How to teach children not to feel ashamed due to stigma attached to your religion?

[Anonymous]

My kids were taught not to be unkind. But, we avoid the fundie southern baptist types. We'll be friendly, but they aren't going to be good friends. I grew up in that cult and do not want my children exposed to any part of it.

We are a spiritual family. But, we avoid the controlling, scary churches.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I believe in God and the power of prayer but think all organized religion has done far more harm than good.

Maybe you should pray asking God to stop religion from doing harm.

[Anonymous]

As a Muslim immigrant child to this country, I learned from a very young age not to share my religious affliction with others (and I immigrated here with my parents as a baby in the early 1970s).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As a Muslim immigrant child to this country, I learned from a very young age not to share my religious affliction with others (and I immigrated here with my parents as a baby in the early 1970s).

PP again…and just to elaborate…it was not my parents who taught me to keep my religion hidden. It was all the mean and ignorant comments from others that taught me to keep quiet.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I believe in God and the power of prayer but think all organized religion has done far more harm than good.

How?

Have you read much history?

Tons. Why do you have an opinion that organized religion has done more harm than good?

More people have been killed over religion than anything else. Wars, crusades, pogroms, Holocaust, torture, the Inquisition, forced conversions, forced expulsions. For thousands of years people have been killing each other over a small barren strip of land in the Middle East that doesn’t even have any oil. How stupid is that? And that’s not to mention religious discrimination. John Lennon was right in his song “Imagine” that without religion there would be nothing kill or die for.

Let’s see, Stalin, Hitler, Mao’s Cultural Revolution, Pol Pot collectively killed more than religion.

Are you the historically ignorant OP of the “root religions” thread?

That’s right. Stalin sent Jews east to death camps. Hitler killed six million Jews. But as many as this sounds like, it pales in comparison to the millions killed in religious conflicts over thousands of years. People still kill each other over that barren strip of land in the Middle East. Sunni and Shiite Muslims are slaughtering each other in Yemen. Muslims and Hindus are slaughtering each other in Kashmir.

What a bizarre post. Stalin and Hitler killed millions more besides Jews in the name of their secular ideologies. Putin is killing people in the Ukraine as we speak in the name of geopilitical power.

Also: why do atheists have to hijack every.single.thread?

Because they are free from the control of organized religion, and thus spend their lives thinking about organized religion and discussion of organized religion.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I believe in God and the power of prayer but think all organized religion has done far more harm than good.

How?

Have you read much history?

Tons. Why do you have an opinion that organized religion has done more harm than good?

More people have been killed over religion than anything else. Wars, crusades, pogroms, Holocaust, torture, the Inquisition, forced conversions, forced expulsions. For thousands of years people have been killing each other over a small barren strip of land in the Middle East that doesn’t even have any oil. How stupid is that? And that’s not to mention religious discrimination. John Lennon was right in his song “Imagine” that without religion there would be nothing kill or die for.

Let’s see, Stalin, Hitler, Mao’s Cultural Revolution, Pol Pot collectively killed more than religion.

Are you the historically ignorant OP of the “root religions” thread?

That’s right. Stalin sent Jews east to death camps. Hitler killed six million Jews. But as many as this sounds like, it pales in comparison to the millions killed in religious conflicts over thousands of years. People still kill each other over that barren strip of land in the Middle East. Sunni and Shiite Muslims are slaughtering each other in Yemen. Muslims and Hindus are slaughtering each other in Kashmir.

What a bizarre post. Stalin and Hitler killed millions more besides Jews in the name of their secular ideologies. Putin is killing people in the Ukraine as we speak in the name of geopilitical power.

Also: why do atheists have to hijack every.single.thread?

Because they are free from the control of organized religion, and thus spend their lives thinking about organized religion and discussion of organized religion.

*in discussion of organized religion