Does anyone remember when you became an unbeliever?

[procon]

39. I was very young too, maybe around 6-7 when I refused to recite

that terrible bedtime prayer that parents teach their innocent little children:

Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep,
If I should die before I 'wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take.

I remember saying that prayer while kneeling beside my bed and it scared the bejesus right out of me. It kept me up at night worrying about death and some creepy stranger stealing my soul (whatever that was) and I hated it.

I had a big fit and refused and my mom gave me the belt (yeah, that was considered good parenting) and made me hate that prayer even more. Despite all her threats and punishments, I never 'prayed' after that, whatta brat I was back in the day! It always struck me as thoughtless cruelty to frighten little kids with stories about death and thieving ghosts at bedtime. I never tormented my own kids by telling them they might die in the middle of the night and some supernatural apparition would steal their stuff. Amazingly, none of them became witches, demons or flying monkeys.