By Astreja

As much as I enjoy the dialogue at Ex-Christian.net, I've noticed something that's a bit worrisome. I have become a BibleBotherer-Seeking Missile with an extremely short fuse.

My own experiences with Christianity are somewhat milder than the norm. Although nominally a liberal Protestant in childhood, I didn't get the fear of Hell beat into me by parental units, teachers, friends or neighbours. I didn't invest decades of precious life time in the Christian cult, although I did later deconvert from another belief system and can identify with the pain of going from belief to non-belief.

So what's with the intense, blood-boiling fury that I've been feeling lately?

One possible explanation: Uninvited proselytizing and evangelizing is abuse, psychological torment, and what I'm feeling is natural -- Counter-aggression in the face of a perceived attack.

At this point, I would expect one of our Christian visitors to say "Attack? But we're only trying to heeeelp..."

This is the usual rationale for invading our space. But let's take a closer look at the nature of this so-called help, using recent examples from Ex-C itself:

"Why do you have so many hatreds in your life? Why are there so many broken relationships in your life? Why won't you accept reconciliation with certain people in your life?"

"There is nothing that I can say or do to convince you that Jesus died on the cross for you..."

"A so-called Atheist reading the Bible is like a english-only literate person reading chinese."

"Mother, father sister, brother, freind, spouse they will all forsake you. God is the only one who truly loves and adores you."

"It is truely sad when I see the lack of truth in some of these comments."

"Friends eternity is forever, and much too long to be wrong."

"Sorry your feelings were hurt. Hope you can explain it on judgement day."

"As long as you and the others continue to do what you know is wrong, you prove that the world would be a better place without you."

"Well fuck you all, God loves you and he will forgive and take care of every last one of you for ever and ever, wether you like it or not... and if you dumb stupid apes are tou blind and stupid to see this, then I don't know how to help any of you."

Do you see what's going on here, folks?

• Unfounded accusations, usually accompanied by mind-reading
  
• Guilt trips
  
• Insults
  
• Attempts to cause us to doubt the fidelity of the real people we know and love
  
• Unwarranted criticisms
  
• Threats
  
• And completely off-the-wall rants.

These are all manifestations of emotional abuse and are perceived as attacks upon one's person. Our visitors' evangelizing is triggering the adrenaline rush of a fight-or-flight reaction.

(cracks knuckles) And they wonder why I'm not glad to see them...