarin

Bother being a member of a social club? For the non-CoC'er, that's the alternative to frats and their "worldly influences". I was in SubT myself - one of the daring "rebel" groups... at least among right wing fundamentalist college students.

It's amazing the things that fundamentalists fight over. We had the same issues in the last church I went to. They split about two years ago I've since heard.

congratulations and I mean that sincerely. It was hard as hell for me when I left. I had to do the same thing, and it was damn painful. I have friends who are still a part of the CoC, only because they're too afraid to throw away everything they've been taught and start over. This is also the reason I believe the CoC to be a cult now. If you dare to leave, you have to deprogram yourself and it really feels like you do 'rebuild your life from scratch'.

Me too. I think alot of it has to do with my absolute disgust that I used to be one of them, that I even helped others become one of them. My conviction that Xianity is nonsense is purely logical. My hostility towards fundamentalists is very personal.

Oh, and I haven't forgotten about posting the picture. I just keep forgetting to bring the damn yearbook to work so I can scan it. I'm writing myself a note right now, but it'll be late Friday night EDT at the earliest.

[ April 26, 2002: Message edited by: vaelarin ]</p>

vaelarin

Ok as promised...

<a href="http://www.vaelarin.com/harding/harding.jpg" target="_blank">1992 Harding Univ Yearbook</a>

For those who didn't read this from the start, this is the first page of the 1992 yearbook from Harding - one of the CoC colleges. Other than changing the size of the pic, it is exactly as it appears in the yearbook.

I find it even more ironic that the theme of the yearbook that year was "We didn't start the fire..."

I suppose they just wore the hoods.