The title of this post is the title of a thread on RationalSkepticsm(RatSkep). A wonderful forum where I spend too much time in the off-topic and not enough in my chosen science of Chemistry. RatSkep was founded within a day of RichardDawkinsForum(RDF) being closed without warning. As such the primary people there are atheists, obviously myself included.
The rest of this post is a cut and paste from my post in that topic.
I was brought up Cumberland Presbyterian. As far as I know the schism came when our branch decided that all children go to heaven.
My parents weren't overly religious, but I think they felt bad about that because they did their utmost to indoctrinate me and encourage self-indoctrination as a child. As a child I loved going to church camp and Vacation Bible School and Sunday school. About the only thing I wasn't interested in was the sermon. I didn't see how it applied to me, so my parents let me take books and read then. That was probably the two "mistakes" they made. They encouraged my reading and they encouraged my fascination with science.
I met my first atheist my sophomore year of high school. I had a bit of a crush on him, and so I did what was natural for my church going friends: I asked him to go to Youth group with me. His 'no thanks' is when I found out there was such a thing as people who don't believe in god. I honestly had no idea such a thing was even possible. He and I would talk constantly about whether or not god existed. We had some pretty good debates.
There's a pretty good chance that I would have come around then, but I chose to go to two church camps back-to-back that year. The second one was comparatively harmless, lots of singing, lots of free time, lots of good friends.
If the following is a bit rough around the edges, or hard to follow, I apologize. This is one of the few times I’ve told this experience and this is the most detailed I’ve ever gotten.
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The first one I went to...that's the one that messed me up for the next 3.5 years. Most of you have probably heard some of the horror stories of 'Jesus Camps.' I went to one. It probably isn't the most fucked-up one, but I suspect it ranks up there.
The place was like a tutorial of "How to Brainwash Teens in One Week."
From Wikipedia
Wiki wrote:Chosen techniques included dehumanizing of individuals by keeping them in filth, sleep deprivation, partial sensory deprivation, psychological harassment, inculcation of guilt and group social pressure.
The so called “Camp Eagle” did 5 out of 6 of those. We got there on a Sunday, left on a Friday. For those of you not familiar with camps, you wake up when they tell you, take restroom breaks when they give you permission and eat when they give you food.
Wednesday we were brought to the common area. Men in ski masks were waving around those paintball guns that look like real machine guns at first glance. We were split into three groups: my churches females, the rest of the females at the camp and the males. My group was herded along a goat trail to a hut. We were told that we’d been sold as slaves to the couple that lived there. The men with guns left. We were told that the couple was going to try to protect us and that we’d been sold because we were Christians.
Wednesday night came and we made ourselves dinner of potato, beans and rice. I remember teaching some of the other girls how to peel the potatoes without cutting themselves. As true night fell, we were given rough blankets and straw to sleep on. We slept in a goat pen. The bathroom was a hole in the ground up another trail. Some of us stayed up by the fire and talked.
At some point we were given a kerosene hand lantern. I came into possession of it. The handle was a bit loose and when I raised it to see something, it swung back and burned the shit out of my arm. I know I set it down, taking care to place it away from the straw, and I remember grabbing another girl’s water bottle and squirting water on the burn. This self-care was the only medical attention I got for the burn.
Sometime after that, in the very early hours of the morning, we were woken up and again herded by people with guns. This time we ended in the tennis courts. We were told to accept god. We were told it was a demonstration of what our brethren in third-world countries had to go through every day. We were told God was great and that he would take care of them and us and provide for all of us. There was a short worship service. We were allowed to go back to our dorm beds. We were allowed 1 extra hour of sleep from a ‘normal’ day as a reward for being up until about 5 am. The hour later breakfast was at 9 am instead of 8 am.
This should have set off alarms in my head, but I was 15 at the time. And the funny thing about brainwashing is that it works.
I was a sophomore in University working on a degree in Chemistry before I began to realize that shit didn’t add up. I’m not real sure what happened exactly that began to break the hold, but I bought and read The God Delusion from cover to cover in one night. I realized that I probably hadn’t actually believed for some time, but didn’t know how to admit it to myself. After that I bought and read The End of Faith, God is Not Great and Letter to a Christian Nation. I realized that there were other people like me, like my friend from High School, atheists.
I was able to shake the guilt that Christians insist is part of a good person. I was able to shake the depression that eternal guilt and fear bring.
I am a much happier person now. I am engaged to a wonderful man. I finished my degree. I have a job.
Life is good.
