Once upon a time I was extremely to the right, conservative Christian. I even read the Left Behind series avidly. At this same time(in San Francisco) I had joined the HS Debate team and was introduced to the Onion. . At about this time Harry Potter was starting to pick up popularity, and so the Onion ran an article about how it causes satanism amongst kids, witchcraft, etc. It was so over the top it was hilarious. I posted the article on the Left Behind message boards think the other posters there would agree that it's funny...only to find people taking it at face value. In fact, most people were taking it at face value. I guess you could call that my "Road to Damascus" moment where I knew something wasn't right with that crowd. I mostly kept the dawning realization to myself, and when I went to Texas A&M I found myself involved with someone whose idea of a good time was to go to a prayer-christian-rock-concert hall thingie on campus every Tuesday. It was bizarre. And probably did even more to make me switch it off.
My rapidly dimming lack of faith in organized religion was something I continued to keep from my family, because I suspected that it wouldn't be a good idea to mention it to my folks or let it slip to my grandparents. I would never use the term atheist to describe me, but I was well and truly in the closet when it came to my family and some of my coworkers.
Since I've gotten out of the navy and been on my own I've dropped enough hints that my mother has read between the lines, my Dad I told flat out I wasn't interested in church, and my Mom's Dad has indicated he knows where I stand(and he's a Deacon in his Southern Baptist church!). Sadly, I've run into enough people that I fully understand what the person in the blog post is going through, and don't expect the general societal mores to improve a whole lot anytime soon.
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