Fun Easter Story

[angrychair]

Many years ago, not to long after I started to question the existence of a god or any divine being of any kind, I had a friend tell me a story related to a series of plays being put on at her church related to the approaching Easter Sunday. It was her way of trying to strengthen my shaking belief in a god.
It was the last of these plays, to be performed on the Saturday before Easter, that got my attention the most and one of many factors that helped secure my state of non-belief in a divine anything.
It was the story of two children, 14 year old brother and sister twins, that went back and forth on doing their baptism. They had gone through all the Sunday school program, talked to different relatives and then picked a Sunday to walk up front to accept Jesus and go through the baptism. The Sunday comes, and they sit in the audience, wait for the time to come and start to get up but then stop. An uncle that is very dear to them is not there that morning, home sick. They decide they won't do it that morning and wait till next Sunday in the hope that their uncle can be present. So the service ends and they leave the church and get in the car with their family. On the way home there is a serious car accident and the twins both die. Because they were not saved, they go straight to hell and burn and suffer for eternity. End of story.
First, don't get me started on how that does not jive with what the scripture actually says on the subject. The fact of the matter is that my friend delivered this story with a smile on her face. She stated it was "a 'good news' message that you must accept Jesus and be saved in order to go to heaven and that you should never pass up the chance" What a load of shit. I was horrified that anyone could tell that story and not begin to understand the implications of it.
First and foremost, that you worship a deity that would damn children to an ETERNITY of pain and suffering. The depths of the evil in that cannot be understated. To spin it as story about how important it is to get saved and accept Jesus is sick and twisted logic.

In short, it was this story and many others that sealed the deal for me.

[mountain grammy]

1. Yeah, sounds like my husband's family.

My nephew was a hard drinking asshole. His parents are evangelical fundamentalist Christians, born again and again and again, as are all six (now five) kids. So, back to my nephew.
He was a drunk, getting into fights, hitting his wife, the whole bit. After several DUI's, his parents were stressed and my sister in law and I were discussing this once during a visit. I said I worried he would kill himself or some innocent person if he didn't quit drinking and driving. My sister in law said (quote) "I know, what if he kills some poor person who hasn't been saved and they have to spend eternity in hell" and I said, something like, it wouldn't do much for my nephew's salvation, and she said, "no, he's saved."

A few years ago at my mother in laws funeral, I saw my nephew, who has quit drinking, taken up pot, and is now an upstanding person (well kind of) but at least not a drunk asshole anymore. I also saw my other nephew who took his own life two months later at age 21. He was tormented, but we talked and he told me how much he loved Colorado. I begged him to some stay with us for a while and he promised to think about it. I believe he was gay. At his funeral, the preacher went to great lengths to assure us he was with Jesus even though he had committed the ultimate sin of suicide. All was forgiven, but, had he lived his true life he would have never been forgiven.

WTF kind of religion is that?

[AlbertCat]

2. To spin it

The INJUSTICE and random cruelty of the story seems to completely elude "the saved" (hell... they're saved.... you're on your own, Babe!)

[Binkie The Clown]

3. I was like eight or nine, sitting in church one Sunday morning...

and the priest was going on about how we are all born in sin, and that we need baptism to wash away our natural evil. It hit me like a ton of bricks. I knew for a fact that I was not inherently evil. I knew myself to be a good person. That's when I realized that if this priest was wrong about that, he might be wrong about other things too. I started asking questions in catechism class (I went to a Catholic school), and became very unpopular with the nuns and priests. And one day I came home from school and told my parents I wasn't going to go to the Catholic school any more. I was so insistent that they finally gave in and enrolled me in public school the following week. (Besides that I was getting sick and tired of those nuns bashing my knuckles with a ruler and locking me in the coat closet for hours at a time for the "blasphemy" of asking tough questions.)

For quite a few years it scared me to be "in a state of sin" by not going to church on Sunday, but I got over it. I have since met other recovering Catholics who went through similar fear and guilt trying to break free of the Catholic brain washing. The evil that is organized religion definitely leaves a mark on your "soul", but it heals with time. I think it took me 15 or 20 years to really be free of church indoctrination.

[Curmudgeoness]

4. What a horrid story!!!

The kids have the right idea---they want the whole family to share in their "joy". This is the kind of thing that amazes me about believers who subscribe to this sort of thinking. How can they be so freaking cold-hearted! Personally, I would be horrified about why God, who is supposed to know damned well what was in the hearts of those kids, would ALLOW them to be killed at that time.

You are right, this is sick and twisted. This is why I have absolutely no respect for people who believe this shit.

I think all of us who were raised in a church have some incident that seals our fate as atheists. This one is definitely a good reason to walk away from religion.

[beam me up scottie]

5. Good for you.

onager got me thinking about Robert G. Ingersoll and your story reminded me of this quote:

If there is a God who will damn his children forever, I would rather go to hell than to go to heaven and keep the society of such an infamous tyrant. I make my choice now. I despise that doctrine. It has covered the cheeks of this world with tears. It has polluted the hearts of children, and poisoned the imaginations of men.... What right have you, sir, Mr. clergyman, you, minister of the gospel to stand at the portals of the tomb, at the vestibule of eternity, and fill the future with horror and with fear? I do not believe this doctrine, neither do you. If you did, you could not sleep one moment. Any man who believes it, and has within his breast a decent, throbbing heart, will go insane. A man who believes that doctrine and does not go insane has the heart of a snake and the conscience of a hyena.

-- Robert Green Ingersoll, "The Liberty Of All" (1877)

[progressoid]

6. I remember the idea of kids dying before being baptized or accepting Jesus as your savior,

being talked about in Sunday School. In our church, they said the kids wouldn't go to hell because it wasn't their fault.
So that was nice, but I remember thinking the explanation the teacher gave was really convoluted. It was another in a series of incidents that made me think they were making all this stuff up.