From: Michael Lorrey (retroman@tpk.net)
Date: Wed Nov 27 1996 - 11:21:29 MST
Chris Hind wrote:
>
> When I was a little kid, my parents used to tell me about satan and demons
> and such and how I had to pray to keep them away. When I was younger my
> parents were religious zealots although they've lightened up in their old
> age. (ie. When I was born, they had never heard of colic and they were
> afraid I'd die so they baptized me at home!! hahaha! And this is in Los
> Angeles, CA people!!) I have slight Tourettes (noone even notices it) as
> well as my younger brother who has it quite worse than I but a side effect
> of this seems to be a highly active imagination so when I had Tourette
> panic attacks when I was a kid it was due alot of times to their telling me
> of demons and satan and when I finally fought back the religious crap I
> realized a greater sense of reality as opposed to the more imaginary
> metaphysical religious world I viewed previously and had far fewer panic
> attacks. I also think it was due to puberty setting on that my Tourettes
> faded but I also think atheism played an integral part. Could it be very
> tramatic and damaging for some kids to be exposed to religion?
That is rather unfortunate. I fortunately had some rather rational
parents, both technically degreed, who practiced partly from family
tradition, and a need for a solid moral upbringing for their kids. One
thing I would be adamant about defining two different types of religious
behavior: The difference between religious theology or theosophy, and
religious mythology. The former in my opinion tends to have a bit of
extropic potential, while the latter is highly entropic. Seems like
you've been tortured by quite a bit of mythic superstition. I've seen
both types of behaviors by people in the church I was raised in, and the
idiocy of the mythic superstionists made me not wish to continue formal
practicing. Rather, I tend to live a proactive life under the guise of:
" "God" helps those who help themselves". I also, unlike
supertstitionists, have no idea of the location or nature of whatever
caused our universe to come into existence, so rather than atheist, I
tend to be agnostic. I have no convictions either way, and demand proof
of both sides, religious or atheist for their postion. My mother for
example considers herself a Catholic Agnostic, if you can believe it!
Mike
-- TANSTAAFL!!! Michael Lorrey --------------------------------------------------- President retroman@tpk.net Northstar Technologies Agent Lorrey@ThePentagon.com Inventor of the Lorrey Drive Silo_1013@ThePentagon.com --------------------------------------------------- Anything I say can and should be used against me.
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