I recall a vatican cardinal, interviewed on tv over one of the banking scandals years ago emphatically and happily insisting the Devil was working inside the vatican. It surprised me he seemed so happy about it.

And keep up the good fight Mrs O. Keep prodding an poking till they realise how repugnant and evil the whole RC edifice has become.

Nuns are just pissed that little boys have been getting more media attention lately.

@Cog
No, Nuns are pissed that little boys have tiny willies... and pissed at priests that they don't care about that "tiny" fact.

@ billy zarcone

Admins/Mods: Sorry for the ad hominem, but I cannot condone such from anyone.

Billy,

You are probably the most despicable person to ever visit these boards since I joined. Herein is only one part of my treatise titled: "Why I am a Militant Anti-Religionist"

Militantism From Violence and Torture

Where I grew up and was forced to go to church with me mom, the State of North Carolina actually had laws making it perfectly legal for "disruptive" students to be disciplined with corporal punishment (physical abuse) in any form of "classroom" setting, even including Sunday School. In other words, it was completely permissible for the Sunday School Teacher (Yes, that is what they were titled.) all the way up to the Pastor of the Church to humiliate, psychologically terrorize, and perform corporal punishment onto children who proved to be “godless heathens” and “devil-worshiping pagans” to convert them over to Christianity. Basically, for the next seven years, I would always hear that same message (worded the Christian way): “If you do not believe in what WE believe or do as WE say, then you CONDEMNED to die and BURN in Hell FOREVER!” (emphases on “we” is mine; otherwise theirs). Every Sunday School class, every Sunday Sermon, the same damned message was always included. ALWAYS! And you damned Christians have the gall to accuse me of hating your Sky Faerie and Magic Zombie Virgin? I hate all religion. Nothing good ever comes from it.

That is where I believe the term “preaching fire and brimstone” came from. It only took them about 30 years of my lifetime (very late 1990s to early 2000s) to figure out they had totally fucked up the way they preached the “good news” (which is actually more terrifying than anything HP Lovecraft ever wrote).

Perhaps it was Christopher Hitchens who made them finally realize the errors of their ways. “Let me just tell you something. For hundreds, even thousands, of years this kind of discussion would have been, in most places, impossible to have. Or, Sam [Harris] and I would have been having it at the risk of our lives. Religion now comes to us in this smiley–face, ingratiating way because it’s had to give up so much ground and because we know so much more. But you’ve no right to forget the way religion behaved when it was strong, and when it really did believe that it had God on its side.”

I am going to be writing this from some of my darkest nightmares as a child. Thus, it may be a while before I finish this section because it will make me murderously angry dredging this shit up from my suppressed memories. However, they are no longer truly suppressed because I am remembering them. It is just that I shall become so angry remembering these atrocities, that I will begin using filthy communication, and I may have to walk away.

Of course, the preachers in the church did use these stories as highlighted at Common Sense Atheism. I always found these stories to be more like horrifying faerie tales than actual history, even as a child. Although they prettified those stories for us kids, they were still horror stories. Hell, even Edgar Allan Poe and HP Lovecraft were not as frightening for me. And I was reading them beginning at the age of 7. Along with Sir Arthur C. Clarke, Robert A. Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, Larry Niven, Philip K. Dick, Edgar Rice Burroughs (Carter of Mars series), amongst many, many others.

I can still remember being ostracized for the questions I would ask about these stories. No, I am not going to list all the questions. Just know that eventually, the Sunday School Teacher would talk with my mom. Or, she would report to the Pastor, then he would discuss it with my mom. Then my mom would punish me when we got home. Sometimes, the Pastor would corporally punish me, then my mom when we got home. I think the hardest part was that my father was indifferent towards these punishments. Hell, I even got punished for not answering the Sunday School Teacher’s questions. And again she would talk to my mother, and my mother started punishing me again for not answering when I was asked a question. A Fucking Catch–22. Damned if I answer their questions, damned if I don’t.

Reiteration: You may say my atheism stems from hating your deity. You are so completely wrong. My militant anti-religionist hatred is directed at you Religious Absolutists and your immoral and preposterous religions and methods of indoctrination. Fuck your beliefs. Fuck your god. Until you present objective hard empirical evidence, I refuse to believe your preposterous claims.

It would also go so far as the church Pastor having an after–sermon discussion with my mom and I. At which, I would throw questions at him that he could never answer to my satisfaction. Eventually, this led to the first excommunication I would suffer. And I suffered two excommunications from two different churches.

Now that I am older and wiser (maybe), I can look back at this and can only think, “What kind of bullshit method is this?” What kind of bullshit is this when a church excommunicates a child, suggesting that child’s parent take him to a different church just because the child had legitimate questions they could not and refused to answer?

Here is one question I would always get in trouble for:
Matthew {1:17}
So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations (first list);
and from David until the carrying away into Babylon are fourteen generations (second list);
and from the carrying away into Babylon unto Christ are fourteen generations (third list).

First List
Abraham
Isaac
Jacob
Judah
Perez
Hezron
Ram
Amminadab
Nahshon
Salmon
Boaz
Obed
Jesse
King David

Second List
Solomon
Rehoboam
Abijah
Asa
Jehoshaphat
Joram
Uzziah
Jotham
Ahaz
Hezekiah
Manasseh
Amon
Josiah
Jechoniah

Third List
Shealtiel
Zerubbabel
Abiud
Eliakim
Azor
Zadok
Achim
Eliud
Eleazar
Matthan
Jacob
Joseph
Jesus
Who?

So who is the fourteenth in the third list? I even questioned why the lineages were different in Luke. Their answer? Luke traced the lineage through Mary’s lineage. To which I thought, “What a lie.” Never verbalized, just thought.

When I pointed this out the Sunday School Teacher at the second church, she told me I was miscounting. I argued that I had not and she was the one who could not count. How dare a godless heathen child prove a Christian adult wrong! During the 45 minute break between Sunday School and the Sunday Sermon (our churches always had a brunch thing), my Sunday School Teacher took me to the Pastor’s office. After he was told what I had done in front of the whole class, he asked me if I had done such. I told him the truth. Of course, I was ostracized by the Pastor, then corporally punished, then later punished by my mother. Gee, ask a simple question.

I even asked the ultimate question about this genealogy. Why even trace the ancestry through Joseph if he was not even Jesus’ father? An ever worse beating.

Then I asked why was the genealogy different in Matthew and Luke. They told me that Matthew traced through Joseph, where Luke traced through Mary. Then I pointed out how they were wrong but what was in Luke {3:23} – Jesus himself, when he began to teach, was about thirty years old, being the son (as was supposed) of Joseph, son of Heli... Again, how dare a godless heathen child even try to prove a Christian adult wrong. Three ass-whoopings.

Matthew {10:34} Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. {10:35} For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. {10:36} And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household. {10:37} He that loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. {10:38} And he that takes not his cross, and follows after me, is not worthy of me.

Right there in verse 34, the Magic Zombie Virgin admits he has come to wage war and death. “I came not to send peace, but a sword.” OK, “not to send peace” = war. Sending “a sword” = death. When I pointed this out… Later when we got home, my mom actually spanked the hell out of me (so to say). I was just not being a good Christian. Why was I being such a godless heathen? Was I possessed and needed an exorcism?

And on the next Sunday I really let the Teacher and Pastor have it with verses 37 and 38. I even stated that by stating this, the Magic Zombie Virgin has proven himself unworthy of me. Anyone telling me I must abandon my own family to follow after him is nothing more than another Hitler, Stalin. Basically, just another despot totalitarian dictator. And BOY did I get another ass whooping from the Pastor, from my mother, then my father (at my mom’s demand). And grounded for a month. How am I supposed to have more love for something that does not exist? Never existed. How can I love someone more than my own mother and father? And then I get ostracized and ass-whoopings for asking such questions? Even though my mother whooped my ass, I still loved her. Jesus? Not so much.

And the most horrible experience of all. Provided I can write it without completely losing it. I have told no one about this occurrence until here. This is something I never even told my wife. Even today, I feel shame for not sharing this with my wife. It is something I SHOULD HAVE shared with my wife. However, I had kept it so buried...

When I was nine years old, my mom forced me to attend a new thing our church was doing called, “Vacation Bible School.” At least it was brand-new where I was living. I did not want to go. However, I basically had no choice. I would either attend the six-week long school, or I would be grounded for the ENTIRE summer. Even when I was a young kid, I would go for what I called “walk-abouts.” This was a term I thought I had invented. It was not until many years later that I discovered that the term “walk-about” had been in use for decades before I “invented” it. These walk-abouts were always into the woods that surrounded where I lived since I was also a Boy Scout, and just an overall nature lover.

During a recess break during the vacation bible school, I went for a short walk-about into the woods. I never even knew several of the “bullies” had noticed and started following me. The only problem was that these bullies were some of the older girls and their boy friends in the church. Girls and boys of “high-standing” church members. To shorten the story and get past the horror, they caught me all alone. Three girls and two guys were actually teenagers, about 13 to 15 (I was 9), the other four were about my age, 9 to 11. The two guys caught hold of me and held me against a tree, pinning my arms behind me around the tree. The older girls were asking the other girls if they wanted to see what the difference between boys and girls were. Basically, these girls raped me by stripping my shorts and underwear off, leaving my shirt, to show them the difference between boys and girls. Yes. Nine years old and I was raped by a gang of supposedly “Christian” children. And I was threatened if I told anyone… Besides, their parents would never believe the godless heathen child…

Instead of going back to that “school,” I got dressed and slowly made my way back home through the woods and fields between our home and that church. It took me about five hours, and I scared my mom shitless, as she said. I also got my ass whooped by my mom for scaring her like that. Later that evening, my father literally beat the shit out of me for scaring her. Back then I knew nothing about “child abuse.” Although, they would beat the hell out of me, literally child abuse, I still loved my father and my mother. Still do to this day. Always shall. And if that ain’t unconditional love, then please inform me what it is.

Reminds me of what David Killens once said:
“You beat a child, they will bruise, but they will recover. Teach them religion, and they lose many admirable characteristics, and be scarred (and pretty messed up) for life. Both are despicable acts, but one inflicts major long term damage.”

Needless to say, I never went back to that vacation bible school. Never again went back to that church. I MADE my mom switch churches, yet again. I took the punishment of being grounded for the entire summer. Of course, this incident scarred me for a while. However, as said, I learned how to suppress it so deeply, I forgot it ever occurred until many decades later.

Finally, when I was ten years old, I had had enough of the ostracization and excommunications and ass-whoopings and further rapings and betings by the other kids. I decided I would get “saved.” I pretended that I got saved. I pretended to became a believer. I even got baptized. Whatever the fuck that is supposed to mean. Fucking rebirth, my ass! Just to make it look really good, I began memorizing large chunks of the Bible so I could spew its filth with the best of them. I had everyone fooled. Then I got married and did not need to pretend anymore.

Unfortunately, after another three years, I just could not bring myself to continue going to church. I just did not want to listen to the bullshit anymore. I think this was the horror from four years earlier haunting my sub-conscious. When I turned 13, my father actually sided with me and said I no longer had to go to church. It was his family tradition when a child reached the Age of Minority (13 years), they could decide for themselves whether to continue attending church. Besides, I was also a full-blown Boy Scout, still surrounded by those damnable Absolutists. But at least we got to do a lot of Secular Naturalist stuff.

Anyway, it was about another dozen and a half years or so, beginning sometime in the 80s, when you started seeing news stories of persons finally coming forward and admitting that Christian/Catholic priests were raping and molesting children. Had been doing so for years, decades. This only made me despise ALL religions all the more. Mine may not have been by a priest(s), but it was their appalling children.

And this begs this question from me:
WHAT IN HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU CHRISTIANS AND THIS FASCINATION WITH RAPING AND MOLESTING CHILDREN?

Now that you know most of the full story of the abuse I suffered at the church's hands, is it any wonder I would rather execute every fucking one of you Religious Absolutists? Is it any wonder I cringe whenever I meet a Religious Absolutist? I mean, if you want to be friends and are a Religious Absolutist, it just ain’t going to happen. Or, it is going to take a very, very, very long damn time. Remember, my definition of Religious Absolutist focuses on those who have that “inexorable” belief. The more rational religionists, like those who have no problem with science and their beliefs, I can be friends with. Religious Absolutists, go fuck yourself, and I hope you croak on a heart attack. And no, Time does NOT heal all wounds. And I ain’t finished with this… Just cannot work on it anymore right now.

Addenda: Here is some more since it has come back to haunt me, and piss me the fuck off. For almost a year the rapings by these damned Christian children continued (until I capitulated and pretended to get “saved”). Some of those original gang of girls and two boys lived near where I did. I always tried to avoid them; however, they also recruited some more of the girls and boys they knew. They would have a network setup so as to keep an eye out for when I would go on one of my walk-abouts. Once I had gone quite a distance from where I lived in my explorations, that was when they would catch up with me and do the same things. Sometimes, after they had raped and molested me, they would also beat the shit out me and literally leave me to die. Well, not really to die, but you get the picture. However, once I became “saved,” those same children left me alone. As I became more of a believer than they were, since I was memorizing larger chunks of the Bible, they felt that if they continued, then I just might get believed by the other adults… Additionally, since I was at a different church…

Think about it!

After some 45 years I have finally faced this monkey and knocked his sorry ass down. I cannot believe I have kept that bottled up for so damn long… Forty-five! Fucking! Years!

And still I ain’t finished…

Second Addenda: And the reason why I say I grew up in the worst part of the Baptist Bible Belt (BBBers) is because I grew up in SENCland. And in North Carolina those BBBers still have way too much political power. Even if a story came out about abuse by the church (and I have seen a few), the BBBers legal system can quickly have that story squashed, usually by belittling and humiliating the accuser [until they recant their statement], before it can become a problem. This was also due to the fact that many of the abuse stories were coming out from the poor “out-in-the-boonies” communities. Most were living in poor areas of North Carolina and when they grew up, their mental state was so screwed by the abuse they turned to a life of drugs and/or crime. Thus, it was easy for the BBBer legal system to belittle and humiliate the accusers. As said, the Baptists hold way too much political and legal power in North Carolina. Even to this day. I would guarantee that I am correct in saying that at least 99.9% of all political and legal personnel in North Carolina are Baptist Absolutists.

It is due to these facts that I have a very low opinion of any person who claims to be anything other than an atheist. And that also includes those wishy-washy indifferent agnostics. Just as for that man who murdered my family, I am sorry for having such a low viewpoint on other members of the human species; however, you also have to look at it from my viewpoint. Yes, it is very biased, but you Religious Absolutists have no one to blame but your own sorry-ass moronic selves. Act like moronic bigots, I am going treat you like the shit you are.

And I still do not dare to tell my mother since she is still a hard-core Religious Absolutist. Even working for a local catholic church. Although she has mellowed somewhat, and sometimes defends me against other family members who abuse my mental damage from that accident (read Soul Shatter below), she was still the one responsible for putting me into such a situation where I would get humiliated, ostracized, excommunicated, beaten, and raped, and molested by such appalling members of the human species as you damned Religious Absolutists. However, despite all the abuse and all the ass-whoopings, I still LOVE me mom to death. Always shall. And I now dread the day when she passes… And yes, if it came down to it, I would sacrifice myself to protect her life. Even knowing my sacrifice would still ultimately lead to her death by my murderer.

Now, I want your definition of “unconditional love.” And please explain how this immoral godless heathenistic pagan can have greater mores than any of you Absolutists. As far as I am concerned, it is you Religious Absolutists who are CONDEMNED to die and BURN in your own Hell FOREVER. If such a place even exists.

And still, I am not finished yet...

Thus, Billy, I can only say this. You are a deplorable piece of human filth. Go on defending the Catholic church you sorry piece of septic tank flotsam.

rmfr

P.S. — Sorry for my brevity guys.