So, with family anyways, despite all outside appearances Christians don’t ‘hate’ a child who turns away. They still love the kid, but their religion teaches them that if they truly love them, they must do anything to make them come back to their religion - even abuse them hoping the kid breaks down and ‘repents.’ That’s how twisted their doctrine is. It makes them commit atrocities in the name of love. And they’re blind to it, because even when others point out how evil their abuse is, the doctrine teaches them that others will call “‘good’ (abuse) evil and ‘evil’ (acceptance) good.” They truly believe they’re helping. They believe that if their child is ‘going to hell,’ any amount of trauma and abuse with even a chance of preventing that is justified. It’s not the people, it’s the ideology. The very fundamentals of Christianity justify literally anything to convert a soul. It is fundamentally evil, all the way back to the moment Jesus died. Anything that claims to be better is no longer Christianity.
My source: The story of my life. A story of abuse and pain, of seeing my loving mother become a monster when I left the church. Forcing me to leave my unbelieving friends. Controling every part of my mind and beliefs to ‘save’ me. And seeing the atrocities that I committed under that same doctrine, and how I was blinded by it.
This needs to end. Christianity must end. The problem isn’t the people - it’s the doctrine. And until the moment that Christan doctrine is destroyed forever, it will never cease to turn more innocent, loving people - even my own mother - into monsters blinded by their evil.
Thank you for sharing your story. And I agree, a few are at fault for accepting that doctrine of abuse over their better judgement. But many did not ‘let it’ get beat into them as you seemed to imply (forgive me if I misunderstand). There is no “cowardice” at fault there. If not for one of those friends like you mentioned (a very similar situation to yours - atheist friend with Christan parents) showing me the light, my life would have ended there. Those who are left got it beat into them, because the only alternative was to end their life like I almost did (no longer in the ‘sample’ we’re considering at that point), or, in a very rare case, be shown the light by a friend, and push through.
Sorry for all the text, but to summarize, there are three outcomes from that kind of abuse - without intervention: giving in, or ending their life. And in the very rare case of intervention, seeing that life can be good, and pushing through.
For that reason, I don’t believe that the majority who had it beat into them as kids are at fault. If no one was there to help them, they had no choice. And those who were ‘successfully’ indoctrinated (obeyed mommy to not go to hell) are blameless. They got caught in the system.
That said, those perpetuating this religion to the masses - preying on the emotionally vulnerable and shouting with megaphones - are at fault. They are responsible for their actions, going beyond even what they were taught.
People will people. You have good people and you have people that haven’t discovered their good. There is no inherent good or evil. There are just people. In a normal standard, people with do what they think are best for people regardless of how wrong it is for the individual person. That does not mean you have to forgive those people though. IMO forgiveness means you’re ignoring your better judgement. It doesn’t mean your life has to be in agony because you can’t find a way to forgive someone. It just means you’ve learned to find acceptance and love by other means.
In short people are horrible, but a person can be kind. My main goal was to try and convince you to see that the text isn’t to blame. If that were the case, then a good majority of illegitimate children would be fathered by Zeus. Beliefs come and go. How people treat other people is permanent