Nathan Phelps, son of Fred Phelps and erstwhile member of the odious Westboro Baptist Church, has managed to break free of the brainwashing inflicted upon him as a child, and is now an atheist. An interview with Nate appears in the Ubyssey.

[Nate and his wife] joined a church, where they met many other families, five of which they became close with.

“Every Sunday, I was listening closely and trying desperately to find something in the preaching or in the words that would convince me that this was right. Even while I was doing that, I was always skeptical…but I never voiced it. I was very good at playing the apologist for the Christian faith. In fact, I had quite a reputation for writing and talking in defence of Christianity.”

The turning point was one Christmas, when Nate decided to teach his children about God. In the end, his son Tyler began crying in the backseat of the car, saying that he didn’t want to go to hell.

“He wanted to believe because he didn’t want to go to hell,” Nate said. “I was just stunned because I didn’t know what I had said or how I had left him with that fear. I thought I was doing a good job of presenting it without the fear.

“Thinking about it after the fact, I realized you can’t do that. With a young mind it doesn’t matter. You can try as much as you want to talk about how good God is, but the bottom line is there’s this intolerably frightening punishment if you don’t accept it. And how does a young mind deal with that?”

It’s worth reading for Nate’s story alone, but as a bonus, Shirley Phelps-Roper herself appears in comments to tell us why Nate is going to Hell, as indeed are all the rest of us.

Remember: God hates figs.