Yep. You're suggesting I'm intolerant. You "guessed" that I homeschooled my kids too.
Based on what you were saying, it was a reasonable guess. I've encountered people with those attitudes before, and they homeschooled their kids to believe some very bigoted, intolerant things.
Basically, you view me in a negative fashion because I happen to go to church on Sundays and want to instill my values, which include love and tolerance for others, into my children.
And I can guess what you're reply will be.
Go to church as many Sundays as you want. That's not the problem.
My problem with believers is that so many of them are hypocrites. They cherry-pick which parts of the Old and New Testaments to believe in, and excuse the rest, or attack their critics, saying that "God" will punish us for not believing.
There are far too many believers who commit a plethora of 'sins' six days a week but deem that okay because all they need to do is confess on the seventh day, mumble some prayers, and it's all good. No concern for whatever victims there may have been during the commission of their misdeeds.
Your Jesus preached
acceptance, not tolerance. There's a difference. 'Love thy neighbor' and all that, right? Except so many of you don't do that, or at least don't do it in the spirit your Jesus said to do it.
Tolerance suggests "I really would prefer not to tolerate this/these people, but the law/my god says I have to, so... fine, I'll tolerate it/them."
Now this takes me back. Rewind the clock to 1986, at a meeting for the local branch of the Society for Creative Anachronism. I've just been introduced to a new member.
The first words out of her mouth were not 'Hi', 'Hello', 'Nice to meet you', or (in SCA parlance) 'Well met'.
The first words out of her mouth were "What church do you go to?"
That is such a pushy, presumptuous question. I told her, "I don't go to church."
She promptly had a confused, baffled expression on her face. "Well... that's okay... I guess."
Since we were guests in another person's home, I did not say what I was thinking, but I will say it here: "Well, thank you for your GRACIOUS permission!" I was angry, but managed to keep it inside until I got home.
So as it was with that woman, it is now:
I don't need your permission. I live in a bible belt region in Western Canada, and I've had a lifetime of people who think they get to give me permission or berate me as it may please them, for me to be atheist. Even my own mother expressed her disgust, and to the day she died, she never understood why that reaction was something that angered me so profoundly that I opted to avoid her and her side of the family from then on. I didn't expect her to like it, but I did expect some attempt to understand, especially as she was not a particularly frequent church-goer herself (weddings and funerals). She couldn't manage acceptance, or even as much as tolerance.
Like Oddish said, I've become used to it. I won't make a secret or be ashamed of my faith, especially now that I've recently lost my Dad. I'm glad my folks gave me that gift and I'm trying to pass it on. I don't know how much of it will stick with my kids. I've told them that what they choose to believe and their lives are their own and that a lot of people don't believe in God and that's fine, they can still be good people. I've also said a lot of people who say they believe in God are rotten people who obviously are hypocrites, especially a lot of the Catholic bishops. And I've encouraged them to treat others, no matter who they are, with dignity and respect.
Condolences on your dad's death. My own dad died a couple of years ago. It's not easy to lose family you love.
That said... oh, wow. So atheists "can still be good people." Oh, thank you for that
ringing endorsement. You've made my decade.
Not.
But yeah, please do encourage the Catholic bishops and everyone up to the Pope to stop being hypocrites. Y'know what was recently found in Canada? The remains of 215 dead indigenous kids, buried in a mass grave on the site of a former Catholic-run native residential school. The parents of these kids were never notified about the deaths, and the deaths were due to various reasons like malnutrition, disease, beatings, exposure, that sort of thing. The Pope has been asked several times if he would please come to Canada and issue a personal apology to the indigenous people of Canada for the atrocities the Catholic church perpetrated at this and many other residential schools. The answer has always been NO, and continues to be NO.
Your Pope is the biggest hypocrite of all, no matter who holds the office. From what I've read of the New Testament, I don't think your Jesus would be very pleased with how his teachings have been corrupted over the past nearly-2000 years. Not sure about Moses... yeah, believers break the commandments right, left, and center, but on the other hand, they do follow a lot of those really intolerant beliefs set forth elsewhere.
I respect a person's right to make their own choices, within the parameters of the rights of others. That is tolerance. However, if you try to force me to approve of those choices, that is intolerance.
So how is someone else's sexuality or a woman's choice regarding her own reproductive health infringing on your rights? As I said regarding same-sex marriage in Canada, if two men or two women marry, does that suddenly undo the legality of heterosexual marriages? Will their marriage documents and photos spontaneously combust, will the rings vanish in a puff of smoke, will the couple forget they were ever married, will the kids have been born out of wedlock?
And to keep this at least vaguely on-topic... I read a lot of Voyager fanfic. If anyone is interested, there are plenty of stories on fanfiction.net in which Seven and Chakotay explore religious and spiritual issues, and issues of marriage with or without spiritual/religious themes being involved. After all, Seven has assimilated theoretical knowledge of thousands of species' religious/spiritual beliefs, and in some of these stories she considers whether she could, or should, try some of them out, to figure out what she herself believes, or if she believes at all in anything other than what she was taught by the Borg.
