Religion
In reply to the discussion: We Neglect Religious Education At Our Peril [View all]Nay
(12,051 posts)We ARE very rare, AC. In my big group of atheists, there's only one other.
I was preschool age when I found out that people actually believed there was a god up in the sky, watching everything we did, counting up sins, etc. Beforehand, I thought that the religious ideas I had heard from my little friends about Jesus, etc., were in the same league as the fairy tales read to me -- IOW, they weren't taken as true, but were stories that everyone enjoyed as stories.
What exactly happened? A little friend of mine and I were playing in a field on a nice summer day. I said, "You pretend you're Jesus, and I'll be _______." My friend looked troubled and said she couldn't do that, because it would be a sin and she wouldn't go to heaven if she did that.
At that moment, it was as if I'd been hit in the head with a hammer. THESE PEOPLE ACTUALLY BELIEVE THIS SHIT!!!!
I was still required to go to church for a while, and also attended a Catholic school for first grade. But I never believed any of it and still don't.