#fundamentalist

Albrechtson was almost sorry for Ardent now. You could live in denial for a long time, but, like a snake, it doubles back and strikes.

I was homeschooled - in various decreasing grades of intensity, while my peers, also homeschooled, seemed to be going increasingly opposite of me in fervor and religiousity. (And conspiracy).

I remember being one of those homeschoolers, though. My mom took me and my three siblings to meet up with her friend (3 kids, abusive husband she couldn't leave because of her oppressive religion) to the homeschool convention in Nashville.

Us girls wore long denim skirts, the boys had on button downs and kakis. We looked like Michael Pearl's own personal cult following/harem.

we went to hear Ken Ham (founder of the Christian apologetics organization that runs the Ark exhibit and creation museum) speak about catastrophism and the young earth theory.

He was quite a convincing, charismatic, and captivating speaker. It was like sticking my toes in cult infested waters. He talked about how the billions of dead things buried in the ocean were proof of a massive flood, and about how the fossils found in land locked places like Utah and Montana were proof of a flood. He even got the audience involved: he said "millions, billions of years ago..." The audience yelled back "FICTION." He had a handful of catchphrases: "layer upon layer upon layer" and "were you there?"

He even had handouts, an audio drama called Jonathan Park about scientific proof of creationism aimed at children ages 7 and up , books, videos.

and it was fun- we all had fun, we repeated his little catch phrases for YEARS after. Later at the homeschool co-op we began attending, the Christian homeschool science curriculum backed him up, even cited him.

Even when i began to think for myself about what i had been learning my entire life, creationism had been so well ingrained in me that i could barely wrap my mind around the possiblity of anything else.