Richard says: How children view the indoctrination experience

I have often written about the narratives people who are struggling to recover from their religious experiences post on the web. Many of the narratives contain common themes. For example, children are often puzzled and confused and don’t know why the answers they get don’t make any sense. (A well known failing of religious dogma.) Those who manage to break free usually do so when they go away to college, and very often the college is a Christian institution. You can read all the apologetics you like, but if you want to get to the truth of the religious experience the apostates are the best source. For the simple reason that they have spotted the weaknesses and after they make the decision to leave they have nothing to lose. In fact I think many are happy to blow up religion for the benefit of others who are still locked in their self imposed cages.

The following snips are clipped from a web site that posts personal narratives (names omitted) of people recovering from religion. By this point they are adults or young adults.

1.
As I am sure, most, if not all, of you know, I am struggling with the fact that I will have to completely change my life and will be labeled as the outsider by all those people with whom I have built close friendships. There is still a lot of confusion, but every day I am realizing that rational, reasonable, concrete truth is what I long for. I no longer want to give myself over to imaginary, confusing, irrational ideas that only immerse the believer in a pit of fear and guilt.
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2.
I had to memorize and recite Bible verses until I was 13 years old. I went to all the camps, knew all the songs, and probably got “saved,” literally, 6 times. I think I might have even been baptized twice. I was a good little Christian soldier. I remember going around telling stories to my childhood friends about our imminent doom if we didn’t “ask Jesus to come in to our hearts.” I tried to save them. I look back now and wonder, “Save them from what? Happiness?”

I remember specifically sitting in Sunday School when I was around the age of 8 and the teacher was yammerin’ away at some story. Then he said something that whipped me around. He said, “That’s why putting any kind of Christian, or Jesus-like bumper sticker on your car is not a good idea. Because if we do or say something that we shouldn’t while we are driving, we don’t anyone to know that we are Christians.”
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3.
Our Sunday school teachers and youth pastors would always encourage us to bring our friends from school to church, but I never wanted to. First of all, I didn’t have any friends at school, because I was taking to heart the whole “You are in this world, but not of it” ideology. I also took on God’s view that anybody who was not a believer was “wicked.” So, anybody at school was to me a potential convert, but nobody for me to actually be friends with, other than to potentially witness to. But I didn’t want to bring these people to church, because church was my safe haven, free from the evil, evil world. I realize now, looking back, that I would even try to figure out if my teachers were Christians or not, and if I determined by what they said or did that they must not be, I don’t think I learned from them as well because I would subconsciously discredit what they — or anybody who wasn’t a Christian, for that matter — had to say. This indoctrination was very subtle and I didn’t even realize I had this mentality and how unhealthy and off-base it was at the time.
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4.
My faith never grew stronger or weaker throughout the years. I believed every word was true and never doubted any of it. Sometimes I’d worry more about the fate of my soul (what if I died right now and didn’t have a chance to ask forgiveness for my latest sin?); sometimes it would slip my mind that my soul was in constant danger. It wasn’t until I got to college that I questioned any of it at all.
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5.
Despite the fact that I have freed my own mind from the shackles of belief, the venom of Christianity still flows through my life. In the mind of my beloved wife, I am now the enemy – to be hated and feared. I am less than human because I cannot bring myself to accept that it is right to send most people in the world to a lake of eternal fire and torment.

If there is anything I’d like to say in closing, it would be that Christianity isn’t harmless. It really is that bad. It may be too late for me to live free of the damage it can cause. Perhaps by sharing this, I can impress upon those for whom it is not too late the importance of not allowing this hideous disease of the mind to gain any foothold in your life.
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6.
The first recollection I have of realizing something was wrong was when I first legitimately considered the question “where did God come from?” I was probably 13 years old and assumed somebody would have an answer to this fairly basic question. I posed it to my Mom and she had nothing to give me. I asked other people with a fair amount of shame, assuming that I was either not supposed to be asking these things, or at the least, I was stupid for not knowing the answer. It didn’t take long to realize that this was, in fact, a GOOD question to ask, and that began the unraveling of the tall tales I’d been fed. Unlike Santa Claus, for which I have no recollection of the time the news was broken to me, this one seemed a bit more important, even in my barely adolescent mind, since the stakes were quite a bit higher. I mean I would still get presents under the tree, so no big loss there, but on the other hand, there was the vague understanding that I was going to die and NOT come back to life.
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7.
I grew up going to a Methodist church every Sunday. We did Sunday school and the worship service. I learned all the stories, and knew all the songs. I didn’t hate it, but I don’t think I ever “got it” either. It just seemed like something you did. Of course there’s a god, we go and talk about him every Sunday.
In Junior High, one of our coaches told me about Evangelism Explosion and then took me through the story of sin and redemption. He lead me through the sinners prayer and told me I had made a great decision. I still didn’t really get what was going on though. That was 1991.
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8.
So, under the pressure of my mother, who was contantly switching churches like other’s change their socks, I got to see how every one of them was correct, just, righteous, and surely the apple of God’s eye. All “those others” were wrong, they didn’t have Christianity right. My education was steering me to ask, ask, ask…then to follow it up with introspection. Finally, a crucial moment came when I was about 13 or 14. I decided I could only trust my own judgement on God and faith, and not anyone else’s. I rejected the idea of God. My belief system came crashing down on me.
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My first recollection of religion was being in Baptist Bible Camp at about age 5. It was much like any bible camp, run by people who think they know what God/Jesus are, but usually incapable of providing a lot of explanation. I remember being told all these wonderful things about God/Jesus and I don’t remember seeing him anywhere — certainly not on television — and I asked where he was? The young woman pointed up in the air. I looked up and she was pointing at the ceiling. I thought she wasn’t making any sense. I asked if he was upstairs (in the sanctuary), and she said no, up there in heaven. I still didn’t get it and thought that she meant God was in the ceiling. For a 5 year old, the thought of God being in the ceiling was scary and confusing. It lead to some other forms of mental paralysis as time marched on. Later, when I approached the subject again and asked where God was, the finger pointed up in the air again but this time we were outside and it was almost dark. The person was pointing up at the stars and said that God was in heaven. I asked which star was heaven and I got some obtuse, confusing explanation. I really thought these people were nuts. I decided to stop asking where God was because it was obvious that no one knew. I was born a skeptic and the reality is that my position never changed throughout my life no matter how hard I tried, and boy did I try.
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WHY CHRISTIAN KIDS LEAVE THE FAITH By Tom Bisset, link is to Amazon.com

The title is a little misleading. The case studies Tom Bisset offers are actually about young adults. Children as a rule are commonly not offered the option of dropping out. It does occur in the more liberal denominations, but would be rare for evangelicals. Bisset is a Baptist.

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Posted on Monday, August 24th, 2009 at 12:15 pm in Apostacy.
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