For those who don’t know they’d go to churches and the people would either go to heaven or hell and they made satan so freaking terrifying. I thought it was powerful at the time but it scared the shit out of me and started religious ocd behaviors. It literally was used fear to convert people… I look back and am thinking “that is so fucked up”
We had something similar at my church. They would put all the kids in a small room with like 10 space heaters and blare sounds of people screaming and flesh burning. They'd keep you in there for what felt like forever. I remember banging on the door to get let out, but they'd tell you God will deny you just like you denied him on earth. I think about that all the time now, I can't imagine doing that to other kids now that I'm an adult
yeah that's literal fucking torture lololllll
The way my jaw dropped to the floor reading that. What the fuck?!
Need to call CPS on that church and the parents.
That's straight-up emotional child abuse.
Wow
This was like 20 years ago and that church has long since closed. But yeah there was soooo much abuse there. But it's hard to criticize churches here, most people agree with that kind of tough love. You need to toughen kids up young so they'll be able to handle the real world 😒
Is that like "Heaven's Gates, Hell's Flames"?
this is what we had. I also had the benefit of growing up in Dallas area and being forced to go to Hell House in Cedar Hill every year
Not heard of that one, but as others have mentioned and I mentioned on another thread the other day, I experienced Heaven’s Gates and Hell’s Flames as a child in the early 2000s as the church I grew up in put the play on starring congregation members.
It was only years later that I actually realised just how messed up it was. I’ve struggled with guilt/shame/low self-esteem/perfectionism issues throughout my adult life, and I now think that play and the church I grew up within in general has had a lot to do with it.
I don't remember that one, but Heaven's Gates, Hell's Flames came to my church back when I was 16 and deconstructing. I freaked out and said the Sinner's Prayer again, but only a few weeks later I was deconstructing again, disturbed by the fact that they were resorting to fear to convert people. It was so emotionally manipulative and it pissed me off so much. (It STILL pisses me off to this day!)
We had one called "Heaven's gates and hell's flames", and it was terrifying yes. And it was at the high school auditorium not a church. Probably the most emotionally manipulating part was when a dad went to heaven and saw his little kid meeting him there that had died as a baby
It was fucked up.