So, “God’s on our side” because…?

“With God on our Side”

by -Bob Dylan

Oh my name it is nothin’, my age it means less.
The country I come from is called the Midwest.
I’s taught and brought up there, the laws to abide.

And that the land that I live in has God on its side.

Oh the history books tell it, they tell it so well.
The cavalries charged, the Indians fell.
The cavalries charged, the Indians died.
Oh the country was young, With God on its side.

The Spanish-American
War had its day.  And the Civil War too was soon laid away.
And the names of the heroes, I’s made to memorize.
With guns on their hands, and God on their side.

The First World War, boys it came and it went.
The reason for fighting I never did get.
But I learned to accept it, accept it with pride.
For you don’t count the dead when God’s on your side.

The Second World War, came to an end.                                                  We forgave the Germans, and then we were friends.
Though they murdered six million, in the ovens they fried.
The Germans now too have God on their side.

I’ve learned to hate the Russians, all through my whole life.
If another war comes, it’s them we must fight.
To hate them and fear them, to run and to hide.
And accept it all bravely, with God on my side.

But now we got weapons of chemical dust.
If fire them we’re forced to then fire them we must.
One push of the button, and a shot the world wide.
And you never ask questions, when God’s on your side.

Through many dark hour I’ve been thinkin’ about this.
That Jesus Christ was betrayed by a kiss.
But I can’t think for you, you’ll have to decide
whether Judas Iscariot had God on his side.

So now as I’m leavin’, I’m weary as Hell.
The confusion I’m feelin’, Ain’t no tongue can tell.
The words fill my head, and fall to the floor.
If God’s on our side, he’ll stop the next war.

Religion’s a joke to my kids–so, have I done something wrong?

When she came around the corner in her pink pajamas, I knew she wanted to chat.  It’s Saturday, and mom isn’t rushing off to work, isn’t grading papers, isn’t busy!

“Can I help make breakfast?”  No way could I say no to that.  “Hey mom, guess what?  I have a new God that I pray to.”

“Really?”  Formerly, it was the God Poseidon.  She loved Poseidon, and swore he was the only God for her.  But I wanted to know what this new God had over him, so I played the game.  “Which God is it? Jesus?  Mohammad?”

“No.  It’s peanuts.  I pray to the peanut God!”

“There is no peanut God.”  I said.  At this point, my husband had to defend his daughter’s right to worship Sir Peanut.

“You don’t know that.  She has a Peanut God, so he must exist.”

“That’s right,” she said.  “My Peanut God is wonderful, and he smells great!”

I had the girls disappear for a minute so that we could have a grown-up chat.  I told my hubby that  he was making a farce out of faith.  Our job, I told him, was to give them a chance to choose their faith, not make religion seem like a game.

“But that’s not what we’re doing,” he complained.  “We are allowing them to choose how they interact with faith; we’ve taken them to church–they didn’t stay.  We tell them that we’ll love them no matter their choice–so they create ridiculous choices.  Religion seems like a game to them because they equate it with Santa Clause and the tooth fairy; we didn’t tell them to do that.  We allowed them freedom, and they didn’t take it seriously.  We didn’t do anything wrong.”

And I suppose he was right.

Had we been in my childhood home, and I said I was ready to worship the Peanut God, I might have been smacked somewhere, told to ask

Jesus isn't something to smirk about, right?

God for forgiveness, and then forced to attend church to repent.  In our home, we say “Good for you.  Why did you choose such a ‘unique’ God?  We love you no matter what God you choose.”

But I have the guilt that comes with being raised in a faith.   Should I tell  my kiddos that religion is  a serious subject because that’s how most people see it?  They know that a comment like that in front of, say, the grandparents, is inappropriate–the grandparents are ‘faithful’ people.  But is making a joke of religion bad no matter when you do it?

Ok Christians, you can read the Bible; but can you analyze it?

Why some one would want to listen to the Bible being read aloud for FIVE days straight is beyond me; I prefer to read the Good Book snuggled up in bed, or sitting on the couch with some coffee.

But this is America, and in America reading the Bible aloud is not grounds for being jailed.  Nor does reading the Bible constitute a public disturbance–unless you decide to do so naked, pissy drunk, or in a manner that is otherwise socially unacceptable.

So why is a small town in Stuart city Florida “raising Cain” over their 5-day Bible read-a-thon?  The article by Joe Kovacs on Worldnet Daily might have the answer.  He quotes Spirit of Prophecy Ministries’ Donna Healton as saying “Here we are on government property, and we have the Ten Commandments right there in front of the pulpit.”  Healton organized the event and hopes that it will go statewide.

My guess is that by reading the Bible at a public park, somehow the message that God is being “put back where he belongs” is being taken away from the marathon event.  In truth, I could stand and read from the Satanic Verses, or Pagans for Dummies at my local park and my First Amendment Right protects me just the same; it’s no big deal.

Reading the Bible in a space that your organization reserved doesn’t place God anywhere he wasn’t already.

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The real question

So if dozens of Christians will be reading the Bible, will they be thinking about the words they are uttering, too?  Let’s hope so.

Could you imagine reading 1 Tim.2:11-12″Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence” and not thinking, wait a minute, what did that say?

Or how about the lovely James 4:4 “the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.”  WTF?

I could go on.  The truth is that reading the Bible isn’t the problem–it’s the start of the solution.

Like it or not, the Bible needs a 21st-century update. First, we need to read the Bible, and then we need to THINK about what we read.  That’s what we want our children to do when they come across a philosophical text.  Read it.  Think about it, and square it with our personal value system.  Yes, that would take away from the sanctity of the Bible, but what’s sacred about misogyny, anti-semitism, or slavery?

All of those things are in the Bible.

What’s the point in reading the Bible (a beautiful piece of literature, BTW ) from cover to cover when you’re just as Biblically-illiterate when you finish reading Revelations as you were when you started reading Genesis five days ago?

Just a thought.

blond boy in wife-beater, revolver in hand: apparently, the answer’s in Genesis

Hard to imagine why a Christian would want to put a gun into the hands of a young boy.  Oh yea!  The boy has Christ’s love behind that bullet!

Michael Moore: I know he’s biased, but so is Fred Phelps!

So, the hubby has been at it again, surfin youtube!

We know Michael Moore: his left-skewed movies make us scream about the balance between journalistic integrity and painting a true-to-life picture of American  hardship.

And Monsieur Phelps?  We know him as well.  That would be the right wing “trailblazer of God!”  Mr.  Phelps is responsible for the picket signs that spew venom at the funeral of dead soldiers; he also protested the funeral of Matt Shepard, a college student murdered in Wyoming for begin gay.  Phelps  fundamentalist approach to faith and the Bible have earned him ire among even the most faithful.

Here’s Moore’s “gay tour” to promote a more balanced perception of gay and lesbian Americans.  Take a peek.

Hmmm…could Moore have chosen a better way to promote gay rights?  Heck yea!   Moore lives off shock value, and there’s a place in our society for journalists and movie makers who wish to do that.  I thought the “road show” actually put those gay men in grave danger.  And as a person who lives in the Midwest–I’m serious.

Now, could Mr. Phelps have conceded that even though he personally disagrees with their lifestyle, he is not a person who can speak for Jesus?———-> Well, he could have, but only in my wildest dreams!

The double-entendre that is Gorilla Jesus

America has always been a spoiled brat; so naturally we cling to the most illogical idea with stone fingers.  Take the intelligent design v. evolution debate for instance.  Now, don’t leave yet!  I’m not about to spend half a page going through the two arguments:  you won’t hear, for example, how the conservative, Bush-appointed judge in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District made his opinion crystal clear when he said

“To be sure, Darwin’s theory of evolution is imperfect. However, the fact that a scientific theory cannot yet render an explanation on every point should not be used as a pretext to thrust an untestable, alternative hypothesis grounded in religion into the science classroom, or to misrepresent well-established scientific propositions.”

*Oh*  Sorry.  Anyway, there’s not a reputable scientist on earth that is willing to unequivocally shout from the rooftops “ID is science!”  Does that stop American’s from hoping on the ID bandwagon?  Of course not.

We like our non-fact based logic that says, “because it’s in the Bible, it must be true.”

Enter Jesus. And Gorillas.

Yea, it either sounds like the end of a sexually explicit joke, or the beginning of some serious misunderstandings.  David Ng, Culture Monster writer for the LA Times, is reporting that “British shock artist Paul Fryer” has created a doosy.  I can’t help but think:  if Fryer was an American, in say Denver, CO when he unveiled his artwork, all hell would have broken loose.  Check out “The Privilege of Dominion” below

Sure, Fryer’s goal had nothing to do with religion.  His goal was to “highlight [the] plight of the Western Lowland Gorillas, and to challenge the Christian notion that animals do not have souls,” according to Ng’s article; and I believe Fryer.  But how do you get people to focus on western lowland gorilla’s in a recession?

You do what everyone’s doing: you find Jesus.   Fryer’s decision to merge Jesus and a gorilla on the freakin Cross! gave me real cause for pause.  Was Fryer an irreverent heretic, or a witty genius?  I still really can’t decide.  On the one hand, he is openly mocking the faithful–taking the most sacred of symbols and replacing it with the arch-nemesis of faith: evolution.  The Bible is clear on such “graven images.”

But that’s what makes Fryer’s artwork so sinfully stimulating.  You stare at the image where Jesus is supposed to be.  Instead of seeing his naked skin with those small underarm puffs, you’re presented with a hairy, big-footish son of God.  He’s got claws.  His teeth are stained and fang-like; he’s a gorilla–literally.

Fryer’s Western Lowland Gorilla

Type: Mammal

Diet: Omnivore

Average lifespan in the wild: 35 years

Size: standing height 4 to 6 ft (1.2 to 1.8 m)

Weight: 150 to 400 lbs (68 to 181 kg)

Group name: Troop

Western lowland gorillas live in the smallest family groups of all gorillas, with an average of four to eight members in each.

Though more common than mountain gorillas, western lowland gorillas are endangered.  A little research on the lowland gorilla found me admiring Fryer, if anything for having the heart to stick up for those with no voice–no matter the consequences.  Now, millions of people are aware of these magnificent creatures, and a portion of those millions will choose to donate money–and, perhaps–effort to the cause of preserving their existence.

*                             *                          *

So, shame on you Fryer….America’s not gonna play with you if you do that anymore! 

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

You can visit Paul  Fryer’s website by here.

You can also find David Ng’s article on Fryer here.

Learn more about the western lowland gorilla at National Geographic by here.

Newsfeed Saturday……

Why isn’t gay sex moral too?

Ok, so it’s not your thing; it’s not mine either.  But is it right to say one type of sex is more or less moral than another–with no other justification than because I don’t like it?  Well, if you’re talking about rape, incest, or pedophilia, yes!  But, if you’re talking about two consenting adults, two people who want to feel as close to one another as can be–hex no!  I found this right-leaning article by Worldnet Daily to be pretty ok.

It involves Obama’s Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (likely) pick: Chai Feldblum.   After declaring that gay sex is “morally good” she drew ire from conservatives…of course.  Her courage is to be admired, and her youtube video is below.

Prayer still can’t beat out a doctor

Dale and Leilani Neumann the two parents who watched their daughter writhe in agony–lose the ability to walk, talk and finally to breathe–because they refused to see a doctor, were sentenced to 10 years probation.  They were convicted of second degree reckless homicide in the death of 11-year old Madeline Kara Neumann, who died of undiagnosed diabetes, after being surrounded in the living room by a “prayer circle.”  I wrote a post about Madeline a while back–her story is a tragic reminder of what religion lacks: objective results.

You can find the article here.  I like her smile in this picture…

NASA set to barrel into the moon–

the search for water continues!

I love NASA; I know they’re expensive, and what they find generally only makes sense to a few people–but we (us normal people) can barely fathom how totally expansive the universe is.  There  truly is no word in our language to describe the infiniteness of space.  So, why not get to know our neighborhood a little, eh?

NASA’s set to launch some metal as deep into the moon as possible, lookin for H2o.  I sure hope they find it!  Water, life, conclusive evidence of life–all take any or all three!  You can find their article here.

“God wants me to love the little boys….”

“Dear world, thank God for the little boys!

I’m not sure why the government chose to lock me up.  20 months is a long time to serve for a man of G0d.  My crime wasn’t even a real crime; you see, all the progressive missionary men are doing it; American ministries are WAY out of touch.

It?  You know, finding the most current images of our youngest followers and using those pictures to cast the demons from our bodies.  They are so sweet, with dimple chins–and dimple bottoms!  God has purified the young ones you see, so my evil doesn’t stain them.  I can pose them, touch them–without hurting them at all!

Me?  Oh, my name is Ronald William White, and as I sit here carrying out my sentence for child pornography, I can tell you that the most ‘cosmopolitan Europeans’ are the only ones who understand the beauty of my collection, and of what I do.

My degree in theology has taught me that children are a gift from God; and seeing them, naked, posing for me in the most graphic of positions, is just what God put me on the path for!  Why else would he allow me to seek out over 10,000 photos, mostly of beautiful boys, and ravish them in my dreams?

God, and my job as a traveling youth minister for the last 5 years (in 11 countries around the world) has so blessed me!  I was actually able to ‘[take] some of those pictures [myself] in the homes of families [I] visited!’  I had to do a little persuading–food, water, and the promise of heaven was really all it took!

But for some reason, the Canadian and American governments think that I’ve done something wrong.  Don’t they know that this was all part of God’s plan?  Don’t they know that to make love a child is not a bad thing?

I guess not.

But lucky for me, God has once again blessed me!  As I sit here, dreaming of my little ones, God has allowed that my sentence count for two!  This means of course that for my 7 months in jail, I get 14   I only have 6 months left!

My hope is that Jesus will see fit to grant my request for time served–then I can go back to doing his work.  After all, I’m only 25, and I have a long future as a minster of God, after this blows over, of course.

I instructed my lawyer to tell the media that I was ‘ashamed and remorseful’ for what I’d done, but how could I truly be remorseful–it’s the work of our lord and Savior Jesus Christ!  Anyway, if it wasn’t for that new child-pornography legislation–obviously the work of the devil–I would have never been arrested; what I do–my love for children, isn’t wrong.

Well I’ve gotta go world; Lord willing, I can pack up and move back home to Virginia again–this time though, I might have to use someone else’s laptop to find my little friends

Forever righteous in the eyes of God,

Ronald William White.”

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* A satirical piece

When 8-year olds see the holy ghost

I’ve seen the holy ghost, at least, I’ve seen it in other people.  Women in my church regularly got the holy ghost.

The ghost would start by standing the woman straight up as the preachers voice booms, her head turned to one side.  She is the church veteran, not a day under 40, and dressed in her Sunday best.  Her chest would begin to pump–front back, front back; that’s when people in the pews began to move.  They know he’s got her, and that’s when the kids stare in fascination.

One step gets her out into the  isle, her chest still thrusting.  Now her face is shifting, morphing from normal to strange.  Sweat is starting to form across her hair line.  I could tell she wasn’t here, and that he had her.   When her hat flies off, someone in the back pews eventually runs up to grab it–

But she’s still pulsating.  Now her knees get weak, and she falls to floor.  At this point, anxiety gets the best of me and I’m scared of her.  She’s not the same person; she’s possessed: she can’t control her hands, she can’t control her voice, and yet, no one is angry at her for not acting like a lady.  My brother is laughing, first under his breath, and then under the pews–he’s been smacked enough to know laughing when the holy ghost arrives is completely inappropriate.

The music from the organ rises, and she moves faster.  “Yea!”   they shout. “Amen!  Amen!” and I’m overwhelmed.

The music, the  choir, the people–and the woman in the isle.  I want them all to go away–I want to color downstairs in the basement of the church, away from the hysteria.  But the elders say that I should see her this way.  I should see the power of the holy ghost and ask him to take me too in his arms.  This lady, this calm and slow moving woman, now has the power of the ghost: she moves, she screams, she speaks in tongues.

And then the deacons, the usher–someone–comes to carry her out.  She’s exasperated and the ghost has left.

How strange–he never came to visit any of the men in my church, any of the children, and certainly none of the teenagers….

Sunday Services (pt. 2): the UU experience

As we walked into the space where church services would be held, I took a deep breath.  I had to release the negative energy that churned at the thought of going church.  I’d spent about an hour in the building, the children were playing downstairs in RE–having a great time–and the husband was, well, compliant.

We were given a small handout which had the schedule for the sermon, and small events being hosted in the coming weeks.  The theme for the hour was The Sacredness of Work.  But it wasn’t work in the spirit of building for the Lord, or doing God’s work–it was work in the sense that no matter what you do, no matter your job, your work helped people; it was because of you that people made it through their day.

I was one of only 3 brown faces in the room–but that feeling of alienation that comes with being one of three wasn’t there–we were all together in that space.

I chose not to participate in a few time honored rituals: I did not sing, I did not stand to be welcomed, and I did not participate in the group speech that happens at least once in any church.  It was good to see those things however.  Had I been a person who recently left Christianity and wanted to try something more open, it would be the small nuances that would help the transition.

The Chalice was lit.

In my old church, you are seated, the preacher begins to preach and the word of the Lord ‘fills’ you.  My UU experience was quite different.  When I grabbed the hymnal book, I was surprised to find readings/quotes from Emma Goldman, Martin Luther King Jr., and Khalil Gibran.  There was also excerpts from Buddhist, Hindu, Islamic and Christian faiths.  I spent quite some time thumbing through the last third of the song book, which also housed quotes from the Tao Te Ching and other eastern philosophies.  These quotes were read aloud at certain points in the sermon, reinforcing the basic theme.

The best part was a reading from Jeffrey Salkin’s Being God’s Partner.  It posited the idea of work in a way that moved it from a spiritual endeavor to a self-fulfilling act; Salkin didn’t find God through work, he found a sense of inner peace by recognizing that everyone has a job that moves someone else along their chosen path: “if you are a cab driver, you move someone from the death of a loved one in a hospital into the caring arms of those waiting at home to start their transition…” It’s not an exact quote, but more than anything, I wanted to hear more about work from this perspective….

The deepening

I have a fascination with silence, mostly because I can never seem to find quiet time.  Even when I’m alone, and the room is silent, my thoughts are speaking aloud in my head.  So when the minister stood up and asked for a moment of ’silence and centering’, I enjoyed it!  The goal was to clear your mind, feel yourself breath, and ready yourself for a new perspective on work.

The 30 seconds of silence and deepening was enough to send my hubby over the edge he later told me, but he maintained himself.  Having been in hundreds of churches from Scotland to Seattle, he was in no mood for the ritual of silence–and I understood.

But I liked the quiet, I enjoyed trying to release energy that would not help me and absorb the positive energy and welcoming wishes of the room.

The sermon itself felt more like an essay reading than a spiritual engagement.  I felt like I was hearing a wonderful excerpt from a series of essays on the relationship between work, religion and selflessness.  The minister moved us through her experiences of work as a child, and her college years with habitat for humanity–which led her to the ministry.  “Helping people build houses raised religious questions that one might not expect: ‘is it right for me to build a home for a Muslim family?’” one Christian would ask.  “‘Is it ok for me, spiritually, to know that the home I’m building will house a person that is unmarried with kids, yet living with a man, against God’s will?’” another was quoted as having asked?

How can we get past our religious differences and focus on work as a means for helping all people, regardless of their spiritual background?  How can we help humanity and help ourselves at the same time?

I really enjoyed her sermon.  It was on point, centered around the theme of work, it was honest, and she didn’t run from anything: “why do people assume,” she said of one black woman, “that when I help build for habitat for humanity that the house is for me?”

Even the minister acknowledged her previous prejudices that she “didn’t even know she had.”  If we want to move past our personal agenda’s, we have to “be willing to put them aside for the sake of the whole.”

The services ended with song and donation.  The donation we were told, “would be divided in half.  50% would go directly to cover building expenses, and 50% would go to the community charity of the month.”  This month it was the Kansas City Health Care Clinic, which helps the serve the nearly 300,000 people in Kansas City without health care.  To put that in perspective, there are about 600,000 people in the greater KC area…..

I happily gave a moderate donation–it was nice to hear where the money was going to, and who would receive my help.

The Chalice was extinguished, and we were told to go in peace…….

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Our drive home was full of debriefing: The girls enjoyed RE, the older asking “are we coming next Sunday?” and the younger fairly indifferent about he experience.  The hubby had an enjoyable time.  He finds church goes to be generally kind, but wonders why freethinkers would want the ritual they chose to shed when they took on their title of Atheist, Agnostic, etc.

I enjoyed myself.  The sermon was interesting and made no mention of  Jesus–which was simply not my experience in church.  There was an Amen, a couple passing mentions of God (mostly in song) and lots of references to the ’spirit.’

I plan to attend the forum discussions on occasion, and perhaps some of the side events, but overall I’m way too lazy to get up every Sunday.  And I’m way too anti-social to meet and greet on a regular basis.

But it’s really nice to know that the UU church will always be open if I change my mind.  The family has committed to at least three RE sessions for the girls.  If they like it, they can come regularly; if they don’t, they can stay home.  I have a feeling that’ll be the choice of the youngest, who tends to follow my not so social footsteps.  My oldest daughter can’t wait to come back, and I’m happy for her.

The Freethinkers go to Church!

My church experiences are pretty limited to a Baptist perspective; I’ve been to Catholic services twice, and that’s pretty much it. So walking through the doors of a Unitarian Universalist church for Sunday service made me want to soak it all in–the walls, the floors, the people and all the minute details of experience.  We would go to RE first, lounge time next and then the main event: Sunday services.

Religious  Education

Our first task was to secure the children.  It was 9:50 and RE (Religious Education–Sunday School) started promptly at 10 am.   We walked into the open space and met our ‘guide’ for the day.   The walls were covered with paintings from local Artists, their name and the price of the work scrolled at the bottom.  Each year, the church holds a gallery sale where you can meet local artists, buy paintings, and a book sale is attached.  Their are ceiling to floor windows in the open space, allowing you to see the outdoor sitting area–a few people are already out there, sipping coffee and chatting in pairs.

The actual service room–where the service was held–is to the left, doors open, with a few heads popping out above the pews.  As we glance at each other, my husband and I sigh……….the ’sermon’ room.

We usher the children downstairs, where the RE class is held.  Several rooms separate the kids by age groups.  This Sunday is the last day of summer Sunday sessions; normal classes begin next Sunday.  Having taught 3-5 year olds for years, the RE rooms have all the prerequisites for a functional kiddie class: huge colorful rugs dot the floors, there is a calendar, a sign in sheet.

But there are mantras on the wall–huge phrases that all have to do with the planet earth: “Our planet is our home.  We must take good care of the planet and all the people, animals and plants that live there.”

“We have spent the summer learning about the rain forest and why it is important,” the RE director informs me.  Today the kids will separate into younger and older groups my 8 and 9 year olds move to the 7-11 age group room, and meet the other kiddos (children and parents are constantly cycling up and down the stairs).  The girls decided to huddle, smile and attempt taught manners–their uncomfortableness shows. “I suggest, if they enjoy today, you allow them to come to 3 RE classes in a row.  This will help them get over their shyness and they will get a chance to see if they like things further,” the instructor said.

I am also told a strong emphasis will be placed on self-esteem, opportunities to grow personally and spiritually (if desired), and the ethical treatment of all living things–including our planet.

She was a soft spoken woman, and the details of the coming quarter’s classes were unusual for ‘Sunday school’.  The girls would be split because of their age: 7-8 year olds will focus on stories from around the world.  My youngest will be learning, if she wants to stay, about creation stories from the Islamic, Jewish, Buddhist, Christian and Hindu traditions.  The oldest, in the 9-10 year old group, will have RE that focuses on science.  She will learn the basic spectrum of scientists that have contributed to the life we enjoy today–as well as become introduced to famous Unitarian figures of the past.  My oldest–who definitely plans on coming back– will also learn about how Unitarian churches differ in their approach to the afterlife from Christian, Buddhist, Islamic and many other places of worship.

I do the mom thing: huddle, hug kiss.  “I”m going to be upstairs, this lasts an hour and then I’ll be back down to check on you.  You guys have fun, and try to meet some new people!”  They give me the puppy eyes that want me to stay, but I smile back, wave, and walk upstairs…this is their time to enjoy–or not enjoy–’Sunday school.’

Forum v. Lounge time

After making our way back to the main parlor, we had a choice: go into the forum that begins at 10, or move about the building greeting, chatting and relaxing.

The forum setup is really cool.  Each Sunday at 10, you can spend an hour or so discussing community topics, listening to a presentation, or advocating for a specific cause yourself.  I wasn’t quite ready to go into the sermon area, and neither was the hubby, so we decided to skip the discussion for the day–the value of healthcare reform.

Instead, we chose to take a slow tour of the church.  Inside, we visited the kitchen, which was next to the lounge area–my favorite.  Essentially a lunchroom, the lounge area had about 10 tables, a stage, more massive windows, and a small eating area.  With a donation of your choice, you could grab some munchies, and sit and chat until the 11:15 service.   I noticed quite a few people from the freethinkers meet-ups their, as well as  a few students–who aptly pretended I didn’t exist (I love teenagers!)

We would spend about 20 minutes in the lounge and then we’d survey the grounds.  I was so surprised with the openness of the time; at my churches you always were supposed to be somewhere, doing something.  At a UU church, meeting and greeting, moving at will, and loose structure seemed to run the day.

As we walked around the building, I learned the history of the church itself.  This UU church had been around–in the same building–for more than 100 years, it had gone through less than 20 ministers (at least, that’s what I saw on the photo wall), and the church had become an integral part of the community.

I also learned about the process for choosing a new minister for a UU church.  This process consisted of a pool of 20 or so candidates being narrowed down to about 3.  Each candidate comes and gives a sermon at the church, which is intensely scrutinized.  There must be a proper fit, congregation and minister, and UU churches take this seriously.

Candidates’ credentials and history are taken into account by the search committee (made up of elected members), and finalists interact with the church on several different levels before a selection is made.  Voting and congregational input is used throughout the length of the process, which can take up to a year.  During that time, interim ministers–selected by Universalist Unitarian Association–come and help a congregation transition from one minister to the other; interim ministers have no intention of becoming full ministers.

I found my hubby and he was a bit irritated.  “We came for ‘church’ and we’re hanging out.”  His life was spent in church (being the son of a preacher and all) and his intentions were clear: he came to support the kiddos, support my decision to go, and then to leave.  I sent him on an errand: check on the girls.  When he returned, we moved into the place of worship

–not a cross in site.

Aahh Church this Sunday: Will the Unitarians convert me?

Okay, my friend is gonna read this and pull hairs.

It’s true that at her Unitarian church, the goal isn’t to save souls; they merely want souls to have an opportunity to congregate.  It’s just hard to shake that “we want you to convert” feeling that comes with church.  Every Sunday at church, we were ‘invited’ to let the Lord into our lives–again, and again and again.  But each time my little brown knees knelt before the preacher, nothing stirred inside.

Now my girls will enroll in the Sunday school/religious education program, and the hubby and I will sit through ’service.’   Religious education and acceptance is the general theme of Unitarian Sunday schools–that and being around kids who’s parents are also hellbound as well.

But I’m such a flake!  I wanna back out.

Church?  The last time I went to a ‘Sunday service’ I was a teenager, I was forced, and I stared at the cross the whole time–half in dismayed curiosity, half is sheer rage.  That one symbol, two sticks crossed off center, was responsible for so much frustration, so many let downs–

I’m a little agitated (afraid?).

Am I supposed to dress up?  Are jeans acceptable?  I’ve spent the last two weeks trying to put my Baptist experiences behind me and give the Unitarian perspective an objective shot.  We teach children not to prejudge, not to assume.  I have to enter with an open mind; a skeptical mind, but an open one.

And no, I don’t expect to be converted.  I’ve been skeptical of religion since I was a young girl, I don’t expect this to ‘enlighten’ me.  But perhaps I will make some freethinking friends, perhaps my children will feel comfortable and ‘normal’, and perhaps I’ll learn that not all churches want your soul.

Whatever the case–I can’t wait to scroll my thoughts out on The Secular Parent!

A little sacreligious humor to lighten your Saturday (warning parents:explicit!)

My husband came across this little beauty!   It’s a rather humorous satire describing how the God of old ‘took care’ of people who went against him.  Satire is cruel.  It’s so witty, so rude and  so disrespectful that sometimes, sometimes, it goes too far.  If you’re one of my more conservative readers (and I love you for it!), this video isn’t for you–clearly just the title is wholly atrocious.

But, if you’re one of my cynical, push everyone’s button and laugh about it, kermudgeonistic kind of readers, you might just get a kick out this.  Either way, don’t take it too seriously!

The playground: the new battlefield

It rolls off the tongue with such vigor and sharpness: delusional.  The only emotion that rises from being called delusional is rage.  So why do freethinkers toss it from the tongue?  Don’t they understand the power of that word?  Of course they do, and that’s exactly why they–why we–use it.

Of course it stems from a truism: debating the validity of faith and religion in general can only go so far–once a person says ‘I believe’ you have to say ok…right?

When Richard Dawkins book, The God Delusion, flew off of bookstore shelves I was so happy.  I thought “we finally live in a world where religious hypocrisy can be discussed, openly.  Where inconsistencies–the kind that led me to stray from my Christian upbringing–could be banished as non-facts.”   But the God Delusion did more than that.  It inadvertently  branded people–specifically Atheists–as rude, mean spirited and arrogant.  It deemed all religious people–delusional, ignorant, and mentally weak.

When I speak with my evangelical friends, I tread carefully through our conversations.  Fear doesn’t provoke it; a love of knowledge, friendship, and a love of truth makes me watch my tongue.  If I want to see the relationship between freethinkers and the faithful change, I have to bring warmth before I deliver cold.

When I was a ‘new Atheist’, there was no stopping me.  My blood wanted a fight, and logic was on my side.  I’d say it just the way I felt it, which was usually pointed toward the hypocrisy I saw specifically from organized religion and religious individuals in general.  I’d call out ANYONE, ANYWHERE.  I had a RIGHT to criticize faith, and I was using it.

But maturity has slowed my passions.  Yes, I am an Atheist.  And yes, I do believe that organized religion is designed to maintain the facade of an afterlife for the purposes of controlling, using, and manipulating those who genuinely believe.  I am sad for those who were ‘born into faith.’

I want young people to choose.

I also acknowledge that Atheism can’t answer for all the experiences of the world, and we need a balancer–an opposite–to keep in check the power and control of the many over the few.  I wouldn’t want to live in a world of Atheists only, no more than I want Christianity to dominate the landscape.  There is a way can find our similarities and put aside our differences for the purpose of helping us all.

And I love the writings of Richard Dawkins–and I make no apologies for it.  If we look behind the angst and passion of Dawkins–which tends to pronounce itself as a hybrid of emotion and impenetrable logic–we see a frustration that cannot be controlled; he tries, but it overrides him at times.

This is the same frustration that plays out on the field at my kids school–where they battle for their right to be free of Sunday school, free of hell and free of Jesus.

Delusion  heaven  devil Jesus  Mohammad  hedonist, immoral, stupid.

These are the words we sling back and forth at one another, freethinker and faithful alike.   I temper my words, and consider my thoughts for the sake of respect, and for the goal of living in a world where a perspective is a perspective, and all perspectives are authentically allowed to foster.

But the playground, who’s watching the playground?  Who’s making sure that our children move into a space where they can stand up for themselves, and yet still respect another’s point of view?  If we all took a minute to tell a child, “Because people think differently than you does not mean that they are bad people,” a crack, a split, and then a crevasse would emerge.  And try as they might, the boxes deceptively placed around the mind of a child will weaken.

Kids and Ramadan: how young is too young to fast?

In my quest for balanced parenthood, I explained Ramadan my girls by telling them a quick story:

In high school, I had two friends, a sister and a brother, who were orthodox Muslims from Ethiopia.  The sister was a short, matter of fact girl, she made decent grades and was a goofball in her spare time.  She never covered her hair–which was the source of many screaming matches on the bus home, but she loved her God, and she loved Islam.

Her brother was on the football team, tall and unstoppable.  He was  defensive about his privacy, generally quiet and very popular–the oxymoron of the century!  When I found out that both of them were fasting for Ramadan freshman year, I couldn’t contain my curiosity.

“You’re not eating ALL day?”

“Nope.  We were up at 4 this morning, my whole family, eating breakfast before the sun came up.”

“But your brother’s on the football team?  They’re running laps later today!  He’s gonna pass out!”  I was really worried about him.  His sister didn’t even raise her voice.

“He’s not going to run the laps.”  I left her and began roaming teh halls, making my way to ‘boy corner.’  ‘He’s my friend, and he’s starving himself,’ I thought.  I found him, alive and well.

“You just realize that you can’t have food,” he explained.

“Why?”  I had no idea that people purposely starved themselves.

“In faith and respect for Allah’s power and glory.”

“Aren’t you hungry?”

“Yep.  But Allah dictates that I don’t eat, and he is all powerful, and I will do as he says.”

As I walked away, I wondered if  I had the strength to give up something vital to my comfort and happiness–like food–for 30 days.  I had friends who were Catholic too, and they gave up small vices for lent (the 40 days before Easter), but eating altogether?

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Now my girls are a bit cynical about religion, so their first response to someone willingly not eating because god told them to was “how do they know that’s what god wants?”  They also decided that you should take a break from somethings, but that taking a break from eating is “bad for your body.”

We chatted about their uncle, who is an orthodox Muslim.  They’d noticed the facial hair, and now they’d found out that he wasn’t eating on purpose.  “That’s one way to think about God and his rules,” I told them.  “There are many others.”

I don’t much about the requirements of Islam–I’m learning though.  I was told that children are not required to fast during Ramadan.  One Muslim friends said that she did not start fasting until middle-school; puberty.  Do kids fast younger? Probably, but I think puberty is probably a safe bet.  Mostly because by puberty, young people are mature enough (in most cases) to begin the process of rigorously investigating faiths.  Maybe one of my daughters will see value in fasting as she grows.

The other day, I learned my sister was giving up cussing “for Ramadan.” She’s not a Muslim, but sometimes her  blood boils and she lets loose.  “No cussing in words, or texts, or emails: it’s all the same,” she said.

Which got me to thinking, what’s the harm in giving up a vice for a while, even if you don’t believe?

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I love you little brother…this one’s for you!  I hope you stay steadfast in your faith, and I wish you a peaceful Ramadan.

6 billion doesn’t equal 1

A Random Situation

In a crowded store, the boys scream echoes.  No more than 4, he’s realizing that the M&M’s in his hand have can’t leave the store.  And as his wails travel through the store, 3 people have 3 different reactions.

Person #1 chooses to sneer, and her eyes show their irritation–they cut deep into the boy’s mother.  she turns to her (perfectly still) daughter.

Person #2 is wearing a red afghan, and black flip flops.  Her look is totally indifferent.  No smile, no frown, nothing.  Just a turn of the head, and then it turns toward the teller.

Person #3 is me.  I love seeing irate little kids.  Life seems cruel, and instead of quietly drumming on, the little boy jumps, hollers, and fights back!

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We weren’t the only ones to see “little Ike’s” tempter tantrum, the whole store saw–or heard– it.  And the likelihood that everyone in the store saw it the same way is low.

If we move from the various perspectives of child-rearing to the various perspectives on the afterlife, we get the same varied spectrum of ideas.   6 billion people can’t equal 1 faith, no matter how much that faith asserts its right for dominance on the world.

Enter the Christian Headline News.

They and other Christian websites have a feature called “The Unreached.”  You get the name of a person, their country of origin and their faith.  You are then instructed to pray them to Christ.  The goal: reach every single person on the planet; tell all the people in the world about the glory of Christ so that they will leave their faith and come to the ‘one true faith.’

The arrogance in such a perspective is astounding.  I have no doubt that their are freethinkers who wish the world was a world of freethinkers and nothing else.  There are Muslims who want a world of Mohammad followers, and so on.

But 6 billion people are bound to have different interpretations of faith, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

Instead of trying to ‘reach’ everyone on the planet, instead of religions competing for the right to say they won, we should focus on the tenets of each philosophy, which one best suits our perspective on the world, and why more than one interpretation is no only possible, but plausible.

Edward Current: What if God disappeared?

Let’s make sure we’re all on the same page before we start this little video by Mr. Current, shall we?  This video is a satirical representation of what would happen if God decided to leave us.  Now, for those who aren’t aware, satire displays human follies and vices to ridicule or scorn.  There is always an underlined truth to the hyperbole present in satirical works, and Mr. Current makes his truth easily observable—let’s watch:

Now, blasphemy aside, this video makes some serious assertions by it’s humor and underlined theme.  Namely that without God, Christians wouldn’t be good, wouldn’t see good in the world, and wouldn’t do good works.  They do this, according to Currant, all for the sake of God.  Why be a missionary if you weren’t going to heaven for it?

Current’s satirical depiction of a life without God has philosophical roots.  Particularly, the age old argument posited to religious folk:  are you only good because you’re afraid of God?  Do you only treat people nicely because it will get you into heaven?

And what about Atheists?  Current’s laugh on them is another philosophical argument from the past:  Atheists have no morals, no ambition and no happiness because they don’t know God.  I get this all the time as an Atheist: what reason do you have to be good?———-> how about being good because I KNOW it’s the right thing to do?

When my husband spotted this youtube beauty, I knew I had to write something about it.  Yes, it’s kinda rude.  Yes, it plays on things many people have already addressed.  And yes, Edward Current, goofball that he is, has underlined issues in his comedy that spur real debate…..add your voice to get it started!

Taking advantage of the faithful is easy to do for “prosperity preachers”

“Private airplanes and boats. A motorcycle sent by an anonymous supporter. Vacations in Hawaii and cruises in Alaska. Designer handbags. A ring of emeralds and diamonds.”  So goes the list quoted by Laurie Goodstein in her article, “Believers Invest in the Gospel of Getting Rich.”

I read this article with seething anger.

There are preachers, supposed messengers of the divine, that are willfully pulling every last red cent from the poor, yet faithful in America.  Surprising?  Hell no.  Lest we forget the “revival” that took place in the 70’s and early 80’s with preachers that took advantage of the spiritually inclined.

Christians should be outraged at this abuse.

And, to be clear, it’s not just the poor that are donating.  Prosperity preachers’ target audience are those “[that] reside in that nebulous category between the working and the middle class,” according to Jonathan L. Walton.  He’s a professor at the University of California, Riverside, who Goodstein quotes as having researched the phenomenon.

Why should an Atheist be “seething in anger” over prosperity preachers?

When a preacher tells you to not to trust banks, not to trust congress or the legislative process, and then informs you that not donating (despite your economic straits) is “being stingy”,  ANYONE: Atheist, Agnostic, or Christian, should be appalled.  Prosperity preachers prey on those who desperately want to change their life circumstances.  Instead of giving them the skills they need to be successful, prosperity preachers use false logic to convince the faithful to give–in spite of their economic situation.  Their logic goes like this:

If you give money to me (the preacher) even though you don’t have any to spare, then God will give you all the same things (money, cars, expensive things) that I have.

This logic is flawed.  Specifically, it’s a non-sequitur–in other words, one doesn’t necessarily follow the other.  First, because you have money, and you’re a preacher, doesn’t mean that God gave it to you.  Most preachers have jobs, and may preachers are college educated.  Mike Huckabee has a lot of money, and it isn’t because he was a preacher for all those years; it’s because he has a Political Action Committee that raised money for him, he tours, and he’s got a book deal in the works. And before his presidential run, he worked.

Second, how does giving someone YOUR money result in you getting more?  Does “pyramid scheme” come to mind?  Word of advice ye of faith, if it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is!

Prosperity preachers are evil.

They prey on those who wish for a better life under the guise of faith.  They are the reason Christianity in America is falling apart–that and the factual inaccuracies that have been bestowed upon the faith over the years.  The Copelands (the prosperity preachers from Goodstein’s article) steal $100 million dollars a year from the faithful–the working class, struggling faithful–under the pretense that a prayer from the Copelands is ‘divine’.   As one woman put it, “[I] heard the voice of the Holy Spirit telling [me], “You were born to support this man.”  But the Copelands and their ‘prosperity’ haven’t gone unnoticed.

The Senate Finance Committee has began investigating not just the Copelands, but the prosperity movement in general, according to Goodstein’s article.  The SFC wants to know if “evangelists used donations to enrich themselves and abused their tax-exempt status.” This is a good thing because not only does the prosperity movement hurt the people they swindle, but it hurts the legitimate religious organizations that are trying to ‘honestly’ help people have a relationship with Christ.

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The only way to stop prosperity preachers from duping more Americans is to increase our critical thinking skills as a nation.  Yes, this starts with the young ones, but when was the last time you pared down a situation to its basic logic?  Using faulty logic to swindle is a regular business in this country.  Don’t be their next victim!

You can read Ms. Goodstein’s full article by clicking here.                                                           Wanna learn more about false logic (commonly called logical fallacies)?  Click here!

Can God cure diabetes?

Leilani and Dale Neumann are both pious individuals–he even studied once to become a Pentecostal minister, reports an article written by ROBERT IMRIE for the associated Press. The Neumann’s believe in the Christian God, and raised their daughter, Madeline, to do the same.  But when she was diagnosed with diabetes, the 11-year old was told that God, if they prayed, would cure her.

Madeline would die on the floor in the Neumann’s living room before her 12th birthday, after suffering the indignity and pain of being unable to walk, talk, eat, and eventually unable to breathe.  Her father’s response: “If I go to the doctor, I am putting the doctor before God,” Neumann testified. “I am not believing what he said he would do.”

When the Neumann’s were arrested , the debate over religious freedom vs. parental responsibilities ensued.

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This isn’t the first time that a child has died as a result of prayer.  But a question lingers in the back of my head, what is the purpose of prayer?

Some think prayer is simply a way to talk with God.  Others believe that prayer has the power to transform one’s life.  Then there are those, like the Neumanns, that believe in the power of prayer to heal.

I don’t pray, obviously, but I respect those who do.  If you believe that God gives you positive energy, and that it’s necessary to show reverence through prayer, more power to you.

I disagree with those who would use prayer in lieu of health care services for children.  If YOU believe in the power of prayer, that is fine.  But as parents, we must realize that our children are their own people.  Until they come of age and are capable of analyzing and discerning the role of prayer in their lives, parents have an obligation to use the best knowledge we have when dealing with child illness.

It is a FACT that diabetes results in an insulin imbalance that can only be corrected by adding insulin to a person’s body–you must see a doctor for that.

I know this sounds harsh, and I welcome the disagreement, but my verdict mirrors that of the jury in this case: guilty.

God doesn’t heal children’s ailments.  Sometimes, nothing can heal a child, but certainly, Madeline and the dozens of other children that have died at the hands of prayer–died in a world where doctors knew how to help them.

Yes, put the Bible back in school–but only in English class!

It’s so nice to be back at home with The Secular Parent!  I somehow don’t have the refreshed feeling a vacation normally brings…but I’ll fill you in on my vacation in the posts to come.

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Today however brings me to a well-written article by By Drew Zahn, “Charter school’s use of Bible ignites public firestorm.”It seems another school’s planning to use the Bible in English class, as literature.  As an English teacher, I ate this story up!  I have my own views on the subject, but Zahn did a wonderful job laying out the basic argument.

So, a charter school in Idaho has decided to use excerpts from the King James and the New International Bibles as literary texts when the fall school year arrives.  ACLU rep. Monica Hopkins was quoted as saying, “Our main concern is the separation of church and state and that the state is not funding or endorsing a specific religion.”

So, if the Bible is taught as literature (in a secular fashion), does it violate the separation of church and state?

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First, I want to go on record as saying I think the Bible is excellent literature and excerpts of it should definitely be taught in school; 12th Grade AP prep books actually list the Bible as a book that should be studied and analyzed as part of the AP exam!  There is absolutely no doubt that the Bible is one of the most influential books ever written—–> so why can’t we bring it into the classroom?

Blame the teachers on this one!

Yep, teachers (like me) have difficulty being unbiased.  We have no problem teaching Brave New World without berating students with our opinions: we discuss style, tone, diction, theme and all the other English words most of us have blocked from memory.

But when it comes to the Bible, religion, politics, and issues of morality and ethics, teachers really ruin the pie.  We slant things, we use our intelligence to bend the truth in a direction we feel is right.  Why?  Well, who wants to be wrong about anything?!

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The only way to teach the Bible in class, as literature, is to take our experiences as teachers out of it.  It’s also telling that most (American) students don’t know the difference between a theist and an atheist, an agnostic and a deist.  These are basic terms that are used to describe the philosophies of billions of people–and our students don’t have a clue what they mean.

That’s pathetic, and as a nation we should be ashamed.  We’ve become so obsessed with separation of church and state that we’ve forgotten to make our young ones religiously literate.  How can they make an informed decision about their worldview if they don’t have the words to express their philosophy?

But back to the Bible in school.  Two rules must apply for the Bible to be successfully, and taught in a secular fashion:

1.  The teacher must remain objective.  It does students no good to sit in Bible class instead of English.  If the Bible is truly taught in secular fashion, then the people in the Bible aren’t ‘real’, they are characters like the other books we read.  Students are allowed to disagree with the basic  pretense, God’s motives and actions, and whether or not the ‘good book’ is a good book at all.

2.  All viewpoints must be acknowledge equally, and upheld by the teacher–no viewpoint should be discouraged, disrespected, or subjected to intolerant actions.  Period.  Though we don’t read the Bible in my class, we do read books with religious overtones (of course!).  My students know from the first day of class, no matter their background, all thoughts are welcome and respected.  No religion in my class–including the absence of religion, Atheism–is put above another.

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If teachers respect the rights and religions of all people, while reading the Bible in the same way as, say, Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, the controversy surrounding the Bible should diminish.

Of course, there are those who view the reading of the Bible in this fashion as blasphemous.  Teachers should be prepared address the issue with parents, and have alternative lessons available.

You can read Zahn’s full article by clicking here.

23 minutes in Hell…………

I first came across the CD version of Bill Wiese’s 23 minutes in hell via–you guessed it–a student!  The young man said after class one day, that he was aware of my Atheism, that it hurt him, and that he wanted to guide me to God.  He offered me the CD as a gift; God’s way of communicating with me (through him) that I was placing my mortal soul in danger with my Atheism.

What am I supposed to do when a student gives me a gift, in earnest–say no?  That’s not what a teacher does.  Unless it’s a dead baby bird, or some sort or rancid food, I will never turn a gift from a student down.

“But God made me this way, didn’t he?”  I questioned.  “God’s plan is that I’m an Atheist, isn’t it?”

“Please take the CD.” he motioned.  “Listen to it, and then we can talk later.” His tone was serious and there was no smile present on his face.

“I’m not supposed to discuss religion with students, if it doesn’t relate to curriculum needs.  I will take the CD, thank you for the nice offer.”

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Bill Wiese has made a living off of Hell.  Not only has he been there and back (with his wife as living proof), but he doesn’t want anyone to go through the horrible pain that he felt. Mr. Wiese, I believe, is sincere when he says that he went to Hell one night in a dream.   It is not my job to tell someone that the experiences they’ve had aren’t real , I will never do that.

Here’s what Mr. Wiese details in his experiences:

1.  While asleep one normal night, Mr. Wiese’s soul was transported to Hell.  He felt the pain, the unquantifiable heat; he smelled burning flesh.  Mr. Wiese heard the pain and screams of those who had chosen to disobey God.  These things were as real to him as the air going in and out of your lungs right now.

2.  It was God who would deliver Mr. Wiese from Hell.  God (or an Angel) spirited him back to the confines of our Earth, safely into his body.  His wife would find him on the floor, sopping with sweat.  He would recant his journey, and God bid them to tell all who listened of the pain and suffering that awaits should you not choose God.

3.  Mr. Wiese has spent everyday since selling his book, audio CD and lectures (all with the same 23 Minutes in Hell title).  It is given away and sold at churches, versions have popped up from other author’s that detail the experiences of teens–and even little children–that have gone to hell and back.

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As I said before,  I will never say that Mr. Wiese did not go to hell.  His mind and his body tell him that his experiences were real, for him.  Does that mean that Hell is real?

No.  It means that Hell is something he has experienced, and it is real for him.

But we have no proof of hell.  No tangible proof of a place called Hell has ever been proven, and unfortunately, Mr. Wiese’s experiences do not corroborate its existence.  Hell, like Heaven, is something that requires a strong act of faith; if you have that faith, good for you.  If you don’t, that’s ok too.

What I will do is reject the reality of something simply because someone else said they experienced it.   Saying 23 Minutes in Hell is factual truth is false advertisement.

Where do we go from here?

Witchcraft: overblown or serious sin?

When the Harry Potter craze hit back in 1997,  children (of all ages) devoured the book.  At the same time, the ardently faithful also described the book as “the sin of witchcraft…” (1st Samuel 15:23).   Several websites have sprung up proclaiming that children be kept away from what the Bible spells out clearly.

Not just Harry Potter, RPG’s (role play game) have been under attack almost since they were invented.  I’m talking of course about the numerous D & D spin-offs (Dungeons and Dragons) that have emerged in the last 20 or so years.

My favorite game RPG of all time is Baldur’s Gate II, Shadows of Amn.  It tells the story of a kingdom invaded by an evil lord.  Your mission (should you choose to accept it) is to find out as much information about these menacing individuals, mobilize the forces of good, and ultimately emerge victorious!  But first you have to put your crew together, gain power by leveling up, and acquiring the right weapons for the job.

I was so addicted to the game after I created my character that I would wake up in the middle of the night to finish a level, or set my character on another quest toward victory!

I always play as either a wizard or an elf; occasionally, I’ll be a human–but they aren’t all that great.  I don’t know why, but I love the idea of being able to cast spells, wear cloaks of invisibility and increase my skills.

It’s also nice to get out of my skin: I’m not a mother, a teacher, or a wife when I play Baldur’s Gate.  I’m on a quest, and adventure wrought with peril, and the best part is–I never really get hurt!

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But RPG’s, specifically, have a darker side.  There have been several reported cases of women divorcing their husbands for excessive RPG use; one man spent 10 hours a day on his computer, off in never-never land.

Another story reported a woman hauled in for child abuse; she played so much that she neglected to feed and parent her children.  Harry Potter has been accused of inciting kids to entertain “black magic.” Children create potions that others ingest, consequently becoming ill.

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It isn’t for me to say if these things are detrimental and should be avoided–I’m obviously bias.  An excess of anything has the potential to be dangerous.  Excedrin is definitely good when you have a headache, but if you take more than two migraine-strength pills at a time, you risk permanently damaging your liver.

The same really is true in terms of these (rather addicting) games.  I jumped up to play in the middle of the night–but it was summer.  I didn’t have work the next day, and my husband would be up with the kids so that I could sleep in.  He was so happy to see me enjoying something for a change, that he had no problem making breakfast.

If we monitor a child’s use of RPG’s and TV in general, discuss our rationale with kids and try to come up with a plan together, I think kids can enjoy being themselves, and the warlocks, elves, or magicians they choose to be.

If you are particularly religious, this presents a problem.  How to reconcile it?  Easy: children don’t belong to a single faith.  They don’t have the mental capability to dissect and form their own opinion of faith.  Letting children know what your faith tells you on the subject, and what your preferences are, I think, is important.  It’s also important for them to know varying viewpoints.

Yea?  Nay?

Baptist churches don’t have confession booths?

I was trafficked through quite a great many churches in my childhood.  Since we tended to move every couple of years, we also had churches every couple of years.  I’ll never forget the day I somehow ended up in a Catholic church.

The church seemed huge.  It was also the most beautiful church I’d ever been in–to this day I love Catholic churches (for their aesthetics) more than any other.

There stained glass pictures of Jesus, Mary, and the I adored all the images depicted on the ceiling; I spent more time looking at the walls and the ceilings than I did listening to the guy talking in a strange language.  When it was time to come to the front of the church, he put oil of my forehead, said something I couldn’t understand, and then it was all over.

“Where’s that lady coming out of?” I remember wanting to know why she went into a box and came out again–I knew it wasn’t a bathroom.

“Oh that’s the confession booth.  That’s where you go to tell all the bad things you’ve done.  Then God will forgive you.”

“Really?”  I was half excited and half curious.  I would love to tell God all my bad things and then ask him to forgive me for thinking about them (I was generally a well-behaved child).  We didn’t have time for confession, and I felt robbed as I walked passed it.  Why would you not make time to tell God the things you’d like to be forgiven for?

I wanted to be Catholic so that I could talk to God–and stare at the beautiful pictures when I came to church, instead of the white walls of my Baptist faith.

But that was the last time we would visit a Catholic church.

The next Sunday, the walls were bare, except for the obligatory picture of Christ and the cross.  I missed the pictures, and imagined talking to God in the booth–I would tell him all the good things I did right before the few bad things that I remembered.

After the sermon was over, I realized that I didn’t see our confession booth.  I was hoping that even though the church was different, they’d still have one.

“Excuse me, where’s our confession booth?” I asked the preacher as he walked down from the pulpit.

“This is a Baptist church, baby.  Confession booths are for Catholics.”  The preacher smiled and I knew he thought I was stupid–after all, I was nearly 11  and I had no clue what the difference between a Catholic and a Baptist was, even though I’d been going to church since I could remember.

“Can I switch to being a Catholic?”  I was serious, but he laughed harder.

“No.  You were born a Baptist.”

When he walked away I was so confused: why wouldn’t God have confession booths in Baptist churches…didn’t he want us to talk to him at all the churches?

shhh… ‘we can’t talk about Heaven…’

So I’m in the car with my niece and my girls, and I hear a conversation in the back.  The kids are in the back seat, trying to time it just right so that they duck when we go under a bridge.  Then I hear some say “seven..seven..heaven, seven heaven!”

“Shhh….we can’t talk about Heaven.”

Mmmm, I thought.  As we were getting out of the car, I just couldn’t resist: “Hey, Heaven isn’t a bad word.  Why can’t we talk about it?”

“Because she believes in it.”

I didn’t say anything else.  I needed time to process what my daughter’s thoughts are, what wisdom I can bring to her perspective, and how to best approach respecting others’ viewpoints without compromising their right to believe differently.

I get so worried when it’s time to have these conversations…..here’s how it went:

“So girls, do you think you can disagree with someone without hurting their feelings?”

[the little one]: “What are you talking about?”

Well like Marcia*, earlier today you said that we couldn’t talk about Heaven in front of her because she believed in Heaven.  Do you think she’ll feel bad?”

“Her mom died.”

“Yea.  I wouldn’t want to talk about it either.  But, if she said that Heaven was real because her mother died, would that make it true?”

[oldest one]: “Well, I just wouldn’t talk about it.”

“Ok.”

[little one]: “I feel bad.  She doesn’t have a mom.”

“That makes sense, and it is sad.  I wonder if it’s ok to believe something that isn’t true because it makes someone feel sad.”

[oldest one]: well, you can believe it in front of that person to be nice, but you don’t have to really believe it.”

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I left the conversation at that, for now….too much talk and you lose the meat of the conversation….I’ll pick it up later.  I don’t know if I said the right thing, but it really irritates me when people use natural empathy as a way of confusing fact and fiction when it comes to issues of faith.

But children are so literal….I was trying be careful NOT to send the message that having a cold heart is the way to go…how did I do?

*Marcia is a made up name to protect identity!

Child Soldiers of Faith

The last few days, I’ve found myself floating to various religious blogs.  I’m not sure what I’m looking for.  Part of me wants to know how religious people posit the relationship between children and faith, of late.  Are religious individuals starting to re-evaluate the rights of children to be religiously literate?  Perhaps religious people have started to look at children, not as soldiers of Christ or Allah, but as simply young ones that need information about the various faiths of the world.   While surfing, I came across the 6-minute video below.  It depicts a large bunny and a child host on a Palestinian TV show for kids.  The child and the bunny agree, non-believers will be punished by Allah!

I was sincerely saddened when I saw the above video.  No eight-year old naturally says things like, “Allah shall pay them back for their mockery,” or “He leaves them alone in their excess, blindly wandering on.”  These words and phrases are generally taught with the mindset that instilling the faith in children is necessary to keep the Muslim faith strong.  Fanatical Muslims (which represent a small portion of Muslims in general) genuinely believe that they are under attack.  They must train their children to preserve their way of life.

Do all religious sects have fanatics?  Do Fanatical Christians believe that their way of life is being attacked, and that children are the answer to preserving their way of life?

Well, I can’t say ALL religious groups do–that’s not fair.  I can say that the world’s major religions seem to be racing to create as many kid solders to replace the ones that currently dying as possible.

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Both of these videos represent the extremes that religion can take a child to.  We’ve already discussed the pliability of a child’s mind when it comes to faith, and fanatical religious sects, under the guise of being able to raise their child how they see fit, take full advantage of their position as parents.

What I like about these videos is that they give us an honest view of what all parents are up against.  If you belong to one of the faiths above, my goal isn’t to outrage you.  If we are to raise thoughtful children, we must do so with an understanding of religion’s consequences, positive and negative.  We owe it our young people to create an environment that is open to many viewpoints, because many viewpoints exist.

Good news:

Every parent is a teacher.  You can give your child an understanding of faith that represents what the actual teachings of, say, Islam are, without forcing a child to fully commit to the Islamic worldview.   You can compare and contrast the traditions in your family with those of Hindu families in a way that doesn’t demean Hindu traditions.

If we start a trend of raising a child to be religiously literate, without being religiously dogmatic, we will stop the escalation of creating child soldiers of faith.  You can’t have a child army if we all agree that children must never be manipulated into believing one faith, rather they should be exposed to all faith, choosing for themselves (with your love and support) a final perspective as they reach adulthood.

All babies are born Atheists, aren’t they?

Okay, this is clearly NOT a yes or a no kinda thing….but it came up at a party, and I just couldn’t let it go.  It started with a conversation about bumper stickers.  My favorite bumper sticker of all time (which of course, I’m NOT brave enough to display in the Midwest) has the picture of a newborn baby sitting on top of the phrase: all babies are born Atheist.

It’s an awesome display of honesty; no child is born with a knowledge of God.  At the same time, no child is born with Atheism as their philosophy–and all freethinkers must and do submit to this truth readily.

A general definition of Atheist is ‘one who disbelieves or denies the existence of God or gods.’  By that definition, there’s no way a newborn child could be an Atheist at birth–how can you deny something that you know nothing about?  Now, that logic works for you, right?

What would happen if I were to say that a child could not possibly be born with any divinity, or spirituality whatsoever? Most Americans would instantly feel their blood boil at such a statement, but why?   Even the insinuation seems to be disrespectful.   But we have NO proof that children are born with a spiritual core, just as we have no proof that children are born with Atheistic tendencies: so why shudder at the facts?—> Unless, of course, I have overlooked an important FACT.

I contend it’s the best idea to raise children without any pretenses: Atheist or theist.  Why not raise children to be freethinkers: young people who are not wedded to a particular faith; rather, young people who are taught to analyze, research, and (eventually) experience the different faiths, until they have found one that suits them.  Or, until they decide that faith is not a requirement in their life, either perspective is ok.

So, Atheists, Christians, Muslims, Jews and everyone in between (inlcuding me): how about we educate our babies instead of slapping them with labels.  How about we broaden their perspective instead of boxing them into a worldview that worked for us, but may not work for them?  Just a thought?

Killing Doctors Won’t Stop A Woman’s Right To Choose

Yesterday marked the tragic death of Dr. George Tiller, an abortion doctor in Wichita Kansas.  He was murdered while observing religious series at his church.  While his death has yet to be definitively linked to his work as an abortion doctor, officials have strong reasons to suspect that the murderer was motivated by pro-life convictions.  But this isn’t the first time an abortion doctor has been murdered:

*  In 1998, a sniper killed Dr. Barnett Slepian in his Amherst, New York, home. Anti-abortion activist James Kopp was later arrested in France and is serving life in prison.

*  In 1994, Dr. John Bayard Britton and a volunteer escort were shot and killed outside an abortion clinic in Pensacola, Florida. Paul Hill, a former minister, was convicted in the killings and executed in 2003.

*  And in 1993, another doctor, David Gunn, was shot to death outside another Pensacola clinic. His killer, Michael Griffin, is serving a life sentence.

*  And 2009, Dr. George Tiller, a doctor who performed late-term abortions at his clinic in Kansas is shot to death at his church.  Tiller survived two attempts on  his life in the past; one from a bomb on the top of his clinic, and another time being shot in the arms by a pro-life activist.

Discussing the irony of these sad losses, how is it that a ‘peaceful’ and ‘loving’ church community member can feel justified (indeed martyred by some) for the killing of an abortion doctor?  God did not say in the Bible that abortion doctors were evil.  Nor did he say that abortion itself was a sin–in fact, God caused the death of many children before they were born.  In Hosea, when he asks god to kill the unborn babies, god responds by saying, “yea, though they bring forth, yet will I slay even the beloved fruit of their womb.” (Hosea 9:16.)

But this doesn’t get at the heart of the matter–a woman’s right to choose.  Try as they might, the Christian Right, and the Pro-Life groups that advocate violence in the name of God cannot overturn Roe v. Wade.  Killing abortion doctors won’t stop abortions from happening.

A better solution—–> knowledge.  Teach our teenagers the truth!  Let young men and women have access to valid, useful information regarding their bodies, the consequences (both good and bad) of sexual activity, and allow them access to birth control.  If no child is conceived, then no child will have to be destroyed.

A link to the full story/updated information on the case can be found at CNN, here.

Update: Gabriel Winant wrote a superb article linking Bill O’Reilly’s rants on Tiller and Tiller’s unfortunate death.  You can read that article here.

U2: I’m a Christian whenever I listen to them!

I stole the title from my husband, but it’s true: U2 is one of the few bands capable of, I believe, moving the most ardent Atheist. I find myself completely emotionally invested when I listen to their music, specifically their song Bad, off U2’s The Unforgettable Fire.  Take a peek at the lyrics, or watch the video below (the video is live)

Bad  by U2

If you twist and turn away, if you tear yourself in two again
If I could, yes I would, If I could, I would
Let it go- Surrender, Dislocate

If I could throw this lifeless lifeline to the wind
Leave this heart of clay, See you walk, walk away
Into the night-and through the rain
Into the half-light-and through the flame

If I could through myself set your spirit free
I’d lead your heart away, see you break, break away
Into the light-and to the day

To let it go
And so to fade away  [repeat last]

I’m wide awake [repeat x2]
I’m not sleeping
Oh, no, no, no

If you should ask then maybe they’d
Tell you what I would say
True colors fly in blue and black
Bruised silken sky and burning flag
Colors crash, collide in blood shot eyes

If I could, you know I would
If I could, I would
Let it go…

This desperation, dislocation, separation, condemnation,    revelation, in temptation, isolation, desolation–Let it go

And so fade away, to let it go
And so fade away, to let it go
And so to fade away

I’m wide awake, I’m wide awake, wide awake
I’m not sleeping

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The live video is nice, but the album version is a smooth and thought provoking melody.  I was sitting in the back of a very stuffed car the first time I heard the song.  We were on the freeway, and as the song played, and as the cars and trees flew by, the emotion of the song overtook me.  It’s so hard to explain, especially as a secular person, because the only words that I can use relate to religion.  It was closest thing to a religious experience that I’ve ever had.

It was an unexplainable, beautiful and sacred moment; and, God had nothing to do with it (as far as I can prove).  So, why am I a Christian whenever I listen to them–I don’t know.  I’m overwhelmed by the tone of Bono’s voice, and strength of his lyrical genius.  The song itself plays like a mantra, a steady beat thumps in the background.  Bono, the lead singer, wants me to let go–let go of my Atheism.  He wants to lead my heart into the light.

Bono, as many know, has become an advocate for human rights; he’s given away and helped to raise millions to fight hunger in Africa.  Bono-as far as I can tell-is a good Christian.  He gives back, tries not to judge, and  genuinely believes that God is the way to a better life.  Is he perfect?  No.  But he’s really trying to make a difference, and his passion is present in the music he sings.

I suggest everyone grab Bad—->some other moving U2 songs include “With or Without You”, and “I Will Follow”  A definite tone of submission, but submitting oneself isn’t bad once in a while.

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You can visit U2 at their website, by clicking here.

It happened again: Pray or I’m not your friend anymore!

Sometimes parents lose it.   

When my oldest daughter comes in the house, runs up the stairs and then slams the door, I know something is wrong.  Her signal:  a quick glance before she heads up. I give her some time, and then make my way up the stairs.  I expect the usual 9-year old girl issues: her sister’s not sharing, some boy (who she likes) hit her, or someone cheated in a game.  Not so this time.

“Kaylee found out that we don’t pray.” ——-> notice the ‘found.’

When it comes to divulging prayer or lack there of, one must tread lightly in the Show Me State.    Children are mean-no, cruel.   Whenever the girls tell me that someone found out, it means their feelings were hurt.  What’s so surprising however, is how the children stand up for themselves, no matter the consequences.  We tell the girls, when it comes to discussing religion, you have three options:

1.  Don’t discuss it.  All you have to do is say, “I don’t want to talk about religion.”

2. Lie.  Sounds bad huh?  In reality, this is an option whether I say it is or not.  When I sneeze, and someone says “God bless you,” I say thank you.  Technically, this is a lie of omission: I omit the fact that I don’t believe in God, and that being blessed carries no weight with me; but I don’t say this.  Not everything has to be turned into a debate on God–I like the girls to know that they have that option as well.

3.  You can stand up for what you believe.   Say you don’t believe, and suffer the consequences, good and bad.  Tell your friends that they should be your friend, not because you pray, but because you are a good person.

I’m so amazed and humbled by their consistent choosing of option 3.  Sometimes, it ends up in tears, and other times its a non-issue, but always, they stand up for truth.  How many adults can answer the question of their non-belief with such fortitude?

When I went upstairs, she was sprawled on her bed, tears draining down her face.  I knew to go slow here, to listen, and to wait.

“What’s going on Ess?”

“Kaylee found out that we don’t pray.  She said that if we don’t pray in front of her, then she won’t play with us anymore.”  Her sister had gone back out to give Kaylee a piece of her mind, but my oldest girl, being more sensitive, was hurt deep inside and didn’t want to see her.  Kaylee is 13, a neighborhood kid, and usually a nice person; my oldest was so shocked by Kaylee’s religious indignation that she didn’t go back outside for the rest of the day.  She just didn’t want to see her.

When ‘the daughter’ told me about the ultimatum, I was so angry, and so hurt, that I lost it.  I shared my anger with her: “What a punk!  She’s played with you everyday since she’s moved in; nothing about what kind of person you are has changed!  Someone should let her know that it’s ok to be friends and think differently about some things.  I’m sorry she treated you like that.”

I also acknowledged that she was hurt, and that she should do something to get her anger out before it made her feel worse inside: I suggested journaling, calling someone to talk about it with, going outside and telling Kaylee how she felt, or simply having some alone time to think through her thoughts.

Then I walked away.

My oldest has dealt with intolerance before, but it never gets easier.  Her tears yesterday were just as real as the ones that fell when she was 5, and her entire Kindergarten class called her evil and damned her to hell for not following Jesus. If my children plan to be honest with close-minded people, they will definitely get their feelings hurt.  I am so proud of her for standing up for what she thinks, and I tell her so each time this happens.

In these situations, secular children need to know that they have options for dealing with those emotions, and that the problem isn’t with them; my duaghter liked Kaylee for who she was, nothing more.  Giving young children the self-esteem to deal with big problems, often begins by making sure they can handle little problems effectively.

So, I left her in the room to contemplate her options.  She came out about 20 minutes later.  I don’t know which coping mechanism she chose-and it doesn’t matter.  She came out of that room stronger than when she went in, and I was able to be a part of that.

She also refused to play with Kaylee (a big thing in the 9-year old world) until she apologized.  This happened the following day.  As an adult, I was reluctant to let it go: “you’re going to play with her.  But she made you cry.”   “Well, she said sorry.  She knows that we don’t have to pray to be good people.”

Children make up so much faster than adults…….

The fall of man, and murderous brothers: Gen. 2-4

Genesis Chapter 3 is, in my opinion, one of the most important books in the Old Testament–arguably one of the most important chapters in the bible itself. It introduces two basic themes: subduing one’s instincts and the condoning of ignorance as a way into Heaven;   these themes are also manifested later in the New Testament.

It begins with a serpent, a creature that is “created by God, but used by Satan.”  Satan (the serpent) chooses to talk to Eve, cunningly asking her which trees are allowed to be eaten according to God.   The serpent then reminds  Eve that if she eats of the forbidden tree, “ye shall be like gods, knowing good and evil.”

Gen. 3:6 reads: “And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also under her husband with her; and he did eat.” From here on out, humans were damned by God for their disobedience.

Gen. 3:16-17 says “Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow though shalt bring forth children; and they desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over you.” So, Eve is the reason, according to Christianity, that we have pain during childbirth.  She is also the reason that mean are allowed (by God) to control our thoughts and actions.

And for Adam: “And unto Adam…in sorrow thou shalt eat of [the tree of knowledge] all the days of thy life.”  God goes on to punish Adam by making him work for food.  Essentially, Adam has made it so that knowledge (the truth) hurts to hear, and why we must work in order to get food.

Why does this matter to secular children?

People of faith attribute earthly pain and suffering to man’s unwillingness to listen to God’s word; it’s important to know why this is so.   If only Eve wouldn’t have done that!  Eve has been blamed for the fall of man since the story was written, poor girl!  Adam admits to knowing what Eve gave him in Gen. 3:12, and says that “he did eat.”  No one ever says, “ok, well since he knew what it was, he’s just as much at fault as she is!  This points to the larger theme of demeaning women in the Bible (I’m working on a more thorough article that discusses misogyny in the Bible…look for it this summer).

What’s more interesting to discuss with your child, however, is why God would not want man to know things.  This goes contrary to everything we have learned about the human mind.  From infancy, our mind is grasping for knowledge.  Why is knowledge a sin?

This can be further discussed in terms of American Christians in general.  There exists in the Christian faith an unabashed dislike of any information that goes contrary to the Bible. My daughter once had a boy tell her, “God put the baby in my mom’s stomach and it’s growing.”  My daughter tried to explain that a uterus holds a baby, and that stomachs ’squish’ food.  His response: “God is right, and God put the baby in my mom’s stomach!”  Add about 30 years, and the cute little boy is now the junior senator from Tennessee, and he’s introducing a bill that would kill any gains maid by same sex couples because he’s been taught (falsely) that this is a Christian Nation and God is against same-sex marriage.

Whether it is irrefutable fact, or a logical conclusion based on what we know to be true: knowledge is easily discarded by your average Christian, young and old.  Now, not ALL Christians have this reaction, but I think it is fair to say that a large number of Christians do.  That can be directly traced to the punishment of Adam and Eve for the sin of wanting to know.  Talking about chapter 3 of Genesis with your child might help explain why their friends refuse to hear facts and only stick to what they’ve been taught in the Bible.

As we move into Genesis Chapter 4, we meet Cain, and his brother Abel.  The worlds first children, these two boys give us a story that has been repeated so many times throughout literature in various forms, that your child simply must know who these people are!

The story itself is simple: both boys came from Adam and Eve, both made offerings to God, and for some unknown reason, God didn’t like Cain’s offering.  Now, any child will undoubtedly inquire: why did God not like Cain’s offering?  This is good!  Take some time to talk about some possible reasons-as well as that the writers of the story may have simply been trying to prove a moral point, so they didn’t consider that people might stop to think about it.

Now Cain, having been slighted by God, unleashed his ‘baser’ instinct and slew his brother Abel.  Cain’s famous last words: “Am I not my brother’s keeper?”  In other words, aren’t I supposed to look out for those I care about?  The idea of taking care of one another was ingrained in my brother and me–and whenever we didn’t, pain ensued.  This is one of those rare gems in the Bible: a motto that can be followed no matter who you are.  Basically, family sticks together and that’s that.

Gen. 4:17 gives us one of the most glaring contradictions that exist in the Bible.  “And Cain knew his wife…”  If Adam and Eve were the only two people created by God, Cain and Abel their only children, who gave birth to Cains’s wife?  This is an opportunity to discuss inconsistencies in the Bible, and why those inconsistencies lead people to question the validity of the the parables in Genesis, and to a larger degree, in the Bible itself.

In the end, freethinking children need a base level of understanding about these most basic of Bible stories.   As a society heavily influenced by the Bible, children will no doubt be questioned on their knowledge of them.  How will they respond?

Without this knowledge, they may be tempted to mistake a persons religious tradition for actual fact.  By spending time with your child, reading and discussing these and other stories in the Bible, your child can adequately discuss religion with confidence.  And when they come across something from the Bible that they can’t adequately discuss, they can legitimately say, “I’ll tell my dad about that the next time we read the Bible, or my mom said we’re reading Matthew next Sunday, so I’m going to ask her about that.”

Next week we’ll talk about The Ark, Noah and Ham, and what we know to be true about the flood.

Why Hell Houses Hurt All People of Faith (part 1: my rant!)

A hell house is probably one of the most sick and twisted things that religious organizations use to trick a child into following the tenets of Christ—and they’re gaining in popularity. How it is that the churches that choose to run these Hell Houses are not under arrest for child abuse, or child torture, is beyond me. Let’s back up a bit to the 1970’s.

It was during this time period that the evangelical church began to surge in power (on the wave that they are coming down from now).That’s when the idea of ‘saving’ people by creating overtly graphic–and largely false– ‘haunted-houses’ began.

Mirrored in the image of traditional haunted houses, Hell and Judgment Houses are designed to ’scare’ people into loving Christ by graphically depicting those things which God does not like. Glenn Beck, a conservative radio and talk show host on Fox News, spoke about Hell Houses in 2006. He said, “You know what I feel like? I feel like one of those ‘Yes, but’ Muslims that I always talk about when it comes to terrorism. Yes, I disagree with what they’ve done, but I understand what they’re doing. It’s the same thing here.” Glenn goes on to chastise the pastor he was speaking to, but chastising and being fervently against are not the same. To endorse—either overtly or covertly—this type of psychological torture is sick. If I were a Christian, I would be outraged.

What’s worse is that many of the scenes in Hell House are purposefully skewed and have not been critically evaluated. For example, one Hell House scene depicted a young girl that went to a Rave. Raves are large teen parties that can include drugs, alcohol and almost always has loud rock music. The girl from the scene is drugged, raped, and shown in her room, contemplating suicide. Are Raves bad, well that depends on who you ask. Most teens will say no, most adults will say yes. Sure, there are drugs (which we don’t want our children using), and sex happens-we’d rather they waited.  But, there are plenty of young people who can balance the thrill of attending a rave (or any party for that matter), without actually participating in anything that compromises their personal values.  This is the same for all activities that involve large groups of young people.

But churches that sponsor Hell Houses seem to think teaching the worse case-scenario, instead of, say, teaching young people how to deal with possible moral dilemmas,  will be a deterrent to young people going to Raves.

Whether we want them to or not, teens will go to parties.  We could we spend our time trying to make them fear more than two teenagers in a given space, or, we could try to teach young people how to be responsible if they happen to be with a group of kids that end up at a party.  Which sounds like a better idea?

The answer of course is education. Remember, you cannot stop a teenager from doing what they want to do: you’ll just create a horrible power struggle that will end ugly. What you can do, what we can all do, is make young people aware of what happens  at gatherings that will undoubtedly include sex, drugs, and other unhealthy behavior.  We can teach teenagers to protect themselves. That’s parenting at the teen level, not control.  Guiding is about knowledge, facts and love.

There’s no excuse to justify the mental torture of children because they don’t listen to God’s rules. Hell Houses depict graphic abortions—where fetuses are essentially ripped out by crazed abortion doctors–violent, fatal sexual experiences, where women are choked while a man ejaculates in her, and depictions of a live Jesus—covered in blood, telling you of gods love, and so many more atrocities that I needn’t continue.

But the scariest part, the most troubling aspect of it all, comes at the end of the Hell House tour. You are put in a room with two doors, the exit, and a mystery door. A pastor stands in front of the children and tells them that if they didn’t like what they saw, there is a person behind the door that can help them avoid hell. They are not told, however, that there are people who live wonderful lives without Christ.  They are not given a balanced perspective.

They are not told that Hell, Heaven, and God are all subjects that are regularly debated on an academic level—no. they are told that these things are facts and that they risk their mortal soul by not walking through the door; pathetic.

The reason that authorities, and people like Mr. Beck, have not cracked down on the psychological torture of children: G-O-D. Each short skit at a Hell House  is equal to a mini snuff movie.  Sane, critically-thinking people would be enraged if children were allowed to watch such unnecessary violence.  But since we are not allowed to address the absurd rituals in any religion, it goes without question that most officials will do the PC thing here, and look the other way.  

This sounds like something out of the dark ages.  Remember: religion ruled the dark ages,” so the quote goes.

Any psychologist will tell you that it is NEVER in a child’s best interest to torture them, physically or psychologically.  So will anyone who values humanity. It is in a child’s best interest to be nurtured in those things which will help them be productive members of society. How will seeing a ‘lesbian’ commit suicide at a Hell House help them in the long run?  Are we raising Pavlov’s dogs?  When someone says gay! you say sinner; when someone says abortion! you say against god’s laws. How will Hell Houses help children think critically about ideas presented to them in school, at work and in society at large?

Ok, rant over.

Tomorrow, we’ll discuss part 2:  The brave Christians that fight against Hell Houses and why America needs them to yell a bit louder!

Child divinity claim #3: Children can see invisible beings

Claim #3: Children can see invisible beings. This is by far the most fantastical claim made by individuals asserting the divinity of young children. In The Secret Spiritual World of Children, Hart makes the claim that children can see the invisible. He first acknowledges that in our daily lives, we are encouraged to

believe something only after we see it for ourselves…[we must] suspend our critical thinking…this does not  mean abandoning our critical mind or being a naïve convert to some idea or doctrine; rather, it means turning

off our critical judgment for a moment in order to open up to possibility. (116)

What’s astonishing about Hart’s statement is the idea of turning off critical judgment to become open-minded—a glaring oxymoron. Critical judgment is the only way to distinguish open-mindedness from absolute stupidity, and Hart’s education and training seem to have failed him in this respect. If we want our children to make good choices as they mature, it is imperative that we teach children to know the difference between something that is plausible and when someone trying to take advantage of their ignorance.

So, Hart gives us a pre-teen girl named Llael to show us ‘proof’ of the claim that children can see the invisible. Llael has three invisible guides that giver her support and protection in life: one is a wolf that protects her, another is a Native American man that instructs her in the art of healing, and the third is a spirit whose job it is to help Llael gather all the children of the world together in harmony. Hart is a psychologist, and he describes Llael as a “psychologically healthy and well adjusted girl.” (119) He cites the “quality of her as a person and the quality of her answers” (119) as credibility. Hart believes her guides are real.

I take issue with the foundations of Hart’s reasoning, on two fronts. First, the psychological well being of a person should have no bearing on the reality of things that cannot be seen. I’m a psychologically healthy thirty year old woman and right now, I’m looking at an 11-foot tall pink rabbit. He has blue polka dots and a red ribbon around his neck. This rabbit, Gunter, helps me realize and display love and affection to my family. Gunter is not real though, I made him up sitting in this coffee shop, while staring out the window; psychologically healthy people can see things that aren’t real, too.

This leads to another truism: society has a subjective response to the imperceptible. We are willing to accept invisible beings that are good and do good deeds, but we tend to dismiss invisible beings that cause harm or do negative things. There are many Christians who have explained to me their belief in God, who is all righteous. But those same Christians adamantly deny the existence of the devil, who is said to be evil incarnate. Similarly, parents tell children that the boogie monster isn’t real, because he is said to hide in closets and under beds with malice in his heart. These same parents however persist in filling our children with the reality of the tooth fairy, Santa, and other ‘nice’ invisible folk.

Psychologists, like Hart, are also quite willing to tell a schizophrenic to dismiss the nonexistent people that can cause them harm; but are nevertheless willing to tell pretty twelve-year old girls with ‘guides’ that we believe them wholly. In truth, if people can see imaginary beings, then they should see all the imaginary beings equally; goodness shouldn’t be a determining factor in wither or not they exist.

Cavaletti, in her book,  also has a child that can see the paranormal.  Cavaletti discusses Bianca’s divine powers below

Bianca (five and a half years old) was mixing flour with yeast, as an exercise relating to the parable that compares the Kingdom

of God to the yeast that leavens the dough. The [teacher] asked her to explain to a woman who had come to visit the center

what  she was doing; Bianca responded: “I am watching how the Kingdom of God grows.” (43)

The author goes on to assert that Bianca can literally see the Kingdom of God growing in the clumps of flour and water that she’s mixing. The reasoning used to justify this claim is almost as bad as watching that 80’s movie, Poltergeist, and actually believing that young children should stay way from the television (because Carol Anne’s innocence and openness is the reason she was sucked into the TV). In the end, the claim that children can see things that others cannot, with no evidence that can stand the test of scientific scrutiny, is simply qualified as a personal experience. In no way is Bianca’s combination of flour and water evidence of her ability to see the Kingdom of God, or any other mythical place.

But we live in a world that encourages children to see things that aren’t real on a daily basis. From the time a child starts losing teeth until they realize they’re being duped, we convince them, for example, that a little fairy has a tooth fetish and pays in quarters, nickels and dimes for her habit. We also unabashedly convince our children that there exists an anti-social, morbidly obese guy who wears red and white, uses special reindeer to fly (one with a light bulb for a nose) and breaks into their house to give them presents and eat their food—but only if they’re good all year.

Because of our society’s psychotic desire to keep our children innocent by keeping them ignorant, we’ve created a fake reality for our children. They watch TV shows with talking animals, moons that read stories, dragons that can adjust the space-time continuum and backpacks that speak both English and Spanish. We teach them that because Jesus rose from the dead, a giant rabbit will leave them a basket full of chocolate eggs. And anytime a concerned adult makes an attempt to tell the truth, they are hailed a sour-puss, a Grinch, or a robber of childhood innocence. Is it any wonder why it is easy to convince a child that they see and hear things that nobody else can?

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

In the end, the three reasons traditionally given for the divinity of young children are based on subjective assumptions and a complete lack of critical analysis. Both Cavaletti and Hart fail to consider the level of objectivity and critical thought necessary to sustain such bold accusations on the nature of children.

Children do not beg to be closer to god; nor do they possess mystical traits that align them with the divine. Children are individuals trying to grow and learn, trying to find their place in this world through trial and error—the scientific method in its purest form. Our job as parents, aunts, uncles and other valued members of humanity is to support them in this endeavor, to give them the skills they need to explore the world in a safe and healthy way.

Separating a child from religion is not an immoral exercise. To allow a person to be influenced by a worldview that they do not have the ability to fully comprehend or critically evaluate undermines our basic objective as parents. Chiefly, parents are responsible for the dissemination of information, universal values and the basic ethical principals needed to help young ones create a world view that encompasses their understanding of the world. Children should only interact with organized religion when they have the critical thinking skills to analyze and make a judgment on the worldview being pitch in their direction. Until that time, parents must ensure that their child is religiously literate, open-minded and shielded from un-validated assertions that pit a child’s minuscule understanding of the natural world against those of claims made by theologians of millennia ago.

Child Divinity Claim #2: Children Have Mysterious Knowledge

Claim #2: Children have mysterious knowledge. The claim that children hold mysterious knowledge is based on a child’s ability to know the answer to a question that you didn’t expect them to know. Cavaletti’s example follows

Many years ago I was presenting Baptism to a group of children from four to six years of age, and I was unsure whether or not to speak of the meaning of the imposition of the hands, thinking that it was too difficult for children of that age to understand…I put a ring in my hand and two or three times I extended my arm, opened my hand, and let the ring fall out, explaining that this is what I would do if I wanted to give them a give them a gift. Then I repeated the gesture without the ring, saying, “at Baptism, the priest makes this gesture over the child; but you do not see anything fall. Then why does he do it?” The children replied in chorus, as if the question was completely superfluous: “Because he is giving us the Holy Spirit.” (42-3)

The fact that the children knew Cavaletti’s hand gesture isn’t mysterious; children will amaze you with the things they know about the world; things you didn’t teach them. They learn these facts (or false information in many cases) from school, playing outside with friends, logical deduction, drawing conclusions based on what they know to be true and good ol’ fashioned guesswork. One night at dinner, my youngest daughter was pouring milk into a glass and we heard a loud splash! When I went into the kitchen, the glass was broken in two, with milk streaming down the cabinet. She didn’t know how the glass broke. “I took the glass out of the dishwasher, poured the milk in and the glass broke,” was her only response. “Do you know why the glass broke, even though you didn’t do anything?” I asked her. I was prepared to talk about the mixing of hot and cold when she answered “Oh, so when the cold milk mixed with the hot glass, the glass couldn’t figure out if it wanted to be hot or cold, so it broke, right?” It wasn’t the most scientific answer, but she was basically right. Now, I didn’t expect her to know that; she logically deduced, and she happened to have been right. I also didn’t sign her up for science camp that summer or proclaim her the next metaphysical genius.

At times, children can display an extraordinary amount of understanding in an area where we as parents or caregivers did not give explicit instruction. This is a wonderful consequence of enhancing your child’s critical thinking. Having a young one critically evaluate a situation, decide the best course of action and implement their ideas without your input, is a testament to your child’s intellect and your parenting abilities. With guidance, a child will hone and develop this skill through adulthood. Praise and encouragement after an unexpected but sophisticated answer will give young children the confidence to try their hands at subjects once thought out of their reach. Their understanding about the world will grow exponentially. But, such instances will not lend credibility to the argument that children have ‘mysterious’ knowledge.  Tomorrow, we examine claim #3 to a child’s divinity by Tobin Hart, Sofia Cavalletti, and many others:  Children see invisible beings–I can’t wait!

Child divinity claim #1: Children are incubators of God’s love

Claim #1: Children are innately drawn to God. This claim draws on the belief that the mind and soul of a child is an incubator for the word of God. Should a child possess an unusually strong closeness to faith, they become the model for childhood divinity by the faithful in their community. But, were we to exclude religious texts as an objective source of truth on this matter, what actual proof is there? Cavaletti’s book offers Lorenzo’s experience as proof:

Who would believe that a four-year old child would be capable of metaphysical intuition? Lorenzo belonged to a Catholic family, but he had never had any [religious] instruction, nor had he received any special care in the religious sense. One day his aunt asks him to do a picture of God. Lorenzo drew on the bottom left-hand side of the page—and hence in a secondary position—a human figure with a large head, and then he filled the page with a series of signs in which numbers could be recognized. His aunt asked him the reason for the presence of the numbers, and Lorenzo explained: because there are many.” Lorenzo had the intuition that God is infinite. (32)

Young Lorenzo was asked to draw a picture of God. Most likely, he drew a picture that resembles the scribble-scrabble of all  budding preschool children.  His aunt, however,  interpreted Lorenzo’s picture and his comment as evidence of his connection with God. Given the amount of knowledge required to comprehend even the idea of God, coupled with Lorenzo’s tender age of four and the little information Cavaletti provides, it is unreasonable to surmise that his thoughts were divinely inspired. It’s more likely Lorenzo said the first thing that came into his mind about a drawing he could scarcely extrapolate when reasonably pressed.

Another child in Cavaletti’s book, Charlotte, was drawn to the lord, through an innate connection that no parent fostered

Charlotte (3 ½ years old) was staying at her aunts house. When she saw her aunt preparing to leave, she asked her where she was going; the aunt replied that she was going to Mass and the child declared: “I am coming too!” and so it continued for days, with out the slightest urging on anyone’s part.  One day another child came to play with Charlotte and she told her aunt that she would not be going to Mass with her. Then a moment later she was back again saying, “Stefano can wait, first I’m coming with you! (37)

What Cavaletti fails to consider is the varying spectrum of reasons why a child does anything. Some children would live in a car if it meant they could get out of the house; while to other children, a trip almost anywhere is cumbersome and pointless. To narrow the interpretation of Charlotte’s actions to ‘child and God’ leaves out the most important, and probably the most significant connection: the one between Charlotte’s relationship with her aunt. When my sister-in-law is in town, my daughters will go anywhere with her. Because she lives so far away, they would happily exchange playing outside for going on trip with their aunt Sarah.

Had Cavalletti employed her critical thinking skills, she would have considered the following before making her conclusion:

· Why was Lorenzo not asked to explain how “there are many” relates to God?

· The logic behind Charlotte’s story is all wrong. The logic says if Charlotte’s aunt is going to Mass and Charlotte wants to go, then Charlotte has a divine connection. That’s like saying, if I’m going to Midas and my child wants to come, then my child must have a special connection with mufflers and brake pads.

· How do numbers, randomly placed on a child’s drawing, show God’s infiniteness?

· Who says Charlotte isn’t just an outgoing girl that relishes getting out of the country and going to the city? Perhaps she likes the beautiful architectural designs of churches.

I could go on, but my point by now should be clear. There are so many variables at play in the above scenarios. Pinpointing a child’s divinity based on a random picture or a clingy disposition is completely devoid of critical thought.

Tobin Hart’s interpretation of children being innately spiritual lacks validity as well. In The Secret Spiritual World of Children, Hart describes his daughter’s “chat” with the Late Mahalia Jackson while working on a report for class. Haley, Hart’s daughter, comes across many ‘unique’ facts about Ms. Jackson in her research. When her father questions her, she “proceeded to tell [him] a wide range of very subtle and personal information about Mahalia Jackson that [Hart] could not find in the materials she had read—[he] checked.” (21) When Hart asks Hailey how she came across the information, she says “it was easy; I just got relaxed on my bed and asked my angel for help. Then, in my mind, I went to www.mahaliajackson.com, and there she was standing right in front of me. We talked and she told me about her life.” (21-22) This is clear evidence, according to Hart, of how “children [are] open to these depths of consciousness naturally and regularly.” (23) The problem here for Hart, and all that ascribe to the belief that children are divine, is the question of evidence. There are serious questions about the validity of Haley’s statement that should shoot into one’s mind. Hart doesn’t say what materials Hailey already had access to, what specific statements were made, and whether or not Mahalia’s close friends and family members could validate these statements. To believe anyone with facts as weak as this requires a tremendous leap over common sense.

It would be wrong of me to suggest that everything we’ve ever experienced can be reduced to a logical conclusion: there are unexplainable phenomena and occurrences that defy our notions of what is plausible. Haley’s experience may qualify, but it lacks in the details required for even a basic argument to be made.  Tomorrow, we’ll discuss claim #2: children have mysterious knowledge!

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Are Children Innately Connected to God?

It’s been a long held belief by many in the Christian faith that children are innately drawn to God. Tradition has it that not only is a child’s mind open to the love and joy found in devotion to God, but a child’s innocence slides them up the ladder of purity, a closeness adults cannot achieve. To attempt separating a child from the Lord is considered a transgression of the worst sorts. There are certainly passages in the Christian faith that instruct followers to bring a child steadfastly up in the Lord. Jesus himself, in Matt. 19:14, says “Suffer the little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.” But the Bible and other religious texts have yet to prove this special relationship between children and faith. Until such a link is proved, the idea that young children are innately drawn to God should be regarded as myth.

But Sofia Cavalletti, in her book The Religious Potential of the Child, outlines three qualities children possess: they innately are drawn to the Lord, children have mysterious knowledge, and young children can see the invisible. The back cover of her book reads “[this] is not a “how-to” book, complete with lesson plans and material ideas. Instead it offers a glimpse into the religious life of the atrium, a specially prepared place for children to live out their silent request: ‘help me be closer to god by myself.’” These basic claims are also presented in Tobin Hart’s The Secret Spiritual World of Children. The subtitle of Hart’s book reads “The breakthrough discovery that profoundly alters our conventional view of children’s mystical experiences.” When such audacious claims are made, and directed at the most vulnerable in our society, a closer examination is imperative.

While both of these books focus on the Christian mythology, all major faiths have a set of guidelines for children and religious instruction. Though different faiths will vary in the rituals and traditions taught, the claims on a child’s divinity has been accepted as true in the cultural backdrop of the world’s major faiths. The ideas presented in Hart and Cavaletti’s books should be carefully evaluated and judged based on the evidence provided if we are to conclude that children indeed are innately drawn to God. Examining these claims requires a rational and logical approach to each of three assertions, focusing on the underlying logic that holds these claims together. Tomorrow we visit claim number one: Children are innately drawn to God.

Can Freethinkers Appreciate Religious Music?

I was driving home one day with a mix CD in the player. Sinead O’Connor was singing, in her high-pitched Irish voice, a song called All Babies. When my favorite part came up, I started singing: “All babies are born saying God’s name…over and over, all born saying God’s name..” My daughter, a 7-year old pronounced Atheist (though I call her a freethinker), said, why are you listening to that? You don’t believe in God mom, do you?
Of course I love this part of parenting. The joy of seeing a confused child is great! Why? A confused child equals a teachable moment. So I asked her, “Do you think I shouldn’t listen to music with God in it because I don’t believe in him?”

“Yes.” She said. “Why sing about it if you don’t believe in it?”

So, I turned the tables on this young examiner of the world: “Have you ever seen a Unicorn?”
“Mom! Unicorns aren’t real,” she said.
“Well, do you remember that song called the Unicorn that you really like? Why do you listen to it if you don’t believe that unicorns are real?”

Silence emanated from the back seat as she sat there thinking about the songs she listens to. I was giddy with excitement-I knew her brain was trying to make sense of it all.

She finally said, “Well, I guess it doesn’t hurt to listen to music if you don’t believe it, but it’s weird.”

* * * * * *

It’s true that we secularists are a varied group: we have no book or law that says “thou shalt not..” There is no part of being a secular parent that denies you the right to listen to any song you want. Some of my favorite songs are songs that praise, or ask for the help of some divine spirit (I find the sounds of the opening prayer to Allah, when sung, to be one of the most melodic and beautiful songs ever sung). So, if I don’t believe, why do I listen?

The beauty of music is that its rhythms touch you in ways you cannot explain. I don’t know why some religious songs touch me so. Words do no justice to Sinead’s song. As she sings, her voice resonates deep in my core, and I connect with her feeling.

Sure, I don’t believe for one bit that her God (who happens to be a woman) actually created the cries of babies as a way of saying God-most moms know that’s just not what those screams sound like! But I don’t have to believe in God to find (some of) the songs that are religiously inspired beautiful. I’m not that close-minded and I don’t want my children to be. So, if you haven’t heard these songs, and you’re an open-minded freethinker..give them a listen when you get a chance: they’re great!

1. If God Will Send His Angels by U2
2. All Babies by Sinead O’Connor
3. Grandma’s Hands by Bill Withers
4. Whenever I Say Your Name by Mary J. Blige and Sting
5. Hallelujah by Jeff Buckley
6. Jesus Walks by Kanye West
7. The Day the Earth Stood Still by Brian McKnight
8. Return of a King by Kymani
9. Tell Him by Lauryn Hill
10. Jesus Gonna Be Here by Tom Waits

Tradition vs. Fact: Does your child know the difference? Pt. 2

So, how do we teach our children the difference between tradition and fact? When I tried to answer this, I came up with a few things that I’d like to share with you.
First, children need a working definition of tradition and traditions limitations. You know your child best, so the level of conversation will be yours to determine. I told our children

• tradition is doing something because that’s the way your mom, or grandma did it. Talking a certain way because that’s how it’s always been said, or thinking certain ways about things because that’s how it’s always been looked at.
• Because I like to do something a certain way doesn’t mean its right ( I gave the example of putting raisins in my oatmeal. I hate oatmeal without raisins, but that doesn’t mean that oatmeal without raisins is wrong or bad, it’s just not what I would do).

• Traditions (like making cornbread with grandma) can be fun and harmless.

• Similarly, because a way of thinking is very old, like religion or anything else, doesn’t mean it’s true. (For example, it used to be thought that taking Vitamin C before or during a cold would help it go away faster. A recent finding proves that in most cases, vitamin C does many things for our body; getting rid of a cold is not one of them).

• What can happen when a group of people think that a tradition is true? What would happen if people actually believed ‘if you step on a crack, you break your mamma’s back’?

Next, children should have examples of traditions to analyze. I tell my children, here are some things that used to be ‘just how things were always done’

• when our country was first created, white people made black people slaves and most people thought it was ok. What do you think about that?

• When grandma was little, women didn’t have the right to vote because most men thought that women weren’t very smart? Do you think women are smart? Why?

• Most people in our country right now think that women and men are the only people who should get married? Do you think a man and a man or a woman and a woman should be allowed to get married if they love each other? (Don’t be afraid of this question. If you don’t discuss this subject with your child, they will simply learn the view of their friends’ parents—no matter close-minded. Wouldn’t you rather they at least knew how you felt?)

Finally, teach your child to spot the facts in any given situation. How do we know that women are/aren’t as smart as men? That is something that can be proved—and has been proven. Research shows us that while male and female brains differ slightly, none of the difference is attributed to defects of either sex. A fact is something that can be proven objectively. Critical thinking can help us determine if something is indeed a statement of fact or just an opinion. Spotting these differences only get easier with practice. Walking down the street, on the way to school, at the dinner table, all of these are great places to bring up questions and ask your child: fact or opinion?

The balancing of tradition and fact is something your child will do their entire life. Even now, new traditions for your child to analyze are popping up and old traditions are fading into antiquity. How will your child realize the fun or folly in a tradition if they are not taught that there is indeed a difference?

Tradition vs. Fact: Does your child know the difference? Pt. 1

One of my earliest memories is watching my grandmother make cornbread. Her mechanical movements and unchanging logic mesmerized me. The conversation we would have are perfect openers for understanding tradition and comparing them to facts. I was about eight when I first started helping my grandma and the conversations would go something like:

me: Grandma, how come you don’t use the cornbread mix. It’s easier.

grandma: Cornbread mix! What are you talkin’ ‘bout? You don’t make cornbread
with no mix! Here, first you get the flour and the cornmeal….

me: Grandma, why do you put so much butter in your cornbread. Butter is
bad for you. You are supposed to use margarine.

Grandma: Margarine! I ain’t never used margarine a day in my life! You make
cornbread with butter; butter and oil. That’s how my momma made it
and her momma too.

My grandma knew tradition. She was born and raised on a farm in Shreveport, Louisiana. She moved north in the late 40’s to have and raise her children, but she was a southern girl ‘til the day she died. She had so many things that she did because ‘that’s how it was supposed to be done.’ There were certain ways to make cornbread, rice pudding and all kinds of food. Grandma had sayings that made no sense to me like

she didn’t have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of!

It was hard to understand grandma sometimes. I knew she loved me, but she was from another planet.
I on the other hand, was a product of the 80’s. Born into a time that gave rights to anyone who wanted them, and when scientific advancements dominated our world on many fronts, my generation was filled with the internet, healthy eating, computers and the rights of all Americans to be treated equally.

Once I got older, I started realizing that I refused to do certain things because it was not that way when I was little, not because those things were more wrong or right.

My grandma was a link to a time before I existed, and she had little desire to see the world at any other point in time—she never used a computer, never drove a car, could never figure out a two way phone conversation and she never used anything but pure butter. She’d been around when Martin Luther King Jr. was alive, JFK and she even remembered having to use bathrooms that said colored on the door. In my grandma, I could learn about my family’s way of dealing with life in America.

Of course, none of this speaks to the validity of my grandma’s actions; because my grandma refused to use Jiffy Cornbread Mix did not mean that her cornbread was better. And because my grandma refused—quite literally—to diet, exercise or eat foods that were from other cultures, doesn’t mean that dieting, exercise or trying new foods are bad things. You and I can see this as adults, but to a child, the line between fact and tradition is quite blurry.

After almost thirty years, I still make cornbread from scratch. I have the recipe in my head, I rarely measure—like grandma—and for some reason, I have begun instructing my seven year old in the art of proper cornbread making.

Now, transfer the same unbending, traditional attitude to children and religion. Many of the things done in religion are done to preserve the rituals or traditions in the religion: Christians eat the body and drink the blood of Christ purely because that’s what has always been done (surely none of us actually think cannibal-like behavior is the right thing to do). We attend church, mosque, and other services because that’s the traditional way of showing devotion to our religion. Doing these things does not mean that the religion is complete fact or pure fiction.

We must teach our children to analyze their behavior, rote and otherwise. They should know why they’re eating the blood and body of someone who said he was God’s son, and if eating his body is the only way to show respect for the principals Jesus stood for.

Why Let Children Choose Their Faith? Pt. 3

A child should learn about the various points of view religions offer, under the objectivity of parents, family, and friends, until they are old enough to decide which ideology they want to take in life. A child should be cultivated in reason, logic, and critical thinking. These are the skills they need to survive the onslaught of evils that man can bestow upon man. Religion should be viewed as one of the many ways to look at life’s big mysteries.
Your child deserves the option of openly questioning religious texts and beliefs because they are individuals like you and we question every choice we make in life. Then religion becomes a way for your child to better understand the origins of life and the mysteries of death on their own terms. Religion ceases to be the divisive, intolerant machine that it has unfortunately become when children are allowed to choose.

As for our parenting skills, religion of centuries (millennia?) ago has stunted those as well. Much needed conversations about sex, real morality and relationships are replaced with phrases like: sex before marriage is a sin, x, y, and z will result in eternal damnation, etc; the youth of today get no practical advice for dealing with real-world situations because we as parents refuse to believe such situations can occur. Because of her abstinence only teaching in high school, I once heard a young lady say that having sex before marriage would make you baby come out deformed. Deformed!

Because of the fear tactics religion offers, parents often espouse ourselves of the braver conversations about condom use, the effects of drugs, etc. Children and young adults are left with stone-wall rules that don’t hold up at the party in Kim’s back yard (with no adults present), at the sleepovers where boys somehow get access and on the playground when no teacher is near. I am working hard to raise smart, healthy, and normal children without the aid of religion-and most of you reading this are either doing the same or strongly considering it. Our children are not perfect. I personally have no doubt that they will make mistakes—they are children, and that is how children grow in wisdom—but I am certain however, that the mistakes they make will not be life-threatening.

I have prepared my own children for a world where decent and cruel people live. They are grounded in reality and their critical thinking skills will continue to develop as my husband and I instill the value of intellectual honesty, self-reflection, change, and respect for others in a diverse society. This blog is for the secular parent, the religious parent and all the parents in between. Take from it what you may and together a community of freethinking parents—of all kinds—will emerge.

Why Let Children Choose Their Faith? Pt. 2

I see no reason to expect a child to make an informed decision on the issue of whether or not god is real or whether or not one religion is the ‘true’ religion until they reach an age where they can logical and objectively judge what makes sense. Religions of today

1. Refuse to acknowledge and deal logically with the facts that your child will
need to survive in what has become a fragmented society,

2. Promote a high level of intolerance for others, and they

3. provide children with an answer to many of life’s questions that defies logic
and is unquestionable at the same time.

The detriment that religion can cause to a child’s developing worldview—intolerance, scorn, and ignorance of known facts—does not justify any of the benefits religion supposes to offer. Love, community, investigations of the afterlife, and moral and ethical guidance can be found in other places while your child is growing into adulthood. We must teach our children that religion is one option of many, and they alone must decide which religion is best for them. Take for example this true scenario that my daughter relayed to me. It happened at my daughters elementary school her first grade year

Setting: An elementary school cafeteria at lunchtime.  Sandy , a 1st grader, has her lunch tray and is walking toward her classroom’s table. Brianna, her best friend, has saved her a seat.

Brianna: I saved you a seat right here Essie.

Sandy: Ok.

Sandy sits down and begins eating and talking about gym class.

Kale: Sandy, Michael said that you told him you don’t believe in God.

Sandy: (Breathing deeply). I don’t. My mom said that god isn’t real.

All: Silence.

Kale: You’re going to hell!

Sandy: My mom said that hell isn’t real either.

Kale: Yes it is. That’s where you go if you don’t believe Jesus died for you.

Sandy: I do believe in Jesus. My mom said he was a real person who lived a
long time ago, but he only died for himself.

Classmate: My mom says you’re bad if you don’t love God.

Brianna: Sandy, you are bad if you don’t love god. He’s waiting in Heaven.

Sandy: Silence. Stares at Brianna. I’m not bad. I never hit people or
bully people. I’m not bead because I don’t believe in God.

Brianna: Well, I guess I do no a girl who’s badder than you, and she does
believe in god, but she’s still bad.

From their religious beliefs, these children learned two devastating lessons:

1. Complete intolerance for people who think differently than them:
—if you’re not in our group, you’re not a good person; we hate you.

2. Physical suffering is ok if people don’t belong to your group:
—if you won’t join our group, you will burn in hell; we hate you.

To be fair, these were not bad children, or children of Christian fundamentalists. Having volunteered in my daughter’s class and worked with all of the children there, I can tell you they were average, American kids who went to church about once a week—and they thought my daughter was evil because she did not believe in their god. They did not consider her kindness, her lack of bad behavior or the fact that they spent every weekday for the past year with her. She was evil because their parents, and their church told them so. Don’t believe me? If you have been raising your child as a weekly church goer and a fearer of god, ask them this question: what would you say if your best friend told you that she/he didn’t believe in god, heaven or hell? I guarantee—guarantee—what comes out of their mouth would be complete shock that someone actually made the choice to say something like that wasn’t real. They will also probably bring up the penalty for such a crime.
Sadly, the situation with “Sandy” happened because of a child’s understanding of the Christian faith. To a young child, it’s all or nothing; you’re either with us, or against us. It is not until they mature that they realize the world isn’t so black and white. That is why children must be fed religious doctrine cautiously, with an open mind and after a sense of critical thinking has been developed.
What would have happened if Sandy didn’t have the skills to confront her intolerant friends? How would their behavior have affected her self-worth, her self-esteem and the view of her family and loved ones? (we’ll talk later about ways to enhance your child’s ability to stand up against religious bullies).

Fast forward twenty years. These bright, intolerant, and separatist children are now adults who rule the world. Will they work toward the peaceful co-existence of all of humanity on the planet? Will they still show contempt for those who are different? Will they use their power to suppress those ideas which contradict their upbringing? Multiply these few children by all the religious beliefs in the world that exclude others. You now have billions of individuals who are programmed not to work together, but to do their part for their group. How will humanity function cooperatively?

Why Let Children Choose Their Faith? Pt. 1

The very young in our society lack a level of critical thinking that would help them really understand what religion is and if they agree with religion’s view of life. This is especially true for the very young child in three important ways. First, children between the ages of two and seven have a difficult time focusing on more than one aspect of a situation. Any psychologist will confirm this. For example, if a child is told, “don’t you want to go to heaven and be with Jesus and see grandma when you die?” they do not consider the possibility that Jesus, heaven could actually not exist. All he knows is that grandma did exist, she’s not here anymore, and seeing her again would be nice.
Children in this age group also have difficulty tracing the steps in a situation back to its original source. Imagine a child being told that Noah could only take two of each animal on the ark, and the conversation going something like this

Parent: So, noah loaded up the ark, two by two and that’s how he saved all the animals.

Child: why did noah leave the other animals to die?

Parent: because that’s what god wanted.

Child: so god wants to kill all the baby animals and keep the mommy and daddy ones!

Parent: no of course not. God is love and god was saving the animals from the flood.

Child: if god really wanted to love the animals, why didn’t he just not make it rain a lot?

Parent: remember the beginning of the story. Those people were bad

Child: were the animals bad too?

Conversations have been going on like this one for years ( I participated in one very similar as a kid). Instead of looking at the moral of the story (God had to kill all the bad people—and animals), this child can’t get past the fact that God actually murdered baby animals; even the most curious children simply aren’t ready to digest, sift through, and come to conclusions about words and phrases that most adults can’t even agree on.
Finally, children tend to focus on things as they first present themselves to be true in their early years, between ages two and seven. If, for instance, a child is told that Mohammad flew to heaven on a winged horse—and that image is cemented in their minds as truth—it becomes horribly difficult to be objective about such an assertion. By this stance, a child is as likely to believe that Hogwarts School of Magic really exists or that Gandalf’s staff actually stops Sauron’s evil.

When you think about these three truisms of the average two-seven year olds, one can see the signature of our nature: these truisms are survival skills. Our children have the luxury of being at the top of the food chain, but if you switch a human child with a fox cub, or any other animal that uses basic instincts to survive, a clear pattern emerges.

1. Focus on one aspect of a situation at a time [focus only on what
mom or dad are doing: mom and dad keep you alive]
2. Focus on the here and now [or get maimed or risk death]
3. There is no time for second guessing; in the wild, a second guess can
cost you your life. mom and dad are always right [no matter how silly,
llogical or irrational it seems. Mom and dad are always right].

How sad it is that religion meets our children before they have full control of their mind. Running on basic instincts makes it impossible for a child’s mind to logically interpret and analyze the viewpoints religion proposes.

At that point, a child isn’t choosing religion, they are being indoctrinated to believe in the basic tenets of a particular faith. Indoctrinating a child is like taking advantage of a person who’s mentally ill and cannot think for themselves. And no, by indoctrinating I do not mean teaching. We teach our children the things that will help them to be successful in life: no one likes to be hit, showing people a mouth full of food is rude. I am speaking of the ‘indoctrination’ that alters a child’s ability to rationally view a situation: to instruct in a doctrine, principle, ideology, etc., esp. to imbue with a specific partisan or biased belief or point of view.

Religion and the very young

If we acknowledge that children are individuals, and I hope that you do, then it goes without saying that children have the right to choose their religion, which will become the guiding principals they use to travel through life. Until they are of proper mental age to make such a choice, they should not be coerced by the rules of convention, tradition or any other notions that demand a choice at such a young age.
Children should be labeled freethinkers: individuals whose sole purpose is to learn and experience all the world has to offer.
Fortunately and unfortunately, a child’s brain is programmed to follow the instructions and look for approval from their parents or main caregiver. Think about it. It goes without saying that if a child is brought to some alter by said parent, told that they will go to a bad place or a good place (and told that mommy, daddy and all their family and friends are going to the good place) that they will choose the good place. This isn’t choice, its coercion. The mind of a three, four, or even nine year old doesn’t have the critical thinking skills to figure out if Mohammed really flew to heaven on a winged bird, or if Jesus could actually be born of a virgin.
Should your child be allowed to choose their understanding of the world? Absolutely! Many family and friends, after hearing of my desire to write this book, explored their own relationship with religion. Some had switched to a religion different from their parents and they expressed regret that they were not given the choice to explore different religions when they were under the age of reason. Instead, they were indoctrinated with the religion of their parents and told it was the ultimate truth and betrayal meant damnation! My sincere hope in writing this book is that you will allow your child the right to choose their religious path and that you will love them, unconditionally, even if their path is a road you wished they would not have traveled down.

Should Your Family Celebrate? Pt. 4: Taking from both worlds: a possible solution

Our family chose to loosely celebrate holidays, mostly because we became non-religious after our children began celebrating holidays. We didn’t want our children to experience the sense of loss that many children report after being ripped from familiar traditions. We also felt very strongly that children should know the religious foundations of holidays, what they mean, and why we do not celebrate them in more ritualistic ways. You and your family may have to research Hanukah, Ramadan, Christmas or whatever tradition is present in your children’s lives.
The conversations we had with our children took place over several days, mostly near the holiday itself. Overloading children is common in secular homes, so you will want to keep your conversations short (especially for the very young) so they can think about what they have learned.
We began by asking our children if they liked celebrating Christmas and why. Of course, we got the usual ‘it’s fun to get presents, its nice to see family.’ We then began a conversation about the religious foundations of Christmas according to Christian mythology. It was very interesting to hear their responses, and to talk about things that made sense to them and things that did not.
During our next chat,we moved past religion and looked deeper at the ritual itself. We talked about the history of Christmas: how Christmas celebrations predate the supposed birth of Christ. There are many historians who acknowledge that pagan winter celebrations (which took different names) were high jacked by religion for its own purposes. Someone was once quoted as saying, “people have long felt the need, in the darkest, coldest time of the year, to battle the blackness with lights, music, family, the evergreen tree to symbolize life, and, oh, yes, presents.” We kept these conversations going, in small bits, throughout the Christmas season. Our children still enjoyed presents, family and friends. They also had a balanced view of a holiday that many children only get to hear one side of.
We also discussed the birth and resurrection mythology surrounding Easter. We talked about the realistic aspects of it—this was supposed to be the burial of Jesus. Jesus was born from a virgin (yes, we defined virgin and talked about how its not physically possible, according to modern science, to have a baby by a ghost). For Easter, we talked about how Jesus died because the rulers thought he was bad, and during that time, they punished bad people by nailing them to a cross. When people died they were usually buried. We also talked about the parts that defy logic and reality—a man rising from the grave (after being buried six feet or so) and ascending to heaven (a place we cannot see but we are told exists). We asked the children what they thought of the story.
A most important aspect of our conversation centered on those who believe the resurrection mythology. Our children were told some people take it literally and so even though it may sound silly to them, it’s serious to others. I tell them it’s their choice to believe in that or not, but that is not why we celebrate Easter—we do it for the chocolate!
But seriously, we have found that denying our children the right to participate in a cultural norm, particularly one the majority of their friends celebrate, could have damaging and counter-productive effects. We felt it better (and our duty) to balance what they get in the outside world with knowledge about a ritual’s history and our reasons for believing or disbelieving the mythology. This way, a child can truly make up their mind given both perspectives of the situation.
For a secular parent, this can be very scary and requires that we remember: children are individuals and not replica’s of ourselves. Because you raise a secular child does not guarantee that they will be secular adult. And, that is not the point. The point of raising secular children is to give children the opportunity to truly choose what it is they think of the world. Raising a secular child ensures that they have a deep respect for life, diversity and what it means to be a productive member of a society where everyone matters.

Should Your Family Celebrate? Pt. 3: Celebration Station!! What can happen on this road?

Having shared traditions (whether those traditions are true or false) creates a sense of shared identity. If you choose to celebrate any holiday, a sense of community will be the biggest advantage. There’s no denying it, one thing religion does do is create a common thread in towns, cities, and countries. We’ll talk about other ways to create this sense of shared community, but for now this is a major advantage. It means that when your child goes to school, to grandma’s house or to a neighborhood party, they will have a commonality that bonds them to those individuals.
Another advantage, and probably the best for you as a parent, is a lack of stress and concern over holiday events. If your child celebrates all holidays, there’s no need to protest the Christmas tree at school, no need to talk to family members about your reasons and rationale for not celebrating. Basically, it’s the easy way out of a tough situation.
The major disadvantage to celebrating holidays, particularly ones that don’t allow questioning, is that your child’s critical thinking will probably suffer. Sure, Jesus could have been born of a virgin—even though we know that people physically must have some sort of contact—rubbing of body parts, invitro-fertilization, etc. Recall our earlier reading of the father and daughter—instead of telling her the truth, her dad instead decides to make excuses for Santa’s illogical behavior. You may find yourself in this boat.
Another disadvantage is the blurred lines between tradition and fact. Remember, because something is a tradition doesn’t mean it’s true. It’s simply what has always been done. If children celebrate religious traditions as if they are true, there is bound be some conversations about how confusing some things are. What will happen when your child asks if Santa really visits all children? If they can eat just a little during the day for Ramadan and not be punished by Allah? How you teach your child the difference between religious tradition and fact when celebrating those traditions sends clear messages.
Well, we have looked at both sides of celebrating holidays. Take a minute and think about, write down or discuss with your partner what you both think about the options before you. It would be wrong of me to assume what would be best for your family in any situation. As secular parents, we must be like backbones (to take from Barbara Coloroso’s concept of family structure); we must bend when needed and stand firm in all other situations.

Should Your Family Celebrate? Pt. 2: NOT Celebrating. What can it look like?

Just as there are many types of families, there are also many levels of involvement in any particular religious celebration. If you choose to abstain in the strict sense of the word, you and your family will not participate in any religious events, with family members, at school or in your home. Let’s look critically at this scenario: what are the advantages and disadvantages of not celebrating in this way?
Well, one of the advantages is that you rid your home of rituals that may rob your child of their common sense, or of their critical thinking skills. You also create an open, honest discussion of our country’s rituals without the fear of ‘forsaking’ god or any other supernatural being. Take for example the following conversation

Daughter: so dad, if Santa climbs down chimneys, and we don’t have a chimney,
how will Santa get into our house?

dad: well baby, he will come through the door.

Daughter: but dad, that’s not what Santa does. He only comes down chimneys.

Dad: he’ll make an exception for our house.

Daughter: dad, how does Santa get to all the children in the world in one night?

Dad: well, he only comes to the houses with good kids, like ours!

Daughter: So, how good do you have to be for Santa to come? I’ve gotten in
trouble lots of times this year. Will he still come to our house?
Dad: yes.
Daughter: So you don’t have to be perfectly good, just mostly good?

This conversation will continue until the dad snaps. He’s got a most inquisitive daughter who is thinking about the inconsistencies between the real world and the story that she has been taught. Wouldn’t it be nice if her dad just said, “well baby, it’s a pretend story. Santa isn’t real, we make him up so that things seem happy and fun”? Wouldn’t that alleviate this poor child’s frustrated mind? Wouldn’t that keep the father from lying to his daughter to keep a story alive that is wholly make believe?
Another advantage is that you have the opportunity to create your own family rituals around the same time as traditional holidays. There are many families who have successfully thought of creative holidays that occur on or near the same date as religious ones. While many will mimic the holiday in every sense except the religious aspects, these ‘new traditions’ stimulate a child’s creativity, bond families closer, and keep children from feeling a sense of loss at their family’s lack of participation in community events.
So, we’ve looked at a couple of advantages, now, what are the disadvantages of completely abstaining from holiday traditions? Well, I suppose the most obvious will be a feeling of isolation. Imagine being the only sister or brother in your family to not come to Hanukkah celebrations, or mass on Easter Sunday? Missing the big family dinner on Christmas can sure leave scars on your immediate family’s relations ship with extended family. Also, It may seem easy for you, but I guarantee your child will notice the separateness—and feel the tension among adults who think that what you are doing is wrong. How will you comfort your child during this time? What will you say to the family members who question your sanity, your love and your lack of faith (we’ll talk more about dealing with loved ones in the next chapter)? The bigger question being, is all of this worth your child’s frustration?
Another disadvantage pops up when you send your child to school, daycare, or another caring facility. It can be a huge emotional strain on you and your child if your child care provider (including public school, which we discuss in a later chapter) is unwilling to accommodate your stance on religious preferences. What happens if your child is singled out for being different by other students? Will your child’s teacher defend their rights? You cannot be with your child always. After all, you must work, and your child needs time away from you to foster their sense of individuality and self-control over their actions. What happens if you find out that your child is participating in religious activities without your permission, because they want to and you don’t?
Of course there are certainly more advantages and disadvantages to not celebrating religious holidays. But before deciding to abstain, we must stretch our thinking to include the opposite side. What are the advantages and disadvantages of celebrating religious holidays? Only after you have looked at celebrating and not celebrating can you come up with a plan for your family that will be well thought out and meets the needs of your child and your family.

Should Your Family Celebrate? Pt.1: Reality Check

When I became a parent, I was more or less an agnostic. I thought little of religion and when it came up, so did a lot of bad memories. But that wasn’t true for the holidays. I remember waking up to presents on Christmas, working to look pretty on Easter like all the girls in my neighborhood and the awesomeness of Halloween. Now that I’m adult, and a mother, holidays look different. As secular parents, we must look at the ramification of religion in our children’s lives and on their understanding of the world. This series of posts is designed help secular parents weigh the positives and negatives of celebrating religious holidays and the steps needed to guide you to a solution that suits your family. It will focus mostly on Christian holidays, but I hope with study to add other faiths.
Before we begin, it’s important to have a reality check about religion and your child: they will be influenced by it and there’s nothing-NOTHING-that you can do about it. Whewww! Glad we got that out of the way. Now, I have seen the route some parents take: separating children from faith with an almost psychotic fervor, saying, “they won’t get my baby!” Everywhere the child goes, a 1000-volt fence is put up. Confrontation seems never-ending, and all the while the child involved has a self-esteem crash that often ends in unhealthy behaviors.
But that’s not what the parent had in mind, and if you’re that parent, at first, so was I. I know how frustrating it is to live in a world where religion has crept its tentacles into everything and children have little protection against its subliminal messages. I offer alternative that first begins with us examining the positives and negatives of allowing a young child to interact with organized religion. It begins with a thorough evaluation of both. More to come…