NJY - I understand your concern to protect your kids from religious indoctrination and keep them away from cults and make sure that they can make up their own minds. I am fully onside with that - I fight a guerrila war with my missus every day to protect my son from the WBTS cult and to help him develop critical thinking skills. I am winning that war overwhelmingly. Celebrating normal holidays has been an important weapon in my arsenal. I can't help but feel your attitude to Christams remians heavily influenced by your Witness background. I htink you have created a bit of a strawman by seeing celebrating Christamas as a slippery slope to being sucked into another cult. There is no evidence to support this risk. It is a bit like the domino theory the US used as a pretext to fight the Vietnam War. I think the main point about Christmas that churches lament is that it has lost its religious significance to a great extent. Anyway you are entitled to your opinion but to my mind Xmas is harmless fun provided you don't get sucked in by commercialism and end up in January wallowed in debt.
Christmas - love it or leave it?
by Xanthippe 51 Replies latest jw friends
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notjustyet
Xanthippe
WHAT,..you mean there's Christmas parties at school?,.. Oh HELL NO they didnt!!! ( just kidding)
But seriously, I did not know how in the world they would be able to do this stuff, with the supposed seperation of church and state.
I would not object to them participating in something in school but for some reason I would object with it being a in house belief system. I'm guessing that the thumbs up for the school party would be viewed more as a "play along for the nod of the masses" where the house version would be "You mean you REALLY beleive this stuff!!"
Frazzeled UBM
I know that other main stream religions are not listed as a cult per se but feel that it still insist on a mindset of "You need us as a intercessor for your sins, since you are an imperfect being that needs a god to lean on in hard times and will be there holding your hand when you are feeling down" ( is this a Simon and Garfunkel song, sorry if it is, sounds like one haha)
So I see mainstream religions as not as dangerous to the mind as a cult, but still dangerous in a sense as they "partition" the mind a bit and use some of the resources of the mind that could prevent a person from being all that they can be mentally. I want my and my childrens framework of reality to be in alignment with REALITY as much as possible as I feel that this will allow them to make better unencumbered decisions throughout life.
I want to believe in as many true things, and as few wrong things in life as possible. Since I don't believe in a supreme creator I feel that "going down that road of religious belief" is muddying the water, as it were.
I feel that life can be viewed as looking through a piece of glass. When we were young, we started with a clean piece of glass then the well meaning parents started spattering some muddy water on the glass making it harder to see clearly ahead. I have worked long and hard to get that glass clean enough to realize what my parents etc , well meaning as they were, did to my view of life. I finally was able to clean off my piece of glass and also that of my children. The last thing that I want to do is to start spattering on some other debis into their view that will just make it harder to see clearly the road ahead.
I understand that celebrating Xmas can be a good tool into drawing the kids mentally further away from the teachings of the Jws and letting them enjoy this "swing to the other side of the spectrum" belief wise. I just feel that if it's possible to mentally get them out without having to go there it would be better.
I thought that would be the last analogy, but thought of one more.
Getting surgery to remove a tumor, ( sorry WTBTS, got to go) and afterward the Doctor gives a prescription for the pain but you find out that the prescription can be adidictive for some people. Do you suffer through the pain the days afterward by refusing to take the medication or do you take it to ease the pain for a few days but only to realize that you are now fighting an addiction? I know that this seems kinda harsh to some, but that is how I view it, geting too close to this "fun day" can be mentally entrapping to the mind to just turn into a "sheeple" and just go along with the masses just because that is what the masses think is okay to do.
NJY