High Schoolers/Church Fights to ban gays from prom

Glad you think he's a bigot and aren't being hypocritical at least in this one instance.

How would your childhood have been different without religion? How exactly did it up your life?

You don't think God is real so why don't you have as much hate for Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and those holidays because the lie that they exist could have ruined your childhood because you don't know if you can trust your parents because they lied to you for years about it.

Well for one thing, being raised as a Christian my mother discouraged me from believing in Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny. I was told they didn't really exist at a pretty early age (I want to say around 5 or 6) and I recall not really being all that surprised when my mother told me they weren't real. As a kid I remember being like, whatever, as long as I still get presents on Christmas and candy on Easter, I really couldn't have cared any less.

And you really can't compare Santa Clause or the Easter Bunny to god. Has anyone ever told you that you're gonna burn in hell if you don't accept Santa Clause as your personal "lord" and "savior". Or that you probably wouldn't lead a full life because the Easter Bunny is going to be returning any day now "rapturing" up all the "believers". Let's be honest here, more people take god seriously than Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny.

How would my childhood have been different without religion? Well I can't say for sure but not having the burden of constantly worrying if I was doing the right thing to avoid going to hell would certainly wouldn't have crossed my mind. That would have been nice. I probably wouldn't have had all those nightmares about going to hell either. Yeah, that's right, the nightmares. I had a lot of sleepless nights because of the nightmares religion wrought on my life. I'll get more into the nightmares in a little bit. The most obvious difference though would be the fact that I wouldn't have to go to church. Church. me I hated going to church, wasting so much time listening to nonsense when I could have been doing more fun and productive things. Hell, even sitting at home watching TV would have been better than sitting through that misery. Now the biggest aspect of religion or Christianity in general that affected my childhood was the "Rapture", the "Second Coming", the end of days. the "anti-Christ", Armageddon, the tribulation. me, that end of the world bullsh*t was drilled in to my ing skull like nobody's business. That's where the nightmares come in again. Full force. As if I didn't have enough to worry about with trying to avoid spending an eternity in the fiery pits of hell, now I had to make sure I wasn't one of those "left behind". I was forced to watch this mini series called "A Thief in the Night", it basically depicted the seven year tribulation and the misery and suffering that occurred on earth during that time. What fun! Yeah... No. So now in addition to the nightmares of hell and getting possessed by demons (yes another irrational fear brought on courtesy of the Christian faith) I now had these lovely nightmares of being "left behind" and suffering the horrors of the tribulation. me it was horrible. I think it was the nightmares that really traumatized me. They were frequent and consisted of either me going to hell, getting left behind and/or getting possessed by demons. Like I said, it's hard to say exactly how different my childhood would have been without religion, but I can't help but feel that it would have been a lot more enjoyable and nightmare free. Of course it wasn't always unpleasant. There were times when I was able to convince myself that I was truly "saved" and that I wasn't going to get left behind or go to hell, that brought me some kind of solace but it was short lived. Yay! I'm going to heaven when I die and if Jesus comes back first I'll be raptured. Oh joy! But wait! What of my loved ones, my friends and family that aren't "saved", what becomes of them? Oh. You mean I won't get to see them in heaven? If Jesus comes back, you'll be safe but your grandmother and your aunt who you love and care for very much will get left behind, they won't be raptured like you, they'll have to suffer the tribulation. And if they were to die first, well guess what? Oh, but it's okay because once your in heaven, you'll be so focused on Jesus' presence you will no longer be concerned for them, apparently. Yeah, Jesus, I want to spend an eternity with my friends and loved ones, not some guy I never even met. Yeah, I wasn't going around calling myself a Christian because I truly loved Jesus. Sure I convinced myself that I accepted him and "loved" but in reality it was my fear of hell and the tribulation that kept me in line. I'm pretty sure that's their purpose in the first place, but that's neither here nor there. Religion never comforted me as a child, all it brought was fear and constant worrying and the nightmares, the god damn ing nightmares.

That's just my childhood. In my teenage years I learned about the so called "unforgivable sin". I still don't really get what the unforgivable sin is, all I know is that I had these constant intrusive thoughts that had me concerned that I had committed the unforgivable sin and that was a one way ticket to hell. Again the fear of hell and committing the unforgivable sin began to intrude my mind which meant plenty more sleepless nights and nightmares and of course the night terrors that I always thought were demons trying to possess me. Well later on I was diagnosed with chronic depression and anxiety (Gee, I wonder what brought that on). And was given medication, (probably Prozac or something, I can't remember what it was, I've been on so many) and it really helped with the intrusive thoughts and calmed me down and I was starting to think more rationally. Rationally as in, I'm not going to hell, I'm not getting left behind and I'm not committing the unforgivable sin. Not rationally, as in, " this sh*t, I'm converting to atheism". That was obviously more recent.

So how did it up my life? Well I think the chronic depression and anxiety pretty much speak for themselves. The only nightmares I have had as an adult were night terrors that I had mistaken for demonic possession. Since converting to atheism, I've had one night terror where at first I was scared of course but then my rational mind (my truly rational mind) kicked in and said, "no, don't be stupid, this isn't a demon it's just your sleepy brain playing tricks on you". That was the most comfort I had ever been able to give myself. I haven't had a single nightmare or night terror since.

So there you have it. After taking the time to explain all that, I hope you can understand better why I feel the way I do about religion and why I am so adamantly against it. Religion is supposed to bring you comfort, joy and hope. All it brought me was fear, dread and mental illness and as a proud atheist I am very happy to say that it no longer has a hold on me because now I can truly think freely. I don't know of anyone that's ever gotten such psychological trauma from Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny or two people of the same sex getting married. This is why I hate religion, it ruined my childhood and traumatized me for most of my life. Thankfully since converting to atheism, I am just now finally starting to heal.

I'm sorry you had to go through that.

I would go to church with my grandma and honestly I couldn't tell you what the pastor said, I thought it was so boring that I'd just zone out. I'd also spend some time in the summer every year with her and go to Vacation Bible School. I remember them doing puppet shows and having arts and crafts and sermons and we'd play soccer and some other stuff. I think it was probably to keep the kids in the area from doing bad things while on break from school.

My grandma is very very very religious and growing up I've noticed her becoming even more so as the years go on. That's not a bad thing though she does hold some troubling views and I blame that on her church perverting the religion and stretching stuff to make it fit their agenda instead of blaming it on the religion itself.

My parents, my dad mostly, would say stuff like "Don't be bad, you do want to see *family member* in Heaven don't you?" It's not like I was getting in trouble all the time or even once a month for him to regularly say that but I do remember him saying it a few times.

I mostly lost whatever faith I did have after my Grandma (different than the religious one) died when I was in high school. She was the person I was really close to and the only person I really didn't shy away from. I prayed and prayed for her to get better and be ok after the paramedics took her out of our house on a stretcher. She didn't make it.

I think religious people do good and non-religious people do good as well. Both may have different motives or reasons but if they are doing good whether it's to get in God's good graces, to be a decent person, to help the community or whatever shouldn't matter because their doing good should overshadow the reasoning behind it. We shouldn't demonize a person who we think is only doing good because God said so. If God is making them a better person and making them do good in society then I think that's great.

I think it's wrong for groups like the KKK to claim their religion as their motivation for their doings because I don't recall the bible ever saying things like only white people are good, cast out any non-whites. They are perverting the religion to fit their terrible agenda.

I just wish you would see that religious people do good things. Yes, some do bad things but you shouldn't focus your attention solely on them. Give credit to the ones who do good and society will punish the ones who do bad like the KKK and WBC.

Not to excuse forcing anything on children, it's not just the religious that force their viewpoints on children or make children the focal point of the parents' pet causes.

I see pro-choice people have their little kids hold up signs. I've seen pro-gay marriage people use kids in ads, to hold signs and even used some pictures of two little boys who couldn't have been much older than 6 or 7 kissing as poster children for the cause.

I think using children as your political play thing is disgusting no matter what cause does it.