Posts tagged ‘religion’
This WTF moment is brought to you by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints…
Ok, first, read this.
Here is my favourite part of the article:
“If a student prays and they think that the tight ‘formfitting’ clothing is accepted by the Lord, they have not asked, or have not asked the right question, or they have chosen an answer for their own gratification. I don’t believe the Lord would give approval to anyone to be disobedient to the CES Dress and Grooming Standards.”
Wow.
So let’s get this straight. You need to go and pray but if you don’t get the same answer I do then you’re either lying or you prayed wrong. (This is the same approach they apply to knowing whether or not the Book of Mormon, or the church for that matter, are true. Pray and if you get the right answer it’s true. If you get the wrong answer, you’re not deserving and you need to try harder.) Also, God is backing up the Rexburg dress code nazis because, hey, he’s not busy.
There are so many things I could say about this article. In some ways it made me laugh because it is just so ridiculous. It also makes me feel sad and angry. To me, this is exactly what comes from asking people to put critical thought up on the shelf and stop thinking for themselves. It’s scary and let’s be honest, it’s a fundamental building block of all religions. My husband went to BYU Idaho (formerly Rexburg College) and when he was there, part of the dress code was that they couldn’t wear shorts on campus. The only exception was the school issued gym strip that they had to wear whenever they worked out. Oddly enough, this gym strip included shorts..
One day hubby (Bri) decided to buck the rules (what a rebel!) and make the short (2 minute) walk from his dorm to the gym in his shorts. When he got there, the student behind the counter refused to give him his gym strip because he was wearing shorts. Bri pushed him and said “Let me get this straight, you’re not going to give me my shorts because I’m wearing shorts?” I think he assumed that when faced with how silly that was, the kid would just hand over the clothes. Nope…he still refused. Eventually, Bri stopped a guy who was also there getting his strip, asked if he could borrow his pants and then put the pants over the shorts right in front of the kid behind the counter. The kid promptly handed over the gym strip because Bri was now wearing pants. (Which he was about to remove and give back to their rightful owner and then change into another pair of shorts. You couldn’t even make this shot up it’s so crazy.)
Another interesting sidenote to this article is that BYU Idaho and the main BYU campus in Provo, Utah have different dress codes. So the Lord is cool with certain items of clothing in Utah, but not in Idaho. It doesn’t take a genius to stop and think about that for a moment and realize something is fishy. It does however take someone who isn’t afraid to think their own thoughts, and there’s the rub.
In Defense of Polygamy
Today, a Canadian court upheld our anti-polygamy laws, in a case I have been following pretty closely. This case centers around the polygamous group living in Bountiful, British Columbia specifically and the law has been used to try and protect young women from being forced to marry. Now obviously, I think Bountiful and everything it stands for is sick, twisted and wrong. These young girls are born and raised in a sexist and abusive culture and have very little say in who they marry. Being wife number 6 to a 79-year-old man while still in your teens is wrong by anybody’s standards (well, I guess not everyone…yeah, I’m talking to you Warren Jeffs) and by no means do I support what those crazy Mormons are doing. (On a sidenote/rant: It drives me crazy to hear the rhetoric that the Mormon church and its members are using in order to distance themselves from all this muck. Do you know how many times I’ve heard people say “They aren’t Mormon!” or deny that they are a break-off from the Mormon church? This is what Mormonism looked like 100 years ago folks, deal with it. Ahh, that feels better.)
However, I don’t know that I’m really opposed to polygamy so much. I guess this is where some of my more libertarian views come crashing into my socially democratic ones. I don’t like the government telling people who they can and can’t be with. I’m a big supporter of gay marriage and straight marriage and any other kind of marriage provided everyone within said marriage is an adult and is happy to be there. I’ve looked into this a little and it turns out there is a whole community of people living in polyamorous relationships and they don’t look anything like they do in the cults/compounds of BC. There are women living with two husbands, men living with more than one wife…every configuration you can imagine (and I’m sure a few you can’t). They aren’t hurting anyone and if they want to have two husbands God help them that’s their choice.
Surely there are already laws in place to protect adult men from marrying under-aged girls several times over. I mean, really. If not then there should be. I’m just not sure that it should ban polygamy outright. There are days when a sister-wife would come in pretty handy.
How do you explain immersion in olive oil!?
Yesterday our close friends baptised their baby in the Greek Orthodox church. We happen to know that the Dad is an atheist and the Mom, well, she may believe in God but I would hardly call her religious (let alone orthodox). Like many cultures, religion and family are intimately tied together and these celebrations are opportunities to do just that – celebrate. The ceremony was held at the same church where we attended our friends’ wedding – where he (a red-haired Scot) was officially baptised into the Greek Orthodox religion and partook in all kinds of weird ceremonial dress and dance to do it. It was a total blast to watch – nobody could help but draw parallels between what we were witnessing and the movie “My Big Fat Greek Wedding”.
Our daughter had never been to a church before and was full of awe, confusion and questions about what on earth was going on. In hindsight I maybe should have prepped her about what we were about to see but to be honest, I was more focused on the ouzo-infused after party than the event itself. As we sat in the hot and ornately decorated church (the walls are covered in gold, stained glass, pictures of haloed saints, complex imagery and oh, did I mention gold?), she asked me “Why is that man singing? What are they putting on the boy’s head? Why are they putting oil on his head? Why are there candles? Why do I have to be quiet? Why is the boy wearing that hat?” I am afraid I didn’t have many good answers for her. I couldn’t explain those things to an adult, let alone a three-year-old.
I explained that this was a church and that some people believe in God and they go to church. She knows that we don’t believe in God – that’s about as far as the conversation has gotten. When she asked me “Why do some people believe in God?” I sat there, baffled for a minute. “Because it makes them feel good honey. Just like you have pink blanky.”
She was happy with that and I realized, some of the tough questions really can be answered that simply.
Religion is Weird: Exhibit A
A Hindu devotee prepares to walk on a pit of burning coals during a fire-walking ceremony held to honour the Hindu goddess Draupadi in Durban.
Goodbye Religion?
I’ll try not to spew venom about the irony that this article is found on CNN’s “Belief Blog” because the article itself contains such good news. Provided it actually happens. And spreads like a plague.
A Medical Miracle
We received a frantic phone call on Friday night from my MIL informing us that my little BIL (who is serving his mission in Arizona) “blew out his knee” and might have to be released from his missionary duties in order to come home and recuperate. She was upset for a few reasons; she is a mother and of course, she wasn’t able to speak to her son directly, she was surprised and didn’t have all the information she wanted and above all, she was upset about his mission experience being jeopardized. My BIL is loving his mission experience so far and part of the appeal for missionaries and their families is that it is such a long stretch. Two years is a long time to do anything consistently. It is a long time to not see loved ones, only talk to them on the phone 4 times and to commit yourself as a servant of the Lord. Doing the time is part of what makes it such a huge deal, so cutting it in half would have been very upsetting for everyone involved.
My MIL wasn’t totally sure what had happened but was told by the missionary President’s wife (who apparently is responsible for keeping other Mother’s informed of their kid’s accidents/injuries etc.) that they would call back on Monday with more information. There was much concern and worry and discussion about what this would mean.
We called today only to be referred to an email that she had forwarded to us. Basically, my BIL is the proud recipient of a genuine miracle of God. You can only imagine my frustration upon hearing his version of events. He hurt his knee playing soccer and knew right away it was bad. They took him to a doctor who felt it and told him that he thought he may have torn his MCL and to stay off of it for the next few days until he could get an MRI. The bishop came and did a blessing on BIL’s knee. The pain did not subside and it was still pretty bad. On Monday the Bishop came and did another blessing after which my BIL’s knee started to feel a bit better. At the very least, he felt better. When they got the results back from the MRI it showed a small tear in the MCL but there is no need for surgery and his mission won’t be affected. I could hardly stomach reading the email as he launched into his testimony and assurances that he has re-committed himself with even more fervor into bringing the Gospel to the people and that he knows this and that is true and how blessed he is to have been a witness to the glory and power of God’s miraculous love. Blah, blah, blah.
Here is what I would like to say but will not:
1. Your first doctor? Yeah, he misdiagnosed your knee. Not difficult to do when you’re just feeling around someone’s inflamed joint.
2. If the blessing was so effective, why did it take two of them?
3. Maybe the looseness that you attribute to a torn ligament was just loose ligaments that tightened up after you followed the doctor’s suggestions to ice and rest your knee.
4. And perhaps my biggest complaint with all claims of miraculous healing…who do you think you are?! Let me get this straight. This omnipotent and benevolent God who has the power to heal the sick and dying skips over the truly needy only to fix your knee? While you were receiving a priesthood blessing in Arizona, countless women were cradling dying infants and children in their arms, begging and pleading for their lives. Terminally ill people begged for mercy. Innocent babies lay in the dirt, listless from starvation and dehydration. By morning, thousands of people have died painful, agonizing and wholly undeserved deaths but God fixed your knee. Are you kidding me? This to me is the height of egotism.
I thought about saying something but this boy has drunk bathed in the kool-aid and is now handing out free samples, so he’s beyond reasonable debate at this point.
Infinite Virginity (What a cool name for a band)…
Familiarity with your own religion (or at the least, the one you were raised in) often immunizes you from recognizing how weird it is. When I first met my husband I recall thinking “Mormons believe some really weird stuff! How can anyone with half a brain believe this!?” Then he asked me if I believed in transubstantiation and the ever-virgin Mary. The answer was that no, I didn’t and that furthermore, I didn’t know that as a Catholic I was even supposed to! The fact that I didn’t believe in half the things the Catholic church taught was actually one of the things that made me start questioning my faith. As soon as I started to see my own religion from the same distance as all the other ones, it ceased to hold any real significance for me. I quite happily threw the baby out with the bath water.
The ever-Virgin Mary was always a strange concept to me and one that I had given a lot of thought to. So, when I heard an author on the radio not too long ago, talking about sex and the bible I was very interested. His point was that in the Catholic church, it is believed that each human is born with original sin. This is why it was necessary for Jesus to have been born of a virgin, so that he was not tainted by this sin. It is also why Mary was forced to remain a virgin, so that she could remain a saint and sinless forever. Except, there is a problem. For Mary to her herself remain sinless, she too must have been born of a virgin. Uh oh. This is where the whole thing starts to unravel. (To be fair, anyone with a heart beat should recognize the absurdity of the ever-virgin claim before we get to this point, but I digress.) So was Mary’s mother also a virgin? And her mother and so on? Nobody ever gets into that because theological muddy waters are best avoided if you want to keep up the ruse.
Poor, poor Mary and Joseph. Born of a virgin-mother and a sexually frustrated father, forced to remain chaste and endure the death of her only (only?! that’s a whole other post) son on a stick in the desert, and wife to a very bitter man who must have been on the receiving end of a lot of jokes. And all for the love of a non-existent God and beatification by a sexually perverted church. Not much of a life is it? Better to have never existed at all. :)
Dancing With Death
One of the things I love most about reading other people’s blogs is that you get the opportunity to enter a whole new world. A completely different life, in another part of the planet, with a different point of view. I have a handful of blogs that I’ve been reading for years and one of them is Girl’s Gone Child. Rebecca isn’t wildly political or a baking savant – she is an intelligent, very hip Mom in the Los Angeles area who I happen to agree with on a lot of things. She is a little more ethereal in her approach to life than I probably am, but I find it refreshing. I love her little family and her little life and her closet full of clothes that I love on her but would never wear. One of the things I love about Rebecca (other than her poetic prose) is the amount of thought and consideration she gives to her parenting. Being a mother is a big, sometimes scary but always important job and too many people take it for granted and do it by default.
This most recent post by GGC got me thinking about death and what we tell our children about it. Death is as much a part of life as living and while I have always been sure I wouldn’t tell my kid some made up story about heaven and seeing their long-lost grandparents in the clouds, I would be lying if I said it was a conversation I am looking forward to. Reading Rebecca’s post however, made me feel a bit differently. Especially the part where she says that most people hold off talking about death to young people until they can understand it. I had never really thought how ridiculous that is. Nobody understands death. Why would kids be less capable than grown ups of wrestling with those very big ideas. If anything, they may have some very valuable insight – they haven’t learned yet to be afraid of death. To avoid thinking about it and dwelling on it until someone close to them dies and it is thrust into their life with fury. That’s no way to be introduced to death.
When it comes time to talk to my daughter about death, I want to treat it with the attention and respect it deserves. I don’t want to lie and I don’t want her to feel confused. She may feel afraid but at the very least, I want her to know that we can talk about it. That like other important subjects (sex, life, our bodies etc.) it is not off the table. I will tell her about heaven and what some people believe and I will tell her what I believe. Ultimately, the choice will be hers.
What conversations have you had with your children about death? What is your philosophy about death, dying and children?
On a Mission…
Here is an excerpt from a recent email I wrote to my little brother-in-law who is serving his mission in Mesa, Arizona:
I saw the video of the LDS woman who was in a plane crash and survived. It was a very moving story and that woman was very brave and obviously very strong. It did raise a question however that I have had for some time. I hope you are okay with me asking you a religious question – I figured now that you are a missionary you probably get asked difficult questions all the time. You are an intelligent person and someone who I know thinks about things very deeply so I am hoping you can give me some insight. My question doesn’t pertain to the Mormon religion per se, but to faith in general. In the video, I was disturbed by the part where the woman credited her survival to God and prayer. I watched the video only a few days after my experience in hospital and had been thinking about this already. In fact, it has always bugged me. I remember when 12 miners were rescued years ago in Pennsylvania, people crying and saying they were saved by prayer and by God. While rescue workers who had risked life and limb stood by. I think of all the doctors who worked on that poor lady in the video, and all the amazing science and technology that went into saving her life. The nurses, the physiotherapists, not to mention her own inner strength and perseverance. I find it so frustrating and difficult to understand.
Many people say that faith is not something that can be measured or tested. That is true. However, certain things can be measured. One of those things is prayer. It’s a simple thing really; pray for 100 people, don’t pray for the other 100 and see what happens. You can have control groups and measurable outcomes. It’s been studied and tested hundreds of times over, by those of faith and those without, in many different countries and there has never been a measurable difference. While prayers certainly brings peace to those offering them, it doesn’t actually increase the odds of the sick or injured getting better. Now, what has been proven to work is medicine. Time and time again people are saved by medicine and technology and doctors, and yet, many people of faith insist of crediting prayer when things go well (and God’s will when they don’t, but that is a whole other story) rather than thanking the people who actually deserve it.
Anyway – I don’t mean to go off on a tangent. I saw that video, and it was fresh in my mind and I know you are religious and also smart and so I naturally thought to ask you. I truly hope that you don’t feel offended or put off in any way and if you don’t feel comfortable addressing my question, than by all means just ignore me. :) Having said that, I would really like to know what you think about this. I guess, to summarize, the question would be: why insist on crediting God, when there are so many more obvious and tangible people who deserve recognition?
Now for those of you who are seasoned rational thinkers or atheists this email might seem very mild. There were a million other points I could make – I could tear his world asunder if I wanted to. The thing is, he’s an awesome kid and we have never talked about religion. Ever. Nobody in my husband’s family discusses it at all. We all just tip toe around the fact that they are Mormon and we are not. I hate it but it’s hard to engage people in a conversation when they are unwilling. So, I decided that this topic was safe. It isn’t specific to Mormons, it hopefully won’t be perceived as a personal attack, and it might just get him to think a little. Since this is my first attempt at a religious conversation, I have no idea what to expect.
I asked my husband how he thought my BIL would take it and he said he didn’t have a clue. When my husband told T (my BIL who was 16 at the time) that he was never coming back to the church, T cried like a little kid. Full on bawling for an hour. This kid is not a crier and actually pretty reasonable, level-headed and unemotional. Ever since then, my husband feels like he has little insight into his younger brother which leaves me out on my own. So, I sent him the email and I guess I’ll wait and see what he says. I’ll keep you posted.
Oh, and please check out the video. Sad story of course but another example of how incredibly awesome the church is at marketing, communications and spin. I’m in awe.
On a Mission…
Well, today is the day. My little brother-in-law left for the MTC (Missionary Training Centre) at 4:30 this morning and after 9 weeks of intense Spanish language training he will be dispatched to his mission in northern Arizona. Sigh.
In the end we decided not to say anything to him about his mission. We told him we loved him and that we would miss him. We told him he would do well and that is was an opportunity to grow. All of these things are true and yet, so much was left unsaid. Like, you would grow just as much by going to University or travelling the world. You will likely discover great things within you and despite what you believe, they will not be revealed by the holy spirit but by exercise, a life of routine and regimen and challenging yourself.
My husband still feels that his mission was a positive experience overall. He lived in France for 2 years and learned to speak fluent French. He became a great negotiator and public speaker and learned things about himself and about humanity more generally. He thrived in the almost military approach to schedule and exercise. They woke up at 6:00 every morning, lifted weights and prayed. They worked from morning until night and read scriptures. And then they did it again…for more than 700 days. He couldn’t see movies or listen to any music other than the tabernacle choir. He couldn’t read any books other than the approved missionary library that consisted of five church books. He was never alone. He went every where with his church appointed companion and ate what he could afford, which wasn’t much. He was encouraged to journal every day but like most things in the church, even that wasn’t really an exercise in individuality. Everything he wrote was filtered so that later generations would never hear of any doubts, stumbles or struggles. A big boring book of testimony.
But, he travelled and grew and made wonderful friends and learned about his strengths and weaknesses. He was challenged and directed and on his own for the first time in his life so I suppose I can see the appeal.
After much thought and consideration we decided to just be kind and supportive. My little brother is so excited and feels good about himself. He is heading off on his own for the first time ever and this is a very vulnerable point in his life. He came to our house for dinner the week before he left and we had a wonderful time. He is smart and thoughtful and in my opinion, too bright to stay a church member.
After he left I said to my husband, “Do you think he’ll leave on his own?” to which my husband replied, “Nope. I’m going to help him.”
Let’s hope that is exactly what happens.
I put the Christ in Christmas. I also put it in “Holy F&%@n Christ”.
So, I know I’ve been off the radar for a while and I apologize. Getting caught up in life I suppose. With Christmas coming I, like most people, have been busy preparing and trying to get things organized before we head off to visit our respective families. One of which, as you know, is Mormon. Seriously Mormon. As in NO booze, NO coffee, NO tea. I am already dreading a Christmas morning without a hot cup of coffee in my hand not to mention the family tradition of having french food without any wine. Any respectable french person would cringe at the thought of raclette, cheeses and fresh bread without a drop of Bordeaux. Despite what many believe, Martenelli’s does not cut it. Ever.
Christmas can be a divisive time of year for the atheist community (if you can even call it that). Some people believe strongly that we should make a point of shunning all things Christ-like, ban the word “Christmas” all together and use the season as an opportunity for religion-bashing. Others see Christmas as they do every other time of year…as an opportunity to deny their true feelings about religion and remain cloaked and quaking in the closet of atheistic anonymity. I like to think I fall somewhere in the middle. I use the word Christmas. I also use the word holidays. Or Xmas when I’m writing informally. I have a tree and I do the gift thing and while I refuse to put up a manger or put an angel on the top of my tree I don’t go out of my way to be a Jesus scrooge. Except for the few opportunities I had to replace baby jesus with a donkey in the nativity scene. Can you really blame me?
It’s always a tough call for me…do you make a point and say something or just let it slide. Always staying quiet makes me complicit in the ridiculousness that is faith. Always saying something makes me the asshole nobody wants to hang out with. Guess you have to pick your battles. So, I will close my mouth but not my eyes at Christmas dinner when we pray and I will refrain from pointing out that “Hey! Those wise men are all black! WTF?!” and I might even capitulate and sit nicely while we read the Christmas story as long it gets called a story and not a Christmas fact. But I’m bringing a go-cup and I’m making instant coffee in the microwave on Christmas morning and at least then the general climate of hypocrisy might be overtaken by the smooth aroma of a dark roast assaulting the virgin nostrils of my in-laws.
Merry Christmas XMas WTF is wrong with you people? A Virgin birth? A star guiding some wise men who are so WISE that they walk around following stars? A manger which “scientists” now claim was actually a cave in a futile and weird attempt to legitimize the story?
Ummm…peace out.
It’s a small world after all…
My little sister-in-law is 19 and beautiful. She is smart and funny, a talented writer and photographer and despite a lot of pressure, she has managed to avoid the Mormon mold. Until now.
After graduating, she had some big ideas. Some very atypical (for Mormons at least – the acceptable range is so much narrower) ideas like traveling. Or volunteering somewhere in South America. She wanted to study fashion and live in London. While we did our best to offer support, money and anything else she might need to make these things happen, these ideas were abandoned. She met a boy, all her friends went on missions, she started talking about BYU Hawaii. We were a bit disappointed but BYU Hawaii was at least somewhere and the chilled atmosphere would suit her personality perfectly. It was still outside the normal range of expectations and so we were pleased. Then it became BYU Provo.
The most recent news is that she will be going to BYU Idaho (formerly Ricks College). And living with her best friend from high school. And will not meet a single non-Mormon during her entire stay. And she’s taking general studies. Basically, she’s passing time until she meets a returned missionary and gets married. I was devastated when she told me. Not because there is anything wrong with BYU Idaho (my husband went there for the year before his mission) or living with your best friend (even though this particular friend has not been good to my little sis and has been pushed on her by my MIL for years) but because the whole concept is so small and my little sister could do so much better. Being young is about meeting people with new perspectives, having your ideas and your identity challenged, learning and falling and growing and sometimes, getting a fresh start. My SIL won’t get any of that and I am so sad for her. And so goddamned angry at her family and the little piss-ant town she lives in. Sigh.
Sick
Last night, we were getting our little girl ready for bed when hubby turned to me and said, “If I was still in the church, she would be learning to pray right about now.” WTF? She’s not even two yet!
The idea of teaching P to get down on her knees and recite some silly poem to the heavens, all in an effort to ingratiate herself to a brutal and inconsistent father in heaven (when she has a wonderful father right here on earth) is infuriating to me.
I have heard the argument made that teaching your kids to be atheist is no different than teaching them to have faith. You are indoctrinating them, either way. This is something I have struggled with because while I want P to think critically and rationally, I don’t want to force her to be a non-believer. I can say though, that I have never sat her down and told her anything about religion. Do you know why? Because she’s a baby! The idea that you would intentionally set out to introduce a supernatural being into a child’s reality before they have the skills or development to question it is sick and twisted. It’s taking advantage of a primed and vulnerable mind and it’s no wonder it is so difficult and painful for adults to leave the church when their faith is so deeply rooted in their infant brain.
I remember reading my hubby’s baby book not too long ago and feeling physically ill when I read this message from my MIL: “Brian received a gift of one dollar today and when I asked him what he was going to spend it on he told me he was going to save it for his mission, – Age 2″
Holy fuck.
Secular Sundays
In the US there are still many little places where the stores close on Sundays but Canada’s last holdout (Nova Scotia) succumbed to the secular Sunday this past year. While of course it is still a choice for an individual store owner whether they open or not, it is no longer legislated that they cannot remain open on Sundays. Of course, as a secularist I support this but I do wonder if we are throwing the baby out with the bath water.
In our house we want Sundays to remain a special day. The day will not be devoted to church or to god in any way but we hope to make it a day of peace and reflection. For us this will mean getting outside in nature. Being outside always makes me feel pensive and it gives me an opportunity to take stock and breathe. To prepare for the next week, to wonder aloud, what life is for and how we are going to live it. While I hesitate to use the word spirituality because of its supernatural connotations, I think it is important that we make time for that quiet part of us that can be drowned out by busy, loud lives.
My perfect secular Sunday would start off with a cooked breakfast and the opportunity to relax and read the newspaper or do a crossword while having a cup of coffee. Then we would go for a long hike in the mountains or walk in the park and hold hands, and laugh, and pick up leaves, and ask questions and talk. Our minds and our bodies would get some exercise. In the afternoon we would have a roast dinner of some kind. The day would be computer and work free. We could listen to music or play a board game and just enjoy being together.
Sundays might have been the only thing that religion ever got right.
What does your perfect “Secular Sunday” look like? Do you think its even necessary to make special time for self-exploration and quiet reflection?
What is the world coming to?
This recent article in Time magazine made me so mad and frustrated. A part of me just kept thinking “This can’t really be happening – obviously this judge is insane and it will be struck down at the New Jersey Supreme Court.” I’m hoping that’s what will happen but I’m not convinced.
This is an argument I have heard from believers before, “How could you not allow your children the privilege of religion in their lives?” I usually have two responses to this type of question:
1. The Outloud Response: Well, parents choose religion for their children all the time. Christians raise Christians, Muslims raise Muslims and atheists tend to raise atheists. And while I could argue that in principle they are the same, I think raising a secular child is even less offensive. Indoctrinating a child to believe one story over another versus teaching them to think critically and evaluate each “story” they come across. While it’s true that religion won’t receive much intellectual respect in our household it will be discussed openly with each religion being equally treated. I will not simply teach my kid to listen to me and trust me and believe in something. I want her to learn how to weigh evidence, critically evaluate things and think rationally. These are skills she will need throughout her life and if she applies them to religion, she will come to her own conclusions.
2. The Inside Voice: Well, I plan on keeping her from the “privilege” of experiencing addiction, abuse and pain so why not religion?
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