Letting Go of God - Part 5

Biblical Courtship: Just Like Taliban Courtship, Only Better!

Libby Ann is the blogger who emerged from the Quiverfull movement somehow with her self-esteem intact and a sense of her own full worth as a human being somehow unvanquished. In her current series of posts at Love, Joy, Feminism she discusses the courtship rituals in the Quiverfull movement, particularly as they affect girls.

Weeping girl prostrates herself on altar, praying
not to lead men astray by her very existence.

Read Libby Ann's post about Christian courtship. The pervasive conviction about the necessity for policing female "purity", the enthusiastic acceptance of authority of a father and later the husband over daughters, and the belief that, without male authority figures' constant vigilance young women will descend into moral (sexual) disarray is almost indistinguishable from the attitudes of fundamentalist non-Christian religious groups in the middle east, India, Pakistan and Afghanistan. The acceptance among young women that this controlling behaviour is "protection" is chillingly similar to the ideas in which women in the most oppressive societies on the planet also are inculcated, through fear, oppressive social policies and even legal systems based upon misogynist "holy books".

Although the Quiverfull sect of Christianity is extreme in many ways, their philosophy around courtship and marriage  mirrors the resurgent religious fundamentalism in several other Christian sects. Purity ceremonies, at which adolescent girls are pledged to remain virgins until marriage (under the watchful gaze of their fathers or nearest adult male relative) have become ubiquitous in the evangelical Christian communities which have exploded throughout the USA.

With the current rash of laws put forward by conservative Christians limiting women's rights to bodily autonomy, reproductive freedom and equal human rights, it is impossible to ignore these similarities between the professed desires of the rising fundamentalist Christians in this country and those of their spiritual brethren among the fundamentalist religionists of other regions of the world.

In their contempt for and desire to control women, fundamentalist Christians have clearly indicated what the future USA of their dreams would be like should they succeed in forcing the country into Biblical theocracy.

Are we prepared for the consequences if we continue to continue to look the other way?  Will Christian moderates continue to pretend that the fundamentalist version of their cherished religion is different from fundamentalism elsewhere? How long will we continue to kid ourselves that "it can't happen here"?

The Duggars, famous TV Quiverfull family

Letting Go of God - Part 4

Letting Go of God - Part 3

Letting Go of God - Part 2

Gone Fishing

On vacation until July 1. I'll be checking in each day and hopefully I will post a bit, too.  Try not to flood the blog with comments while I am gone. LOL

Letting Go of God - Part 1

Letting Go of God - A Catholic Journey

This really looks like a great mixture of good sense and humour. This is the trailer, and I am hoping to post the entire thing in short segments over the next few weeks.

Julia Sweeney, Letting Go of God.

For anyone interested in listening to the whole thing at once (it is just over 2 hours and very good) here is a link.

Good Luck to Darth Vader Junior, Max Page!

Remember this wonderful VW ad featuring a pint-sized Darth Vader trying to magic things around his house and finally "succeeding" to his immense surprise?

The boy actor, Max Page - who also plays a character on the popular daytime soap "The Young and the Restless"- was born with a heart defect which requires surgery, which he will undergo this week.

Max, though understandably nervous about major open-heart surgery, is determined to put on the best face he can going in. But, even more admirably, Max and his family - along with the ad agency Deutsch - are using this opportunity to help raise money so that other kids with similar diagnoses can get the surgeries they need, too.

At a difficult time, a young boy - and his family and friends - still finds it inside himself to think of other kids who, like him, are facing scary health issues necessitating surgery but who, unlike him, may lack the financial resources or health insurance to get the heathcare they need.

Good luck to you, Max.  May your surgery go perfectly, your recovery run smoothly and swiftly and may you enjoy great happiness and success in your future endeavors!

The Greatest Show On Earth

I'm still struggling with several complex topics, but in the meantime:

Lyrics:


[David Attenborough]
How could one species turn into another?


[Richard Dawkins]
How is it that we find ourselves surrounded by such complexity, such elegance?


[Bill Nye]
The genes of you and me
They're all made of DNA
We're all made of the same chemicals
DNA - we're all made of DNA


[Attenborough]
Only the fittest survive
And that is the key
Natural Selection
That is the key


[Dawkins]
We are surrounded by endless forms
Most beautiful, most wonderful
Evolution - the greatest show on Earth


There is grandeur in this view of life
Evolution - the greatest show on Earth


[Attenborough]
The history of life can be thought of
As a many branched tree
The five kingdoms of life
were established early on


Bacteria
Protists- amoeba like creatures
Fungi
Plants 
And animals


[Dawkins]
We find ourselves perched on one tiny twig
In the midst of a blossoming tree of life


[refrain]


We are surrounded by millions of other species
Walking, flying, burrowing, stalking, chasing, fleeing,
Outpacing


[Attenborough]
Animals strive to reach this one ultimate goal
To ensure the survival of the next generation
This one ultimate goal
To pass on their genes
That is what life is all about


[refrain]


[Dawkins]
As we look back on the history of life
We see a picture of never ending,
ever rejuvinating novelty


[Attenborough]
Those animals may seem to us to be very remote,
strange, even fantastic


But all of us alive today
Owe our very existence to them