Betcher ass. As a child of maybe 9, 10 and 11, clouds used to terrify me. I'd look up in the sky and see an unusual formation, and I'd be convinced that the rapture was about to happen, that my family would be snatched into the sky to be with Jesus, and I'd be left all alone.

I didn't know I was gay yet, but I knew something about me made me different enough that I was probably incapable of being "saved." I don't know how exactly how I reached that conclusion (I certainly prayed the sinner's prayer often enough, sometimes daily or even multiple times a day), but my fears were great enough that I was often unable to sleep at night. For a very long time.

Church was a place of fear and pain for me quite often.

I wish I had known then that ignorant Christians have been predicting the rapture not for decades but for millennia. From millenia, somebody would rise up every few years and proclaim that the rapture was going to happen on a certain day. And they were always wrong. They continue to always be wrong.

But that doesn't really make any difference. Conservative Evangelical Protestant Christians are conditioned to disregard facts and value faith over everything.

They are remarkably ignorant, remarkably stupid people. I mean, just look at the existence of the creationist museum and the Noah's Ark "replica." Look at who vaccine deniers are, who climate-change deniers are, etc. disproportionately Evangelical Protestant Christians who believe in nonsense like the rapture.

It's really hard for me to understand how anyone could just decide to overlook objective reality. I don't get it.

But I remember my terror as a child, and I grieve for myself then and for so many children today, especially LGBTQ children unfortunate enough to be raised in that religious toxicity.

I know it's not likely to happen, but how I fervently wish that Evangelical Christianity could be wiped from the face of the earth. Replaced by something a lot more rational and a lot more loving.

Thanks for the story!