Good for Jess. I think it’s more important to be honest with yourself than to pretend just to satisfy others.
I get a great deal of meaning and happiness from my religion, but I also believe it should not be forced on anyone. While her parents may see her as failing them and their religious community, I don’t think she deserved to be punished for admitting that she wasn’t sure. At her age she deserves to know things for herself.
I went through a similar thing when I left one flavor of Christianity as a young adult and joined another one. My mom acted like I just took a huge dump on the family and cried for days. She very quickly realized, though, that I was much happier with my new church than I’d ever been with the old one. She’s been very supportive ever since. It was a good lesson for her, too.
Jess, good on you for being honest. If you feel a need for religion in your life, I hope you can find something that will be a joyful part of your life.
And glad to see that she is getting support from her aunt and uncle.
The problem I have is that, as Skald points out, the behavior isn’t going to change anyone’s beliefs - just how they express them. And reinforce any doubts that they have in the first place.
It’s not merely effed up from a non-religious POV, from a religious POV, it’s still messed up because it’s most likely to have the opposite effect of what is intended.
Huh-actually our teacher told us that if we felt either way-that if we were ready and our parents said we weren’t, or vice versa, to talk to her, and she’d stick up for us. (I have no idea looking back, if that would have been the case, but who knows?)
RickJay, it can be religion, it can be politics, it can be money, or basically, whatever. I think it’s because people are assholes, and use any of the above as an excuse. Hey-look at the USSR. An atheist society, and yet still a dictatorship, and horrendous human rights abusers.
But either way, good for Jess, and I hope you can help her out, Skald. Good luck to her, and hopefully her parents will come around. It’s fear and ignorance-I think especially the former, that drives people to act this way.
The thing that strikes me about what we’ve been told is, not only was she standing up for herself at such a young age, not only did she do it based on careful reason and logic, but that she explained her point of view politely. That makes the moral highground so, so solid. I mean, at that age if someone had told me to say I heart Jesus I either would have done it or not been polite about it.
The ability to reason, to stand by that reason, and to do it with a level of maturity not found in many adults. That I find impressive.
But look… We have to exchange goods for other goods. Money’s real. We have to have some sort of organizational structure to run our affairs; politics is real. We don’t need religion. God is fantasy. Money and politics can lead to trouble, but they’re real things we have to deal with, and we get a lot of benefit out of them in addition to the problems. God is NOT a real thing, and the benefits we get out of God are pretty damned slim.
Sorry, I’m hijacking a bit, but there’s always a reflexive “well, it’s not a problem with religion, it’s just some religious people are bad apples” reaction to these stories. Time after time after time we haear about people mistreating other people because of their bleief in various spirits and gods and whatnot, and time after time half the responses are “well, of course, Christianity/Islam/Hinduism/Whatever is really a religion of peace, it’s just that some people are assholes.” I’m just not buying it anymore; the no-true-Scotsman dodge stopped convincing me after about Story #1,577,086. I’m always interested to note that if the person’s fantasies are classified as Scientology, we rip them apart, but if it’s called Christianity or Islam or Judaism, we’re supposed to give it a pass. Why? It’s just as silly and the effects are just as cruel.
Would Jess be grounded, and be stuck in a very uncomfortable conflict with her family right now, if her parents DIDN’T believe in their little legends? No, she would not. She might get grounded next month for something else, but she wouldn’t have been this time. Religion is a problem.
I’m Christian, fairly devout, and think Jess is cool. Anyone who is honest in the way she was is a strong person. At least she had been reading and trying to understand, even if it didn’t happen. And there’s always hope that sometime she’ll “change her mind” and find faith.
Her parents will accomplish nothing by the treatment they are handing out. You can’t force people to believe
RickJay, I’m not saying, “Well, religion is good, it’s just some bad apples,” either. I’m saying that since religion is created by HUMAN BEINGS, it’s bound to be corrupt, if you get my meaning. (And this is coming from someone who does actually believe in god-well, a vague, not specific religion god.)
I would think that religion is simply a reflection of humans, who created it in the first place. (But that’s because I’m a total cynic who hates humanity, and think we’re all a bunch of assholes.)
Think about it. To say, “Well, if it weren’t for such and such beliefs, they’d be okay” to me is a cop out and giving people an excuse for being assholes.
Once someone has confirmed their faith in the Catholic Church, the thinking is they will stick with it. When they’re old enough, they’ll become members of the parish on their own merit and begin donating under their own name instead of under their parents, therefore continuing to expand membership as kids grow up and start their own families.
I swear you ought to need a license to procreate. Doubt is the road to faith. Everyone begins with doubt. Some outgrow it, some don’t. But faith cannot be forced.
Next time you see Jess, pass a high-five along to her. I was about that age when I discovered that religion is a lie from start to finish. Tell her to stick to her guns and don’t back down; she’ll have some rough times ahead of her, especially with pea-brained fundy parents.
Suggestion, also, to pass on to her: every time her parents say that gawd wants her to do this or that, just ask them to please show proof of the existence of a god of any kind. And keep asking it over and over, because they won’t be able to.
Religion is not false regardless of the fact that religious explanations may be false for you. Religion exists in every culture and throughout all of recorded human history. It’s a fact that has an effect on many, many lives; inherently on more human lives than are affected by democracy.
Religion is destructive in the same way political ideology can be. Not all human suffering can be attributed to religion. Intolerance knows no bounds. Intolerance of differing belief, ideas, cultural practice, color, age, nationality, you name it. All intolerance is not traced back to religion. Religion has been so ingrained in human life for so many centuries in so many cultures, any time you try to extricate cultural practice from religious belief, you can find plenty of ways to tie it all back together. But it’s just one of several reasons for human behavior.
You, with your ‘Religion is False’ pronouncement, are only one step away from impacting the lives of others with your intolerance. You already have the reason. What separates you from the rest of the intolerant people is the action you take or don’t take.
You may not like religion much. You may not agree with its premises. There’s nothing wrong with sharing your opinion. Just realize that when you try cramming it down other people’s throats, while alluding to inferiority, it’s not a lot different than religious proselytizers doing the same thing with their beliefs.
I made a stand at 11 and refused to do the catholic confirmation crap. It caused some ripples in the family (grandparents, mostly. My parents were amused.) I argued my case quite rationally and, well, there was no way in hell anyone was going to make me say the bloody credo if I didn’t believe in it. I’ve been a heathen since.
Not so long ago, one of the bishops in my hometown area decided he really wanted to go back to the days when baptism, “pardon” and confirmation were all wrapped into one ceremony – he felt the numbers were declining and, well, get 'em while they’re young, ya know? I believe the whole idea was shot down…
Well at least he’s not saying that people who don’t agree with him will burn in a lake of fire for all eternity, or strapping on a bomb and boarding a bus, or using religion to convince people to vote against their own economic interests.
Not entirely true. They will support the worldview that Christianity is evil and Christians are hypocrites. I’m not saying that worldview is the correct one; I don’t think all Christians are bad or that it’s a necessarily evil force in the sense that, say, Marxism is. But THAT is the lesson they are teaching her.
I think not. if I’d done that at her age, I’d have gotten a whipping with it in short order, and while I don’t know that my cousin and her husband would do that, I know they spank for other stuff. I’d rather she learned to be sneaky.
:smack:
I am officially a moron. They still had the damn books there the other night, waiting to be trashed. I should have volunteered to sort through them to the curb, taken them home, and quietly let the kid know I had them.
This is being too hard on yourself. It would have been great to think of that at the time, but you already did a great job by both confronting the parents, and letting Jess know you did support her.
Sure, it’s a missed opportunity - but not a good reason to insult someone I like.
Good idea - there’s no point encouraging Jess to go out of her way to be antagonistic to her parents just to prove some meaningless point. Better to just smile and nod, smile and nod, and just get the heck outta there ASAP. If she knows that she has other relatives in her corner, that’ll help a lot.
No, I deliberately wasn’t especially confrontational with the parents. My thoughts were that I could stay sort of under the radar so the kid would have someone in the family whom she could turn to for, say, internet access, or general support. The whole time Mrs. Rhymer was exploding, I kept telepathing, “Shut up! You’re the adult in the best position to be helpful to the kid!”
But you don’t have to be confrontational to present them with a calm, reasoned statement that their behavior is not likely to change Jess’ behavior in the manner they want, and will only foster the belief that she’ll be punished for telling the truth. I believe that meets the standard for confronting someone with an unconsidered position or argument.
If you want to call what you did presenting reasonable concerns, I won’t argue.
