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Post by Vyckie D. Garrison on Jul 23, 2010 12:30:27 GMT -5
Daughter of the Patriarchy: The Atheist by Sierra nolongerquivering.com/2010/07/23/the-atheist/Yikes ~ I think this post warrants a trigger warning ~ as I was reading it, I felt so angry ~ esp. since several Christians whom I considered close friends seem determined to disabuse me of my assumption that believers are sincere, good, and intelligent people. Thankfully, I have made new friends ~ including Christians who actually do treat others in a Christlike manner.
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autumn
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Post by autumn on Jul 23, 2010 13:14:10 GMT -5
I'd really love to know what Willa said to those earnest church ladies when they said "Conform or else!" I wonder how colorful it was!
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Post by ambrosia on Jul 23, 2010 13:45:51 GMT -5
I confess to having a certain amount of sympathy for those religious people who feel it is their responsibility to spread the word, so to speak, but to make that sort of "project" of someone's life is beyond rudeness and presumption. That this poor woman had been previously "wounded by Christians" makes it even worse.
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Post by km on Jul 23, 2010 13:58:00 GMT -5
Oh my, Sierra. How cruel of these women. And you ended up losing your friend as well! Ugh... I have to admit that this line made me laugh out loud: "We knew, though, that their marriage was broken: after all, they’d voted for Bill Clinton." When I was about 14, I ended up with all these homeschooling, QF-raised girls as pen-pals. Anyway... I ended up getting into a very heated debate with another 14 year old about whether or not Clinton's marital indiscretions were actually a matter of national political importance (I thought they were not). I found out many, many years later, from a friend who had left the fold, that this ended up earning me a reputation for being very liberal. I went to public school, after all, and my parents had voted for Clinton too.
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Post by hopewell on Jul 23, 2010 15:15:51 GMT -5
Another victim of "Friendship Evangelism" the "Sorority Rush" of the Faithful. Just like Amway. Very interesting story.
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Post by krwordgazer on Jul 23, 2010 19:54:48 GMT -5
This makes me very angry, too. Here's a woman who has been hurt by Christians in the past and is angry-- and who dares to think maybe this new group will be different. And then after she's had a year to develop real relationships with them, they hurt her all over again. How dare they? And yet I know so many Christians who believe this way-- I even used to believe this way. *blushes* The atheist is to be befriended only for the purpose of converting her. She's not a person, she's a project. But that's not following Christ. That's using people, not loving them. I'm ashamed that I ever thought this way, but I can say one thing for certain. I never put a timeline on a friendship with an atheist, or gave them an ultimatum that they had to convert in order to continue the friendship.
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Post by arietty on Jul 23, 2010 20:14:28 GMT -5
"Now and then, we heard updates about Willa’s life in the years that followed. They were always cast in hopefully negative terms: her health or her marriage was failing, her children were doing poorly in school. This meant that God was after her, and that sooner or later she would wake up, fall on her knees and confess her obedience to Him. "
This bit REALLY got to me. Wow, do I ever remember thinking this way, it was default thinking in the church at large not just in the more extreme circles. Something bad happening to a wayward person? GOOD, this was an opportunity to turn them toward God. It is really so creepy and wrong.
I know in trying to figure out my own spirituality these days I've been looking for how positives--love, beauty--could be the path or direction towards a belief in God. It's such a novel idea to me I feel like a 4 year old just starting to comprehend that letters come together into words, though what those words will turn out to be is still a mystery. This paragraph in Sierra's post made me realize why a positive way to God was such a novelty--that is not what church life is steeped in. Read any testimony, LOL.
Very well written Sierra, you have really captured the "project" dynamic. I felt like a project just joining a mainstream church as a christian some years ago--all the invitations to the endless meetings and services and events--once they saw that my participation in these things was not going to be wholehearted I felt myself dropped and relegated to the category of fringe attender. People did all their friendship building at church events and if you had a life outside of this you weren't a candidate.
I've been in both places as have a lot of us I'm sure.. earnestly worrying over the wayward friendship and whether it was tainting me and the children, praying and praying and expecting the person to become a believer or a better believer (they never did). And finding myself to be the project. This style of conditional friendship has done more to drive me away from the church than any sexism or theology (which are things you can actually attack, not subtle at all).
GREAT POST Sierra.
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Post by usotsuki on Jul 23, 2010 21:06:09 GMT -5
Lovebombing, it's what cults do.
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Post by dangermom on Jul 24, 2010 10:04:14 GMT -5
It's interesting to me that Willa hung out with the group so much. She must have been very willing to look past differences and hope for friendship.
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Post by yoshimay on Jul 24, 2010 11:04:55 GMT -5
This post made me angry as well. They looked down on her so much just because she wasn't of the same mindset as them. I'm an atheist and I'm glad my Christian friends aren't like this.
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jeb
Junior Member
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Post by jeb on Jul 24, 2010 11:50:36 GMT -5
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Post by airlie808 on Jul 24, 2010 13:52:20 GMT -5
I've seen the "project, not a person" so very many times. I find this so very troubling because it reflects yet another aspect of the belief that what we "do" for God is more important that what we believe. Notice the quotes around "do."
If we truly have compassion on those around us and believe that it is God who ultimately works in the hearts of men and women, being around others who believe differently should not be such a single-focused act such that we reject them after a time for not believing.
And you don't have to look far to see "nice" Christians who have marital problems, financial problems, problems with their children, etc. Certainly the Bible doesn't teach that those who are dedicated to the things of God won't have problems (again, a very works-based view), yet I know some who seem to believe that in practice. If only you homeschooled, if only the husband took more of a leadership role, if only we found the right church...you can do all of that and more and still have problems.
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Post by km on Jul 24, 2010 15:10:58 GMT -5
It's interesting to me that Willa hung out with the group so much. She must have been very willing to look past differences and hope for friendship. I was thinking about this too, but I suspect she was also a bit alienated in her homeschooling community as an atheist. Would that be accurate, Sierra? My sense is that, even if the majority of homeschoolers aren't the fundamentalist kind, the fundamentalists are so vocal that it often seems that way in many communities. So, she may have been looking for connections precisely because she felt alienated as a homeschooling mother as well.
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Post by dangermom on Jul 24, 2010 15:46:52 GMT -5
I suppose so--was it in a part of the country where there aren't many secular homeschoolers? Around here the evangelicals are a large-ish minority and there are a lot of hippie unschoolers and different types--lots of, I guess, ordinary types who aren't obviously of any particular philosophy. (I'm one of the very few classical homeschoolers and I mostly hang out with the hippies.) We don't talk religion much, but I think many are atheists and there are definitely some pagans, Buddhists, and so on, as well as Christians. So I tend to forget that it's not like that in Alabama or wherever.
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Post by Sierra on Jul 24, 2010 19:45:31 GMT -5
It's really hard for me to speak to Willa's feelings (of alienation or otherwise) because she was so distant from me already (I was a young child, she was a mother of other children I saw infrequently) and the church made her even more so. She was so demonized in what everyone said to me that I probably avoided her. She made me uncomfortable - I was too young to doubt what everyone around was telling me about her moral character. I was very scared when I found out about the shunning, though. I thought it was wrong to cut someone off so finally and completely, and the concept of "turning her over to the devil" was absolutely terrifying. I kept thinking I could be next - I was no better than Willa or her kids. By now, maybe I have been?
Also, we're talking about eastern Pennsylvania. Fundamentailsm exists there in pockets. Most rural folks are Republican, most Philadelphians are Democrats. It's not the Bible belt by any means.
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Post by km on Jul 24, 2010 20:25:12 GMT -5
Also, we're talking about eastern Pennsylvania. Fundamentailsm exists there in pockets. Most rural folks are Republican, most Philadelphians are Democrats. It's not the Bible belt by any means. I was living in rural central Pennsylvania not that long ago. My experience of it was that (1) it was more fundamentalist than I'd expected, being from the South and (2) quite different from Philadelphia, as you say. Not eastern PA, but the central part. (Not to mention, it was horrifically racist, unlike anything I'd ever seen, and I'm from the South. My very few Black students were getting death threats around the time Obama was elected. The national headquarters of the KKK is located in central PA, though, a fact that I had never known until I lived there.) Anyway, I say this because I don't think it's unlikely that there are quite a few QFers involved in the rural PA homeschooling scene. Charity is there, as are other off-shoot sects that come from the Amish/Mennonite tradition. Who knows about Willa's motivation or about why she was so open to their friendship? All I'm saying is that I think, having lived for two years in rural PA, that the Bible Belt sometimes gets relatively unfair generalizations as opposed to the Northeast and other places. I run into less fundamentalism in urban NC than I did in rural PA, Bible Belt state or not. ETA: Not meaning to insult rural PA, which I suspect is not all that different from other conservative parts of this country (except for the per capita involvement in hate crime activity, which is quite high). 's just... I often see people talk about the "Bible Belt" as if the rest of the country is Morally Superior and Better Evolved (Not at all what Sierra was doing. Sorry, I took Sierra's comment as a jumping off point, which I know can be annoying sometimes. I was diagnosed with ADD as a young kid, and I've lately wondered if they were correct about that after all.). So, anyway, I guess there are bastions of Christian fundamentalism throughout the country, eh?
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Post by Sierra on Jul 24, 2010 22:15:22 GMT -5
I'm not surprised about the racism in central PA. The area I lived in was populated by New Jersey spillover: you crossed the Delaware river and the cost of living halved. That changed from when we lived there in the early 90s - now there isn't as pronounced a difference. But the point is that the eastern border of PA differs little from suburban New Jersey, and tends to fit the 'red state' stereotype a little less. Once you're past Reading, though... or, for that matter, IN Reading, all bets are off.
I should add that I think Willa enjoyed the intellectual stimulation of arguing about religion. This seriously provoked the Seal Sisters, who felt that she was toying around with Very Serious Matters and tempting God. The Word of God was not meant for cold intellect, but for emotions: fear, reverence, awe.
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em
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Post by em on Jul 24, 2010 22:58:43 GMT -5
I'm from rural Western Pa (near Pittsburgh) no, or perhaps more correctly very very few, fundies around here. I wasn't aware there were a lot out in other parts of the state though. Learn something new every day.
People sicken me. I don't understand how someone can claim to live according to the Bible and act like its every word is sacred yet they totally ignore "whatsoever you do to the least of my people, that you do unto me." I just can't wrap my mind around how people can think they're living a godly, holy life and yet they ignore that and Jesus saying to love thy neighbor better than thyself. Ugh.
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Post by susan on Jul 25, 2010 2:05:47 GMT -5
As always, Sierra, your post really got me thinking. I identify so much with your sense that you weren't as "innocent" as the other girls, so it was a relief to have a friend who you saw as even more rebellious than you.
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Post by Sierra on Jul 25, 2010 9:05:27 GMT -5
I'm from rural Western Pa (near Pittsburgh) no, or perhaps more correctly very very few, fundies around here. I wasn't aware there were a lot out in other parts of the state though. Learn something new every day. People sicken me. I don't understand how someone can claim to live according to the Bible and act like its every word is sacred yet they totally ignore "whatsoever you do to the least of my people, that you do unto me." I just can't wrap my mind around how people can think they're living a godly, holy life and yet they ignore that and Jesus saying to love thy neighbor better than thyself. Ugh. I've never spent any time in Pittsburgh, so I apologize if I painted PA with too broad a brush. I think there's a fair amount of fundamentalism surrounding Amish country (even among the non-Amish). I also know there's a huge pocket of Branhamism in Ohio (their annual family camp is held in Lima). I didn't realize things got more normal in the Pittsburgh area. I think they got around the 'my people' bit by claiming that meant only the Bride/elect, i.e. themselves. They preached stern warnings that any action taken against a member of the Bride would result in unspeakable torment. Like, if you did something to 'stumble' a brother you could expect to get cancer, etc. No such warning about worldly folk - they weren't 'God's people.'
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em
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Posts: 176
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Post by em on Jul 25, 2010 13:08:17 GMT -5
Oh no, Sierra. You didn't paint the state in a bad way really. But yeah. Pittsburgh's fairly normal. I think probably most people in the area are religious, just not crazy fanatical. There's also a pretty large Jewish population as well, though I don't think I ever saw any orthodox Jews (no long denim skirts, very long hair, etc.). Over all, I think around here we're all way more fanatical about our football beliefs than our religious beliefs. Heh. (Um maybe that's giving lie to us being normal. hehe) I can see the central part of the state being fundie though. There's not much there, not many cities really (Hershey and Harrisburg aren't very big really). Very isolated. And even though Pittsburgh and Philadelphia skew towards the left, I think overall it's a pretty conservative state. On the whole, it seems to be a state where just about everybody is religious. There also are the Amish, so obviously it's an area where you're free to practice your own religious beliefs without anybody really commenting or interfering. I can see extreme fundamentalism being ... more acceptable, more tolerated, you'd have fewer people criticizing you or paying attention to what you're doing, that kind of thing. Idk, but now that I think of it I can see it being an attractive environment to fundies. I can't really atriculate it any farther than what I said in the preceeding paragraph, but I can definitely see it now that I think about it. I can see my people meaning only "people who believe the right way, like we do" ... but you're still ignoring tons of stuff in the Bible. Like the fact that Jesus was constantly hanging around the lepers, who were unclean. The parable of the Good Samaritan. There's a verse talking about whatsoever you do to the least of my people that you do unto me that specifically mentions beggars, people in prison, etc. So you know clearly it doesn't mean that. But then what would I know? I'm Catholic, so clearly I don't believe in the proper way and am going to hell of course.
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Post by tbechdel on Jul 26, 2010 10:42:22 GMT -5
This is my first post here, but I thought I would jump in the conversation and say central PA is very fundie/religious/intolerant. While the Amish here are tolerated, I believe it's only because they are fairly reclusive and hey at least they are some form of Christian.
I know this first hand because I am from this area (State College roughly) and diversity is not something that most people like or have even been exposed to. To better illustrate this the population of my small town is 99.8 percent white and about the same percentage are of the Christian faith.
Ignorance, bigotry, and hatred are taught from a early age and racial slurs fall from lips without the bat of an eyelash. I find myself disgusted more times than not. I hate the mindset of the people here, but I love the landscape and the small town feel, so I'm torn.
As an atheist I feel alone, and I am in the prodigal closet, because I fear if I was outspoken about it I would find myself disowned and outcast. I want my daughter to grow up knowing love and tolerance for all people, but in this area teaching such a thing is more than a little difficult. I just hope she turns out like me, and realizes that everyone around her is wrong.
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Post by km on Jul 26, 2010 11:26:51 GMT -5
tbechdel: This was very much my own experience of Central Pennsylvania. Growing up in the South, I learned in history class all my life that the South was where one found the most virulent racism. It was a complete shock to find what I found in Central PA (near the State College area) for the two years that I spent in graduate school there. Racial slurs fell from people's lips far more often than I have ever heard in the South. Black student groups, along with LGBT groups, were getting death threats from the KKK (and other hate groups) while I was there.
What I learned from that experience is that the South may have racism (and it does), but at least people in the South know they're racists, and developed a vocabulary to speak about racial injustice as a result of the Civil Rights struggele that they lived through. Also, they worked hard to keep the Klan and other white supremacist activism out of their communities (and succeeded in many--especially urban Southern--areas, like where I grew up). People also got post-Civil Rights era education, and knew they couldn't go around saying the "n-word." Outside the South, I think all bets are off, and it's probably not uncommon to find extremely racist enclaves similar to what exists in central PA (I have found similar attitudes in the rural parts of Maryland). But I found the people there very self-righteous about all of it. When I tried to teach about critical race theory, my almost-entirely white students became very defensive and almost uniformly suggested that they didn't need to learn about it since "racism is a problem in the South, but not here." I often had to bite my tongue to keep from saying, "Honey, if you grew up in the South, you'd have been educated in proper racial identifiers, and you'd know that 'colored people' is a racial slur in the US while 'people of color' is not. And you wouldn't freak out and act uncomfortable every time you had to identify someone's race or deal with the fact that we're generally not 'color-blind' in America at all."
Those two years were some of the most bleak in my life (not entirely because of my classroom challenges, but they certainly added to my general feeling of "I don't know how to do anything here." My culture shock there was worse than it's ever been (And I've also lived in Quebec and Mozambique). Because I wasn't fluent in the cultural context, and I didn't have any clue how to talk to people who didn't think that PA had racism (and that racism was no longer a problem in the US after Obama was elected, in any case) about racism.
For my own safety, I couldn't push it too much with the anti-racist education in the classroom. Nor could I tell my students that I was not heterosexual, or teach anything that posed useful questions about Christianity (and I'm not an atheist). I can understand loving the area if one has roots there (It's very beautiful indeed.), but it was awful for me. I hope I never have to go back. Just driving back to the area to turn in paperwork recently triggered a panic attack, and the badly polluted air causes asthma attacks and bronchitis infections every time I pass through. It's not all bad, I know, but like I said... It was truly awful for me. I was badly depressed--and couldn't breath well--for those two years.
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Post by kisekileia on Jul 26, 2010 17:49:55 GMT -5
I can confirm this re: rural Maryland. I have a good friend from there, and she has never brought her best friend home because he's brown, and she's worried that he would be attacked as allegedly a Muslim.
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Post by amyrose on Jul 27, 2010 11:00:49 GMT -5
My father's family all lives in rural south central Ohio and their area is extremely racist as are most of them. I think living in an area where they are surrounded in their daily lives by people of the same race, ethnicities, similar religious backgrounds, etc...is the root of the problem.
Here, on the other hand, it's okay for people to be anything but Hispanic. That's the racism I fought on a daily basis in my classroom for the last ten years. And fighting it was part of my undoing in that job.
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