It literally drove me insane

Hal Lindsey - The 1980's Countdown To ArmageddonImage by Bedtime Champ via FlickrSent in by Al

My Christian journey to hell began when I was 12 years old. Actually, it started when I was six or seven, when my mom made me attend Catholic Classes (CCD), but that's another story.

When I was 12, I had the misfortune of seeing the movie "The Late Great Planet Earth," by Hal Lindsay. Actually he didn't write it himself, he co-wrote it with some crazy woman. But anyway, before then I really didn't know a lot about the Bible. It was quite an introduction.

When I was a child I thought that God and Jesus were just powers that wanted me to be a decent person. In the Catholic tradition they make you feel like God is a big mystery that only the priesthood can understand, and that God is only good. If you do something "bad" then you have to feel a lot of guilt. This was well ingrained in me. When I saw the movie, my eyes were opened to what the "Biblical" God is really all about.

I remember watching that movie and feeling that my brain was being fried; all of the images and concepts: Prophecy, Final Judgment, Death and Destruction. These things weren't only God's will, but they were inevitable and unstoppable. Basically I felt helpless and hopeless, that I didn't have any future.

So a couple of years later I got involved in the "Born Again" movement. I read the Bible many times and went to many churches until I was 21. I forced myself believe all of it and prayed all the time.

It literally drove me insane, because while I was involved in it I knew it was bullshit, but I kept eating it up.

Finally, at the age of 24 I came to the ultimate conclusion that Judeo-Christianity is the most hideous form of mind control ever devised by the mind of man.

So now at the age of 43, I feel that my youth was wasted. I think about all the fun I lost out on, all the women I rejected, and the education I could have had. I think about all the worry, guilt and fear I've had to endure for 31 years. I'm really pissed and I'm still living in hell. I think a lot of people can relate to my story.

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