I’ll give you a break from God-bothering after this. But the opportunity to use the The Coneheads to make a major theological point? That doesn’t come along every day. I’m powerless to resist.
So…this post covered my Dad’s conversion to Christianity. And can you assume that I, the son of a fervent preacher, was brainwashed by experts? Yes. Yes you can.
In addition to church twice a’ Sunday and once a’ Wednesday, plus seven-straight-day “meetings” once or twice a year, and the occasional debate, we had nightly Bible study with our parents. Every single night. Call it five or six thousand sessions. Now that’s how you indoctrinate.
So I had no choice in my beliefs? Not true. Not at all. Actually, my parents probably still think I’m unsaved. But then, they are…(foreboding overture)…Church of Christ.
Obviously I’m talking hard-assed CoC here, not that wimpy United CoC that makes Unitarians look like jihadists. This ain’t citified Yankee CoC, baby, this is Bible Belt country Church of Christ. It’s for those who see Baptists as wanton hedonists. For people ever-focused on their fallen nature. It is not for sissies.
Or, and most especially, optimists.
So the stage is set: witness every single day of wormme’s childhood! Prymatt plays Mom, with Beldar of course standing in for Dad:
I can’t tell you how many Jehovah’s Witnesses my parents broke. I can say it’s every one that ever dared knock on their door.
World's Only Rational Man 
Now that the description of your mom and dad is rounding out, I must say, knowing they might look in on the blog from time to time is not what I’d characterize as a pleasant or reassuring thought.
Especially since I have no edit capability and cannot go scrub my comments.
If wormme allows this to be posted, I wish to reply to your comment, Xpat. Wormme is my brother and I rarely visit his site. Politics and current events have an adverse effect on my compassionate nature, so, I can’t delve in as deeply as wormme does and come out unscathed. But regarding our parents and the potential for them to see this post, imo, it would be “just another day at the office”. Would they be hurt? Perhaps. But even they will tell you that feelings are secondary to the “truth”. Wormme is being honest about our childhood as he sees it and how it affected him, ergo, wormme’s truth! (I will vouch for the frequency of “Every single night” lol) However, our parents always told us (please, correct me if I’m wrong, wormme) “Sons, never take our word for what you believe. Never believe because we say so. Come to the understanding in your own heart. Be true and honest to your own conscience.” Wormme did this. This is why he doesn’t agree with them. lol
Was this a ploy by them to be free of guilt if they were wrong? I don’t think so. I truly believe they are honest to their own hearts but, for the life of me, I can’t how they see things the way they see things. (I’m sure the feeling is mutual when they look at wormme and me) But I think the reasons they told us “honesty above all” were because, First: The bible says it avails you nothing without an honest heart and; Second: Because they loved and love us in the way and capacity that they know, just as we loved and love them in the way and capacity that we know.
It wasn’t an easy childhood and I truly believe it was harder on wormme than me because he’s so much smarter than I (honest). Still, many children have it much worse than I did growing up, imo. (at least from a physical standpoint) Again, just my opinion. But my hats off to both wormme and our parents for their honesty and compassion in the face of years of uncertainty and pain (which I call life)….Thank you wormme. Thank you mom and dad. I love you all. In all honesty, where’s the need for love if we all agree with each other? Love comes when you DON’T agree and can still accept them for who they are, imo. I’ll shutup now 🙂
John Cleese vs Extremism
That’s great!
I don’t know if the irony is intended, but Cleese sets it up so that the narrator, who putatively rises above the fray, actually ends up enacting precisely the same thing–imputing all the vices of the world to extremists and imputing saintly innocence to his own non-extreme self. The message does exactly what he’s preaching against.
There’s no escape.
Oh, wait, this is a religion post, and Worme’ parents might be reading! There’s no escape because, uh . . . because . . . because all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God!
Thanks, Kelly and nice to meet you. I’ve been a Worme fan since I started reading the blog after the Great East Japan Disaster. It’s been perfectly clear that Worme is a great and smart guy raised by smart and upright parents.
I was light-heartedly expressing nervousness about the possibility of unusually godly people looking in on the blog and seeing my comments, which often do not bear scrutiny . . . Erk. Kind of like the Israelites seeing Moses coming down the mountain.
Kelly…indeed, no truer words have been spoken…”Love comes when you DON’T agree and can still accept them for who they are…
Somewhat off topic, here are the complete audio lectures from a Science and Faith conference at Franciscan University. There’s some excellent nuggets in there, but you have to dig for them; most are in the middle or toward the end of the lectures.
(For instance, I don’t think Behe is as compelling as I once thought, so very long ago, but the response to him is illuminating. I liked the physics/time and philosophical stuff more.)