Is anyone else an atheist with BC besides me?
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pingpong1953 That's an excellent example of the great harm that religion can do. Ghastly. Certainly, it added to the trauma that the little girl was already going through. God Knows Best is a very weird rabbit hole to go down. Then we're somehow supposed to accept that evil, tragedies, and inflicting more trauma on a child is justified. Ridiculous.
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I agree with you HikingLady. It is absolutely ridiculous; and I don't think we should be placid and quiet when we can see the harms it's causing.
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My mother died when I was 4 and they told me God wanted her in heaven. In Sunday School they said God loved me. My thought was 'he sure has a funny way of showing it' and I've been alienated ever since. I guess the religious family members felt better thinking that, but it didn't fly with me. I was lucky to be raised by my maternal grandparents for the rest of my life. About 2nd grade I decided I just had 2 mothers and called them Mom and Dad.
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My cap was when I asked a priest why birth control was so bad. (I was 19 and not married). He said we were commanded to go forth an multiply. I responded that we have done too good a job and what would be the solution to overpopulation? Wait for it.... He said god would provide by sending a plague or world war to reduce the population. Bye Bye.
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Joseph Campbell probably influenced me most initially with his writing about myths. God, or the Hero with a Thousand Faces (Campbell's book), sealed my own realization that gods in their many forms are all part of a universal mythology that almost universally is a man-god hero. Pulling the god myth apart piece by piece and replacing the hero with the shero while simultaneously learning how to live without the placeholder of god.
Pema Chodron, a Buddhist nun has been my steady guide for decades. She wrote: "The difference between theism and nontheism is not whether one does or does not believe in God… Theism is a deep-seated conviction that there's some hand to hold: if we just do the right things, someone will appreciate us and take care of us. It means thinking there's always going to be a babysitter available when we need one. We all are inclined to abdicate our responsibilities and delegate our authority to something outside ourselves. Nontheism is relaxing with the ambiguity and uncertainty of the present moment without reaching for anything to protect ourselves."
Every time a person looks skyward and thanks god, it makes me sad for them as their ultimate reliance is on a mythic symbol and not themselves.
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Great quote and true.
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Many times they say God said NO
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Here's a story with a lighter note. My aunt, who was completely unchurched, married a devout Catholic in the early 1940s. He continued to go to church every day, and she never went, but cooked breakfast while he was gone. My grandparents were not churchy, either - I have no idea what they thought about religion; it never came up. So Aunt Hazel had only the most fleeting acquaintance with Christianity, probably mostly from Christmas music. Somehow, they made their marriage work. I think there were initial problems with his family, but those resolved over the years. They had no children. As my mother said, "We don't ask." In the late 1970s, Uncle Clarence developed pancreatic cancer, and like with most people with that, he declined rapidly. After treatment was deemed to be no more use, he came home to die. It was beautiful watching her care for him, and his good humor even when he could no longer lift his hand to feed himself. She left the room when his priest came to pray, but they developed a cordial relationship. As was inevitable, Uncle Clarence died, and his funeral was Catholics on the left, heathens who had no idea what to do on the right. At some point after the interment, the priest had private words with my aunt. From that day on, she claimed her husband was not buried in that cemetery, but had been moved elsewhere. We chalked it up to the stress of being his full-time nurse for months. Then we thought she was, perhaps, slightly batty. It wasn't until years later that the rest of the family put our heads together and realized that the priest had told her that Clarence had gone to a better place. Ah, well, it gave her something to do, trying to figure out where the dear departed had departed to.
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Definitely a lighter note. Communication sure is tricky.
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yesterday I went to what was called a celebration of life. It turned out to be a dreary almost funeral. All kinds of hymns and Bible verses. So I just left. I didn't know any of the family. The friends I see a lot. Bummer
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SoCalLisa, that's a shame. The service for my friend who died this Spring was just a few weeks ago. It was in a newer garden area of a lovely old, huge city cemetery. The gardens line walkways around the curved columbarium. The service had no mention of religion, although I think Dina was vaguely religious. She was a talented singer and musician, so the speakers were her friends from the chorus and band, plus those who worked with her at her music-related part-time jobs. She had a great sense of humor, which is what everyone emphasized. Her chorus and a group from her band provided entertainment, then we had a pot-luck picnic. It was perfect.
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Lisa, That's as bad as the service we went to for a neighbor who died suddenly. They were singing all 5 verses of hymns off tune. I think the people were Lutheran. Never going there again. Beyond tedious.
I think a party is the right way to go. Ok to put out snapshots, but no microphone that gets passed around for people to drone on and on.
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Oh Wren - all the verses!!! It's my experience living in a VERY religious state that it's better to go to the viewing the night before & skip the main service. That way I can pay my respects to the dead and to the family w/o hearing the preaching. If the family is Catholic, I can still greet & express my condolences before they start the Rosary.
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I continue to visit my elderly neighbor in the hospital. Even though she is a devout Greek Orthodox, she's becoming quite frustrated with her church friends. They all pray for her but not one of them has offered to assist with anything. She asked several of her friends yesterday to come to the hospital for half hour or so to give her daughter and myself a break. Every single one of them informed her they had luncheons, bingo, family activities but the important thing is they would keep her in their prayers. WTF. My elderly neighbor does not drive( paid driver when needed) but when her friends are hospitalized or dealing with a serious family situation, she has offered to bring them food, sit with them, and even grocery shop for them. They have all taken advantage of her generosity and she has no regrets. I know on many of these threads some of our BC girls and guys rely on their church friends to assist them and and the church friends do provide assistance. For my friend, it has been six days in the hospital and not one Church friend has shown up. But the most important thing is they will be praying for her. Sarcasm
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I was just at a wedding this weekend. A non-religious family member married into a very religious family. The father of the bride (religious side) gave a wonderful heartfelt speech. BUT there was definitely a lot of words of prayer and thanking of god in the speech. My brother and I tried to not make eye contact because we have this issue where when anyone brings up religion prayers or god we start cracking up uncontrollably. 😬 fortunately this time, we behaved ourselves 😉. All in all, it was a mostly religious-free wedding! Impressive!!
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Minus, I've lived in Houston too, so I know what you mean. The majority of people here are cremated so very few viewings happen. You've got the right idea, though. Go and greet, then disappear. I'm getting to the age where I know a lot of elderly people, so funerals and memorials are more often.
When DS got married he and his wife were working for the Institute for Bird Populations so a lot of the guests were birders. DH did a toast which was a bit of a story about the couple composed mostly of bird names. He must have mentioned at least 100 bird species. Several people asked for copies, but he hadn't written it down beforehand.
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I couldn't resist posting this.
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👍👍👍 sad but true, love it!
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ananda8 I love the "I just want to hear you beg for it" meme about prayer. Always hilarious to see white guys as Jesus. In most of Western European art, he has blue eyes and dark blond hair and beard. Oh, yes, that's SO Middle Eastern, NOT!
Also love the 'they all taste like chicken!'
As long as I'm posting on this thread today, I will share my lifelong challenge of being an atheist who's also a serious classical musician. Lots of the very best Western Civilization music was composed for church services. As a singer, I've been invited all my life to do church choir jobs, but I'm just too allergic to church to accept church gigs, except for weddings and funerals. In our concerts, my chamber ensembles perform lots of totally sublime music which was originally composed as liturgical text settings. I don't mind that a bit, but I can't get myself into a church service.
I grew up with the King James Bible language (Episcopal church in the 1960's - 1980 era), and it was spectacular: Shakespearean-era and poetic. So, the language of that liturgy is beautiful to me, and there's nothing more gorgeous than some of Bach's cantatas, which are usually religious texts--usually Biblical-- (in German or Latin). Vivaldi, Mendelssohn....I could go on and on about how much gorgeous music was composed for Christianity. And, Judaism! I've also sung whole concerts of Hebrew prayers and Yiddish folk songs that are religious. I'm also a pianist in a trio with a violinist and cellist, but there's no text conflict for that!
Where was I going with all this? Maybe to observe that without Christianity, we wouldn't have most of Bach's magnificent output! So, centuries of delusion have at least given us some great music. There, that must have been my point.....
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I will always be grateful to the artists (mostly Dutch, from what I've seen) who dragged the art world from sicko depictions of impaled saints to normal life. I went to an exhibit several years ago of paintings by Orazio and Artemisia Gentileschi (father/daughter baroque artists). The technique was incredible. This subject matter was one idiot saint going through bloody martyrdom after another. I was close to screaming "Let me out of here!!" by the final gallery. I'd seen tons of religious art before, of course (I love Caravaggio in particular), but there was something about the uninterrupted nastiness of the subject matter in this exhibit that was so disturbing. Catholics in particular seem to wallow in that whole gruesome suffering thing. I was raised mainstream, fairly open-minded Protestant, and my husband Catholic. I mentioned to him once that I couldn't understand the Catholic crucifixes with the writhing, dying Jesus. The church I went to, and I think many other Protestant ones, use empty crosses as their symbols. My point to hubby was that if you're going to believe the whole story, isn't the empty cross more symbolic of the whole Jesus thing? Anyone can be crucified, but what was supposedly special was bouncing back after death. Like a good Catholic, his response was, "That's what we were taught." 🙄 I guess they need to show all the suffering saints to scare the flock into following orders. What a sick form of brainwashing!
Somehow, I meant to tie this in with HikingLady's music comments, but it kind of got away from me!
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Alice, I agree. In particular I think that the Catholic examination of conscience is a source of untold grief. It makes one focus on mistakes to the exclusion of focus on what one has done right. This focus on what one has done that is wrong makes Catholics number one when it comes to a particular form of obsessive compulsive disorder called Scrupulosity, pathological guilt about moral or religious issues. As far as I'm concerned, the ever practical Buddha had it right when he said, paraphrasing' "Pay attention to what you are doing. If what you are doing is bad or can lead to harm to yourself or others, then stop it. Pay attention to what you are doing. If what you are doing is good or can lead to goodness to yourself or to others, then keep it up."
PS. I was raised Catholic.
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Toccata in Fuguein DMinor, written for church music. Most would readily recognize it on Halloween.
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AliceBastable YES, the bloody nails in those hanging, impaled Jesuses must frighten all small Catholic children, for sure.
ananda8 YES, mental health issues must abound with all that focus on self-flagellation and recrimination and punishment for THOUGHT sins....
Spookiesmom JS Bach would probably be a bit surprised that his amazing fugue has a life in our era as Halloween and scary-movie background music!
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Alice, Ananda8 and Spookiesmom- the church has influence on so many things in our life. Architecture, music and artwork are the first things which come to mind. Unfortunately so much of the artwork depicted gore, masochism, and subjugation of women. From a historical perspective I still find it fascinating.
Back in the early 90s, my very devout Catholic neighbor had wrist surgery. She wanted me to stay during her whole procedure and Recovery. Her family wasn't willing and she had no friends. As she was coming out of recovery she recognized me and screamed" oh my God I went to hell there would be no other reason for Jo to be here' I just laughed and told her " you're still alive" My comment could have been "where's your devout Catholic Family and Catholic friends." I was the only person there. The only reason I was there because I felt sorry for her during her time of need. For the record, she worked for the Catholic Church Monday through Friday 9 to 5. She never missed a day going to confession. I told her once she should spend less time on confession and more time on being kind to people. She informed me God forgives everything. I know not all religious people act like this woman did. I have several devout Catholic friends who are wonderful. It is amazing that particular memory has stayed with me throughout the years.
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Allow me to point out that many cultures have refined art, music, architecture, poetry and drama all without it being paid for by a church. The art may reflect some religious mythology, but not a fraction of what the Christian culture does. I would say that art was advertising to sell faith in Christian Europe. With faith came donations as it does today.
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Jo, she sound like some of the Catholics at the church my husband used to attend. There was one woman, not particularly old, who would always try to "out-catholic" everyone else. First on her knees, first on her feet, first with her holy ass in her seat! Rattling her rosary through the whole mass (honestly, who does that since Vatican II?), wearing a prim little HAT straight out of The Walton's church ladies! But when it came time for the sign of peace, she got this nasty sour look and barely brushed fingertips. Ugh. The one decent part of the service, and she wouldn't play nice. At the other extreme is my son's Episcopal Church: at the sign of peace EVERYBODY goes into the aisle, including the rector and deacon, and it's like a 1960s love-fest, everyone hugging and actually talking to each other and laughing. They're pretty nice. I go once in a while for the music, but the socializing is pretty cool.
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Alice-- Your son's Episcopal church' love fest sounds lovely. Genuine signs of affection.
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I'm pretty shure about some kind of God existence, but I don't believe in any religion. I believe that we all have a soul, but I don't believe in those heaven/hell stuff. I don't know if that makes me an atheist
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It was really sad when a man in his 30's with schizophrenia was sure he was going to hell because masturbation is a mortal sin.
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