atheist/agnostic tribe - Page 29

[EFmom]

It's funny that the religious music came up.

I enrolled dd12 in a two week summer music day camp at a local catholic college. This is her second week. For the most part, she's liking it a great deal. It was expensive.

They had a concert last Friday after the first week. The kids performed amazingly well, but almost every song was extremely religious. The faculty gave lengthy introductions to the pieces that were quite detailed about the religious message in the music. Today, my kid complained to me that the music was too religious and made her uncomfortable.

As I mentioned before, I understand that religion is pretty well unavoidable in classical music, but many of these pieces aren't classical.

I'm a little annoyed. While I realize the college is catholic, nowhere in any description of the camp was religion mentioned. If it was, I would have passed on it. It was music camp, and the excellence of the instruction was stressed. If I sent her to VBS, I'd expect she'd get catholicism shoved down her throat, but I really am taken aback by this.

I'm sure they will have a feedback form. Would you all say something?

[Mama Soltera]

I just thought I should clarify this music would qualify more as "xtian rock" than religious music. Not that I'm really an expert on this stuff. lol

To EFmom, I would mention it in the feedback that their camp description should clarify that "faith" is part of package. Maybe they just assume people will know that since it's a Catholic school.

[SubliminalDarkness]

Hi everyone! Thought I'd join you all. My DH and I are agnostic, with me leaning towards atheism more strongly than my DH, but we're both quite anti-religion. DH was raised Muslim, I was raised LDS. Both our families are still very religious. It makes for QUITE a fun time, lemme tell ya!

[EFmom]

Originally Posted by Mama Soltera

I just thought I should clarify this music would qualify more as "xtian rock" than religious music. Not that I'm really an expert on this stuff. lol

To EFmom, I would mention it in the feedback that their camp description should clarify that "faith" is part of package. Maybe they just assume people will know that since it's a Catholic school.

The kids aren't required to profess any kind of faith, and I know for a fact that some of the other kids are Jewish and Buddhist.

In prior years, the camp has been wind instruments only and this is their first year with a much larger enrollment including strings and chorus. But still, I find it hard to believe nobody's raised it as an issue before.

[EFmom]

Originally Posted by SubliminalDarkness

Hi everyone! Thought I'd join you all. My DH and I are agnostic, with me leaning towards atheism more strongly than my DH, but we're both quite anti-religion. DH was raised Muslim, I was raised LDS. Both our families are still very religious. It makes for QUITE a fun time, lemme tell ya!

Ooohh, that does sound like you guys must have had some fun family discussions!

[Mama Soltera]

Originally Posted by EFmom

The kids aren't required to profess any kind of faith, and I know for a fact that some of the other kids are Jewish and Buddhist.

In prior years, the camp has been wind instruments only and this is their first year with a much larger enrollment including strings and chorus. But still, I find it hard to believe nobody's raised it as an issue before.

I wonder if you should check in with the other non-catholic families and see if they are feeling the same way. They must be. Maybe together you can all bring it to the school's attention? That would really frustrate me.

[SubliminalDarkness]

Originally Posted by EFmom

Ooohh, that does sound like you guys must have had some fun family discussions!

There are a lot of very strong opinions

[TabithaB]

Originally Posted by Theoretica

The book called "Parenting Beyond Belief" touches on this really well! I remember when my dd snuggled up and said the same thing. I think it's developmental, when they really 'get it' that life isn't forever.

Anyways, we talked about what happens to everything when it dies. The body stops working and the earth uses it to make more life.

Hope that helps

Good answer. I like that. I just actually bought that book off of Amazon to take on vacation with me. Looking forward to reading it.

[tmw1213]

New to the Board

Hi, I'm new to the board and I hope I'm posting this properly.

My neighbors have been very kind and generous lately, having the kids over, taking them to a museum, etc. It turns out now that they are very interested in having my children join their church (non-denominational and literal). I'm very uncomfortable with the situation. I was not brought up in an organized religion, and I now consider myself a humanist.

My husband is all for it, as he belonged to a similar church before we met and every once in a while becomes fearful that something bad will happen to the children if they are not taught about Jesus and the Bible. (What if it's real? he says frequently, meaning 'bad supernatural things will happen')

My husband is a very outgoing, strong personality, and I am an extremely socially anxious introvert. He knows that I am against the kids joining this type of organization, but just says I'm wrong. I feel powerless. I have many acquaintances (not close friends though) who belong to the UU congregation, but my social anxiety holds me back so badly that I can't bring myself to take the kids to visit there.

What can I do? One of my children has recently become very interested in Greek/Roman mythology, and I am really encouraging that interest. We had a wonderful conversation this weekend about what myths are and how every culture in the world has these stories.

I'm just so angry with myself that I've never done anything about my social anxiety, and now it is vital that I do something about it so that I can speak out.

[tug]

Originally Posted by no5no5

I am also (temporarily, thank goodness) in South. I am in a local freethinker's organization, and it's nice to get the emails now & then, but I've never met them IRL. In addition to being atheist, I'm also very AP, hugely liberal, strictly vegetarian, and a little bit punk rock. Oh, and I'm a huge nerd. I've made a few good friends, but for the most part I've just given up hope of finding a community of like-minded people. Plus, from the emails I read, it seems like the freethinker's group is mostly older men...which is fine, but not really what I'm looking for.

same here for all of this (except the temporary part)! but it is lonely, isn't it? in some ways, this city is really liberal, but there are large catholic and fundamentalist populations as well, so it's pretty common to be wished "a blessed day" (which i find really annoying, am i just a cranky person?).

how do other people find a sense of community in all of this (particularly given that the local humanist group is largely older men)?

[no5no5]

Hi tmw! Welcome.

I have social anxiety myself, so I get where you're coming from. You're in a tough spot, though, since your DH isn't on the same page as you in this. It sounds like counseling might be really helpful for you. Marriage is really about hearing each other and working together, and it sounds like you're both just talking past each other in this. Have you talked to your DH in private about your feelings? Perhaps he might be willing to visit the UU church with you.

[tmw1213]

Originally Posted by no5no5

Hi tmw! Welcome.

I have social anxiety myself, so I get where you're coming from. You're in a tough spot, though, since your DH isn't on the same page as you in this. It sounds like counseling might be really helpful for you. Marriage is really about hearing each other and working together, and it sounds like you're both just talking past each other in this. Have you talked to your DH in private about your feelings? Perhaps he might be willing to visit the UU church with you.

The weird thing about this situation is that it just rears its head every once in a while. He has a history of getting all gung-ho about things and then dropping them abruptly. I think this church he used to belong to really, really had a strong influence on him, and he just became wired that way and won't let go of it. He seems to think that the word 'non-denominational' means 'just a normal church'. I don't even know where that came from. His entire family is Lutheran. He has all the arguments down and has an answer for everything. It's not like he's this way all the time. Usually he is very laid-back and easygoing. But when this sort of thing comes up it's like a switch goes on. So I've just learned to keep quiet and try to come up with ways to handle the situation more subtly rather than flying into a rage every time the subject comes up. I've been reading 'Parenting Beyond Belief' and it is giving me some ideas.

[greenmulberry]

Howdy.

I am atheist, husband is as well. We were both raised non religious so it is really a non issue in our families until you get out into extended family.

Honestly I rarely ever think about my status as an atheist. It just seems normal and right to me.

I will say I celebrate any holiday that is fun or has good food. As long as people understand I am there for the party and I don't have to act like I am praying or anything.

I don't say anything for sneezes, and it bugs me when people do. I have allergies so I sneeze all the time, and when someone blesses me or whatever, I just roll my eyes in silent annoyance that my sneeze needs to be pointed out even more than the huge ACHOO did.

We have a LO on the way, so I don't know how I am going to handle teaching them about religion, but I am not too worried about it. I didn't have any kind of formal education and I navigated just fine, even living in the south for part of my childhood!

[buttercup784ever]

DH and I are both atheists. We're raising our kids to choose for themselves. They can go to some churches and church activities with friends if they want. They go to church with MIL when we visit. I don't want it to seem like 'forbidden fruit' to them.

My IL's consider themselves charismatic non-denominationalists. When we got married my MIL told DH that we were 'unequally yoked' because he was Christian and I wasn't. Of course, he was a Christian because she wanted him to be, not because he actually was one.

Just thought I'd share a couple of little anecdotes...
My FIL constantly reminds us that we don't believe in prayer. Meaning in every conversation he says something like, "well I WOULD pray for you, but I know you don't believe in that". My husband was up for a raise at work and his dad called before the meeting. DH starts to tell him about what's about to go on, and FIL says, " Are you asking me to pray for you?" sarcastically. DH said, "Yes, I'll take what I can get". We laughed later wondering if he got the promotion through all his hard work or if it was FIL's sarcastic prayer that did it.

Another prayer story. Our dog escaped our yard, and we couldn't find him for 3 days. We were devastated. I had posted on Facebook about it, so all our family knew he was missing. Of course, MIL calls and offers to pray for him to come home. Well long story short, we found out where the dog was from a boy on the bus when my kids went back to school. The next time the in-laws came to visit they were playing with the kids and dog, and we're telling them about how we found him. "It sounds like a miracle to me" MIL says and cuts a sideways glance at FIL, both of them smirking.

It's annoying that they live 9 hours away from us. We hear from them about once a month, and yet they take a sort of ownership of our lives. As if their prayers are what's making good things happen for us. When it's something lucky, like finding our dog, it's not such a big deal. But when it comes to passing classes, getting raises and promotions, etc. it seems like they are taking credit for stuff that has absolutely NOTHING to do with them.

[meemee]

i posted a question in the Single Parenting forum. would you please take a look and post out there if you so wish.

http://www.mothering.com/discussions....php?t=1254468

thanks

[2xy]

Buttercup, since your IL's can work miracles, why don't you ask them to pray to stop the war in the Middle East? Or they can pray for the starving in Africa or something. Why are they wasting their powers on simple things like lost dogs and promotions?

[philomom]

Originally Posted by 2xy

Buttercup, since your IL's can work miracles, why don't you ask them to pray to stop the war in the Middle East? Or they can pray for the starving in Africa or something. Why are they wasting their powers on simple things like lost dogs and promotions?

Love it!

[Theoretica]

[lilmamabrown]

I'm here too. Just wrote a long post but my 3 yr old decided to attack the computer so its gone. I'll repost later, glad to find a thread like this though!!

[treehugz]

Anybody have any fun alternate non-religious lyrics for "Jesus loves me" that I can teach to my 2-yr old? After dd spent an afternoon with her cousins, she was singing it on the car-ride home. I guess I could get creative and just make something up, but I thought I'd check in here before recreating the wheel.