Letters to the Editor
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Atheism
I was dragged to a fundamentalist church for about a year when I was a teenager. I was socially unskilled and thought the girl doing the dragging was my friend. I didn't understand she was just racking up "heathen-points". Some things I was told by the pastor during his sermons at this particular church:
1. Insane people are possessed by demons. Nice to know! I'll pass that one on to my schizophrenic cousin.
2. Women belong in the kitchen, popping out babies. Therefore, my family was especially hell-bound, since my mother was working the day job while my father built us a house.
3. Gay people are all going to hell. Because they are EVIL.
4. Anyone who is not Christian is EVIL.
5. My personal favorite - UFOs are actually demons who come to kidnap Christians so when the Apocalypse happens, there won't be any Christians left to save the heathens.
I'm not saying all Christians believe these sorts of things. Most of the Christians I know are friendly, tolerant, and respectful of other people's beliefs.
But they AREN'T fundamentalists.
Cary, before you blithely tell someone to expose their child to MORE of this stuff, maybe you should actually sit in on a few sermons.