Let your conscience be your guide. This was on the mirror in the hallway of New Bethany Home for Girls. Except for one thing.... "conscience" was crossed out and "Bible" written above. So was the way of the fundamentalist.

I'd been born into a family of Baptists, but they weren't too dogmatic. Sure, they held to the hellfire and brimstone beliefs, but they allowed me to dance and play cards. Hell, they even drank on special occasions. I was just an average teenager in the mid seventies, but my parents were stricter than most. My father believed in the Proverbs statements that if you love your child you must beat them. So I ran away a lot rather than face a beating.

The last time I ran (1974), I was not allowed to come home. I was in the detention home and the nice christian lady at United Way told of a program at General Medical Center where they were having great success changing rebellious teens into compliant, respectful obedients. I was sent to the psych ward at General to endure more than ten electroshock treatments in one month to "change my criminalsitic ways of thinking". So, zombified and still not compliant, I was sexually molested and my brain was filled with drugs and confusion. Ripe for god. I was then sent to a place the ministers had told my parents I needed. New Bethany Home for Wayward Girls.

There, I had convulsions as the drugs slowly withdrew from my system. I converted to a fundy and as I gradually woke up from my mental haze, I embraced the dogma. I was sure everything wrong with my life was because I hadn't been a serious enough christian. This home was a perfect brainwashing cult, filled with abuse as well as love. When I returned to my parents' home I was too religious for them, and it made them uncomfortable.

Then I was sent to a Baptist high school to finish out my schooling. Any free thought was supressed as evil and the dogma was reinforced constantly. Into my adulthood and marriage, I debated any preacher from another religion, certain that my understanding was the truth. But something was happening. As my children grew and I encouraged them to think abstractly, the stories from the bible were just not ringing true and just. I began investigating the scripture without the benefit of a preacher in my ear, or Scofield's notes, or a bible guide. Just read. AH, such a revelation.

The more I researched, the more I realized this was just a conglomeration of ancient myths reprocessed to fit this particular story. I did not like the old testament god and found the inconsistancies to be glaring. Although I agree there is wisdom to be found here, it is not a god or a religion. It's simply philosophy mixed with dogma. Even the teachings of Jesus have little to do with religion.

I never stopped thinking. My mind is open and grateful. I explore possibilities and embrace diversity and tolerance. Ignorance has no place for me. Though I still struggle with some residue.... I am much better off now.

My main struggle? My mind will ask.... "what if the salvation story is true and you are causing your children to go to hell by not telling them it's a fact?" To which my mind replies, "this is precicely why I would never do that to them!"

By the way, I now let my conscience be my guide. As a grandmother and the family matriarch, I'm leading the way for my legacy to be freedom of thought and realization that spirituality is NOT the same as religion.

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