ignore this if you are religious

[jennickels]

My kids have been going to this puppet show thing at the park every Wednesday since the beginning of July.  They get free snow cones, a candy of some kind and dinner (nachos or pizza or mac & cheese).  They have games and then the puppet show which I'm told continues from one week to the next.  The kids have been having a blast and all the kids in the neighborhood go.  I never really thought much about the people putting it on.  They seemed like a nice group and really enjoy entertaining the kids dressed as pirates, lol.

Well today is the 2nd to last day and the kids just got home.  My 5yo comes up and shows me a little flyer they gave her for a special "pirate day" on Saturday at the local 7th Day Adventist Church.  Not going.

Anyway, she runs off to use the bathroom and comes back to finish telling me about the candy she got and the "tattoos" (like face art but on her hands).  Then I look at her shirt and she has a big sticker that says, "Jesus is my best friend."  I about died.

...and this is probably where the really religious will want to just go about their day...

See, we're atheist.  We've been raising our kids without religion and god talk as much as possible (minus the three year stint at Catholic school while living in Chicago because the public schools had no room).  I have no problem with religion and religious people as long as they don't try to push it on to me and my kids.

I had heard that the group hosting the park days was from this church but up until today the kids have never mentioned any religious aspect of the show.  (And, no, I've never gone... it's the kids' time to enjoy and I don't hover over them.)  But now I'm concerned.  My 5yo was all excited to tell me how Jesus is her best friend and loves her and I wanted to gag.  I told her to throw away the sticker which was a bit excessive but... blah.

I mean no offense to my religious friends.  I won't try to convince your kids to be atheist and I'd appreciate religious people not trying to convince my kids that Jesus is real and loves them.

Since this is the first mention (and the 5yo missed out on the Catholic schooling) of Jesus since July started and there is only one Wednesday left I'll let it slide.  Most likely she'll forget about it after a few weeks but it bugs me that people (churches) think it's okay to preach to unsuspecting kids while hiding behind being an inclusive neighborhood performing group.

And no where on their flyers they taped up all over and hand out door to door every week say that they are from the church.  It just says that they are this performing group, will be at the park on Wednesday at 5pm and there will be free food and games.

I think it's kind of sneaky and underhanded to then slip Jesus and religion into the performance and games and act like it's no big deal.  Sigh.  And here I thought we lucked out on a nice liberal, care free neighborhood.  There's always got to be that one church/group/person to ruin it for us.

Comments

[campylobacter.livejournal.com]

Imagine the uproar if a Muslim group did that. Kids coming home with "Mohammed is my best friend" stickers.

Or if atheists did that: "There is no god".

I'm all for the academic study of all religions and philosophies, but PROSELYTIZING children without making it public so that parents are left in the dark? IRRESPONSIBLE EVANGELISM. Also fraudulent.

[jennickels.livejournal.com]

Totally agree although a lot of Christians in this country think it's their constitutional right to be annoying and push their noses into everyone's business.

I would never dream of telling some random kid that there is no god or that they are silly for believing in one. For one, it's none of my business; two, it's a parenting thing; and three, it's just rude.

[campylobacter.livejournal.com]

Free speech, to me, does NOT include force-feeding children a worldview without parental consent. And even then, true faith requires the informed consent of a mature mind, not a developing one. Exposure is one thing; indoctrinization is quite another.

HALLOWED ARE THE ORI.

[jennickels.livejournal.com]

Yep.

I went to Catholic school for 13 years. I think I was about 9 when I started to think critically about things.

I remember my 3rd grade class was prepping for their First Communion which I wasn't involved in since I wasn't baptized (my dad is an ex-Catholic agnostic and my mom was spiritual but not overly religious and definitely not Catholic). I still had to do all the class work and practices until it got to be really close to the day.

The kids were lining up to practice going to the church or something and I was allowed to sit at my desk and read, color, whatever busywork I found. The other kids demanded to know why I was getting to goof off so I explained why I wasn't participating. That ended in me being told I was going to hell. How very Christian of them. Eventually the teacher put an end to it.

I remember sitting there wondering where they got the notion that I was going to hell because the god I was learning about would never send a kid to hell because of something they couldn't control. It made absolutely no sense to me. That started me on the road to actually thinking about what they were force-feeding us.

Luckily all the schools I went to were on a liberal bent. I remember learning evolution in science class in junior high then going to religion class next period and discussing how the theory of evolution differed from what the Bible said and then we debated. 12-14 year olds actually having an intellectual discussion about it without adults telling them what to believe. High school was about the same.

We even had sex ed in high school complete with pictures. I learned a lot from that course, lol (imagine a class of 30 giggling girls looking at anatomical drawings of a penis in different states... I still giggle thinking about it). We were taught abstinence is best but if you're gonna do it then be safe or you'll get VD and then there were pictures of STDs that made you want to vomit. I sure didn't want to have sex after that, lol.

[magnavox-23.livejournal.com]

To put it blatantly, it's brainwashing children, and it's sick.

[jennickels.livejournal.com]

One of the many reasons I refuse to live in the south. My husband keeps talking about moving to South Carolina and, honestly, I think our marriage would end if he really pushed and moved. I just can not live in the Bible Belt.

I was on a parenting site earlier and this woman who lives in Tennessee was upset because her middle schooler just got her class schedule and one of her classes is "Bible History."

She posted the course description and it's not the history of the Bible or Christianity as it pertains to global history or anything. It's history being taught according to the Bible. As in a literal interpretation of Genesis (the Universe created in 6 days), Noah's flood actually happened exactly as it says in the Bible complete with 2 of every animal and the ark.

Made me sick just reading about it. Her daughter is the same age as Meagan--11 going into 6th grade. Half the people responding couldn't see what the big deal was. It was, after all, just an "elective." Problem was there were only 3 electives offered: band (needed to know how to play an instrument), chorus (needed to be able to sing) or Bible History. WTF!

Her daughter chose chorus but apparently there wasn't enough room or didn't fit her schedule so they put her in the Bible class. The mom is pissed, the girl is upset. She's already ostracized at school. I guess at the end of 5th grade the principal invited the Gideons onto campus to pass out Bibles to the kids after a full on assembly about them. She refused to take one so all the other kids teased and bullied her while the teachers stood around twiddling their thumbs.

[campylobacter.livejournal.com]

> history being taught according to the Bible

OMGWTF

Ya know, most of the Jewish people I know have a Talmudic perspective of the Torah: the metaphors contain more truth than the literal text.

[jennickels.livejournal.com]

I've been lucky enough that most of the Catholics I knew growing up (my family, teachers, schoolmates) were quite liberal. Even if they did believe in a literal interpretation they never tried to pus that on anyone else. As far as I know none of my family or friends follow the Church 100% (I know for a fact all the women are/were on birth control and most of them are pro-choice).

[magnavox-23.livejournal.com]

That's insane. These constant stories from the US (in particular the bible belt) have really put me off ever wanting to visit the country in part due to fear of the reception I would get.

Here I can say I am an Atheist and no one bats an eye. Our Prime Minister is an Atheist and while you do get the occasional religious crazy and the church butting their noses in politics with regard to women's right and gay equality etc, they have nowhere near the amount of power or insanity that seems to be running rampant over there.

I can completely understand and sympathise with that woman and her daughter. Religious education is an elective in all public schools here and my first year I did do it because I had no idea what religion was and thought I'd give anything a go. A few weeks in I figured it was nonsense and dropped out. I was ostracised, but to a much smaller degree than that poor girl. It was because the other kids thought I was getting free time or trying to be different/thinking I was better than everyone else. (Going to a small school did not help :P) By high school I wanted badly to fit in so I chose the Anglican class and just ended up debating the poor woman they brought in to 'teach' us. :P But hey, by that age there were a bunch of other non-believers there too, who were only there because their parents made them.

Each individual child is different and will respond to religious teachings and people in a different fashion. It is a really tough situation for that girl and for you and your children also. I guess the best you can do is explain the variety of belief systems from around the world and put them in context with a little history and rational thinking.

[jennickels.livejournal.com]

Oh, don't stay away because of the crazies. Just stay north of the "Mason-Dixon line" (which isn't even where people think it is... watched a show on Discovery Channel about it, man Americans are stupid of our own history). I've lived my life in the north part of the country and really haven't had to deal with this crap. Just the occasional thing popping up (like the park thing). I rarely bring up religion to people in real life. On the occasion I've mentioned it I might get a double take but then conversation resumes.

Atheists in the south, though, have a hard time. It sucks. I've known people online who have had their cars vandalized, windows broken, things thrown at them, their kids bullied/ostracized, lost their job, got kicked out of apartments, etc.

I would worry about my 11yo taking a course like that Bible History simply because she wants so desperately to fit in she will try to make herself believe or say she believes to fit in. My 8yo has a very magical sense of the world and it would take one teacher telling her it's all the literal truth for her believe (she was in kindergarten/1st grade when in Catholic school so don't know how much she actually remembers). My 9yo son might look more critically at it. The 5yo is just way too young to even be introduced to it.

I want them to be at an age where they are ready to critically think about different religions and not just believe because their friends do or their teacher told them or some other reason.

My 11yo says she believes but ask her why and she has no idea. Probably thinks she'll go to hell if she doesn't. I don't care if they find religion as long as it's for the right reasons (fitting in is a wrong reason).

Sigh. Usually none of this even comes up in our house.

[magnavox-23.livejournal.com]

It's the religion and the guns. :P I know they're the clichéd stereotypes we get of America and that the truth is probably quite far from it.

I think you have a very healthy worry, but also a excellent sense of your children's abilities to handle these issues. Even though I was not brought up in a religious house, I was well into my teens before I worked out what I did and did not 'believe' with regard to the supernatural. Dawkins helped hammer a few nails. :P

[jennickels.livejournal.com]

Hey, it's only fair that other countries have horribly cliched ideas about us. Americans sure enough have plenty for every other country on the planet.

I actually haven't gotten around to reading Dawkins. I guess spirituality/religion just doesn't really interest me and never did. I remember in high school when people would ask me what I "was" (as in which religion I was) I just told them I believed what I believed and left it at that.

I think by then I'd be what is considered a Deist. I sure didn't believe 98% of what the Catholic Church was teaching.

[magnavox-23.livejournal.com]

It wasn't so much religion/spirituality that interest me, it was the big questions that they couldn't answer - where did the universe come from, why? etc. Dawkins I found had a nice blend of debunking religion & science (he does get into the biology aspects a bit much for me sometimes) that worked with my previous interests in all things space and sci fi was a natural extension of that. :P

I did the whole new age/wiccan thing in my early teens more so to fit in than actually believing. Now I am older and probably wiser...

Organised religion and I never got along.

[jennickels.livejournal.com]

I guess I'm okay not knowing the answers. It's never bothered me. Don't care where we (humans) came from or where we're going to end up. I'm more interested in the where we are now.

And even that doesn't interest me all that much (I am so NOT into politics and what's going on in the world... I have enough to worry about with just my little family).

I knew by like 9 that organized religion was not for me. I was stuck at Catholic school so I nodded and smiled and went along with the program. I don't like having people tell me what to think and feel and believe. Bugs the crap out of me. Even when I was a kid.

Once I realized that I really didn't believe in any of that stuff I had absolutely no interest in exploring further. I find religions (the history/mythology) interesting but it's like way down on the bottom of my "things to research more" list, lol.

[ufgator1977.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately your children are going to be subjected to things like this from time to time. I used to simply tell my son that that isn't what we believe and that we need to be tolerant of other people's beliefs. You have to stay on top of everything your kids are exposed to; something you just found out the hard way. I really do detest that everyone seems to have an agenda and to aim it at unsuspecting children is despicable. The key is not to overreact. I know it's next to impossible when your children are threatened but they will emulate you and calm confidence always carries the day.

Just an FYI: not all of us from south of the Mason-Dixon line are bible toting religious freaks. ;)

[jennickels.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's usually what I do. Having to send the kids to Catholic school was tough. The first month I was on edge the whole time. I had to remind myself that I made it through the system and so did my agnostic father watching from the sidelines.

I have no idea what my brother believes but religion isn't a big part of his life. I know my kids will figure it out on their own (whatever it is they choose to believe in). I just get irritated with people trying to force their beliefs onto them. Especially the 5yo because she just doesn't understand. She doesn't even know who Jesus is but now fully believes he's her "best friend" because some people she looks up to told her so. Sigh.

I'm just letting it go. She'll forget about it once the park thing is over (next week is the last day). The sticker just kind of threw me. I think normally I would have just rolled my eyes at it and went about my day but it was like a physical slap in the face.


Just an FYI: not all of us from south of the Mason-Dixon line are bible toting religious freaks. ;)

I try to remind myself of that. I spend too much time on this parenting site and there are a lot of crazy religious people. Before that site I was oblivious to the nuttery of this country. Growing up in the north it's just not a big issue. People just mind their own business. Then I get on the site and they are arguing over Bible History being taught in public school and a majority of people are FOR it. Ugh.

I even had a nice "Christian" woman PM and tell me I deserved to have my children raped and murdered in front of me because I didn't agree with her on some topic (I believe it was the non-stop coverage of the Caylee Anthony disappearance which I was tired of hearing about every second of the day). Apparently I was an uncaring bitch and deserved to be punished with the death of my children. It's what god would would want.

Holy fuck these people are insane. People like that scare me.