The Pastor's Daughter

I gave it five

More than anything because of your views on religion which match mine exactly.

Now that she's broken out

The pair of them should join forces to corrupt the entire congregation.
L

Five from me. Outstanding on several levels.

Dear Carolinadreamer,

I, and I hope most others who don't share your faith, don't write you off as a nut. Nor should anybody jeer. Nobody should try to impose their religious beliefs (or lack thereof) onto others.

I see faith as a belief you have when there is no scientific evidence.

Sadly, we are now seeing extremist atheists just as for many centuries we have seen extremist religious believers. They are people who, in your words, jeer and tell others that they are nuts.

(And this is one occasion when I will say "it's just a story".)
L

My thoughts exactly

I must say that I connected with this story so much. I grew up in a Christian home and was raised in church all of my life. I came to the same "epiphany" some time ago and it really sent me into a tailspin. Word for word, you wrote what I was feeling at that time. For a while, I thought I was the only one who felt that way. I am surrounded by Christians because all of my family still believe. Even my wife, while not a full Christian, does believe in God and prayer.

While I don't believe in God, I do see WHY people could. There is something powerful with the belief that no matter how bad you mess up, there is a supernatural being who will fix it for you if you repent and believe. It gives a sense of purpose and importance to life. "Faith" can make people do amazing things. People have gotten off of drugs because they believed that God loved them. Dr. Martin Luther King died changing this country for the better because he believed that God was with him.

It is like the movie Shallow Hal. Hal was happy when he was hypnotized to see the inner beauty instead of the physical beauty. When he was with Gwyeneth Paltrow (I know I butchered her name) he thought he was dating the prettiest girl around. His best friend decided to open his eyes by making the hypnotist remove the hex so that he could see what she really looked like. Hal wasn't grateful. In fact, he became angry. As long as he believed that she was gorgeous, he was happy. Whether or not it was true was irrelevant. To me, that is what faith is.

The story itself was decent. I gave it a five because I could feel where you and the protagonist was coming from.

Good Story

Over the years I know of many similar stories occurring in real life. Many, many such stories...

Nice Story

Though a bit long on the religious exposition I felt I learned a lot about myself from the story. I too was raised in that environment and I'm still fighting the need not to disappoint my father more than my mother.