*~*~**~*~**~*~**~*~**~*~**~*~**~*~**~*~**~*~**~*~**~*~**~*~**~*~**~*~**~*~* It is a most insidious drug which must be administered to others in order to achieve its desired effects for oneself. ~ Marie Winn *~*~**~*~**~*~**~*~**~*~**~*~**~*~**~*~**~*~**~*~**~*~**~*~**~*~**~*~**~*~*
Re: Leaving the Fold « Reply #1 on Sept 7, 2010, 9:17am »
Wow. So much of that I can relate to! We went from the poster family of Christian homeschooling to the one that parents warned their "good" kids about. By the time I was 19 and had moved out, people started whispering behind our backs about us. By the time my youngest brother was 15, and I and my sister had both been married for a few years, they weren't even whispering anymore and my parents finally gave up the act. How the mighty have fallen. *rolls eyes* It was actually very relieving to me and my siblings to not have to pretend to be perfect anymore. Because we're not; we never were. Underneath our denim jumpers and polo shirts and "godly" smiles we were just as human as everyone else. Oh, how I hate The Act! And feel sorry for all those who are still stuck in playing it out.
Re: Leaving the Fold « Reply #2 on Sept 7, 2010, 10:57am »
Jesslyn, I understand your confusion when you began to really take a look at what your scriptures SAID and wonder how they were really created. I went through the same thing. I found it helpful to study not only what I could find about major (and some "minor") religions, but also what we presently understand about how they came to be. Here are some resources.
Theories regarding the development of religion(s):
I would also recommend any good Anthropology of religion course.
For any readers who would like for their kids to start exploring evolution and world history (again or for the first time), here is a good site and I've started with an explanation of radiocarbon-dating:
I started there because if creationism has been the main focus, understanding why we know the Earth is far older than 6,000 years is important.
In the end, I came through my process of re-examining beliefs with a continued faith in a Divine presence. But that vision of the Divine became broader than the narrow picture I saw through the lens of one particular faith. Now I am hard pressed to imagine a Deity who cares about the culture-based rules we come up with here on Earth.
I cannot imagine such a small-minded, insular Person who condemns people for not constricting their lives into such small boxes, for not being born into the "right" faith, for not reading the "right" Book, for not repeating the "right" prayers or mantras, or who has the time to personally direct not only our lives but the lives of every being on every planet in every galaxy and universe. I suspect the role of such an entity is on a much larger scale than that. I would guess that's why we all have the free will to direct our lives, and what we individually and collectively do with it is on us.
Thank you for sharing your story of gradual immersion in QF and I'm so glad you got a reality check as soon as you did. (Though it may not have seemed like it happened fast enough.)
Re: Leaving the Fold « Reply #3 on Sept 7, 2010, 11:51am »
Montanamom, I can see that not needing to appear perfect has helped my children. Knowing now that I don't need to be perfect or appear perfect has made all the difference for me!!
Topiti, thanks for all the resources, I'll bookmark those pages and look through them. This week we are studying Buddism. I'm not sure if I believe in anything divine anymore. I'm calling myself an agnostic. I just know that I am not a christian and most assuredly not a fundamentalist christian. Who knew losing god could be so freeing!
Re: Leaving the Fold « Reply #4 on Sept 7, 2010, 1:45pm »
I have lurked on this board since it started. I really appreciated and related to your story. Thank you for having the courage to voice your doubts and for loving your children more then you cared what others thought of you.
Re: Leaving the Fold « Reply #7 on Sept 7, 2010, 6:33pm »
I can't remember, I know white cheese is ok but not yellow cheese, maybe MSG? Whatever makes cheetos, mac and cheese and chedder cheese yellow is the culprit.
Re: Leaving the Fold « Reply #9 on Sept 7, 2010, 7:49pm »
Tapati,
Once again another of your posts has touched my heart in such a gentle way.
I too have retained my faith in the Divine. I even still call him by the name I have always used- Jesus. But I am so much more open to the idea that other people can know the same Presence by a different name. I do not believe in a micromanaging Deity either, but a loving Creator waiting for all those who reach out to Love in faith- wherever they find it and whatever name they want to use for it, secular or religious.
Which is to boldly confess I am not a fundamentalist anymore.
Jesslyn,
My daughter was shunned as well, just at the time in life that she most needed friends and that her personal faith in God was so earnest. The pain of that rejection shaped her for years to come, as she became cynical, hardened and goth as she could get away with.
All people are cruel, but when religious people are cruel, it is a harsher blow. Especially if you are earnest in your desire to live an ethical loving life, and these people who agreed with you on the importance of that are practicing gossip and malice instead, and aimed at you no less!
Shamefully I admit that I also treated others that way when I was allowed in the "in" crowd, over other issues. It's all so petty, and more about cliques and peer pressure and jockeying for social position than anything remotely spiritual.
But I think there are many like us, who started out home schooling to provide a rich educational experience, and along the way someone changed agendas on us.
Those of us shoved out were actually the lucky ones! Enjoy your freedom in your new secular home school world!
Re: Leaving the Fold « Reply #10 on Sept 8, 2010, 2:17am »
What's wrong with anatto?
When I was a kid, I went to a private Christian school. I wanted to, my brother didn't, so I went, and he didn't. Great school. It was actually at that school that I first heard about the big bang theory and evolution. Their thing was that education needs to be complete, and that includes teaching about other beliefs. Their job was to guide and educate us, not to control our thoughts and beliefs by keeping us ignorant. Hell, we even postulated that evolution and creation both might happened, that one day for god was like a million years for us, and he tinkered with each group of what he was creating until he was happy. Yes, this was at a private CHRISTIAN school where we opened each day with prayer and had chapel every Wednesday where we girls were required to wear skirts or dresses.
There is a balance to be had, and sometimes it takes a while to find it. But it's there. It's good to have friends of different faiths and beliefs. The differences can provide a challenge, and if a viewpoint can be changed, was it really that strong to begin with? Or sometimes the differences reaffirm a belief. Faith and beliefs without thought is ignorance. Don't be overly concerned with making sure the kids have the perfect friends. Sooner or later they'll be exposed to all kinds of people, and it will help to start that now so that you can talk to them about their questions. Jesslyn, you and the kids are going to be okay.
Let me share with you a belief I came to hold. When I was a Christian, of course I believed the bible had truth. But it had been edited and translated so much by humans, and humans are flawed and make mistakes. This is irrefutable fact. Since humans mess up, it stood to reason that the bible contained flaws. Even if god put himself into visible human form and sat down with the men and women who wrote the original books to make sure that they wrote things word-for-word as he said, over time words have changed meaning and re-writtings and translations would further change the meaning of what was originally said. Also when it was supposedly said "go forth and multiply," that was back when there were few enough people on this earth that one of two good natural disasters could have wiped us out. So multiplying as fast and as much as possible was necessary to ensure the survival of our species. Not only is this not then but because the bible has changed so much, who knows anymore what the original said or meant. I believe that if there really is a god, that what's going to ultimately be important is to lead a good life trying to help others. Isn't it more important to be a good person than to have a dozen kids and neglect them because of one's own ego over the number of offspring there are to prove that a man's penis works?
It's also vanity to overly delight in one's own suffering and number of children, expecting the world to admire their piousness. Another thing that Christian school taught me is that there should be no need for outward displays of our faith or desire to be admired for it, that it was more important to hold Jesus to our hearts for the sake of it, not for the worldly praise.
Take some time and listen to your heart. Whether we evolved or were designed in such a way, there's a reason we thrive under certain conditions and wilt under others. If we were created by a god, do you not think that he would have made us to thrive under what is right? If stifling the kids and whatever else was making them wilt, then it couldn't have been right. Do what makes them thrive and listen to your heart.
Re: Leaving the Fold « Reply #11 on Sept 8, 2010, 2:21am »
I looked at a box of Kraft mac-n-cheese and it does have artificial yellow food coloring in it (not annatto). I would guess the same is true for other fluorescent orange things like cheetos.
Re: Leaving the Fold « Reply #12 on Sept 8, 2010, 2:24am »
Quote:
Tapati,
Once again another of your posts has touched my heart in such a gentle way.
<blushes> Awww, thanks.
The thing is, I've always felt some presence, whether it's my Higher self or Divine, I don't pretend to know for sure. For whatever it's worth, I prefer to hold onto that connection and drop the dogma on the side of the road where (I think) it belongs.
Joined: Jun 2009 Gender: Female Posts: 144 Karma: 7
Re: Leaving the Fold « Reply #13 on Sept 8, 2010, 1:22pm »
Oh does that all sound frighteningly familiar! You must have skipped down at least part of the same Yellow Brick road I went down! My kids have helped me see the light! Until this week [a totally different story!!] I homeschooled my son. Once we quit trying to join any type homeschool group or coop or sports team it went well! The Mommy Wars were just plain nuclear and no single mom, not even one by adoption, was ever holy enough! Great post!
Joined: Oct 2009 Gender: Female Posts: 195 Location: West Coast Karma: 27
Re: Leaving the Fold « Reply #14 on Sept 12, 2010, 6:12pm »
Wow. What a wonderful post.
I had no idea that we Good Christian Homeschool Moms were such a snooty judgemental sort of clique... until I began walking away from it. I *was* one of the snooty judgemental ones, too. I just had no idea...no idea at all.
I also had to smile as I read about looking at life without the goggles on. What a different world out here, than the one I saw through those goggles! Fundamentalism is like putting on black-and-white-only glasses...makes everything seem so safe and under control, so clear and easy to explain....and yet the price is that all the color of life is gone.
I have long stopped looking for perfection. You know what I want? Growth. There is a huge difference. Seeking perfection almost crushed the marrow right out of my bones. It is the slow death. Seeking growth, on the other hand, gives me clean air, sun on my face, fertile ground at my feet, and all the room in the world to become who I am.
Re: Leaving the Fold « Reply #15 on Sept 13, 2010, 12:55am »
I was one of the snooty judgmental Christians too. Only not related to homeschooling. It was because Marantha Campus Ministries people were "God's Green Berets" and everyone else was too lazy or selfish, or both, to make the sacrifices we did. . .
I can't remember, I know white cheese is ok but not yellow cheese, maybe MSG? Whatever makes cheetos, mac and cheese and chedder cheese yellow is the culprit.
Oh, blech... Do those foods even have real cheese in them? I just think they're gross. Not evil per se.
I can't remember, I know white cheese is ok but not yellow cheese, maybe MSG? Whatever makes cheetos, mac and cheese and chedder cheese yellow is the culprit.
Oh, blech... Do those foods even have real cheese in them? I just think they're gross. Not evil per se.
Kraft Macaroni and Cheese (in the box, natch) is a fine delicacy of my childhood. The orangier the better.
"Those who eat their fill speak to the hungry of the wonderful times to come. Those who lead the country to the abyss call ruling too difficult for ordinary men."
Joined: Jun 2010 Gender: Female Posts: 15 Karma: 2
Re: Leaving the Fold « Reply #19 on Sept 20, 2010, 2:06pm »
I used to hate Kraft mac & cheese, and disdain it as not being real cheese. ("Powder can't be real cheese!")
Then I married my husband, who pointed out the innate hypocrisy of preferring Velveeta mac & cheese over Kraft. I conceded his point, and we've been eating Kraft ever since.
Me? I'm a purist. Only bright orange powdery cheese food for my mac and cheese. When my mom said she was making mac and cheese for dinner and then tried to pawn off real cheese in a home made macaroni casserole, my heart just fell. That just wasn't the real deal. I wanna see the blue box.
"Those who eat their fill speak to the hungry of the wonderful times to come. Those who lead the country to the abyss call ruling too difficult for ordinary men."
Re: Leaving the Fold « Reply #23 on Sept 27, 2010, 11:03am »
What "a beautiful road it is," indeed.
My homeschooling journey is very similar, except that it spanned 22 years and finally ended with a thud.
Any questions I posed were met with rebuke and reprimands to renounce my heretical beliefs and yes, if you didn't believe in literal 24/7 creationism, you were well on your way to hell, taking your poor defenseless children with you.
The mothers in my homeschool group were also clique-ish and judgmental, dividing themselves into groups depending on their level of "righteousness" and based on their denominations and curriculum. Most distressing to me was the way they ALL dissed the "leader," a "non-believer" who was homeschooling because of medical issues with her daughter.
She planned every meeting by herself, arranged every field trip. With no thanks. And no help. None of the moms were allowed to "partner" with an unbeliever, especially one who occasionally said the S word.
For years, she was my best friend.
That experience was one of many that showed me "the way out."
PS. Here, too, about the cheese. And boughten bread, Campbell's soup, and Tide detergent.
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