My Early Religious Indoctrination

Before I say anything about my own religious history, I want to state very clearly that at this point in my life, I am vehemently against Christianity. I believe it is a sick, twisted, damaging religion and I think that to expose any child, any human being, to its teachings is to inflict psychological and emotional harm.

I know these are strong words. I know there are those who have a fondness for some form of Christianity or who believe it has some redeeming qualities that outweigh its drawbacks.

I do not believe this is so. Its core teachings about salvation and damnation, original sin, hell, redemption by human sacrifice, and human unworthiness are ubiquitous across almost all denominations and it is these concepts I most passionately denounce.

Sure, theoretically it teaches people to love their neighbours, to turn the other cheek, to observe moral discipline, and all that wonderful stuff.

But I believe every single one of those things can be taught to children and adults in the TOTAL ABSENCE of threats of eternal damnation or disapproval from a judgmental God.

Although I will use the word "sin" repeatedly in my descriptions of my experiences, I want to make it clear that I now do not believe in the concept of "sin". However, it was such an integral part of my thinking for so long that I cannot describe my history without using the word. Just be clear that I am describing my thoughts THEN, not my views NOW.

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My first memories of spiritual awareness come from before the age of 5. I remember going to church, and making fun crafty things in Sunday School. I remember saying my prayers at night, and I remember my mother singing Christian songs to my brother and me when she would tuck us into bed at night.

I do not remember, but am told, that as a toddler, when my parents revealed to me that Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy were not real, I was "confused" for a while because I had reasoned that God must also be "just pretend". Apparently my parents had some convincing to do before I could separate the two categories.

Anyway, I don't remember any of that.

What I do remember, however, is my first exposure to (or the first time I understood) the concept that "saved" people go to heaven, and "unsaved" people go to hell. I was about 5 years old at the time.

I was also taught that the way one became "saved" was to say a special prayer to God, inviting Jesus to come live in your heart.

Of course, immediately after I understood these things, I wanted to say that special prayer, so that I would be safe from hell!

But my parents told me they didn't think I was ready yet; that I didn't understand what salvation really was and I wasn't old enough to make the decision to ask Jesus into my heart. I remember I cried and cried, begging them to let me say the prayer, but they would not. They kept saying that I didn't really understand salvation, but that I just wanted to be saved out of fear of going to hell.

Well, DUH!!!!!

But I came to understand from them that fear of hell in and of itself was not sufficient reason or qualification to become "saved".

Needless to say, I was terrified. Whenever I would pray "If I die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take", I would experience real terror of dying in my sleep and going to hell.

I remember the very moment at which I decided to DISOBEY MY PARENTS. I was in the church, staring out the window, sick with the fear that had plagued me ever since I heard the "truth". And so, filled with mixed feelings of doing wrong and saving my own skin, I asked Jesus into my heart, even though my parents had told me I couldn't. I decided this would be a deep, dark secret, just between me and God. I hoped that God would understand. I knew I had sinned in disobeying my parents, but was just too scared of hell and too tired of being scared.

When I was 8 years old, I was finally allowed to "go forward" in church, get saved, and be baptized. It was then "official", but I knew in my heart that I had been "saved" at the age of 5.

However, as I grew, I was also taught many different concepts in Sunday School. Some of them were directly contradictory to each other. These are the core concepts I learned as a child that began to cause me huge problems, beginning before I reached the age of 10 and continuing well into my adult life.

• If you don't repent from your sins, it means you're not really saved. If you had been saved in the first place, if you really loved God, you would obey his commandments. There is a bible verse to back this up.
• If you don't repent from your sins, God will "turn his face away" and will not listen to your prayers. There is a bible verse to back this up too.
• To repent is not simply to ask for forgiveness for a sin, and then turn right around and do it again. To repent means to renounce the sin in question, to turn your back on it and stop committing it. It is not enough to merely apologize to God for something you've done wrong; you must stop doing it or the whole thing is invalid and you are unsaved, God will not listen to your prayers, and you are going to hell.
• To commit a sin in your mind is the same as committing it in real life. This is backed up by the verse when Jesus said, "If a man looks upon a woman with lust, he has already committed adultery with her in his heart". This means that if you have any sexual fantasy whatsoever, or even any lustful feelings towards anyone, you are fornicating, which is a major sin.
• It is essential to save your friends from going to hell. To do this, you must "witness" to them. There is a series of bible verses you should share with them to explain to them that they are sinners and are going to hell unless they accept Jesus into their hearts. If you don't "witness" to your friends, then that means you are ashamed of Jesus. And if you are ashamed of Jesus, on the day of judgment he will say he never knew you, and you will go to hell. Failure to witness is a grievous sin. There are numerous bible verses to back all this up.
• God loves you no matter what.
• God is love.
• Jesus suffered terribly because of YOUR sin. You don't DESERVE to be saved at all, in fact everyone DESERVES to go to hell. It is only through the mercy and grace of God that he is offering us the very generous gift of a chance to get out of hell by becoming saved.
• Every time you sin, you are putting Jesus on the cross.
• Once saved, always saved. If you're really saved, you can't lose your salvation, ever.
• But you had better be really, really careful of actions x,y,z,a,b,c,d,e,f,g, and a host of others. Because to engage in those actions is to put yourself on a slippery slope and to step off of the narrow road to heaven and onto the wide road that leads to hell.
• "Every branch of the tree that does not produce fruit will be cut off and thrown into the fire." (This is in the bible -- Jesus is reported to have said this in the gospels).
• A person who is truly saved is in no danger of demons and the like; the devil can't get into their hearts because Jesus is there already.
• However, a person who is not truly saved is susceptible to attack and possession by terrifying demons.
• You must read and study your bible every day.
• You must pray and have a "quiet time" with God every day. To fail to do so means you don't really love God.

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By the age of 10, I had been thoroughly convinced of all of the concepts above. I've written enough for the moment; in future entries I'll describe what these teachings did to me, and more.