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This business of beliefs is a difficult one. The government has just snatched three of the four surviving sextuplets born to a Jehovah's Witness family in British Columbia, Canada. They were born prematurely and the parents are adhering to their faith's belief that blood transfusions are just plain wrong.

You give good post, BabyG, and thank you for the above quoted one and your earlier post, too! Cusano, you know that a number of us have repeatedly said that your tone is less than cool. Hectoring is never an effective way to win folks over. As you know by now, I am an atheist. Nevertheless, there are a great many Christians who post on this site whom I both admire and kinda envy for their sweetness and their generosity of heart and spirit. These are all people who do not hide their belief and they are all interested with interacting in a positive manner with others who may have divergent views and who also post on this site. This, as you know, has not been the case with you. From what I understand of Jesus's activities, He went around preaching and performing miracles. Those who chose to listen and follow did so. His contre-temps with the money changers in the temple was related to a specific issue, that of introducing Mammon into God's house. Citing this incident as a reason to hector and rail against those of us whom you view as being infidels does not follow. Might I suggest the following approach? You examine what it is about your belief that brings you joy and certainty and then you explain this to us and you tell us that you hope that we will be open to listening to you. You then follow this up with a prayer to your God that he will assist you by enabling us to understand your message. I am aware that this may sound impertinent coming from an atheist but these are my thoughts on this matter.

As for misspelling and wonky grammar, I generally make a practice of proof reading my own material before entering it for your consumption. What I first write can often sound quite peculiar.:phanvan :embarassed: :rolleyes

Cusano makes a good point. Just as I, an atheist, would be unable to teach my children to believe, the devout Christian would find it impossible to teach his or her children to be skeptical.

Yep, but this also forbids criticism of all life styles, even those of the fundamentalists.:confused: It is, however, a controversial law and I am not sure that I am comfortable with it even though its roots were based in idealistic sentiments. I believe that the UK is struggling with similar problems vis-a-vis hate laws and freedom of speech issues at this time. The issues at stake are impossible to hammer down with these clumsy laws it would appear.:cry

Oooh................ And how long did this go one for?:nervous

I am a member of two minorities. I am an atheist. My father's side of the family is Jewish and while I am not Jewish to a Jew I am Jewish to any and all anti-Semites. Just as there was revulsion in the Western world not so long ago over the story of a Muslim who had converted to Christianity and who was going to be put to death by his state for this reason, there is presently great anxiety amongst many of us who live in North America at this time and who do not conform to the evangelical right wing vision of what they would like to see in a political state. Note that this group would not only include the usual suspects, that is to say those of us who are atheists, Jews, Muslims, Wiccans, pro-choice, left-wing-nuts, Democrats, and New Age Buddhists, but this group would also include a bunch of Christian co-religionists: Catholics, Episcopalians, Lutherans, etc.... Should the state not be kept separate from the religious power brokers of the fundamentalist right, all of us who do not satisfy those who obtain power (let us now call you The Thought Police) will be at your mercy. We will be the dhimmi. You will cut us no slack. You might remember that this continent was settled by individuals who wished to be left in peace in order that they might believe and worship according to their needs. You might also need to be reminded that the framers of your Constitution were meticulous in keeping these needs, the needs of you and of any other folk who should chose to come to this continent, in mind. This is why they were kinda fussy about separating religion and state. I think that this was mighty kind and mighty civilized of them. What do you think?

All of this is extraordinarily shocking for us politically correct moderns but this is part of history, of recent history at that. Indeed, I do believe that there is a kind of latent racism in all of us, even the most carefully educated and liberal folks. I guess I base this not only on the Jewish Holocaust, which directly affected my own family, but also on the histories of the two Armenian holocausts which happened towards the close of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, the mass starvation of the Ukrainian people as ordered by Stalin during the 1930s, the fate of the Kurdish folk, and of course the tragedies in Rwanda and in Bosnia not so long ago. I guess I also base this on the fact that the city that I live in, Toronto, has become kind of dysfunctional over the past few years. As you may or may not know, Canada's laws regarding gun ownership and use are extremely illiberal compared to those of the states. We follow the British approach with respect to gun laws; this is to say that few Canadians have ever seen a gun let alone own one. Canada is, by and large, a gunless society. We have become a multi-cultural city, a city of immigrants and this has been, by and large, a success. What we have, however, is a disproportionate number of young black men, men who have their roots in Jamaica, who belong in gangs and have guns. Over the past four or five years there have been a lot of shootings, and while the number of deaths per capita would seem low by American standards, they are high by our standards. Most of the victims are black. Those who do survive don't talk. If you are white and live in my city your chances of dying a violent death are remote. I would dare to say that living in my city is kind of an Eisenhauer experience in many ways. There is, however, a young urban black male culture up here that is exceedingly violent for those who are players. And for those who stand outside this mess, well, it becomes easy for them to drift into judgemental, racist attitudes. This isn't what we wanted to see, you know.

And........Ron Howard, Howdy Doody, Alfred E Neuman, Richie Velch? :confused: I see archetype here.:help:

Jawohl, du bist* right! *Green is showing off her high school German, eh.:faint: Let us move on to the sad case of Clarabel and her/his gender and species confusion issues. Y'all realise that this cow was sorting this out during the time before Womyn's Issues, Lesbian Power, Gay Lib, Sensitivity, Peta, and Politickal Correctness came about. :phanvan The dude was undoubtedly having a rough time in his grrly cow suit wondering whether he was a boy or a grrl, human or beef.:cry Talk about yer identity crisis, eh.:rolleyes Clarabel has undoubtedly become brisket by now. Let us pause for a moment in order to respect this fine faux cow.

Yah, I have read that there was a time in America when folks who had black ancestors buried somewhere in their remote past had to have this documented on their identity papers. These were individuals who looked white but who were not allowed the rights and privileges of living white during America's apartheid past. And TOM is right of course: most African Americans with long, long roots in America are likely to have a greater or lesser amount of European and, perhaps, native American blood as part of their genetic heritage. Indeed, it sometimes true that many white Americans with old roots in this continent may also have an array of interesting genetic material, material that might possibly prove disturbing in some cases to those very white guys themselves.

Dude! That comment was some seriously pointed political commentary on the part of TOM. :rolleyes TOM is one of the folks on this site who dresses to the left.

:confused: And we would have been saved a lot of grief!

When I had to spend a few days at a gathering at the French in-laws everyone ignored me except for the kids and the the daughter's husband. I was so freaked out by the experience that I couldn't poop the whole time I was there. :embarassed: The kids all thought that I was cool and loved my accent and the brother-in-law was simply a very kind man. The only thing the parents said to me during the entire period that I was there was to ask me what I was going to do when I returned to Canada. Of course, at the time our plans were to be together for the long haul and they knew that! The worst thing of all was that Philippe didn't stick up for me and so that experience really did signal the beginning of the end.:speechles My own father was exceedingly nasty to my first husband (he disinherited me at the time I married him) and indeed to anyone I was sleeping with and this included quite a few guys with very respectable careers. He did like the Frenchman and he liked my current mate, a union guy who builds aircraft.:rose:

Fantastic!!!

I remember that song. I used to sing it in the school yard. :heh: So who is this dody?:rose:

Good luck to you on starting your exciting new journey.

Yes, this is true and this means that he is in the same boat as most other black Americans; he will be treated as a black man.

Dody??? I never heard of Howdy Dody. Doncha mean Howdy Doody? Or am I like so totally dating myself????:cry Oh, well.../tant pis pour moi....:rolleyes

Wow, tell us alllll about it! My meanest kinda-in-laws were the French ones. The ones with the worst food were my Canadian ones who had Scottish and Irish roots and who proudly used cheap cuts of meats and vegetables exclusively out of cans, even potatoes! And they liked sweet wine!!

Wheetsin, it looks like you have won the great bad in-law cuisine competition! My condolences.:phanvan

Just the leavening of humour, eh.:phanvan As for me, I'm an atheist. I'll be here until I get senile dementia or a holiday. :faint: I'm thinking Mexico.

Argh! I am so confused. Just when I am sure I need a fill I had a pb and snot came out my nose. It was disgusting! And a good thing that I was home alone....

Go for it! (I couldn't do it because I have sinusitis and am always blowing my nose. Eww!:cry ) But you should wear your ring and wear it with pride.

This is a fine post. Thank you.