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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I mean, were they all child molesters at this church, op? Did they force you to handle snakes?

I would have been uncomfortable, too. But unless you feared for your safety, so what? You were uncomfortable for a few days. I dont understand why you think this was such an unacceptable thing for them to do. Bringing a friend to church while they were under my parents care is exactly what my own parents did and what most other parents I knew did. Uncomfortable, sure. Egregious, not really. [/quote]

Would they ask the friend first?  I think there is a difference when a child is a certain age.  Like if the child is 6-10 I don't even think you would ask-but I think after that its at least polite to ask if they are ok with it.  I also think church is one thing, making a teenager go to the "teen bible study" is going too far and then making the teenager go again on a different day after they said they were uncomfortable is taking it WAY too far.[/quote]

Insert a different religion and see if you respond with such support to the OP.
If this post had been OP sharing how she had stayed with a Muslim family and they had “forced” her to go to their mosque (because they felt responsible for her while she was staying with them for the weekend and didn’t feel like they should leave her alone) and then OP went on and on about how she was super uncomfortable with all the kneeling in the direction of Mecca and praying and such, would you be responding in the sane way or would you be chastising OP for not being open-minded enough to spend a couple of hours outside her comfort zone in appreciation of someone else’s faith traditions? Is it do very hard yo expect a house guest to simply be polite and go along and experience a faith tradition with which thru are unfamiliar? Or is this only
Objectionable when it’s Christianity as the target?[/quote]

In both cases, I would say the kid has to go and be respectful, but should be able to opt out of religious things (i.e., sit in the lobby or waiting room with a book).

And for all the Christians that think this is no big deal and OP is a whiner - would you like it if your 14-15 year old Christian believer child was told for hours that God didn’t exist? Got sent to a class to study why God isn’t real and then was asked what she learned? Or do you think some Christian children might feel   justifiably uncomfortable with 3 days of that?[/quote]

The short answer is I wouldn't randomly pawn my kid off on the hardcore atheist family that visits the local atheist society two or three times a week to begin with.

That being said kids are exposed to atheistic thought period so its not that big of a deal.  I suppose it would depend on whether it was an exposition of the works of Nietzsche or David Hume who are historically significant figures or whether it was just lowbrow Dawkins-style bigotry.

Being ignorant of the Bible is to be ignorant of the most influential book in the development of Western Civilization (and all modern civilization really).  At least people like Nietzsche and Hume were smart enough to realize that.  I find it odd you would want your kid to be purposefully shielded from such a historically significant work, but if you feel that strongly about it then of course you are always welcome to, say, look after your own children?[/quote]

No shit. I wouldn’t leave my kid with a hardcore Christian family either. But that’s not the point. The point was that people think the OP should not have been uncomfortable. Do you still think that if the religions are reversed?[/quote]

She should not have been uncomfortable. These people took her in and cared for her for free, the only family that would. [/quote]

So if a devout Christian with no other place to go was taken in by atheists (for free), the devout teenager should not feel uncomfortable when she’s told repeatedly that God isn’t real. Cool.[/quote]

NP.  Aside, that's pretty unlikely hypothetical.  Religious folks generally do better than atheists at building communities, so its far less likely that a practicing member of a faith would need to go outside of their community to find support than the inverse.  But in that scenario I wouldn't expect the atheist family to hide their beliefs.  Why wouldn't they state what they believe?

Whether they stated their beliefs in a manner that was respectful of the conscience of someone that may disagree is a different matter and in the eye of the beholder.  But stating one's lack of belief in God or gods is not inherently offensive.[/quote]

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