'Blame the Gays' and Other Children's Stories

[intheflow]

Good piece in HuffPo today by my friend Meg Riley, a lesbian UU minister, fantastic parent, and all around loving crusader for social justice.

The latest clergy sex abuse crisis in the Catholic Church has led to some interesting conversations with my 13-year-old daughter.

Always eager to differentiate herself from her minister mother, this teenage child/demon/Boddhisatva has been telling me for a while that she is "Churchophobic," hates religion, and is an atheist. This latest scandal gives her a lot of material to work with.

"You see?" she said to me, holding up the front page's latest allegations about the Pope's complicity in this scandal. "This is why I hate churches! The world would be a much better place without religion."

My primary parent-of-teen reflexes are shrug-and-ignore and tense-up-and-argue. Neither of these is ever effective, including now. In the tense mode, I have already told her, many times, about all of the good that religion and the church bring into the world. In this case, however, beyond my reflexive responses, I am called to a deeper listening to what she is telling me and asking me.

(snip)

More at link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-meg-riley/blame-the-gays-and-other_b_543554.html

[ZombieHorde]

1. Meg Riley has missed the argument against the RCC.

People are outraged over the child rapes, but the RCC has been singled out due to the way it has handled the situation. The RCC protects child rapists and keeps them in situations where they can continue to rape.

Most of Meg Riley's article is insightful and intelligent. I imagine she gives interesting sermons.

[sui generis]

2. I agree with her daughter

Religion as literal truth or worse, "absolute" truth, is essentially glorified superstition.

Religion as a philosophy for living, that's something I can actually tolerate and even accept.

Unfortunately many of the doctrines of religion as a community tool mean that the original thought behind kosher and halal foods, or flame on the sabbath or who you get to sleep with and in what position are intrusive in modern life. They're meant to keep 2nd century (and older) goat herders in line and from doing bad things to the sheep. They're also meant to keep women in line, in many cases and to build an indoctrination that authority and authority in the form of scripture and its interpretations by a chosen few are the only laws that matter.

As a philosophy for life, the kernel of all the variations of the golden rule, and even of the rule of law by extension, that's fine, however one wants to couch it out of tradition. It's when that tradition starts to intrude in our modern lives by getting involved in politics and civil rights, or in contrast, by demonizing what are peoples LIVES --- that's when I start to have a deep personal problem with it.

But her daughter IS right to question whether this particular frilly philosophy taught in the form of parables and made up history using words fit for a goat herder in the form of "god", and "pharaoh", and other nihilistic monikers. What other philosophies are there? What other value systems are there that have the same gains without the same costs?

The best path for her daughter will be the one she chooses for herself.