frostymama

The end times stuff scared me pretty badly, but the exorcisms (forced) were the worst for me. The last time I was physically held down by my father the whole time.

Talulah

Like some of the others, I don't think I have a specific instance that was the most traumatic. I was molested by a Baptist preacher, but all that did was make me hate Baptists on a whole. However, I do remember sitting in class when he brought videos of himself singing in church and feeling rage at his hypocrisy.

I had an experiance at good ole Ark-La-Tex Christian encampment, where they tried to turn you inside out with emotionalism so you will re-dedicate or something. That was a little traumatic, because I was from a more conservative pattern that was anti-emotion. I think that week was when I first felt Christianity was stupid and manipulative, and also the first time I had self destructive impulses, because I felt different, the emotional ploy didn't work on me.

Of course, when my parents found out about my lesbian tendancies, their reaction was scary and I was an adult, just unable to get away. I would say that their efforts to force the Christianity into me when I was 19 to about 21 was the most traumatic part of my Christian experiance.

hezekiah jones

Originally posted by Old Man
I guess for Atheists, "legality" is the only standard of morality there is.

Uh huh. The only thing that keeps me from molesting children is that it's "illegal," otherwise I'd be doing it constantly. Give your fucking head a shake, man.

HelenM

The reason for asking whether it's legal is because if it isn't, then one could report it and have it stopped.

You missed the point, I think.

Also, I hope you'll read here long enough to know what you said is not true.

Then...you could read here until you do know...is it so hard to understand that atheists care about justice, fairness, faithfulness, not hurting other people simply for personal gain...?

Whatever the point was, it sounds to me like they used inappropriately scary methods to make the point.

take care
Helen

Amos

I am learning and amazed that thses things actually happened all over and so often. I take it this was normal in so called "Christian" development?

spurly

Just a side-note. Where we take our students to camp we do not encourage emotional responses at all. We want them to seriously consider the claims of the Scripture and make a choice based on whether or not these claims are true and they want to accept Christ as part of their life - not on emotions but on faith.

Kevin

christ-on-a-stick

spurly sez: Heh? Not on emotions but on faith - what about rational thought and critical reasoning? If the claims of scripture can stand up to these things faith would be unnecessary.

By the way - do you also present them with the claims of other religions' scriptures (the Koran, Vedas, Mormon scriptures...) so that they can examine those too and make a fully informed choice? Methinks not...

I'd like to hear your thoughts on a thread I started about the ethics of evangelizing which unfortunately got....um, slightly derailed with mystical mumbojumbo... but I would be interested in your opinion. The Ethics of Evangelistic Events

Psycho Economist

While what happened cerainly seems abusive in retrospect, part of the problem is that's A) never reported, because it feels like a necessary lesson and B) especially for well-funded denominations (certainly the SBC, and possibly AoG, too), I'm sure they have a small platoon of lawyers script this out to stay barely on the safe side of liability should they be sued by an offended apostate.

This thread is making me glad to be a Sunday-School drop-out. We had a couple sermons on the topic of persecution, but never any... uh... participatory workshops, that I was party to, anyway. As scared as I ever was stayed right in my own head: the fear of being smited "for my own protection" when I first contemplated deism and agnosticism.