HelenM

I've been posting and reading here for a year and a half.

And you've never been to my church.

From that I conclude that I know more about the views of people here than you know about the teaching at my church.

Helen

HelenM

But, they aren't at church either

If you think that you've really missed what the heart of Bible-believing Christianity is, Goliath. They are encouraged to believe in Jesus. There is nothing they can 'do', such as learning material, that will increase their chances of avoiding hell. But, I doubt that hell is talked about much at all to the younger children. I may be wrong. But I have seen the workbooks for AWANA and I see the take home material for my children and also the sheets that the 2 and 3 year olds get because I help look after them first thing in the morning (which is not a taught session - they play for that hour).

And I've said already that in various ways, I expect there is pressure on my children to conform at school and to do what pleases the teacher. I can't imagine it not being so.

take care,
Helen

Ronin

HelenM ~

You speak to these infidels as if they had not already clawed their way through the gauntlet of Christian indoctrination.

I have read a great many of your previous posts because I favor enigmas ~ and have grown to better understand your position, if not your motivations. However, this current mood of yours is uncharacteristically bitter and antagonistic.

My feeling is that you may be reacting in this manner out of some event that has occurred to your mundane offline persona ~ so I will refrain from undue venom.

Let me just say that all of us are formed from assorted influences. Conforming to expectations is not the issue.

Critical thinking is the issue.

To profess that an invisible sky-god is playing a mysterious and unknowable game with humanity, reduces the obvious beauty of this lush and vibrant life to a brutal and thoughtless testing facility.

A dismal construct portraying humanity as miserable and guilty creatures worthy of hopeless scorn without the cure of a non-existent superman designed to replace the love of real and warm human beings out of a fear of tortuous and infinite divine reprisals.

That anyone would offer up their innocent children to these machinations is a foul concept ~ especially as it is performed by those entrusted with their protection and selfless care.

No ~ Christians are not monsters, though they are given easier justification. They are, in my eyes, simple and sad humans fearful of shadows and way too vain to realize the equanimity of the universe.

I hope you will give my words some thought before you crave their disemboweling with the tools of the fearsome indoctrination to which I am, I assure you, thoroughly familiar.

HelenM

I know what some have been through. Others have little experience of being part of a Christian community.

I'm sorry you find it to be so.

I dislike people making assumptions about me or my church.

It may be like what they have experienced or it may not be.

I am not trying to assert that they were not subject to certain experiences and/or didn't feel a certain way about it and I would prefer them not making assertions about my church in return. Most have not and I appreciate that.

Oh, my mundane off-line persona. My mundane off-line persona has gotten me in various forms of trouble along the way. Maybe it's not quite as mundane as you imagine

I expect the direction and focus of my life has been deeply influenced by various experiences. I would be surprised were it not so.

On this thread, one point I was making is that chldren are under pressure to conform and other sorts of pressure, in secular environments as well as religious ones. In my experience anyway.

Or - the development of such, since this is about children.

So you believe. So many here believe. I see that.

I understand that it's a sensitive subject to those who feel that way. Especially if there is pressure on them to do so - especially if it comes from the other spouse...

You are familiar only with what happened to you and what others have told you.

You aren't familiar with what goes on at my church.

I will give your words thought.

However, your caricature doesn't fit what happens at my church to my children, in my perception and opinion.

If the subject of children and what happens to them at church is too sensitive then, maybe I should not have brought it up. I was mostly seeing whether people agreed with me that children might be subject to various forms of coercion, say, in secular environments. I didn't intend to be bitter and antagonistic about it but as I said, I don't like it when people act as if they know what they cannot know, about me, or my church.

take care
Helen

[ October 22, 2002: Message edited by: HelenM ]</p>

Ronin

Christianity in any denomination is not that difficult to fathom, HelenM.

I have not mischaracterized its foundation.

I am more familiar with the snare than you know ~ or, apparently, are comfortable with.

I remain.

agapeo

Hi Goliath,

First let me say that if I made unrealistic assumptions I apologize. Not all assumptions are unreasonable. But let's see if the point I made was unreasonable.
No where did you exactly make such statement but I based my assumption on this:
It seems to me that you are comparing all schools to all of Christianity. I cannot make that comparison because I'm not familar with the standards or methods that all schools espouse. But even if I were I can't be in all the classrooms throughout the U.S. and make a determination that some teachers are not slanting their approach on certain subjects which are in favor of their personal biases. Whether this be so or not is conjecture on my part but the point of the matter is IMO when you compare what schools teach with the above quoted comment about what Christians teach without indicating that that is not what all Christians teach then you are making a false statement.
Now if you would have said this to begin with I would have kept my "fingers" quiet.
Ok! I'll make every attempt to do so in any future responses I make to you but if on the off-chance that I screw up you are free to point out where I have.

Sincerely yours,
you know who

HelenM

What you don't know, though, is what effect my church has on children who go there.

So you say, but you offer no proof.

I am not uncomfortable with what you know.

Good. Evidently, so do I!

take care
Helen

Bible Humper

The length of your membership here is irrelevant, you still cannot look at your own religion from our perspective because you are naturally biased by your allegiance to it.

This is why I put it in perspective by referring to the other religions, and I can't help but notice that your response to this technique elicited a defensive, rather emotional (non)response. Ronin pointed this out already.


And you have never looked at your church with our eyes. You can't.

I invited you to set me straight regarding this point, so why don't you? Here is what I said:

Put yourself in our heathen shoes for a sec now, how do we distinguish between the "brainwashing" going on in all the other faiths, and the "education" going on in yours?

Ok then, tell us all about it so I can admit defeat and move on! What are the brainwashing techniques utilized by all of the religions of the world except yours?

Surely it is something identifiable by it's presence in the religious instruction of all relgions in the world, and it's contrasting absence from your own religion. Something both insidious and powerful capable of inspiring such incredible delusions in the minds of the believers of all faiths except yours. We can confidently say "not yours" because we can be sure that YOUR sect isn't one of the myriad religions based on fantasy because YOU couldn't ever be bamboozled by a religion that isn't true!

No way, not you! If YOU feel Jesus, then by god Jesus most definately exists. If HE feels Vishnu, then by god the poor lad's brainwashed!

Dangerous thought. Could it be possible that there is no difference between the "brainwashing" going on in the religions around the world, and the "education" going on in yours?

Perchance

Hi DigitalDruid,

So far I haven't met a student who exhibited the second view. All of them ignore the conflict with the Bible or seem to separate it into an alternate view. I had one student tell me there was no way she could write about homosexuality unless she was allowed to use the Bible. She literally saw no difference between, "The Bible says that homosexuality is bad" and "Homosexuality is bad because the Bible says so."

I had given another topic related to gender in that case that they could write their papers on. I pointed this out to the student, and she acted completely surprised. I think she expected me to let her use the Bible as an academic source. Whether that was exclusively because of her conditioning to accept the Bible as a source of ultimate truth, or because she had assumed I shared her views, I don't know.

I received several stares, but no open conflict, when I mentioned in the science unit that we're currently doing that I would not accept a religious text as an academic source. My list went, "The Bible, the Torah, the Koran, the Vedic Scriptures, the Charge of the Goddess, or any other religious text." Several students seemed surprised and uncomfortable that the Bible was placed among the others. But when they learned I would accept books that talked about the conflict between religion and science, they relaxed, so they may have been more worried about finding sources for a particular topic than anything else.

I don't think I've caused any permanent upheval in my students' lives. I've never told them that the Bible is out-and-out wrong, for example. I have refused to condone any argument that was shallow, superficial, and not backed up by reason. My favorite question, to ask them and to write on students' papers, is "Why?" But I do that with every position they take, so the students with Biblical views don't seem to feel that I'm singling them out. (I've had two students each tell me they were sure I favored a certain author- but these authors were diametrically opposed to each other! I think I'm doing a pretty good job of keeping a neutral position in the middle).

I'm hopeful that, as more and more people come into college who've grown up with the Internet and TV, that they'll be more accepting of things like this. With one exception, my students this year are all less conservative than the ones I had last year. (The exception is a creationist). Even if they don't agree with other perceptions, mediums like Internet and TV at least let them know those perspectives exist.

Eventually, I think it's likely that the exclusivism that some people pick up from religion will just stagnate and die. It won't be able to keep up with the rest of the world.

-Perchance.

[ October 22, 2002: Message edited by: Perchance ]</p>

HelenM

But you are also biased, by your antipathy towards it. We are all biased.

I was looking for thoughtful responses to what is different between what my church does and what my kids school does. I know that other people here don't have direct experience of either of them. I don't mind people using general knowledge to discuss and speculate and opine etc. But there's a point at which I withdraw from interaction with a person, when I feel too many words are being put into my mouth and/or people are claiming to know more than they can know.

At that point I don't want to continue the discussion with whoever is doing so. I don't like it when someone else purports to know more about me than I know.

Anyway based on your 'can Jesus fly?' response to me it doesn't seem that you've had much Christian 'brainwashing', since you don't know much about the theology - with all due respect. Either that or you shut it out very effectively - in which case it seems like it is too ineffective to be harmful, anyway.

take care
Helen