Hell, people hear "I'm an atheist" as a judgment on them.
As a kid I thought it was more like some large overblown book club--you'd go to church every week to discuss Bible stories the way we discussed Aesop's Fables or Greek myths or other stories at school, and what the author meant, and, y'know, the LITERARY stuff. It was years before I realized that they believed it.
And don't even ask about my poor little siblings. My sister was informed at age three that she was going to hell, and my brother came home from daycare at one point wondering who Jesus was and why he died for my brother.
no subject
As a kid I thought it was more like some large overblown book club--you'd go to church every week to discuss Bible stories the way we discussed Aesop's Fables or Greek myths or other stories at school, and what the author meant, and, y'know, the LITERARY stuff. It was years before I realized that they believed it.
And don't even ask about my poor little siblings. My sister was informed at age three that she was going to hell, and my brother came home from daycare at one point wondering who Jesus was and why he died for my brother.