<p>zoosermom: With all due respect, if you re-read your original post on the subject, I think you’ll find its implications were quite different from your subsequent clarifications.</p>
<p>No SJM, please don’t keep your thoughts to yourself. I felt like I was being attacked. Believe me I wouldn’t have taken my kids’ word for anything like this without corroboration. I know exactly how kids can be. I had read this thread from the very beginning in one shot just now (I’m home recuperating instead of at work), so the comments about evangelicals proselytizing were completely fresh in my mind and I was just pointing out (badly as it turns out) that religions are populated by imperfect human beings and anyone can say something that is bothersome to others but it doesn’t reflect on the whole. I sincerely apologize for not making that clear.</p>
<p>Hereshoping, it’s got to be me today. Because I don’t see a different implication in the original post. I just see straight-up statements of my situation: “The religion teachers in her high school have been relentless in telling her that she is going to hell. . . . My younger daughter was raised Moravian and attended a Catholic grade school. Last year the bishop came to visit the graduating class and gave a speech about how non-Catholics have no hope of going to heaven.”</p>
<p>I’m being totally serious here because obviously my posting style is problematic. can you tell me what is wrong about that quote? Obviously I didn’t provide context, but I didn’t think anyone would respond to me anyway, but I don’t see any implication in that post at all and certainly no condemnation of the Catholic church. Maybe I’m in a fog, but I know you to be a nice poster and maybe you will help me see where I went wrong.</p>
<p>Zoosermom, I hope your recovery is going well! My best wishes for your health.</p>
<p>Here is one link I could quickly locate that helps explain what Catholics believe about Heaven. What Hereshoping and I are having trouble with, I think, is that we can’t imagine a Catholic clergyman stating something so clearly at odds with Vatican II. <a href=“http://www.americancatholic.org/e-News/FriarJack/fj102803.asp[/url]”>http://www.americancatholic.org/e-News/FriarJack/fj102803.asp</a>
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<p>"Zoosermom, I hope your recovery is going well! My best wishes for your health.</p>
<p>Here is one link I could quickly locate that helps explain what Catholics believe about Heaven. What Hereshoping and I are having trouble with, I think, is that we can’t imagine a Catholic clergyman stating something so clearly at odds with Vatican II"</p>
<p>Thank you so much for the kind words AND for taking the time to inform me. I do appreciate it and find it enlightening. I really think the bishop mis-spoke in the particular circumstances, but he had the grace to seek me out to apologize and make sure my daughter was ok. Which she was. But it WAS said, I didn’t lie about that. The lay teachers in the high school are another issue. In this particular school (the one with the 800-year old Geezer Counselor that I’ve posted about before) the religion teachers are people who were shunted from other departments. This is NOT meant to indicate anything about any other schools or the Catholic religion in general, just a quirk of this school.</p>
<p>"So the Fathers of the Council do not exclude anyone acting in good faith from the possibility of salvation. "</p>
<p>Maybe the religion teachers thought my Brat Child wasn’t acting in good faith? (Kidding) I could see that about her from time to time.</p>
<p>“I suggest that Jews do not put up Christmas trees.”</p>
<p>Holy f***. I’m the third generation of my 100% Jewish family (both sides) to have a Christmas tree, and I’d like to know where you get the nerve to tell me that I’m not a Jew, or not a “self-respecting” Jew. I’d like to bring it to your attention that if you’re right, then the State of Israel doesn’t know what it’s doing, because IT says that I AM a Jew.</p>
<p>The decorations, foods, and songs of a holiday do not equal religious belief. Are you going to tell us that Jews should not celebrate Halloween, because Hallow’s Eve is a pagan religious tradition? Maybe you’d say that there’s nothing inherently religious about jack-o-lanterns and haunted houses. Well, I feel the same way about tinsel and holly.</p>
<p>Hanna, I’ve been waiting for that post (your post). LOL. I was surprised it took that long. ;)</p>
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Is this part of the Jewish tradition? Just seems so incongruous in a post about religion…</p>
<p>HH- why are you asking me that question? I have never said I was a religious scholar</p>
<p>I can look it up fer ya, if you want-I have some thoughts, but of course want to be totally accurate</p>
<p>The point of your question was what, exactly- about the documents themselves, about humanism as a philosophy, about the times they were written, about the people that wrote them, how you can be relgious, secular, and a humanist?</p>
<p>There are some wonderful websites about humanists that talk about current thought</p>
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<p>Actually, it is. Yiddish (my grandparents’ language) has an extraordinary vocabulary of curse words and insults. The asterisks I included are a concession to the modern American culture of discourse.</p>
<p>But you have to admit , however inappropriate it may have been, it was very effective in portraying the simultaneous surprise and anger Hanna felt upon reading Golani’s comments. I felt some level of both when I read them, too but I’m not Jewish. Hanna did it better. ;)</p>
<p>yeah, religious people never swear…uh huh</p>
<p>Hanna, I guess that’s where being ethnically Jewish and a follower of the Jewish faith get jumbled & confused. Your rabi might know all the good Yiddish curse words, but I doubt he’d use them in public! Yiddish has some really great expressions & the translations pale in comparison. </p>
<p>golani also made pronouncements about what “self-respecting” Christians shoud be doing or refraining from doing. He didn’t inspire anger in me; I just think he’s not well-informed. That’s why I suggested a comparitive religions course. I think anyone raised in a very strict or orthodox setting can be unaware of the many levels of participation or adherence to doctrine in his own faith, as well as others.</p>
<p>zoosermom: I would be VERY upset if any teacher told my kid, or ANY other kid, they were going to hell, just to be clear.</p>
<p>Quickly, what I saw in your post was: </p>
<p><…religion teachers (how many? all of them for years?- later clarified to TWO) …were RELENTLESS (implying this was a daily or more than daily occurrence?) in telling her she was going to hell.> Relentless means “steady and persistent.”</p>
<p><<the bishop=“” gave=“” a=“” speech=“” about=“” how=“” non-catholics=“” have=“” no=“” hope=“” of=“” going=“” to=“” heaven.=“”> This implies (states?) that the TOPIC of the speech was about how non-Catholics are going to hell, not just an off-the-cuff phrase, as you later stated. A speech and phrase are very different.</the></p>
<p><daughter decided=“” after=“” that=“” speech=“” not=“” to=“” accept=“” a=“” full=“” scholarship…but=“” go=“” an=“” all-inclusive=“” public=“” school.=“”> So up until this point she felt accepted and was happy at the school (as you later clarified she was “welcomed, loved and nurtured to great success”) but this speech made her change her mind? Implies also the Catholic school was not all-inclusive.</daughter></p>
<p><she loves=“” it=“” and=“” i=“” swear=“” she=“” is=“” on=“” the=“” path=“” to=“” satanism=“” (just=“” kidding).=“”> Implies she disliked her old school, although you later said otherwise. Joke about path to satanism not funny because it’s a dig at Catholics, c’mon (with all due respect).</she></p>
<p>Abrupt segue into:</p>
<p><our denomination=“” is=“” pacifist=“” and=“” ultra-liberal.=“” we=“” do=“” great=“” things=“” in=“” the=“” service=“” of=“” humanity.=“”> (as opposed to service of God at the Catholic school? - implies Catholics don’t serve humanity) and <don’t attempt=“” to=“” convert=“” anyone.=“”> (Is this a reference to Catholics or evangelicals?). </don’t></our></p>
<p><we also=“” have=“” married=“” pastors,=“” women=“” gay=“” pastors=“” and=“” bishops=“” of=“” all=“” stripes.=“”> (reference to opposite doctrine of the Catholic Church–why include it in a paragraph describing your kids’ bad experiences at a Catholic hs if it was just intended as a statement of fact?).</we></p>
<p>That’s just what I read–not to saying you deliberately implied all of that at all. Rest and relax to facilitate your recovery (sometimes it’s better not to turn on the computer!). :)</p>
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I’ll just bet there’s a study out there showing the correlation with attendance at religious services and lack or swearing. I know people who swear a lot and many more who don’t swear at all. They are all educated, nice people. But those who are more religious really do swear less – I’m not sure why.</p>
<p>Hereshoping. Thank you. I really mean that. It was great of you to take the time to clarify for me. I think the problem was in posting so quickly the first time without adequate contextk rather than changing my mind. I’ll be a lot more careful of that next time.</p>
<p>I jsut made that comment because someone talked about religion and swearing and snidely said “is that the jewish part” which was really rude</p>
<p>You know, folks, I think we have to make a distinction between people who practice their religion (especially very pious ones) and people who identify with a religion but <em>don’t practice it.</em> For instance, I know many “lapsed Catholics.” Are they Catholic in my mind? Actually, no. The fact that they were baptized Catholic or raised in Catholic traditions does not make them Catholic if they are not presently following the religion. I have much in common with them, because of our similar backgrounds, but they are NOT Catholic, simply because they USED to be. That’s just the way it is.</p>
<p>I would think it’s even more confusing in the Jewish tradition, since it has various levels of observance (as I understand it-could be wrong): reform, conservative, orthodox, etc. I can understand golani thinking that a non-observant Jew is not a “self-repecting” Jew if they are not strictly observing his religion as he sees it. I think we should cut him some slack, here, and in fact I think it was backhandgrip who first used the phrase, which golani was just agreeing to.</p>
<p>But as it is the mo on this board, people love to jump down the throat of anyone who expresses a strong belief in their religion. :)</p>
<p>You’re welcome! Now back to work for me!</p>