I think a good church is good for children, it gives them a sense of a wider world beyond their family. They develop personal relationships with adults besides their parents who have other opinions and politics and moods. It gives them a forum in which to figure out The Big Things with people besides their parents. And its an opportunity to interact with kids of different ages than their own -- in school or sports we were all the same age and sometimes gender but in youth group or choir there was a broader range.

When I got to college I *was* shocked that there were people who, say, in the name of Christianity didn't believe in evolution, but I wasn't shocked that there were other opinions in the world. A lot of my classmates were pretty stunned that ______ isn't just "the way it is".

I'm sure there are non-religious communities that can provide that same broader experience for a child, but none spring to mind. Maybe a very active community center or social club.

I thought there were a few books and some texts of the OT in Aramaic. Not a lot, to be sure but a few passages, originally.

IIRC, the deal with Aramaic is that chunks of the Bible were written in Hebrew and Greek about things that had happened to Aramaic speakers -- so an understanding of that initial translation from the oral tradition is pretty important.

Why do you suppose that is?

I think it was after Prop 8 that I shifted toward a more hostile place. "Oh, it isn't that YOU are a homophobic, sexist, racist piece of shit, it's that GOD is, so, you know, you don't have to take any responsibility for subjugating people. That's so convenient!"

That's where my head went. Following that were the promise keeper kind of assholes where daddy grooms his daughters to be subservient, creationism in schools, attacks on Planned Parenthood, blah blah god-as-excuse-for-anti-intellectualism.

So I was getting angrier at religion. And then I started hanging out with cosmologists and astronomers and biologists, and nothing about a "creator" made any sort of sense.

I started to find it offensive and a sort of denial of how precious and rare the planet/universe/humans are. I found comfort in Sagan's pale blue dot.

I have a hard time grasping the idea that people I love and think are incredibly bright and rational in so many ways believe a virgin had a baby named god, or that there's some all-powerful being who gives a rat's ass about whether they eat pork. I'm deflecting my discomfort at saying these things here, among people I respect, with humor. It's where my head goes.

Lately I've been feeling a sense of desperation in regard to my niece and nephew being indoctrinated. It's making it somewhat worse. I feel kind of helpless.

I find Nilly's approach sort of comforting when i get very frustrated. She once told me a sort of proverb, that no one can know god's scorecard. I often think that if more religious people walked that walk, the world would be so much better. But I don't know.

Allyson, I find a lot of comfort in the fact that I know some incredibly smart people who happen to believe in god but they also believe in me and respect me. It makes me respect them. The rest, I can ignore most of the time.

I don't like ignoring it. I feel like there's an ocean between world views. But I don't much like talking about it either, because I think it's very much a delusion, and telling people I love that I think they're delusional isn't productive. It's hurtful. I'm having a terribly hard time resolving this without alienating anyone. I probably just did.

I don't find people not believing insulting, just one of the many differences. I can love and respect people who disagree with me.

It's not at all the same thing, but I have a very hard time knowing that people I know are smart and thoughtful smoke, drink heavily, or use drugs. More comparable, probably is the conflict I have with people that I know and love who do not see all humans as equal and don't even see their stated beliefs in those terms.

I have to ignore A LOT to make being in my family tolerable.

I have to ignore A LOT to make being in my family tolerable.

You are a rare sane (and solvent) island in an ocean of dysfunction.

Thanks! I hope my kids continue this trend.

I spent the rapture gardening, which is always cathartic. I planted a bunch of organics to replace the plants that went to shit after our weird cold snap: peppermint, chocolate mint (which I had never seen before and smells amazing), italian parsley, sweet basil, and I repotted the surviving sage.

For flowers I did red and purple petunias and orange impatiens. I also put in a big aloe plant. I trimmed back the rose bush I planted last summer and counted 11 new buds. I also trimmed the icelandic poppies and weeded the front yard. I hate weeding.

Then I made supper: barbecue chicken, and BLT pasta salad with tomatoes, cucumber, chives, and bacon crumbles.

I'm starting garlic chives and green onions from seed, tomorrow morning. I never thought of myself as much of a gardener, but there it is.