I think Elysium and I are long-lost sisters, except I broke mom’s heart by having my wedding outside and with a judge officiating.
Good job, Skald!! And double hugs and gold stars to Jess for waiting to be thoughtful about her faith. If only we had more folks like you.
No.
What did you say in defense of Jesus?
(Well that’s how I read it first time anyway.)
This is some of the most awesome reasoning I’ve ever seen. It really makes quite a bit of sense.
They look at it as keeping her from going to hell, I’m sure.
I wish I could take credit for her sound reasoning skills. Even more, I wish her parents BELIEVED in REASONING. If my childhood is any guide, she’s got a rough 3-4 years ahead of her.
Yay, Jess!
And good on Skald and Mrs. Rhymer for supporting her. If you have occasion to smuggle her some books, even better. I’d even contribute a few.
Beyond being outraged at this nasty attempt at brainwashing (both by the church and the parents), what kind of fool punishes a kid for being honest?
That’s the problem with you basically good types. Smuggling books into her home is a bad idea.
Poor Jess. Fair play to her for standing by her beliefs.
My father had his jaw dislocated by a teacher when he questioned how Noah could have possibly got every species of animal onto a boat.
Ireland in the 40’s/50’s was not a place to be if you were young and questioning of religion.
I went to him when I was around 14 and asked if I could get a letter to excuse me from religion in school. He sat me down and asked me why. I explained that I didn’t see how there could be a god and went into some detail. He replied “good enough son, you thought about it and made your own mind up. I’ll give you a letter tomorrow and you no longer have to go to Mass with your Grandmother if you don’t want to. I’ll talk to her for you”
It was only after that conversation that he told me he had no faith either. He didn’t want to impose his beliefs on me.
Hopefully Jess can get through without too much hardship.
I’m curious what you mean by this as I’ve never known confirmation to have anything to do with membership.
I got kicked out of my house at 17 for saying I wasn’t sure if I believed in God. I was allowed to move back home a few months later if I apologized to my stepfather & took it back. My senior year of high school was about to start and I wanted to go back - so I ignored my principles and lied through my teeth. I’m not bitter that I made that decision, but I’m still pissed, 17 years later, that I had to.
Weird timing, as I just talked about it yesterday in therapy. I’m not saying this incident is the reason I’m in therapy, but it’s certainly something that’s been bouncing around the back of my mind for a long time.
And my mother and step-dad wonder why as an adult I don’t go to Church. My mother has told me they feel like they “failed” with me. I told her they over-played their hand when they had the power to do so, and now they have no say in my faith or lack thereof. So yeah, maybe they did fail with me. It’s a sore spot in our relationship even now.
Skald, drama seems to surround you. Are you sure you’re not some sort of psycho magnet?
I don’t think the relatives are psychos. I would like a LEETTLE less drama in the new year though. That, an Obama victory, and another season of Mad Men.
Grrrr… those parents make me angry. I hope Ultimate Jesus lays the smackdown on them.
Poor kid. Jess is learning a lesson that I learned at an early age. Except she’s doing it the hard way.
By the time I was her age I had figured out that pretty much all the stuff I was hearing in Sunday school was complete bullshit. I was pretty much OK with the list of stuff I was supposed to do (and not do) to be a good person. But the reasoning and history behind it was obviously fiction, and not very good fiction at that.
But the graphic descriptions of the way a lot of Middle Ages martyrs died were obviously not fiction. And I understood that the reasons they died was simply failing to understand when to keep their trap shut. Coincidentally, I noted that nearly all of the leaders of civil rights and reform movements I was learning about in school were also burned to the ground by the powers that be. And by then I had personally experienced many times when it was best to just shut the hell up when I was outgunned. It was not a matter of right or wrong, it was just a question of do I want to keep my teeth. Later, when you have the firepower to at least have a fighting chance, that’s your time to make a stand.
I knew that I wasn’t going to get out from under the theocracy. I also knew by then that the entire concept of religion was just a slightly interesting fairy tail. Since there was no god to offend but there certainly were parents, I stood where I was told and made the noises that were required to avoid a whipping. It was just a distasteful chore.
Except for weddings and funerals I haven’t been inside a church since the day I turned 18. After a few calibration sessions, nobody in my family gives me one tiny bit of crap about it either. I hope Jess figures all this out and learns to play it smart in the future.
One of the things that baffles me most about religious dogmatism is that it can prevent belief. Isn’t the whole point of pentecostalism, etc. that one must accept Jesus as savior in one’s heart?
No snarking here, btw. I’m not sure. Two weeks ago there was a death in my extended family, most of them Church of God. The funeral and graveside service floored me. The entire gist was, “Believe or damned.” Genuinely great folks but shit, I suddenly felt like an alien intruder.
FWIW, it’d probably make more sense if the parents took Jess’s lack of belief as a sign for more intensive indoctrination but that could be even worse. Or at least harder to withstand. Punitive measures pretty much validate her doubts, IMO. How can a person be punished into believing anything? Even if people say what they have to to make the pressue stop, it’s still the exact opposite of belief. Unless it’s “I believe you’re bullies.”
The poor girl is clearly possessed by a doubt-demon.
I hope she bails at 18, poor kid. What the fuck is wrong with people?
Poor kid.
Hope things allow her to get out of there sooner rather than later.
Gotta love the concept, “My momma woulda whupped you until you accepted the Lord’s love!” :rolleyes:
Not only that, but God will know about her mother encouraging her to lie to the church.
I wonder how Mom would have reacted to that observation.
Perhaps you should ask them if they prefer her to be honest or a liar? And perhaps Jess should read up on Thomas the Doubter. 
“The beatings will continue until morale improves!” :dubious:
When I was about seven, my mildly religious family sent me off to a week-long Bible Camp since it was what all my friends did. Overall the experience was pretty reasonable, except for the last night of camp when the counselors took us individually one by one out into the woods at night and asked us to confirm our belief in Jesus Christ as our Personal Lord and Savior.
Lemme just say it’s an awful lot harder to deny your faith in God when you’re seven years old in the middle of the wilderness at eleven at night with a strange adult. I wussed out and said “Maybe, but not now,” and they were actually pretty decent about it, but looking back, it was sort of a weird way to go about things.
Anyway, a high-five to Jess. Wish I’d had guts like that at her age. Hell, I wish I had them now.