A 10 Year Old’s Wisdom

First a little background on this story:  My wife as previously stated is a Jehovah’s Witness, although not as dedicated as she once was.  She is an old fashioned disciplinarian with our kids.  By that I mean if our kids step out of line, they will get punished via a spanking (not as much any more, but used to be), grounding, items taken away, or a combination of all–with no chance of getting said items back until the date specified when punished.  Our kids know this and are the best behaved children of ANYONE I know.  And I know a lot of people with kids.

My oldest children are a son, 10, and a daughter, 9.  My son has a friend who lives up the street who is the same age, and he has an older brother who is 12.  Both of these boys are good kids.  Over the past year both my son and daughter go over their house and they frequently are at ours as well.  My wife and the boys mom get along good, although not in a best friend let’s go shopping type of way.  They attend an evangelical church.  A fairly popular one that even a few of my co-workers go to.   

The 12 year old has another friend that sometimes goes over to their house at the same time my kids do, and apparently he often teases my daughter.  From what my son says, he puts on a good show when the other boys mom is around but starts in when she isn’t there.  Reminds me of Eddie Haskell actually (the link is for all you under 25 individuals that have no idea who Eddie Haskell is).  My son and the eldest friend have apparently asked him to stop but to no avail, and who knows how hard they really tried.  And they did not tell the boys mom.  

We have attempted to solve this by not allowing my daughter to go over if we know or think the third friend is going to be there.  While truthfully I am not 100% happy with this solution-as I don’t mind a confrontation, it does at least eliminate the possibility of causing some parents to have some bitterness towards each other or each other’s children.  Although for my wife and I it is too late I suppose.  So my son went over yesterday and the boys mom asked why my daughter didn’t come, and being the honest boy that he is he told her the story above, sans the Eddie Haskell reference. 

This brings me to the reason I decided to write about this.  Her response to my son was something along these lines (keep in mind I am paraphrasing a 10 year old):  He (the third boy) is in the Catholic Church so he isn’t as disciplined or basically as spiritual as our kids and hers.  My son’s response was what does the church matter?  When my mom disciplines us it has nothing to do with the church.  Of course that’s what he said he told her, I don’t know if he was that blunt about it.

First and foremost:  That’s My Boy!

This situation brings up many different topics-including if we or my wife should confront the mother of the third child, but of course,   I will focus on the religious part.  I think the most important thing is exactly what my son said.  When it comes to raising and disciplining your children, religion doesn’t matter!  What matters is the parents.  Luckily I have a job where my wife can stay home with the kids.  I have excellent children, and I attribute a large part of that to her and the fact she can spend time with them.  Of course I say this now but reserve the right to retract it in their teen years.  My wife will credit her religion for the way she has raised the kids.  But I know her and it wouldn’t matter if she was in another religion or not in one altogether.  She instills them with her morals, which have nothing to do with a belief in a supreme being, and she never pressures them in the religion the way my nieces and nephews are.  We know a good number of Jehovah’s Witnesses too and our kids are much better behaved than them also.

So, as has been brought up in other blogs lately, including but not limited to here and here, why do many still attribute morals (or a lack thereof), to religion?  And while I found the remark about the third boy being Catholic being part of his problem humorous, I don’t really believe that to be the case.  Everyone gets taught the difference between good and bad at an early age no matter what religion you are in.  It is then up to the parents to reinforce these beliefs.  And if no one is reinforcing, you get incidents like this.

I Love This Woman

Last night I am reading my comments as well as the comments on Mary’s post about preaching atheism on de-Conversion (not used to the name yet).  Without me noticing her presence, my wife starts reading over my shoulder.

 Uh Oh.

I had told her about me writing a blog, and she knows I participate in some message boards about sports.  But I hadn’t really told her I was writing as much as I have.  And that it had turned to be more specific about atheism and included some Jehovah’s Witness information that I don’t agree with.

My wife isn’t much into computers, she can work her way around google and youtube and type a letter in word, but other than that she avoids them.  She was initially more concerned I was chatting with women.  Once that was resoved she read some of my posts.

Then we talked.  And we talked some more.

She asked some questions, like why we don’t talk about some issues, like the blood issue I wrote about earlier this week or the post I wrote about when I was younger and decided I didn’t believe in God.  And I told her the truth.  My wife is an emotionally driven person.  If she is upset she will argue.  If she is happy she is radiant.  If she is sad she will cry.  Even in a mild disagreement she will raise her voice.  Imagine in a topic she is passionate about.  I don’t need these types of arguments, when I can have them peacefully on the internet.  I even showed her Mary’s topic above, which is what she caught me reading anyway, and my comment about her on that topic, that she could never be swayed and I know that and am fine with it. 

But she wouldn’t let me off that easy.  She wanted to know why I thought she couldn’t be swayed.  I told her it’s simple.  I could show her some evidence and she would still believe.  So we briefly discussed some Bible issues that we haven’t talked about in years.  We also briefly touched on parts of my wife’s life that stay with her today.  I am not going to do into detail, as I probably already reveal more than she would like me to on here.  Let’s just say she didn’t have the best childhood, and luckily both her and her family worked their way out of it.  And they will all credit religion and Jehovah’s Witnesses for helping them along the way.  Obviously I will say it was their own resolve, but I will never win that disagreement.  Her blunt bottom line is there has to be something else, because life sucks too much for this to be all there is.  I have to admit she makes me want to wish she was right.

Did I mention I Love This Woman?

A Blood Problem

I have been working on this topic for a couple of weeks, but a post by The Spanish Inquisitor about Indoctrination jump started me to finish this post.

One of the biggest arguments my wife and I have ever had was about blood transfusions.  As previously mentioned, my wife had gotten out of The Truth when we were first together.  By the time she was pregnant with our second child she was once again involved in her religion.  I was still new to JW’s and what they believed, and one day she made a passing statement that if anything happened in delivery that she couldn’t have a blood transfusion.  This was the first time I had heard this and it was baffling to me.  She brought home some literature for me to read about it, and it is still as baffling to me today as it was then.

The Bible verses they claim support this belief are Genesis 9:4, Leviticus 17:12-14, Acts 15:20 & 29, and Acts 21:25.

Now, I am not the expert of the Bible that some on a number of blogs I read are.  I am not a reformed Christian that read the Bible for a number of years before realizing I didn’t believe it.  I read it when I was younger and decided I didn’t believe in it, and rarely picked it up after that, until I met my wife. 

First and foremost, I don’t believe the Bible so no matter how many verses she would show me I would disagree.  But to me, even if I was a Christian, it seems obvious to me that the verses are talking about different things occuring in a much older and different world. 

Gen 9:4 “But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat“–seems to say that you cannot eat meat with blood, or basically eat raw meat.

Lev 17:12-14 “You shall eat the blood of no manner of flesh“–where they get this to mean blood transfusions I have no idea, and while it says flesh, which by itself in our terms today would seem to mean human, the verse before is talking of beast and fowl, which clearly implies (to me anyway) when you hunt you must cook the meat. 

Acts 15: 20 & 29; 21:25 ”Abstain from blood“–This is very vague.  But two thousand years ago, blood transfusions were not even thought of.  Taken into that context with the verses from the OT, it seems to be a reinforcement to not consume animal blood.

From these verses the main point that gets across to me is the consumption of blood.  If you go to the Watchtower website they have an absurd article discussing the history of blood transfusions.  They probably had a lot of support during the 80’s and 90’s with many news stories of tainted blood with AIDS and hepatitis.  And, without belittling the people effected by these tragedies, many lives are saved by blood transfusions every day.  The Watchtower Society was also against organ transplants for a number of years, claiming it bordered on cannibalism.  Yet, in 1980 they quietly revoked that decision and now even praise it.  Some JW’s are coming out against the blood transfusion decision and are trying to get them to change their ways.  If you are a JW and you question these issues I highly recommend this site.

This brings me back to the main focus of this post.  At the time, I could not convince my wife in a worse case scenario to get a blood transfusion.  This was a little worrisome.  Even though realistically blood transfusions are rare, one of the more common instances where they are performed is on mothers during a baby’s delivery.  Fortunately, we found a doctor who was willing to go a bloodless route if necessary, and it was unneeded anyway.  But now there is the next argument.  What happens if one of our children ever need a transfusion?  Once again, statistically they will probably not need one as a youth, if ever.  But as a parent, you always have it in the back of your mind.  What if?  And the last thing you want is a husband and wife having a throw down argument in the middle of a hospital.  After some research I found that until the age of 12, most states will get a court order if needed in such situations to allow hospitals to get blood transfusions.  But even before I layed that out, my wife conceded if the situation were to ever happen, she would allow the transfusions until they were baptised in the Truth, and then it would be up to them.  Another small victory for me.  And because of the non-chalance of this writing, it may seem as if this was an easy win, but this was a large fight with a lot of screaming.  By my wife of course, I am a mellow easy going dude 

However this still brings up some issues I may have in the future with my wife and children.  The Indoctrination post mentioned above got me thinking about it.  Am I doing my children a disservice by not being more proactive in their early religious development?  While my wife has conceded some points, my children are still being raised as JW’s even if they have an atheist dad.  I haven’t previously had a large problems with it.  My wife and her family are very good moral people, and I think The Truth does help them with that to some extent.  I always thought I could kind of show my children my beliefs as they got older and could understand more.  Yet, the longer this goes the harder that gets. 

They Say It’s Your Birthday

It’s my birthday too!

Actually my birthday was yesterday.  I am now one year away from the big 4-0.  I am getting old.  Since I had to work late yesterday my wife is getting me a cake and cooking me a dinner for my birthday tonight.  Now, to the average person reading, this may not seem like such a big deal.  But to anyone who has read some of my previous posts and know that my wife is a Jehovah’s Witness and also knows that JW’s don’t celebrate birthdays would realize this is a pretty big deal.

A quick recap.  When my wife and I were dating we ended up living together before we were married.  She was disfellowshipped from The Truth.  After we were married, she let me know she wanted to get re-instated in her religion.  I knew virtually nothing about JW’s, and I of course told her it was fine with me, whatever made her happy.  I knew the odds were no matter who I married there was a good chance of them being religious, but I didn’t know anything about her religion at the time.

I would soon find out.  We had a lot of problems the first couple of years of our marriage.  JW’s do not celebrate any holidays.  We had children, and I told her that the day my kids were born one of the best days of my life, and I am going to celebrate it with them whether she liked it or not.  This was the old internet days with dial up, but there were a few websites discussing religions, and I found one really good one about Witnesses.  I also read Kingdom of the Cults, which is really a book showing how JW’s, Mormons, and 7th Day Adventists are the wrong religion compared to evangelical Christians, but it still had a lot of information about JW’s that I previously did not have.

If anyone has tried to debate with a JW, you know they are pretty knowledgeable in the Bible (at least their version).  They are indoctrined, and keep in mind, my wife was raised in The Truth, which means this was all she knew.  And the Watchtower Society tries to keep it that way.   They are discouraged from reading any other literature.  I was in sales for a long time, and after awhile, you read enough books by Zig Ziglar and Tom Hopkins and the like and you eventually have an answer to every objection a client may have.  Well, JW’s are the same on the religious objection front.  This is how they get new members by having all of the answers that a person that believes in God but isn’t getting good answers in their own church/congregation.  At first my wife had all of the answers to why we couldn’t celebrate holidays, or even my initial attempts to get her to look at evolution or some conflicts with the Bible.  They have a standard answer to nearly every question, and if you press further, they will refer you to a specific Watchtower article.  To give you an idea how bad it was, my brother was married in a Catholic Church a couple of months after we were married, and she had what came down as an anxiety attack at the rehearsal because she couldn’t stand being in the church.  At the actual wedding she ended up just watching all of the kids in the daycare so she wouldn’t have to be in the pews.

My wife’s mother was 100% involved in The Truth and made sure her kids were as well.  They were pulled out of school when they had and could not participate in numerous events (Christmas parties, anything involving Easter, etc).  Things like that made it very hard to have and maintain friends in school, and she received a lot of discrimination-not to mention that’s the way the Watchtower Society wants it anyway.  She was basically sheltered from the real world.  There was no way I was going to let my kids be raised that way.  I do not mind exposing them to religion, but they need to know about everything out there and not just be exposed to someone’s “Truth.”

My wife, our marriage, and myself have come a long way since then.  All marriages involve some compromise, and ours had plenty.  She finally stood up to some of her family and said, this is who I am married to and we will do some of the things he wants such as birthdays (and we spend Christmas with my family which is out of state).  I have learned a lot about JW’s.  I have went to a number of meetings and almost every Memorial since we have been married.  I agree with very little of their beliefs, but I give them credit as far as the amount of studying they do, and they are one of the few religions that hold their member accountable.  If you do not participate, they will boot you out.  For the most part they are all good people. 

All of that being said, after much persuasion, my wife finally read some of the research I did on JW’s and the Watchtower Society.  The 1914 and 1975 predictions loom large and she finally took some closer looks at it.  I have shown her articles about blood donations, and while she is still iffy on that she is at least listening now, where previously she was unmoveable on that topic. 

My wife is much too emotional and spiritual to be like me and become an athiest, but I think if there was a way out without the repercussions of her family that she would choose another Christian church.  I think the diversity of her spiritualness and my atheism is healthy for both us and the kids.  If my kids choose to stay JW’s and are happy then I will be happy.  But they will at least be aware of other religions and will be exposed to my own free thinking beliefs as well.  For a good deconversion story read a new post from evanescence.

Now, it’s almost time for my cake….

New and Improved

I have decided to make another blog.  I will keep this blog as my primary religion, marriage, taxes, politics, and general ranting blog.  The new blog is here and will discuss my more general personal life (basically one I can let my family and friends read without worrying about what I say), so if anyone who is reading my religious views would still like to see a more personal side they can still visit.  Obviously that site won’t link back here.  I already moved yesterday’s post there, but I will probably keep most of my other old posts intact.  My wife already knows me and my feelings, and our relationship is great.  The few times we have had major problems has been when her family (the majority being Jehovah’s Witnesses) interferes because I celebrate our children’s birthday’s or something to that effect.  So I don’t want to give them any reason to give my wife grief over something I am doing should someone stumble across this blog.

Just in the short time I have been doing this I have found many blogs about religion in general, and many specific ones about JW’s, fundamentalism, atheism, agnosticism, mormonism, and countless others.  But I have not found too many that specifically discuss the marriage of two people with such contrasting beliefs.  Sure, when a Lutheran marries a Catholic there are some minor issues, but we are talking two opposite ends of the spectrum here, and I think some good discussions can be had on this topic and many others.

More coming soon…

Never Opened Myself This Way

When I started this blog, I wasn’t sure where I wanted to go with it, and I am still unsure.  I have a lot of interests, and I can also rant about a lot of things.   When I decided to post my beliefs about religion on my last post I started reading a few blogs on similar topics, and there are a number of excellent blogs that have very good opinions dedicated to the very topic, my two favorite being http://agnosticatheism.wordpress.com/ and http://evolutionspace.wordpress.com/. 

After visiting the above blogs and others I noticed a lot of the better ones are topic specific, and I was considering trying to do emulate that.  But even though I know a lot about sports I would get bored with that after awhile I think.  Plus there are about 500,000 sports blogs out there already.  I was also surprised at both the number of evolutionist, atheist, fundamentalist, and various other religion based blogs are out there.  And most of the authors of those blogs are much more informed on those particular topics than myself.  So for now I have decided to keep doing my rambling random thoughts.

Now, to continue where I left off.  So how did an agnostic-atheist ever get married to a Jehovah’s Witness?  How are they still married?

First, let me start out by saying Jehovah’s Witnesses get a bad rap.  I didn’t know a thing about them before I met my wife, and my mental image of a Jehovah’s Witness before I her was a picture of a Hare Krishna with a tamborine.  Which probably came from some sitcom or TV show in the 60’s or 70’s.  I thought of it as a true cult ala the recent Heaven’s Gate or something like that.  Now, there is definitely some cult characteristics in Jehovah’s Witnesses, but it is nothing like those. 

A devout Jehovah’s Witness studies the Bible regularly.  Granted, it’s their own version which many biblical scholars question their translation (and as per my previous post, you can probably guess that it doesn’t really matter to me the translation).  Jehovah’s Witnesses do not believe in Hell.  If you are evil or “wicked” in their terms, then when you die you die.  They don’t believe in a heaven per se, they believe that Paradise will happen on earth when Jehovah gets rid of all of the wicked people.  And the good people that died in the past will be a part of that resurrection.  You can learn more of the basics at their page on wikipedia–http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jehovah%27s_witnesses.  All of that being said, I have been to a number of Witness “meetings” with my wife, and in the past I have been to countless other church sermons, including Methodist, Lutheran, Catholic, and Baptist.  And while all have their differences, they are all very similar as well.  Every group seems to tweak the Bible’s meanings to their liking, and while most devout believers in any of the faiths probably think theirs is the best, or truest, or whatever, really they are all about the same thing.  When we die, if you are good and obeyed God’s law, you go to Heaven or Paradise, if you are evil you die or go to Hell.

When my wife and I were first married, we had a few issues over religion.  I think when we were dating she thought she would somehow convert me eventually.  Keep in mind, she was born into the religion, her mother became a Witness when she was very young.  It was all she knew.  One thing that does make the Witnesses cultish, is if an entire family is in the Truth (another name for them), and one of the members of the family isn’t doing right, they can get disfellowshipped, or kicked out.  It is then encouraged to the rest of the family to not associate themselves with that family member until they change their evil ways.  Now, before my wife and I were married we lived together, and her family got her disfellowshipped.  When that happened I was actually happy because I didn’t like the pressures they put on her and our relationship.  But being cut off from most of her family was bad her and for our relationship, as she had few outside (worldly) friends.  After we married, she was allowed back in, and even though we have had our bouts over her religion, in the long run our differences have helped our marriage prosper.  She has seen their is an outside world that she never knew about because of her religion and family.  And while I will never belong to any religion I have learned a lot about hers and the value that can be taught from it.  Truthfully, I think values can be taught no matter whether you are religious or an atheist, but if believing in God or Jehovah can give you values and meaning, then so be it.  My wife is one of the finest human beings I have ever met, and while I believe a lot of her values were taught to her by her parents, I am sure being a Witness helped that along.

We rarely argue about religion any more.  When we were first together she would often wonder how I could not believe in God.  We had many discussions on the Bible and it’s accuracy.  She often said that I was taking the easier route.  I don’t have to be accountable.  And that’s not true.  Just because one doesn’t believe in God doesn’t mean you don’t want to do the right things.  I actually think it’s better that I am an atheist rather than say a Catholic or Baptist.  That would cause much more conflict with a Witness than me actually not believing at all.

The last thing I want to touch on this topic for now is acceptance.  For whatever reason atheists are looked down upon in the world.  It’s a weird thing.  If a group of people are together and you have a Catholic, Muslim, Jew, Baptist, Methodist, and an atheist and the topic of religion is brought up the atheist will be looked down upon by the rest of the group.  In a recent internet poll I saw that 90% answered they believed in God.  Now that poll isn’t 100% accurate, because I would venture that most atheists would be resistant to volunteering for an internet poll.  The owner of the company I work at and many of the workers here often discuss church functions and the like.  If I were to suddenly bring up that I am an atheist I would be looked down upon here, so no one knows how I feel, which is fine.  I just find it interesting.