Thank you for your comment, this is exactly how I feel. It's sunday morning here now and my young teenage kids are crafting and doing stupid dances all morning, laughing. Still almost every sunday morning I feel so happy for them that they grow up without that horrible depressing atmosphere of strictly orthodox protestant christianity.

I was at a family funeral a few years ago, where the preacher decided that in stead of honouring the deceased, it would be a good idea to tell the already christian attendants that they could go to hell, that their time could come right now, and that the ones that didn't believe were as bad as a murderer, thief. That non-believers miss any moral compass and are the worst of people. I realized that is exactly what they think of us and it still made me sad.

One of my kids was hospitalized for weeks a few years ago and my husband and I had to stay there, so my other kid had to stay with family. Of course I was grateful that they took care of her and they are sweet people. But: one day my daughter was brought to visit her sister in the hospital, I had to drive her back, 2 hrs drive. She didn't say much and I felt something was wrong so I kept asking. Then she bursted out in tears, turned out the family read at the dinner table in a book about hell, they do bible lessons every night. She was 9 years old then and seriously worried her little sister would die in hospital and go to hell. As if it wasn't bad enough that she had to miss her parents and her sister was extremely ill.

I had to stop the car and felt sick and warned and hugged her and told her she shouldn't be afraid. It took a few weeks for her to believe it wasn't true. Not strange that so much years later I still have to deal with all the feelings of guilt, shame, etc I was filled with as a kid. I didn't believe in God anymore since I was a teenager but all these fears and fuckup up things don't go out at once.