My nephew was a hard drinking asshole. His parents are evangelical fundamentalist Christians, born again and again and again, as are all six (now five) kids. So, back to my nephew.
He was a drunk, getting into fights, hitting his wife, the whole bit. After several DUI's, his parents were stressed and my sister in law and I were discussing this once during a visit. I said I worried he would kill himself or some innocent person if he didn't quit drinking and driving. My sister in law said (quote) "I know, what if he kills some poor person who hasn't been saved and they have to spend eternity in hell" and I said, something like, it wouldn't do much for my nephew's salvation, and she said, "no, he's saved."

A few years ago at my mother in laws funeral, I saw my nephew, who has quit drinking, taken up pot, and is now an upstanding person (well kind of) but at least not a drunk asshole anymore. I also saw my other nephew who took his own life two months later at age 21. He was tormented, but we talked and he told me how much he loved Colorado. I begged him to some stay with us for a while and he promised to think about it. I believe he was gay. At his funeral, the preacher went to great lengths to assure us he was with Jesus even though he had committed the ultimate sin of suicide. All was forgiven, but, had he lived his true life he would have never been forgiven.

WTF kind of religion is that?

The INJUSTICE and random cruelty of the story seems to completely elude "the saved" (hell... they're saved.... you're on your own, Babe!)

and the priest was going on about how we are all born in sin, and that we need baptism to wash away our natural evil. It hit me like a ton of bricks. I knew for a fact that I was not inherently evil. I knew myself to be a good person. That's when I realized that if this priest was wrong about that, he might be wrong about other things too. I started asking questions in catechism class (I went to a Catholic school), and became very unpopular with the nuns and priests. And one day I came home from school and told my parents I wasn't going to go to the Catholic school any more. I was so insistent that they finally gave in and enrolled me in public school the following week. (Besides that I was getting sick and tired of those nuns bashing my knuckles with a ruler and locking me in the coat closet for hours at a time for the "blasphemy" of asking tough questions.)

For quite a few years it scared me to be "in a state of sin" by not going to church on Sunday, but I got over it. I have since met other recovering Catholics who went through similar fear and guilt trying to break free of the Catholic brain washing. The evil that is organized religion definitely leaves a mark on your "soul", but it heals with time. I think it took me 15 or 20 years to really be free of church indoctrination.

The kids have the right idea---they want the whole family to share in their "joy". This is the kind of thing that amazes me about believers who subscribe to this sort of thinking. How can they be so freaking cold-hearted! Personally, I would be horrified about why God, who is supposed to know damned well what was in the hearts of those kids, would ALLOW them to be killed at that time.

You are right, this is sick and twisted. This is why I have absolutely no respect for people who believe this shit.

I think all of us who were raised in a church have some incident that seals our fate as atheists. This one is definitely a good reason to walk away from religion.

onager got me thinking about Robert G. Ingersoll and your story reminded me of this quote:

being talked about in Sunday School. In our church, they said the kids wouldn't go to hell because it wasn't their fault.
So that was nice, but I remember thinking the explanation the teacher gave was really convoluted. It was another in a series of incidents that made me think they were making all this stuff up.