I'm going to post most of it, because it's important. We've been personally touched by this evil.
John's brother will have nothing to do with anyone in his family. It's been that way for a while now.. something like 2 years. It started with his wife divorcing him, drinking far too much, and then falling into the trap of Christianity as a means of escape.
They, quite literally, preyed on him in exactly the way that Myers describes. Unfortunately, John's brother was looking for the easy way out.. to have people tell him nothing was wrong with him.. that everything could be fixed, not by hard work, stopping drinking, and getting healthy, but rather by the invisible man on the cloud who would magically make everything better.
It's just one giant mind fuck.. and the Loon Brigade got him. If he was younger, he might be prime for some professional deprogramming, but he's in his 30's. He's made his choice.. and he chose the whack-a-loons over his own family.. because the whack-a-loons told him that he had to.
None of these stories get to the next stage, though — what happens once introductions are made and they've brought you into the vestibule of the church: the love bomb. They make you feel intensely welcome, shower you with praise and affection, and strain themselves silly to make you feel part of the group, to build those social bonds that make you a committed and appreciative member.
I've been there. It was also a spring break, 33 years ago. I was going to school at DePauw University in Indiana, and too poor to go anywhere exciting or to fly back home to Seattle, so I was resigned to spending a week in the quaint small town of Greencastle, when a group of evangelical Christians asked if I'd like to go on a trip with them. They were going to paint and clean up a church camp in the woods of southern Indiana, and it would mean a week of camping and hiking for the cost of a little manual labor. I jumped at the opportunity.
I was deeply loved (in a chaste and non-physical way, of course) for a whole week.
It was great! I enthusiastically slapped paint on that old remodeled barn, and I cheerfully helped make smores, and I happily joined in the cleanup afterwards. I was there for a week in the woods. And when they told me how much Jesus loved me, I shrugged and said I don't believe in a Jesus. When they told me they loved me too and there was a great place in the church for such a helpful young man, I said thank you and explained that I wasn't a church-goer at all. And when they sang hymns in the car, I just quietly read my book. I enjoyed myself, but the other members of the group seemed completely baffled by me — their evangelizing tactics just seemed to bounce off. If their goal was to win a soul for Jesus, they were robbed; if they wanted willing help to get their camp refurbished, they got it. But I can now say that a confident atheism can also make one resistant to even those tried-and-true brainwashing tactics of the evangelical church.
This is what religion is: they angle for fresh prey, and once they snag you, they swallow you up. You are embraced in the rugae and crypts of the gut of the church, all warm and pink and soft and wet and intimate, and each of the members is like a little villus — a multitude of villi brush adoringly against you, each telling you how wonderful and delicious you are, and each leeching away a little of yourself, your individuality, your independence. It feels good as you are slowly absorbed. Then at last, when your will is gone and your dependence is complete, you are digested by the body of Christ, and there you will be for all of your productive years. Eventually, when you are old and no longer active, you'll take residence in the colon of the church, serviced by occasional visits from a priest or a volunteer, in hopes of one final ka-ching from your will…and then your empty husk will be shat out into the church graveyard, with the leavings of other past meals. The churches of your community all ought to be viewed as predatory animals, some lazy and sated, others restless and hungry, but all eyeing you as potential fodder to keep the beast alive.
Don't fall for it. A robust atheism can make you immune to their lures, though, and it can even make you indigestible. It's no wonder that the religious hate and fear us — we diminish their success at hunting, and of late, we've even begun to target them. The tables will be turned, and we will be pawing at the dismembered, empty carcasses of their churches soon enough.
We are, quite literally, surrounded by these animals.. they knock on our doors and ask us if we know Jesus, when they should just come right out and ask us for money. At least I would appreciate the honesty.
It's amazing that anyone can resist these mind fuckers when they literally consume the local geography. It certainly is a testament to ones own integrity and independence when we tell them to go fuck themselves.
Maybe one day, John's brother will figure out how these fuckers are using him.. but right now, they've got him so brainwashed that he can't hardly think for himself.
Christianity.. religion.. is quite simply the most evil force on this planet.
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