from a kid who was a victim of religious bullying. One good Catholic girl told my my dad, who had died the year before, was burning in hell because he wasn't Catholic and being ridiculed for not having dirt on my forehead. I was 10.

When I was 6, I asked too many questions in Sunday school -- about Noah's Ark, and how all the babies of the animals would have to marry their brothers and sisters -- and other things. So, I was ejected. My mother was called to come and get me. The teacher sat me out on a big tree stump in front of the church to wait. I heard something, and turned to see all the kids in the Sunday school class clustered at the windows of the school -- looking at me. They weren't really laughing, or jeering, or anything -- just looking with interest. Actually, I suspect that many of them would have loved to join me on that stump.

My mom was great. whenever I told her some religious thing someone said to me, she would laugh and laugh until I laughed too.

She was a single mother, and I think she felt pressure to try to give me as 'conventional' a childhood as possible. When she saw it was a poor fit, she dropped it... thankfully.

Something like... I heard that Jesus was bullied horribly, and that he forgave them. I forgive you. That put's me on Jesus' side here. What side are you on?

When I became an angsty high schooler, it was more along the lines of "Oh, come off it, you don't really believe that bullshit, you're too smart for that."

I don't believe in Jesus, but it'll get to someone who does.

Why don't you bawl Jesus out in your prayers for not being a Christian?