ignore this if you are religious
3 Aug 2011 08:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jennickelsMy 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.
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.
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no subject
Date: 4 Aug 2011 05:49 am (UTC)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.