K2 yesterday: who is jesuf?
Me: Jesus?
K2: yes.
Me: some person who supposedly lived, why?
K2: because of a play we were doing.
Me: Aah, OK. Can you tell me about the play?
K2 proceeds to explain which of his friends was the donkey, the cow, and that he was "the music of the bees", and it's all appropriately disjointed in the way that I think many parents experience with bemusement, until it gets properly confusing. Because some kids were "the boy and the girl", and some were "jesuf"...
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from jens@social.finkhaeuser.de
... and his wife.
Hang on, Jesus didn't have a wife (just a bunch of women following him around and doing foot washing kink stuff with him, but I'm keeping that to myself), so...
Me: do you mean Joseph and Maria?
It takes a while to separate out that Joseph and Jesus are different names.
K1 pipes in: Jesus used to be a name.
Me: it still is!
K1 is astounded, but K2 continues...
Anyway, Jesuf and Maria and blah blah blah....
K1: it's just a story people tell!
Me: yes, it's been told...
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from jens@social.finkhaeuser.de
... for a long, long time now, so I kind of want to know how they're telling it now.
K2 continues a bit, then stops.
Apparently the mystery or "Jesuf" is solved.
Different conversation with K1 the other day.
K1: where are all those people going to?
Me: I don't really know... oh, it looks like they might be going to church there.
K1: that's our church!!??
Me: yup.
K1: I wish we could go there.
Me: uh, why?
K1: just to see what it looks like.
Me: oh, we can do that, for sure!
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from jens@social.finkhaeuser.de
The point is, I think that the "we live in a predominantly Christian country so kids need to learn what it's all about" is, frankly, bullshit. It's more about what you want them to know than about what they need.
I have no problem with talking with my kids about Christianity, nor do I mind when they're curious about what others have told them.
But their curiosity only extends so far. The rest is you taking out the religious trauma you received on your kids.
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from jens@social.finkhaeuser.de
@jens I was brought up literally atheist. As in entirely without god(s).
My father is listed on my birth certificate as "Katholisch" but ... ah ... I'd never seen him set foot in a church except to look at it as a tourist at any point in my life. My mother is nominally Buddhist, but that boils down to a few decorative things around the house and some stock phrases that are like saying "God Bless" in the southern USA: rote and spoken without belief.
🧵 ▶️
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from zdl@mastodon.online
@jens This led me to be exposed to religion without indoctrination (not even "atheist indoctrination" because the entire concept of gods and supernatural belief wasn't even brought up in my home, pro or con). And for a while I was a Baptist, which my parents wisely left uncommented-upon. If I asked they'd share their opinion with me, but there was no (anti-)proselytization. It was my life and my choice. And that was the smartest thing they could have done.
🧵 ▶️
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from zdl@mastodon.online
@jens I was a Baptist for a while until the weight of internal and external contradictions collapsed it all into a heap. Then I was a big-A Atheist for a time: the Dawkins style (before Dawkins was a big thing) of condescending and combative atheist. That mellowed over time and I started to find that approach to things increasingly empty, especially in the face of some of the stuff I'd been reading in lay-level cognitive science.
🧵 ▶️
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from zdl@mastodon.online
@jens I experimented a while with other religious traditions but again they fell flat when it came to reconciling what was supposed to be believed and what actually was.
So I slid back into atheism, but this time the small-a variety. The less combative, more accepting kind. In the end, I guess, I sense kindred spirits in those who are religious: they find something lacking in what's offered them and look for answers outside of it, but chose a different path than mine.
🧵 ▶️
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from zdl@mastodon.online
@jens I also found that the rituals of superstitious belief have actual, real-world, measurable effects on people: not because of something supernatural, mind, but rather because of a sort of calming detachment they bring about that can introduce a new perspective on things that trouble them.
🧵 ▶️
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from zdl@mastodon.online
@jens It's the same reason why I use divination techniques: tarot, 灵棋经, etc. when I'm at an impasse. I don't believe they have predictive validity, but the near-meditative mechanics of them paired with the forced outside perspective that has to be incorporated into thinking about problems leads to fresh approaches.
So I am atheist (albeit with sympathies lying in the Buddhist direction), but I'm not an Atheist. And I agree with you.
🧵 ▶️
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from zdl@mastodon.online
@zdl I did use tarot at some point for this reason, but realized it only provided the answers I didn't want to hear, and the excuses I found convenient...
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from jens@social.finkhaeuser.de
@jens The 易经 (Yijing/I-Ching) is more hard-headed that way. Its divinations are based on a moral system. It will always shove your face into what you're doing wrong.
🤣
=> More informations about this toot | More toots from zdl@mastodon.online This content has been proxied by September (3851b).Proxy Information
text/gemini