I love the way you word this. Because it is so right on the mark, and yet so wrong-headed. Not because it’s an inept observation, but because of the opposite.
My family found their way to Christianity, and once they did, it became like the understanding of a royal birthright. I had to convert and decide to get baptized, because I was almost a teenager and had to make that “choice” as my parents had a couple years before. But when my sister was born when I was fourteen…she was an automatic Christian. She still had to jump through the accept-Jesus-into-your-heart John 3:16 hoop, but it was a given.
The reason I find this fascinating is that a religion like Christianity is inherently a choice. Whereas being gay, is not.
It’s weird that one is protected and pretends to be under assault in this country, while assaulting the other. [Yes, I realize this is a generalization. And that I’m using the term “assault” not to just mean physical violence, but vocal…and legal.]
Well, not really. Some religious folks think that other religions may be valid too. For instance Judaism teaches Jews the rules they have to follow, but leaves open the possibility that others do or believe differently. Buddhists are allowed to simultaneously subscribe to other religions. And the relationship between Islam and Judaism/Christianity is kind of like that between relativity and Newtonian physics: the latter was not “wrong” per se, but it’s been superceded.
Christians are really the exception, they are commanded to spread their religion.
should be mandatory in our schools. Would give people a better appreciation of just how lucky they are to be in their particular situation. I plan on “playing” this with my girls so they understand more about the world abroad. SPOILER: Most of your “lives” in this game will start out in India or China.
Your situation is not unique, but it isn’t the most common. Most people simply ‘are’ the religion to which they were born.
I’ve long thought the same as @rowe33, but with the point being that I find it amazing more people do not realize that they would be just as religiously religious about a different religion, had they only been born somewhere else. It was a ‘religions of the world’ day in elementary Sunday school that caused me to think that thought, and I never looked back.
This looks interesting and I was going to show this to my grade-school daughter. Then I read a review on RPS, and I think I’ll need to wait a bit.
At 14 I’m given the choice of whether to start smoking or not. I decline. At 15 the game asks whether I want to start making charitable donations which will benefit my conscience… I’m a teenage orphan working as a subsistence farmer. “Decided not to give money to charity.” reads the in-game activity log. I click “okay” to move the game along. “You have been raped,” says the game.
It’s based entirely on statistics unique to each country so I guess that would be a realistic scenario. Maybe screen the events each time they advance :D
It’s not a perfect program by any means but it does give a lot of great insight about your place in the world.
Yep, pretty much this. I know some fervently Christian gun nuts from Texas that I went to high school with, and they absolutely hate Muslims. Loathe them. Think they’re out to get all the God-fearing white folks. I mean they’re really f’ing crazy people. But if they were born in the Middle East instead…
I didn’t mean to sidetrack our great leader’s wisdom with a religious debate though, so sorry if I’ve gotten us off the rails a bit.
This is an interesting point, I think. It is a bit hindered by the fact that if you are born to a mother who is Jewish, you are automatically a Jew. But people can decide to become Jewish. To convert. And make the decisions to observe holidays and laws like eating kosher food or removing Chametz from their homes during Passover.
Still, there is some validity to your point. With the caveat that while some religions might recognize your right to choose your own religion that is Other, they don’t think it’s valid. They just disregard it. Other religions want to eradicate those who subscribe to a different belief system.
You have not. He has chosen to Pinterest abortion as his 2020 plan. I’m in an online debate about late-term abortion with an online Christian friend, who insists upon talking about God when he makes points about babies brains being sucked out, but demands I not talk about how God doesn’t bother to stop this in my rebuttal. The president is clearly using religion as a fulcrum here, so you have no reason to apologize.
You can add skin color, financial status, and education as a few more things that you don’t choose when you’re born. If you’re born to a poor family in a bad school district, you’re going to get a shitty education. You’re going to grow up with fewer advantages than others with luckier birth situations. Yet Christianity’s alliance with the GOP ends up crapping on all of them. It’s such a bizarre arrangement.
My wife and I were both born into Catholic families but have long abandoned that faith and its various…“issues”. We didn’t have our girls baptized though they’re welcome to choose a religious path when they’re ready. I’ve gotten a little heat about it from my mom but that’s about it. It really doesn’t come up much at all. We chose not to saddle them with a religion that they didn’t choose but I don’t necessarily judge others for doing so. I do disagree with them though.
I’m in a similar boat. Not sure what size it is in cubits.
I do see the value in the relationships I made in my youth group, back in the day. For the most part. Some of them were crappy. But I can see why it was such a boon to my parents now that I’m the parent of a teenager. I mean, just for practical purposes. I had constructive use of my time. I was meeting decent people. I was, again for practical purposes, out of their hair for a few evenings a week. Youth group. Church softball. Choir. They could drop me off and not worry about what I was up to, and I had stuff for my college resume.
My kid goes to the mall. I mean, he does more than that. He plays soccer. But mainly he wants to go to the mall. I’m not as crazy about the friends he hangs out with there. Which is something my folks didn’t have to worry about as much. Since my best friend was the youth minister’s younger brother. So there were good things about it too.
I honestly didn’t even know that going to the mall was a thing anymore. It is. I figured Amazon had stopped that. Amazon has not.
I definitely understand that line of thinking & I’m sure my parents were the same. The church group is a safe place, where people of good character can get together, etc. Except all of these people are humans with their own personal evils and struggles. I think it’d be great if we had non-religious community groups where good values and morals were the connection instead of a common faith. Look at all the parents of altar boys & the like, who thought they were doing the right thing and keeping their kids out of trouble by letting them spend time alone with priests, just as an example. I know you already know all this, just a bit frustrated at the way much of society equates religious groups with good morals & behavior, despite the obvious hypocrisy it ignores.
I have no experience with the mall yet, as our girls are still babies at 7 and 4! And will remain that way, according to the verbal contracts they’ve each agreed to with me.
The best thing I’ve seen along these lines is the Kendo group I’ve had contact with in our area (Kendo is a martial art where people hit each other on the head with sticks). They are a small Korean group (so technically it’s Kumdo), and they are polite and utterly inclusive. The Master of the group (forgive me…I don’t know if the term ‘dojo’ is appropriate) also runs a youth volunteer organization that cleans up local parks.
The first time I had contact with them was when I went to watch a training session my girlfriend and her son were attending, as they had joined. It was at a local community center. I was shy about going in and was just going to stay outside the gym and watch through the doorway. One of the women members immediately approached me and welcomed me in, noting with a smile that I noticed to take off my shoes, and one of the men there immediately got me a chair and got me to sit down.
All that is to say that there are such community groups. We just have to seek them out. I’m having a hard time with that with my son, because I want him to have those experiences, but not at church or the mall.
That said, if my son were to choose a faith to follow, or a church to join, I’d be open to that. I’ve always been clear about that with him. I’d just help him navigate the choice. If you know what I mean. Having lived on both sides.
I appreciate the honesty and sharing in this thread, and I don’t want to seem flippant or disrespectful of your story here, but this comment mixed with the recent discussions of SJGames in other threads made me fondly remember the game ‘In Nomine’, which is an RPG which posits a supernatural contemporary world with literal Angels and Demons in a cold war on earth. With earthly centers of influence (“Tethers”) for each faction being places like churches O:) and malls 3:)
Edit: and apparently I never learned how to do discourse emojis 😇👿
This is actually fascinating, and I don’t find it flippant at all. Since when you mention Angels and Demons in a cold war on Earth, I immediately think of Constantine. So I like the connection.
The North Korean propagandists couldn’t hope for more; this must surpass all their expectations.
The North Korea regime is just about the closest thing to absolute evil there is in the world, and the blithering of that clown Trump must dampen the hope of Koreans trying to resist it on both sides of the border.
