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Bringing you atheist articles and building active godless communities takes hundreds of hours and resources each month. If you find any joy or stimulation at Atheist Republic, please consider becoming a Supporting Member with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a good dinner.
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Bringing you atheist articles and building active godless communities takes hundreds of hours and resources each month. If you find any joy or stimulation at Atheist Republic, please consider becoming a Supporting Member with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a good dinner.
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Lmao!
Seriously, I'm less and less concerned about him being brainwashed, and more concerned about my son blowing up the clergy's spot! If he equates Jesus to spider man or darth maul, we will be ok. As a tradition he asks for an outfit for Xmas. This year he wanted to be darth Vader and deadpool. What do I do when next year he says he wants to be jeebus!
@Jax Re: Jesus costume
Easy. Dress him in a tattered robe, place a crown of thorns on his head, and make him drag a scaled down cross with him everywhere until New Year's Day. lol
Actually, even pre-k at this school "incorporates religion daily " since my kid gravitates toward the bad guys, he could start running around pretending to be Satan, shooting "force lightening " out of his hands.... yikes... stay tuned, we are visiting school next week!
He already has the Jesus hair Tin man!
Maybe I should start a blog!
Seriously, should I prep him for stories about a magic man that died for sins and turned drinking water into alcohol, and that he will be part of a cult that pretends to drink the blood and eat the body of this superhero?
Cannibalism fantasy. Isn't it?
Check this out. My high school. The principal was then a teacher, a good guy I considered a friend. He has been hung out to dry.
http://m.golocalprov.com/news/bishop-hendricken-principal-forced-to-resi...
Found it on my Facebook feed.
People are seriously fucked, in this paparazzi, social media driven society.
He referred to black people as "niggers" and Jewish people as "kikes", in his office, at the school! What did you think was going to happen?
Just FYI you can send your kid to any public school that you want according to the SCOTUS. Most PS are just fine even exceptional and they are secular by law!
I really don't see the big deal in this. I went to a Catholic school and our classmates who had other faiths simply studied in the library during religious services. We were taught about evolution, big bang, the crusades, the inquisition, the bad popes, etc.
Obviously didn't take then. Maybe you should have joined the others in the library.
JoC: "I really don't see the big deal in this. I went to a Catholic school and our classmates who had other faiths simply studied in the library during religious services"
No you don't see. Religionists never listen.
Rather than indulge your religion, which has nothing to do anyone's education; rather than hold religious services or other religious activities during school time and send the non-believers and those of other faiths to a library, it would make infinitely more sense to just educate every child together and keep YOUR religion to YOUR family, YOUR time and YOUR expense. It makes no sense to argue that sectarian schools are about inclusiveness and equality.
It is demanding enough on school resources that children need to be streamed according to ability, disability, special talents and other needs. The last thing they need before that exercise is to be segregated according to their parents' superstitions!
I went to RCatholic schools and I'm still cross about all the time wasted on religion. I was lucky as it was only about 40 minutes a week and an hour at mass on Sunday. Time I still resent and it was even worse when I was too young to know better and learning my catechism and other gibberish in Primary and middle education.
Educate them and guide them together. Otherwise, leave the children alone!
The point is, it's a Catholic school. Not all Catholic parents know how to teach religion to their kids so they need the priests and nuns to help them in that respect. Now, students who aren't Catholic can still go to these schools but they go in knowing it's a Catholic school. But never will they force the kids to attend religious activities they don't want.
I'm old enough to remember my contemporaries being tortured in Catholic school, for religious reasons.
Tortured? Please expound.
@JoC: "Tortured? Please expound."
Well I don't know about Catholic schools in your country, but my friends who went to Catholic schools in New Zealand told me about being beaten with canes and shoes, and being hit across the hands with leather straps. (You should never hit a child's hand. Their hand bones are very delicate and easily damaged. Actually you shouldn't hit a child anywhere, but especially avoid the hands. And the head.) My friends told me they were beaten by nuns and priests, but that the nuns were the most cruel.
They also reported being locked in dark cupboards, and being made to stand outside in the cold. Later in life I met people who'd been sexually tortured at Catholic schools.
"amen" to that Zeff! the way i look at it, in for a penny, in for a pound. was hoping to get some insight from some folks (athiest) that have sent their young kids to catholic school. i don't think they will segregate, and if we want him to get a "good" education and our only real, available option is catholic school, then we're probably going to suck it up, and play nice with the jesus freaks.
i don't like country music, but i played in a country band... same thing right? i don't want to jeopardize my son getting into the school by asking about segregation of non-religious kids, ect. we know people that have & have had kids in this school, 90% of kids that have gone to this school and applied to the "gifted" program at our local public high school have gained admission, so i think we are going to try. if it gets to be overwhelming with the jesus and all that, we will cross that bridge when we get to it,
certainly we won't be the first athiests to put their kid in a catholic school, i'll concoct some excuse how we ''didn't have time"" to get him baptized, we moved here and didn't have a parish, a member of my wife's immediate family was molested by a priest (true story, and she cashed in) and we haven't been comfortable finding a parish. hey, we all sacrifice, so i'll sacrifice some dignity and play along with the JESUS PALS.
Would it be worth making a blog to talk myself through this whole thing? I honestly don't know much about blogs or boards or any of this, can people reply to, and comment on blogs? I don't just want to write without having back and forth dialogue,
(i need constant affirmation lol)
i go meet with the school on thursday, i'm preparing for the worst-
crucifix in every class room, crosses galore, jesus mary and joseph statues, prayers written on the walls, everyone donning their crosses around their necks, people saying "god bless you" and "have a blessed day"
and singing jesus songs. not really sure how to introduce the whole jesus thing to my kid.
my first thought was to say nothing- let the jesus freaks just do their thing,
but if he is going to blend in, he needs to bless himself and do some of the other creepy religious things-
he needs a little background, right? i was thinking jesus christ superstar or something lol.
thoughts? ideas? or like, old school claymation, 'davey and goliath' or somehting? south park?
i dunno, but i need to give him a brief crash course, and probably introduce the concepts of heaven and all that?
i really really don't want to brainwash the kid, kinda stuck here, kinda nervous about how this is going to work.
its hard enough to rationalize with a 4 yr old, how the hell am i supposed to suddenly throw god in there?
atleast it will probably be a month before he starts at the school, so we've got a little time to try to figure this out-
i have noticed links to some ''jesus for athiest'' kids books, maybe we should give that a try?
but i need him to be able to kinda go along with this stuff, just- ugh. i dunno.
As JoC's kind response illustrates, no matter how obvious the salient points, they are NEVER accepted.
Jax: "i don't think they will segregate.." I think we're in entire agreement. Make no assumptions, just remember that religionists usually say that people are free to believe or not based on evidence. Hold them to that.
He will need to fit in at that age. My experience of the well-intentioned RCatholics was that they will make him feel rejected to some degree but not intentionally. My view (and considering JoC's comments) is that the cult needs to influence the children at school as well as at home. Educated by non-believers with no normalisation of superstition at school would probably result in fewer believers.
A ComRes poll in the UK recently found that some non-believers pray. One explained, "I don't know why"! :-) That is partly how superstitions work: get the children doing the rituals.
From:
http://www.secularism.org.uk/opinion/2018/01/the-david-and-goliath-battl...
"The girl, who attends a non-religious primary school, was told that she must bow her head during prayers held in an assembly by an external evangelical group that comes to the school to tell Bible stories."
Religious designation of a school will result in some degree of segregation and in places like Northern Ireland, Bosnia and many other places it has contributed to separate tribal communities with real enmity between them. Few religionists see that.
[large amount of homophobic comments deleted by AR moderator]
@Amph
Ya know, normally when I see somebody new here I like to issue a warm hello and welcome, regardless of their being atheist or non-atheist. Judging by the hostile tone of your post, however, I am (for the moment, at least) withholding my usual introductions. As I am well aware that what we may type can sometimes be misunderstood in its intended tone, I prefer not to jump to immediate conclusions if I can help it. That being said, I would like to offer a word of advice in saying you have picked the wrong place to come in and start recklessly slinging about gay and lesbian slurs. Basically, not cool. Yes, everyone is entitled to his/her own opinions. Just remember that, though, when others start expressing their own opinions about what you might say. Pretty sure you will not like many of them.
@Amph
Oh, and one more quick note. I have a few gay and lesbian friends, and if I had any children I would feel far more comfortable leaving them with those friends as opposed to leaving them with any ranking member of a Catholic Church. Just sayin'...
What's with all the capital X's? Does the letter X have some kind of arcane significance to homophobic conspiracy nuts?
@Algebe Re: X's
Yeah, I was wondering about that myself.
same here.
And unless I am mistaken, I'm pretty sure Jax said he has a son, not a daughter.
Re: Homophobic deletions
Thank you, Cyber and/or Nyar! (Or whoever else it was who had the good sense to do that.)
I'm actually disappointed that the hatemonger's comments were omitted before I could see them-
(was busy trying to get my FB pic off this site) I recall an old Chris Rock stand up special- "Bigger & Blacker" from the late '90s.
One take away was
"it doesn't make sense to hate anyone, lt don't make no sense to be a racist,sexist, or nothing, but.... lt don't.
lt doesn't. lt don't make no sense...
'cause whoever you hate
will end up in your family.
That's right, you don't like gays,
you're gonna have a gay son.
You don't like Puerto Ricans?
Your daughter's gonna come home with ''Livin' la vida loca!'' (this was before Ricky Martin came out)
So only "god" knows what amphkhan200 will end up with!
In other news,
We are going to check out the school tomorrow.
Kinda nervous.
School does have rave reviews online, and the lady was very pleasant on the phone.
I'm just nervous about how to deal with the "oh, your son isn't baptised?" on the admission application.
I also set up for online "monthly offertory" i guess that's where the church hits you up for money. By agreeing to $400 per year,
it saves $800 off tuition, and it is tax deductible. When i was a kid they would pass around a basket. guess those days are over.
They actually have the audacity to ask for your ENVELOPE NUMBER on the application! They also have an application to join the parish!!!! want to know what CHURCH you were married in, and by whom, (there is a spot for JP) I guess i will be mostly straight with these people, (well, somewhat straight) I can't walk in there and tell them i'm an athiest, but i can tell them that we were born and raised catholic and i attended catholic elementary and high schools, and that we haven't had the time for church, Catholics are big on confessing and being forgiven from what i recall. that will be right in their wheelhouse!
I"ll talk about how we see the value in our son receiving a catholic education... I think i can almost stomach that. One day at a time right? I'm not a good liar, but I can possibly manipulate the truth....
i just have to smile and choose my words carefully tomorrow.
wish me luck!
@Jax
Hey, if you can't dazzle them with brilliance, then baffle them with bullshit. And if they don't like what you have to say, then joke 'em if they can't take a fuck. LOL
By the way, I'm diggin' the new profile pic. *thumbs up*
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