Interested In Knowing If This Is True...

[Storm]

Oh yeah, I had plenty of information about apologetics and my parents were all into the christian thing. For example, when I was a little kid, our family went over to someone else house for a weekly bible study (complete with original language studies, not just fluffy feel-good nonsense) and there wasn't a separate nursery or anything, so at first I just played with toys in the same room, and when I was a bit older I just talked with the adults. The parents read a chapter of the bible at us every night (yes, even in high school and when we were home during college; mom used to get angry every time my sister went to bed at a reasonable time to get up for work without waiting for everyone to gather 'round for the daily read).

 

The only thing I might have been missing was #1, since I had some issues with the "assurance of salvation" because I was never entirely sure if I'd meant the prayer enough for it to count. Eventually I just gave up on trying to figure that out.

 

I do wonder, sometimes, if I'd have stayed in the church if it were a more liberal denomination. I'm pretty sure young earth creationism was one of the things that made me realize that christians really didn't get the points of view they were arguing against. I fell for it when I was younger, but the more I thought about it, and then met people who honestly accepted evolution and an old age of the earth without being beligerent god-haters, the more I wondered how much my upbringing had mis-represented the rest of humanity. I find it amusing, now, to realize that one reason I left was that christians consistently bear false witness against their neighbors, and I find that immoral.

Just on a basic reading of your post here, I suspect that you probably would have still deconverted. Your mind would have led you down the path at some point if you were already having trouble with some of the doctrines.

[Leo]

Ironically I read some comments on an article once that displaed just the opposite. Said that those of us who left, and especially us atheists, tried too hard.

Well, I did try very hard, with two different stages of it really. 

They're failing to acknowledge that perhaps it's not releant. And they haven't figured out if these are backsliders who are just away for awhile, or have for real left. Those of us who have taken the glasses off, applied the outsider Test to first our own faith, and then Christianity, and then faith in general.

Of course they're going to say it wasn't uncomfortable enough. That's all they've got, like a Christian parent who doesn't know what to do with a situation so only spanks harder and longer. Stereotypical caged monkey behavior.

And, have these left, or have they just changed to a more liberal version? We don't know enough about the subjects to be sure.

But it sure seems people on this site were pretty equipped.

Christians are always interested in the youth though. They know like anyone, that you indoctrinate early, you can keep them for life. Most of them, us excluded. What do they want with a bunch of us middle-aged jaded types who have seen through the whole mess? Part of indoctrination like this is to only let them see "what they're ready for" first, then getting them all convinced that they have to accept the harder stuff if they're the real thing.

Of course there are exceptions, like the Way of the Master movement. They need young ones who will bring vitality, increase the population, and after ten years or so, start contributing meaningfully in a financial way.

Truth be told, every generation thinks the next generation of people are just a bunch of pussy-footing pansies. Look at military sites where they talk about how it used to be during basic training in the good ol' days.

This is just more dick-measuring, trying to live out the past. Forgetting that in our own youth the same things were said, while we were reading Josh McDowell and others.

The daughter did tell me, though, that they don't emphasize hell so much. I asked her some pretty direct questions on the subject. She said mainly now they talk sex avoidance From what she said, it sounded like the Christian version of Orwell's Junior Anti-Sex League, except exchange the sash for the purity ring.

[Storm]

It really appears that evangelizing youth in the church is more about damage control. It goes with the whole "people are broken" theme that the church makes as its primary foundation. But truthfully, the kids aren't broken, they're inexperienced. There's a big difference. But the crap they teach is still the same.

"Train a child that he is worthless and has no ability to think for or be himself, and when he is old he will not depart from it." That's what the verse really should say.

[moanareina]

1. Certainly I had been converted...

2. Can't say my youth group had equipped me. The Church I went to later on worked very hard on equipping people. But man. What does that even mean?

3. Can't say my parents preached at me...they certainly told us all the bible stories, took us to Church and we prayed before meals and when someone has been sick, before bed etc. But preaching...no.

 

So even though those criteria did not apply entirely to me I stayed into Christianity until I was thirty.

And even though I had been converted and got the preaching and equipping I left when I turned thirty.