This poor woman was by all accounts a healthy person in a healthy family. Isn’t shutting oneself into a cave for prayer over a number of weeks the kind of thing a monk does in the desert somewhere. What is with this extremism. One of her kids says this lady was the perfect mother. Such a sad story. Sometimes it seems that religion is just plain toxic. And strangely, the sky-god can be found nowhere for a comment.

I think, perhaps, she has lost many more readers than she might have if she had addressed this in the very beginning, instead of burying her head in the sand. She needs a lesson in PR, because there’s a crack in the fairy-tale bubble.

The response I got from her began with “That’s too bad”. Not “That’s horrible!” or even “I can’t believe people would DO that!” Just “That’s too bad.” Not exactly reeking of emotion.

But now I want to thank Rechelle and those of you who have made the jump to the Womens’ Colony because, by and large, it appears that most people don’t have a problem with a woman writing a post about teaching world religion and then being called at home by nutcases damning her family to hell or searching her kids out on FB to save their souls…or they’re afraid of offending PW or, more likely, getting attacked by crazies themselves.

The point of my post was that we should all be free to follow our own journey. Or not.

Oh, and FYI just because I think this is important too, not all homeschoolers are religious nuts who chain their kids to the kitchen table to avoid the world or memorize scripture.

I mean, don’t we all hate to be stereotyped?

You know, I once had my comment removed from chickens in the road. I posted a joke on their joke page that went something like this: Two nuns were riding their bikes on their usual route to the rectory, when they saw a detour sign. They continued riding along enjoying the scenery, when one nun said to the other, “You know, I’ve never come this way before”. The other nun looked thoughtful and replied, “Must be the cobblestones”.

Apparently, it took them a while to “get” the joke, b/c it was up for a couple days before they yanked it. Yet they saw fit to leave the jokes where men made derogatory/sexualized punchlines about women.

So, I posted a second comment regarding reasons why my joke was superior to the other jokes on the page (if you’re familiar with the literary anatomy and conventions of a joke, it is), commented on how long it took them to get the joke, and that it was only offensive to fundie Christian hens who can’t c*me. <–didn’t want to offend anybody there, so I starred it out. That one was yanked within hours.

I figure they’re still on high alert, and I’ll never successfully post another comment there.

The irony there is that the owner of the site claims to be a writer. Apparently a poorly educated one

Making friends and spreading joy where ever I may go,

Lola.

I have to say, I don’t know whether to harbor deep seated fear for you or admire your stark bravery. I live in a large MSA, but moved there recently from a town of 7K, and grew up in a town of 400. It can be downright dangerous to buck the small town’s homogeneity mandate.

Sorry the folks at PW are giving you a hard time. She only allows beautiful comments on her blog. Nothing that stinks up her pages unless of course it comes out of a cow’s ass.

It’s a blog I rarely visit because the readers are like rabid wolves over there if you don’t follow their pack ideologies and give flowery remarks about PW. Ugh!

Religion is NOTHING MORE than pack mentality at it’s worst in many cases. You are welcome to visit my blog any day of the week. I welcome everyone whether they pray to rocks, pretend gods, are agnostic, christian or atheist.

Di
The Blue Ridge Gal

The atheists have all the rules of debate down pat–an answer for everyone

There’s a reason so many atheists are able to hold their own in debate – because so many Christians (it’s almost always christians) seek us out and try to debate us.

Any time I don’t completely hide my absence of belief, there’s a Christian telling me I’m wrong, or that I’m going to hell (or trying to tell my children they’re going to hell), telling me what I think and believe (mind-readers all), and making all sorts of unfounded claims.

If you don’t like that I learned to debate, take a look in the mirror. If it wasn’t for people like that one in the mirror, I’d have no need to debate anyone, because I wouldn’t have debate thrust in my face every time I just try to be anything but “in the closet”.

Do I have a ready answer for everything? Not quite. But I’ve had every bad argument under the sun made to me a dozen times, and some a hundred times. I didn’t seek them out, they were made to me – so now I know them by constant familiarity, I have figured out why they’re wrong, and I

This reads like yet another “shut up, that’s why” argument – atheists know why the arguments you have long accepted and used are wrong, so we apparently should just shut up and let you make bad arguments at us unhindered.

I’ve been told to shut up in too many ways, and too many times.

It doesn’t work any more.

If you don’t like that your arguments are answered, stop making such easily-refuted arguments. Come up with better reasons, or accept that they simply don’t stand up to scrutiny.

I too question god, etc. and for most of my life, have not believed. Then, when our son was born and soon after was diagnosed with cancer, I knew with almost complete certainty that “God” did not exist.

I still feel that way.

Thank you again for your courage. I’ll be back often!

For the sake of (pedantic!) clarity, I believe that “
Poe” belongs exlusively to fundamentalist positions?

Yes, Emily, that’s what I said. As far as being a “Poe”…I don’t really know what you’re referring to. I like Edgar Allan Poe, but I’m not a “Poe.”

bPet…no, I’m not cherry-picking anything. I’m simply taking the passages that were meant for Israel as a theocracy and saying that those don’t apply to the church any longer, since the church is not a theocracy (although some whacked-out, denim-dress-wearing homeschoolers would like to think so). Not our job, as the church, to enact civil punishment.