[Skulhedface]

Well, since there's new activity in this thread, why not?

My family wasn't quite religiously lax, but we went to church if, say, all of us woke up on time. I can remember having to go to church, but not every Sunday. My parents did believe in Jesus and the like, and did force us to go to church if they themselves were awake in time to go.

The seeds of my discontent were planted. Church never made me feel like I wanted to be saved, in fact church inspired my first nightmares. Most people were sitting there, some IN TEARS, praising the glory of God, while I and I imagine some other children sat petrified because, as it turns out, being into looking at boobies was going to send us to a boiling pit of fire, suffering, and bad reruns, and that there was no escape. What boob-liking you did in (an average of) 70 years was good enough to put your ass into a spiritual frying pit for forever!

It wasn't love of God that made me want to live sin-free, it was fear of boiling in some imaginary netherworld that did it to me. For years I would pray at night but not because I loved God's glory, but because I simply didn't want to fry for eternity.

The thing that cemented this for me was a Sunday school lecture I'd gotten one morning, where the teacher had told us in no uncertain terms that no matter how good a person you were, without faith you're going straight to hell. He gave us a mini-sermon about a hypothetical man, who gave all his money to the homeless. Read for the community children. Did good deeds all his life, and actually reached death without committing a single sin.

And his reward? He went straight to hell. Because he didn't pray and get 'saved'.

As a kid this was a pretty frightening aspect, as I prayed not for salvation but as a way to ensure I wasn't going to hell. According to the church, this isn't the right reason! I'm praying for nothing! I'm going to hell anyway!

The final straw came about when I was 13. I started thinking things through logically and was punished for asking the pastor "If God made everything, who made God? Where did he come from?"

A simple, sort-of-innocent question, and I was punished for it. Not even a made-up, "pacify the child's curiosity" kind of answer.

Maybe we're all wrong, and there is a God, but the way to him isn't through organized religion. They don't have all the answers themselves.