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Permalink Reply by Thomas W. Bergere on May 7, 2013 at 10:03pm

My parents never ever told me no supernatural, superstitious, paranormal, magical bs in my entire life; not even Santa, Easter bunny, tooth fairy, boogyman, bigfoot, etc etc. I was lucky; hell has been absurd for as long as I can remember. And I`m glad of it.

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Permalink Reply by _Robert_ on May 7, 2013 at 11:09pm

Yeah...god was like this sadistic father that I could never live up to who was supposed to love me, but would fry any of his children in hell for breaking some really stupid rules. I got pneumonia as a child and while pretty close to death I was hallucinating and talking about how much burns hurt and I would feel that forever. Scared my poor mother badly. How wonderful is religion?

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Permalink Reply by Real Life James Bond on May 7, 2013 at 10:52pm

I know for a lot of people it can cause a sort of PTSD if people are abused with the religious God fear. I was raised to put God and the Bible into the same category as the Easter bunny, Santa, and Humpty Dumpty. It was all just cute stories that one eventually grows out of, and that's exactly what I did. I think that's how kids should be raised, but that's just my opinion.

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Permalink Reply by Logicallunatic on May 7, 2013 at 11:09pm

When I realised god was an incompetent dick, I knew I could never fear such a being. I became an atheist shortly afterwards. 

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Permalink Reply by Adam on May 7, 2013 at 11:18pm

Yep when I was a believer, we were to told to obey, fear and love god. Also that hose who don't fear god, are the ones who will stray away and commit sins. Committing a sin in Islam is a huge thing. 

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Permalink Reply by Ray R. on May 7, 2013 at 11:25pm

No.

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Permalink Reply by Heather Spoonheim on May 8, 2013 at 1:17am

When I believed there was a god, I thought of him as another grandpa - up there rooting for me and laughing at my mistakes.  I think I got scared once - the first time I sad, "FUCK!"  I really only got scared when I began to doubt, when I began to do my own research about whence the bible came to be.  The more I dug, the more I felt like I was doing something really awful that would have horrible consequences.

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Permalink Reply by Stutz on May 9, 2013 at 12:59am

I got scared once I discovered my genitalia's other function.

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Permalink Reply by Misty: Baytheist Living! on May 8, 2013 at 1:25am

Hell and demons were some of the biggest sources of terror for me as a child. 

I always knew that if there really was a god, he'd know that I doubted, so that's where I was going. 

Also, when you read any religious texts and you're told from a young age that possession is real and possible.....especially if you doubt?

Stress? That's so far beyond stress. 

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Permalink Reply by _Robert_ on May 8, 2013 at 2:12am

Ah yes, Satan. Does God's dirty work. Sorta like a hired thug so the big boss seems legit. In fact, first I concluded there was no Satan. Well then-> God had to go as well. So yeah, one might say Satan lead me to atheism. How ironic, don't ya think?

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Permalink Reply by Dave G on May 8, 2013 at 3:01am

Yes. The threat of punishment and the fear of God was certainly a part of my religious upbringing and I didn't fully shake it until after college. The conscious-level fear was mostly gone by the end of high school, but still lingered in occasional flashes of terror that would spring up randomly.

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Permalink Reply by Johnny 4 Rock on May 8, 2013 at 8:48am

My Aunt, who is 83 and a very, very devout and conservative Christian, once confided in me how her older sister had told her about Hell when she was only 6 years old. She was given a description of a place filled with burning flames, forced drinking of boiling water, and torture...forever. This is where god would send her if she was "bad".

From that point on, her sister could control her totally, because "bad" was not doing what her sister demanded. When she advanced into organized religion they had a ready-made, submissive subject, who would accept anything the church people said as truth, do whatever they commanded. She believed what they told her to believe, because of her fear of hell. She attended a Southern Private Christian University, where she was taught racism, sexism, (the inferiority of blacks and subservience of women) homophobia in the extreme, and many other bigoted ideas were "good" because of certain Bible verses.

She is convinced that everyone who was not "saved" by her particular religious rituals was going to this tortuous Hell, even those good moral people who were ignorant of Christianity. "That's just the way it is" she told me. "There is only one way to avoid Hell.", and she meant her own brainwashed, indoctrinated, concepts. All the innocent people in all the world? Going to Hell for no reason?

This experience with her solidified my total rejection of all organized religion.

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