Is anyone else an atheist with BC besides me?
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Elderberry, even as an atheist, I see so much happening at once, that I seriously wonder if the planet has had enough of us. How much population, pollution and destruction can earth take? And while I’m not so much a blessing in disguise person, I am very happy to have chosen not to bring life to this world and a little relieved that I probably won’t see the worst of it. I realize it’s a gloomy outlook for a naturally happy person but with all the floods, fires, huge earthquakes, global pandemic and bubbling unrest, it’s a lot.
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I wish the rapture-believers would get sucked up into their heaven (where I want KARMA for them) and let the rest of us get on with fixing what they screwed up.
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illimae: I do think mother nature has had her fill of people.
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illimae: my DH suggested that when we have a virus out bodies gets overheated to destroy the virus and we human beings have become a virus. Gaia is ridding herself of us - a pox on the planet. Then the trees, the water, the animals can come back and thrive. I say that as someone who doesn't believe The Great Mother is actual a deity but it is a life force/energy.
I am glad to be the age I am, having had no children. I am glad not to be 20 something and thinking about having a family. If I was the kind of kid I was at age 12 and was 12 now I would be overwhelmed, depressed and angry. Yup, we Baby Boomers were not going to make the same mistakes as our parents, we would save the world. We would be the harbingers of the Age of Aquarius. Nice job. Not.
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Gotta say, as the mom of a teen, I feel solidly like both an idiot and a horrible person for bringing him into this world. I feel like the writing was on the wall and I should have known better. I am both so glad I have him, and so worried that he is doomed and there's nothing I can do to save him or fix it. On any given day, I can't think too honestly about what the future might hold for him, because it is too terrifying. Making the choice to act-as-if -- work for a better world and plan for my child to have a full life -- is the only way I can cope. Because the thought that I've brought him into a world that will wipe us all out before he's had a chance to live is a devastating, potentially paralyzing one.
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Saltmarsh, I’m sorry that those feelings weigh on you but I so appreciate the honesty expressed. I wonder if many parents feel that way and just don’t speak it. I wish you the best luck.
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I am so happy for this thread. I see so many "I pray for you", "he is going to help" (why not she?) or "he is looking after us" on these boards that without this thread I might have thought I am alone!
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Welcome Aram. There certainly seem to be a lot of people praying for themselves and others.
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Wouldn't it be nice to be a god (she or he) that has no responsibility for causing problems but gets so much credit for fixing them. What a nice job for a narcissist. In a way I'm glad that so many on this site have that shero/hero to look to for relief. If only they did not hoist their beliefs onto the rest of us.
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magiclight, that's seriously scary. But it's the Christians who claim persecution. 🙄
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I am absolutely jealous of people who have faith. It nearly always makes everything so much simpler, and nicer. And sometimes fun!
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We can still have the fun without the dogma. We can enjoy the holidays, the food, the festivals, and all the good wishes without having to take on the fear, the guilt (unless we're on a diet), the shame, or the petty restrictions.
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saltmarsh - Occasionally I think how much easier life would be if I could just follow the religion I was raised in, but I fell on my head as a child and it knocked too much sense into me.
Religion was rarely fun, and far from nice.
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I would describe many religious restrictions not as petty but excessively oppressive and quite damaging.
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Truth
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One of the (many) annoying things about Christianity is that it's so full of factions from oppressive batshit crazies to benign semi-secular normals, and every thing in between plus bizarre tangents (but all claiming to be the True Christians™) that they need to get their story straight amongst themselves so the rest of us can tell who the hell they actually are. And then KEEP IT FOR THEMSELVES! I long for the century when proselytizing is illegal, along with any assumption that their co-citizens believe and celebrate like they do.
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Oh, that sounds wonderful. I wish my ancestors had gone farther north when they arrived!
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Wrenn, more importantly, I think it is seen to be irrelevant. Just how it should be.
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I honestly believe that indoctrinating children into religion at an early age is a form of child abuse. If it's as great as you say it is, then you can safely wait until they've reached the age of reason before introducing them to any religious teachings.
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DivineMrsM, Ooh, I love that!
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Divine, that’s great and I’m stealing it, lol
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I was raised Catholic, went to Catholic school. Guilt is a big tool for them. I'm still afraid of nuns! A lot of these types of religion are a political machines intent on brain washing.
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wrenn, your comment about transubstantiation is an example of why I think the masses have it wrong about God. I do not even know what transubstantiation is and I have a decent background on religion and am a voracious reader! My point here is that if there is a God, such a deity would be simple for ALL to understand and it would not take all this intellectualism to grasp the meaning of the spirit world.
I felt this way for years before I ever left Christianity. It never made sense to me how complicated different religions made God out to be, all the rules: study Scripture, memorize Scripture, wear this, don’t eat that, tithe, fast, sacrifice, ect.. I wondered, well what about all the many people who are mentally challenged? How can they get God if they struggle just with being cognizant? What about people in countries who’ve never heard of Jesus? Then they die but since they never heard of him they never got saved, so they got doomed to hell? Sorry about your luck there? And of course, those of us who didn’t do our utmost to spread and share the Gospel have their blood on our hands! Yes, that’s something I was taught, too. Geeze. I struggled to make ends meet but I was supposed to worry about the souls in a foreign land. If there is a higher power, in my mind all people on Earth would have equal opportunity to have this revealed to them without needing to read or follow instructions to stay on the good side of that power. There would be a fairness to it.
I will go look up transubstantiation now!
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Haha! I was even raised Catholic and never heard the word transubstantiation used to describe the transformation of the Eucharist!
Which leads me to a similar question like you had, wrenn. How do people go about telling their young children what Immaculate Conception means? I mean, there are many Catholic Schools that use that phrase such as “Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception Elementary." Don't kids first have to first know the basics of how conception occurs? At what age does that start and then does it segue right into Mary’s virginity and how wonderful that is? Teaching lots of sexual hang ups right out of the gate.
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One good thing about Catholicism: without it, we'd never have had Tom Lehrer's Vatican Rag.
First you get down on your knees,
Fiddle with your rosaries,
Bow your head with great respect,
And genuflect, genuflect, genuflect!Do whatever steps you want if
You have cleared them with the Pontiff.
Everybody say his own
Kyrie eleison,
Doin' the Vatican Rag.Get in line in that processional,
Step into that small confessional.
There the guy who's got religion'll
Tell you if your sin's original.
If it is, try playin' it safer,
Drink the wine and chew the wafer,
Two, four, six, eight,
Time to transubstantiate!So get down upon your knees,
Fiddle with your rosaries,
Bow your head with great respect,
And genuflect, genuflect, genuflect!Make a cross on your abdomen,
When in Rome do like a Roman;
Ave Maria,
Gee, it's good to see ya.
Gettin' ecstatic an' sorta dramatic an'
Doin' the Vatican Rag!Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Tom Thomas Lehrer
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Alice - the Vatican rag brings back memories - Oh am old!!!
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A new term I learned today - Christofascism. Wikipedia.com describes it in part: Christofascism "disposed or allowed Christians, to impose themselves not only upon other religions but other cultures, and political parties which do not march under the banner of the final, normative, victorious Christ" – as Knitter describes Sölle's view.[6][7]
Does todays American Christianity have deep roots in Christian Fascism? Sure looks like the description of Christofascism and may explain the religious right's opposition to any anti-fascism groups.
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Even more fun with Catholic beliefs, the Immaculate Conception doesn't refer to Jesus' conception, it refers to Mary's. Mary's parents were both barren. They prayed for a child, and god sent Mary. Since she was conceived without sex, she was born without the stain of original sin. This made her a worthy vessel for Jesus.
But all of this is nonsense, since as a good Jewish woman, she would have had a ketubah that would have specified how frequently her husband would be obligated to "please" her in bed.
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The ketubah does not state the frequency of sex. It states the consequences in case of divorce and the full names and identifications of the people getting married.
The frequency of sex is from other Jewish texts and it has more of the status of stories/guidelines than commandment.
There's enough Christian obfuscation of Judaism without adding atheist obfuscation of it.
I consider myself a secular Jew and I think of myself as having been raised that way. I think the line between cultural indoctrination and religious indoctrination can get very hazy, as can the line between where indoctrination in general is problematic as opposed to a parent just raising their kid, and making decisions about what holidays to celebrate and how. Is celebrating Thanksgiving inherently indoctrinating a kid into American culture? Yeah, it pretty much is. Is it bad? Well, I don't know. Probably depends on a constellation of surrounding factors.
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