No, but a few episodes of The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits on WGN scared the poo out of me.
When I was a little kid my mom was a Baptist so lotsa fire and wickedness on the Devil’s side. She turned us into Mormons when I was 13 so the whole exothermic Hell thing became less of a focus.
But the idea of a nasty, tricky ball of evil (besides my Uncle Ted) just looking for an opportunity to snatch me away to some fire pit certainly fueld my imagination. It enriched my life in the same way cutting off a prepubescent boy’s testicles to turn him into a castrato opera singer would. I mean, yeah I’ve got some character now so, thanks. I guess.
Since the Satan thread links to the Santana thread, and the Santana thread links to the Satan thread, I fear there is now a black hole forming in the Dope server room which will soon devour the entire Earth.
Then we’ll all find out personally.
Nope. Quakers don’t do Satan, thank God. (…or my inner light, or whoever.)
I learned about Satan from horror novels and movies. But I didn’t get much explicit teaching. Although I was very concerned when I found out that the blanket on my bed was lined with satin edging. I didn’t know if there was a connection between the Father of Lies and my blanket, but it caused me a few nights of worry.
No, that’s not a joke, I really did think that. Yes, I was a strange little child.
I learned about Satan from the neighbor kid. Between fear of Satan tricking me, the (twisted IMO) lord’s prayer and fear of Bigfoot smashing through my window at any moment (thanks 70’s TV!), I was a pretty paranoid little kid. Thank goodness I had my black velvet king cobra poster watching over me: http://thumbs1.ebaystatic.com/d/l225/m/m1153EwqmehwMVOzvDY5jPg.jpg lol.
I would like to go back in time and kick the ass of the proto-Zoroastrianists who thought up the concepts of Satan and hell. Still, you have to give them points for creating the ultimate brainwashing fail-safe.
Forget Satan, that poster would give me nightmares.
Former fundamentalist here. Yep, so much satan spewing that at one point, my mother thought I was demon possessed because of my mental illness. So, definitely not a life-affirming, childhood-enriching existence. As a matter of fact, just up until a few months ago, I still had weekly nightmares about being dragged to hell. I am not grateful at 45.
My mother thought The Exorcist (the film) was a documentary.
My early religious teaching came from my late mother. She described herself as Lutheran, but as far as I can tell, she didn’t think about religion much because questioning is dangerous. She believed in god fiercely and taught me to believe what she did, but it’s unclear to me how she came about those beliefs.
I do know that her baby brother died from a brain tumor and her parents didn’t cope well. Knowing mom, she could have accepted their drunken rantings as Truth. Her childhood was horrific in many ways.
Mom never talked about Satan. If you did something wrong, it was GOD who punished you. For example, if you said a swear word or had a bad thought, God might (literally) strike you with lightning. God was the one to fear, not Satan. When I fervently read the Bible, I found plenty of “evidence” to support my mom’s version of this vengeful, angry God.
If God is in a good mood, he might be nice to you even though you didn’t deserve it. People, especially children, are BAD. If God is in a bad mood, he has every right to kill, hurt, or torture you, because you are bad and he’s fed up with it. The best you can do to avoid his punishment is to act and think as good as you can and love God as hard as you can without question.
So I wasn’t afraid of Satan. I was afraid of this terrifying god that I somehow had to love with all my heart whilst hating the evil, ungrateful, despicable thing that was me.
Oddly it wasn’t until this moment that I realized my mom’s God mirrored her parenting style. Her “religion” was an effective way to control us with fear.
Caveat: mom was rarely physically abusive; she would once in a while slap my face but never beat me. In fact, much of the time she was loving and generous, but I never learned how to keep her rage from suddenly exploding out of thin air.
The threat was always there; I always believed I deserved to be punished. Also, there were many times when I wished she’d just hit me because words can hurt worse.
It was like saying “just you wait until your father gets home!” Except God is always home, infinitely scarier than mom, and he can choose to hurt you for any reason at any time.
Or god might give you an unexpected gift. Maybe candy or a toy, or maybe he won’t burn you forever. But you know you don’t deserve that gift, so if God is nice, you still feel bad and scared and guilty.
I found out just months before he died (I was 20) that my dad was atheist all his life. And I wonder why he let my mom inflict her religion on us. By that time, I think he was too depressed to argue about it.