I'll tell a story about something that actually happened:

[MineralMan]

My former wife and I lived across the street from another house. At one point a family with three children bought that house and moved in. The children were a girl of 13, another daughter, aged about 6, and a boy who was 11 years old. They were quiet folks and the children were well-behaved. We got along with them pretty well.

Within a year, the children had made friends with us and often dropped by after school while their parents were at work. We'd talk with them, give them books to read and generally act as safe neighbors they could trust if their parents weren't home.

Then, one day, the oldest daughter came by, crying. My wife asked her what was wrong. She said, "I'm pregnant, I think. This boy at school and I had sex a couple of times and I haven't had my period for two months." My wife said, "have you talked to your mother about this?" "I can't," she said. "If I'm pregnant, my parents will disown me." My wife calmed her down after a while and told her that she really needed to tell her mother, who wouldn't do something like that to her daughter.

My wife was wrong. The girl's parents actually kicked her out of their house, at age 14. She came to us, not knowing what to do. I went over to talk to her parents. They were adamant that no pregnant daughter would ever live in their house. Her father called her a "little slut" and said she'd have to figure it out on her own. "We're finished with her. She has sinned with a boy and cannot live in our home."

Uff da. We talked more to the girl, and asked her if she had other family she could go to. She did. Her mother's sister lived about 100 miles away. So, we had her call her aunt and tell her what had happened. The aunt drove up, had a horrible argument with the girl's parents, and loaded the girl and some clothing into her car and off they went.

We didn't hear much more for a while. Eventually we learned that the aunt took her in, took her to Planned Parenthood, where she was able to terminate the pregnancy. But, as far as I know, she never saw her parents again. They truly cut off all communications with their daughter and with the aunt as well. They were violently opposed to abortion for religious reasons.

Soon, they sold the house and moved away, which was fine, because they had also begun to assault my wife and I, calling us vile names and screaming at us for "taking their daughter away from them," ironically.

Anyhow, the church they went to supported them in their decision to kick their daughter out for "getting pregnant," and shunning her and her aunt for "killing her baby."

One of the weirdest things I've ever encountered, that was. I was never able to really understand how anyone could behave that way and think that it was OK. But, apparently they and the church they went to saw no problem with any of it. Unbelievable. Any religion that would countenance such a thing is almost impossible to believe.

[SWBTATTReg]

1. All I'm doing is shaking my head while I read your story...what can someone say after the so ...

called guardians of a child act in this manner? They should have been charged w/ child abandonment, but I'm sure w/ all of the drama going on, you were all shell shocked by how the parents acted towards their daughter.

[MineralMan]

2. Well, one of the options would have been to alert the local

child protective services, but she had an aunt who was willing to take her in, so we went that direction. That turned out to be the right move, in the end. The girl finished high school and became a beautician. After that, we lost touch with her.

I never did understand the mindset that could do that to a child. I never will.

[Major Nikon]

3. Authoritarianism and religion go together like drunk and disorderly

I know lots of parents and children that are estranged from each other over religion. It usually takes the form of either homosexuality or what they view as promiscuous behavior and goes downhill from there.

Kinda sad when your imaginary friend means more to you than those you brought into the world.

[MineralMan]

4. For me, such religion goes beyond being toxic.

That Christianity can be taken to that kind of extreme place casts a shadow on the whole thing, I believe. And denominations we consider to be more or less mainstream sometimes have extreme things in their histories. Martin Luther's vile antisemitism and the RCC's support for the Inquisition and murderous "Crusades" come to mind. And then, there were the Salem witch trials and the witch burnings in Europe. Add to those things the genocidal activities of Christianity against indigenous peoples all over this planet, and the toxic brew isn't all that tempered by later dilutions of reason.

In sum, I believe religion is a negative influence on society, generally. Here and there we can find churches doing good works and being supporting of social goods, but then we turn around and find a story like the one I just told. The church belonged to by the people in that story was a pentecostalist denomination that seems to me to have lost its humanity altogether. Their connection to the Jesus of the Sermon on the Mount no longer exists. They have abandoned all that is decent in the Gospels and replaced it with all that is intolerant and evil.

Sexual abuse of children that gets covered up and ignored. That happens in all denominations, frankly. It's an endemic evil caused by false trust in leadership of churches. There is no denomination that does not have an abusive history, somewhere along the line.

A pox on it all, I say.

[Major Nikon]

6. Here's the thing about churches doing "good things"

I'm sure there are those who credit their religion for their good deeds, but such people would probably be doing such things with or without religion. So it may be true that organized religion facilitates such things, but it's really a very inefficient way to do it given most of their resources are going to other things.

If one imagines a world without organized religion, people would still be forming benevolent secular organizations to help other people. You'd still have people donating and volunteering to those organizations. The difference would be you wouldn't be expending a lot of resources doing things that really have absolutely nothing with helping anyone.

So even if you disregard all the bad things that organized religion does, which is significant, you are still left with a poor substitute for doing anything truly meaningful.

[Pope George Ringo II]

8. What a lovely comparison of things which go together.

Chocolate and peanut butter have nothing on those.

[guillaumeb]

5. A sad story indeed. eom

[MineralMan]

7. What part do you find sad, Guy?

One is never quite sure...