Thanks for being brave and sharing your story. It’s important that both men and women do so we no longer have to live in shame. I think it is more pervasive than we think. But just as in the case of male on female violence, we downplay it. It’s as if we haven’t reached the point in our cognitive evolution where we can stand up to whatever arranged hierarchy our society has determined. We are still more animal sometimes than most of us like to admit.

I appreciate this. I am a new Atheist and have been spending a lot of time thinking about how this changes my parenting. It is no longer about indoctrination, as sadly most Christian parenting is, it now is, as you say, trying to help my kids learn to to reason and to think critically about things. I haven't really even shared openly with them about my de-conversion, and I'm still trying to find my footing. While Atheism makes perfect sense to me, it does so because I thought through it after reading through the Bible and spending a lifetime (nearly 50 years) in the church. I hope it doesn't take them that long. My oldest (20) will take longer than my second youngest (10 & gifted). And I wonder how to explain any of this sort of thing to my youngest who is autistic. Anyway, thanks again. Your post reassures me that I'm taking things in the right direction.