Not sure if this will play on your side of the pond, but Dave Allen was an Irish comedian and atheist who describes what you are recalling in his own inimitable way.

I still remember my 4th grade Sunday school teacher talk about Noah and I asked him a question about the number of animals I had currently learned about in school and he was vague on his answer and then said I was not allowed to ask any more in that class with him because I had also done that with some of his other "teachings".

You are hearing Southern Baptist Schtick. Amazing how many supposedly smart people buy that, isn't it? That is in every pulpit every Sunday. It is Religious Brainwashing!

You have shown again how churches get them while they are young. I remember how terrified I was when I thought that I had blasphemed the Holy Spirit. I was about 13. It reminds me of the torture that many kids go through as they are manipulated by religion.

That's definitely sick and manipulative. Those are the brainwashing techniques of cults. When I was young, my mother scared the hell out of me (heh) telling me about the devil wanting to take my soul while I slept — hence why nightly prayers were so important — and went on and on about the end times, how God would use fire to cleanse the earth because he vowed to never use a flood again, etc. I was petrified. My mother believed what she was saying, so it was that much more real to me, and I remember crying myself to sleep night after night afraid of Satan or an all-consuming fire, or the pits of Hell. It's flat out child abuse. Sure, Christians, tell your kids about a loving God, Jesus, whatever, but don't tell them an eternity of unbearable torture awaits them. No kid deserves that sort of fear and anxiety.

I don't think anyone should threaten a child like that. I might have kicked him in the shins o r someplace else if Iwere in your shoes as a child.