"I don't know any young person that's in torture."

[alteregoivy]

From another post with several links, I saw this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzG7l5P9wO8

The thing that struck me is that the Fox employee has no clue of the reality of the psychological warfare that is visited upon children. I can testify to how terrible it is.

I became Southern baptist at a fairly young age, and by my teens, it became an obsession that ruled every facet of my life. I was told over and over again, "You must save all the non-believers now, or you will miss your chance and your loved ones will burn in Hell."

I was well aware that my parents and my brother were not Christian. I had a Jewish friend. I wanted them to be saved so badly, I cried myself to sleep on a regular basis because I was so terrified of what would happen to them when they died. I felt like their blood was on my hands because I was unable to convince them to believe in Jesus.

What was worse, I fell in love with a Unitarian girl. Not only was this girl I loved going to Hell, but I also believed that Satan was tempting me and that I was falling for it and that I had failed God.

Obviously I pulled through that stage in my life, and now I am a much happier, well-rounded Secular Humanist (and Atheist).

Still, telling a child over and over that just about every natural desire a person can have is wrong and dirty and that you have to ask for forgiveness for even thinking about it is, to put it succinctly, sick. That qualifies as emotional abuse in my book. So much of my youth was wasted feeling miserable because of it.  

[Nardone]

wow thats baptism for you.. there like Calvinist in the sense that they think there so much more superior.. fortunately Calvinism is a pretty much dead religion but during the middle ages it got pretty big..  

[Eccentric Detective]

D: I'm sorry you had to go through that, it sounds horrible. Lucky for me, I was a skeptic from day one. That is definitely emotional abuse. It's horrible what religion does to its followers!  

[alteregoivy]

tearingXheavenXdown

D: I'm sorry you had to go through that, it sounds horrible. Lucky for me, I was a skeptic from day one. That is definitely emotional abuse. It's horrible what religion does to its followers!

Thanks. It's not that I feel sorry for myself anymore or anything like that, and I realize that I was sort of a special case... but I know other kids are out there going through the same things I did, and I wish I could spare them that, you know?

I think this is also sort of a case for why the pervading culture of religion is a bad thing; I would not have gone through any of that if my little friends at school hadn't also felt the need to "save" me and take me to church and make sure that I was a good little Christian girl like they were. My parents aren't religious, so if it hadn't been for the proselytizing... Or even if there had been a Unitarian church available at the time, they would have taken me there, and that would have been wonderful.  

[fhbnfghnbfgbsnbg]

Interesting video.
He does not understand why he is denying them the "hope", for the belief of a higher power. I believe it has been established that "hope" is not always what is inspired, as well as him knowing no young people in torture.

"I think atheists can play basketball too."  

[Daffodil the Destroyer]

I've got to say... I do think that a lot of Christian groups DO emotionally abuse children - in high school I got involved with one of those Southern Baptist groups and they did a number on me.

But I also think that the Blasphemy Challenge is an absolutely unnecessary display of hubris that makes atheists look like real assholes. Yeah great... give the Christians another reason to think we're shitty people that shouldn't be trusted. That really works in our favour. rolleyes

 

[MissDemeter]

The thing I love about the video is this quote:

"Why are you getting so angry about this?" - John Kasich

He says this while he's getting red in the face, yelling and practically spitting in fury, while Brian Flemming is just carefully reasoning his arguments.

Aggghhhhhhh hypocrites!  

[In Search of a Dream]

MissDemeter

The thing I love about the video is this quote:

"Why are you getting so angry about this?" - John Kasich

He says this while he's getting red in the face, yelling and practically spitting in fury, while Brian Flemming is just carefully reasoning his arguments.

Aggghhhhhhh hypocrites!

Nah, my favorite is definitely the "I think Atheists can play basketball, too."

The video was funny in general, though.  

[G4NTZ]

Still haven't seen Flemmings movie, I hope it's good. I'll wager that alot of religious children just repress their feelings and move on. Thankfully as a child i was too stupid to fully take it to heart too much. That video makes my day blaugh  

[Meirelle]

I wanna click on that link so bad. However, I gotta be at work in 30 minutes. I promise I'll look at it when I get back, though.

 

[LimeIzMyFaveColor]

yeah i liked that b-ball quote
and uh that blasphemy challenge was a lil unneccessary
maybe we should start our own charity that doesn't have "Salvation" in it and show Christians that we want to do good too =]  

[alteregoivy]

LimeIzMyFaveColor

yeah i liked that b-ball quote
and uh that blasphemy challenge was a lil unneccessary
maybe we should start our own charity that doesn't have "Salvation" in it and show Christians that we want to do good too =]

That's a very good idea! Though, in truth, any "secular" charity would suit our needs, I suppose. Rather than being necessarily associated with Atheism, all it really needs is to be patently unassociated with any sort of religious affiliation. There are already several charities like that, I believe.

Still, maybe a charity where all of the members are Atheists so that we can say, "See? Charity doesn't need to be motivated by God!" would be good.  

[B1g_crunch]

Brian Flemming is a brilliant man blaugh  

[EATSMEATS]

LimeIzMyFaveColor

yeah i liked that b-ball quote
and uh that blasphemy challenge was a lil unneccessary
maybe we should start our own charity that doesn't have "Salvation" in it and show Christians that we want to do good too =]

Hows this for a charity? We get a bunch of smart people to donate money to young adults, lets say: almost done with high school. And then they can use it to go to college so they can become more intelligent and realize that religion is false ... oh wait...

I just described a sholarship xP