The abuse in teaching children that the Bible - which CLEARLY teaches the existence of a LITERAL BURNING ETERNAL HELL - is much more egregious than physical abuse.
I spent the better part of my childhood crying and not sleeping at night because I KNEW that there were hundreds of millions of people screaming in Hell RIGHT NOW, with billions more on the way. I knew that they would suffer agonizing pain FOR EVER AND EVER. I wished it was not true, but it is SO explicit in the Bible, and particularly in the (alleged) teachings of Jesus as recorded in the canonical gospels, that I could not deny it. EVERLASTING FIRE. ETERNAL TORMENT. WEEPING AND GNASHING OF TEETH. OUTER DARKNESS. TORMENTED IN FLAMES. All EXACT words of J.C. himself, if you believe the gospels accurately record things.
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excerpt from Robert Ingersoll's Why I Am an Agnostic
http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/robert_ingersoll/why_i_am_agnostic.htmlAs a last answer, as a final excuse, the worshipers of Jehovah
said that all these horrible things happened under the "old
dispensation" of unyielding law, and absolute justice, but that now
under the "new dispensation," all had been changed -- the sword of
justice had been sheathed and love enthroned. In the Old Testament,
they said. God is the judge -- but in the New, Christ is the
merciful.
As a matter of fact, the New Testament is infinitely
worse than the Old. In the Old there is no threat of eternal pain.
Jehovah had no eternal prison -- no everlasting fire. His hatred
ended at the grave. His revenge was satisfied when his enemy was
dead.
In the New Testament, death is not the end, but the beginning
of punishment that has no end. In the New Testament the malice of
God is infinite and the hunger of his revenge eternal. The orthodox God, when clothed in human flesh, told his
disciples not to resist evil, to love their enemies, and when
smitten on one cheek to turn the other, and yet we are told that
this same God, with the same loving lips, uttered these heartless,
these fiendish words;
"Depart ye cursed into everlasting fire,
prepared for the devil and his angels."
These are the words of "eternal love."
No human being has imagination enough to conceive of this
infinite horror. All that the human race has suffered in war and want, in
pestilence and famine, in fire and flood, -- all the pangs and
pains of every disease and every death -- all this is as nothing
compared with the agonies to be endured by one lost soul.
This is the consolation of the Christian religion. This is the
justice of God -- the mercy of Christ.
This frightful dogma, this infinite lie, made me the
implacable enemy of Christianity. The truth is that this belief in
eternal pain has been the real persecutor. It founded the
Inquisition, forged the chains, and furnished the fagots. It has
darkened the lives of many millions. It made the cradle as terrible
as the coffin. It enslaved nations and shed the blood of countless
thousands. It sacrificed the wisest, the bravest and the best. It
subverted the idea of justice, drove mercy from the heart, changed
men to fiends and banished reason from the brain.
Like a venomous serpent it crawls and coils and hisses in
every orthodox creed.
It makes man an eternal victim and God an eternal fiend. It is
the one infinite horror. Every church in which it is taught is a
public curse. Every preacher who teaches it is an enemy of mankind.
Below this Christian dogma, savagery cannot go. It is the infinite
of malice, hatred, and revenge.
Nothing could add to the horror of hell, except the presence
of its creator, God.
While I have life, as long as I draw breath, I shall deny with
all my strength, and hate with every drop of my blood, this
infinite lie.http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/robert_ingersoll/why_i_am_agnostic.html