Are there any Former Christian, Current Atheist Parents out there?

[Thumpalumpacus]

Too friendly (yes, that's a thing) and too "stand-up comic)

An apt summation.

[adey67]

Wow  that guy was really fucking annoying and irritating. I'm glad he's gone, I don't think I could cope with too much of him.

[TonyAnkle]

Wow  that guy was really fucking annoying and irritating. I'm glad he's gone, I don't think I could cope with too much of him.

Don't hold back mate, tell it like it is..

[jerry mcmasters]

Not trying to win a pulitzer here. Clear and understandable? Mission accomplished. And....who's Joyce Fitzgerald?

I'm guessing you missed the disjunctive "or"? They're two different writers.

What are chances that native English speaker did not know that Joyce and Fitzgerald are different writers when even I was aware of it*?


*To my eternal shame I knew that Joyce written Ulisses but I had no idea what Fitzgerald had written.

Probably a good 90% have not heard of either and would respond "She is my favorite poet!" to the poll question, "What is your opinion of Joyce Fitzgerald?"

However, yes, the way Thump wrote it a reasonable person would know that was two different people.  I just don't like hearing the intelligence of the average American being overestimated.

[jerry mcmasters]

Was it anybody I knew? Writing style led me to believe that it was just common internet weirdo.

Not sure. I don't know the names he went by on TTA. I got suspicious right from the get go, with his ludicrous nick and the first sentence he introduced himself. Dom seems to know him better from past experiences. Seems to bait people into liking him and to start his own little "us vs them" war.

Yonadev, or whatever his name was? You know, the guy who had a meltdown over being told to remove a backpack in a grocery store.

Nah no way that was Yonadev.  Unless he was trying on a completely new persona.  This guy thought he was Fozzy the Bear.

Good job you guys sniffing it out!  That was fun to read.

[Szuchow]

I'm guessing you missed the disjunctive "or"? They're two different writers.

What are chances that native English speaker did not know that Joyce and Fitzgerald are different writers when even I was aware of it*?


*To my eternal shame I knew that Joyce written Ulisses but I had no idea what Fitzgerald had written.

Probably a good 90% have not heard of either and would respond "She is my favorite poet!" to the poll question, "What is your opinion of Joyce Fitzgerald?"

However, yes, the way Thump wrote it a reasonable person would know that was two different people.  I just don't like hearing the intelligence of the average American being overestimated.

I don't think that expecting basic* cultural awareness equals overestimating. 

*For Americans at least considering Fitzgerald nationality.

[SYZ]

Oh, interesting. Good morning all. Maybe I'm just a somber, sedate, cranky, or whatever kind of person, but this guy was annoying me right off the bat. Just a bit of a try-hard as far as making his presence known. Too friendly (yes, that's a thing) and too stand-up comic...

Agree totally.  Which is why (in case anybody didn't notice hehe)  I didn't
post a "welcome" response.  His first couple of posts brought to mind the
word obsequious.  I was actually a little surprised that so many people
responded to him positively—said he smugly.

I guess 30 years of message board participation etc has taught me a lot about
recognising pretenders.        

[mordant]

I was an evangelical and raised my two children in the faith, to the point of home-schooling them (my daughter from 3rd through 8th grade, my son from cradle through 3rd grade). Although the home schooling thing was as much about my first wife's paranoia as it was about religious concerns.

Anyway both of my children were born somehow with far better bullshit filters than I was and theism never "took" with them. When I deconverted they were actually relieved. They did super well in public school (my 2nd wife insisted and I didn't put up any real fight; home schooling is exhausting and in my view inherently problematic with the mixed role of parent and teacher). My 2nd wife had drifted away from actively worshipping the Sky Wizard although she continued to believe in him until her death, so my children were not subjected to church, again to their relief.

To me, when you unpack it, parenting just comes down to modeling the values and behaviors and character traits you want to see in your children, which implies you genuinely possess those things to begin with. I am a kind, decent, honest, loyal, weirdly flawed human being and my children turned out that way as well. Since my first wife was such a spectacularly bad gene donor, my son ended up with a personality disorder common in the children of schizophrenics and it ended up indirectly killing him. My daughter has a touch of narcissism from dear old Mom (who is in an institution now and pretends she never had children), but my daughter is a competent RN and responsible, loving mother of five and is enjoying life, which is all a parent can really hope for (well maybe not the five kids part, but that's her choice).

Church is a common source of community for people but it comes with the price of indoctrination and disordered thinking. School is a common source of community in childhood but it comes with both the costs and benefits of being a conformist and running in packs. But at least there's not an overt religious basis for school-oriented socializing. For my step-children, who I met in their mid-teens, it was centered around academics, where it belongs.

My current / 3rd wife (I make them sound so disposable, they're not, but it's complicated to explain who I'm talking about by this point in life) was always an unbeliever, but has the misconception that atheism = closed mind, so she always allowed her children to explore religion if they so desired. The son never was interested and avoided it like the plague. The daughter had a lengthy flirtation with Presbyterianism but soundly rejected it her senior year in high school and never looked back. My stepson the rabid atheist and almost-anarchist has incredible integrity and is a wonderful human being, if rather hard to get to know -- but once he lets you in, it's a fucking privilege and worth the effort. I put that down to his mother modeling her own version of wonderfulness and supporting him no matter what -- which, again, is what parenting really is. As someone else here said, he knows HOW to think, not WHAT to think.

On the flip side, there's my  step-daughter, who is a hateful, insufferable little shit to her mother (borderline personality disorder) and, in important ways, living way below her age level of 27. That's the wild card and the terrifying thing about parenting ... sometimes you can walk on water and have the kid from hell, and sometimes you can be a shit parent and your child grows up to be Not You. Or sometimes things go right and then some form of physical or mental illness or misadventure ruins it all. Hilarity ensues. Your mileage may vary.

Church is no real loss and doesn't help, though.

Mordant, thank you so much for sharing this and opening up. Since we are adopting, we have no idea how kiddo will ultimately end up. But I guess with biological children you never know either. There is going to be so much intersectionality with regard to our little one; they will be dealing with so many possible issues and will have their fair share of hurdles to jump over. I don't doubt that I'll be a good parent; I think I will be. But regardless of what I/we do, there will always be the unknown variables of how they will react to what is presented to them. I was never asked as a child if I wanted to go to church. Even if I had been, how would that have turned out if I had been given a choice but had no backing if I decided to doubt? With kiddo, we just want to show them the world and let them decide.

You can't go very wrong with that approach.

[mordant]

Hm, I didn't have a particular malfunction with Josiah. I think he was just guilty of being a bit weird / awkward and I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. As to the quality of his writing, he seemed adequately clear [shrug].

Oh well.

[Dom]

Hm, I didn't have a particular malfunction with Josiah. I think he was just guilty of being a bit weird / awkward and I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. As to the quality of his writing, he seemed adequately clear [shrug].

Oh well.

He is a known bad actor and was removed before he could work his craft. Try reading more about his history in his other thread. Apparently only Revenant and Nursey remember him from the past, everyone else joined later. He is a one trick pony though, with a unique style. Unmistakable,  and also he hung himself by knowing who "clown" was when no one told him and most didn't even know. Everyone else assumed we were calling him "a clown", but he knew we were referring to his old moniker "wicked clown" and said he was not him. Caught and removed like the cancer he is.

It has nothing to do with his quirky personality, that dude is seriously disturbed and takes pleasure in destroying forums. I am just glad we caught him well before the circus started.

[mordant]

Hm, I didn't have a particular malfunction with Josiah. I think he was just guilty of being a bit weird / awkward and I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. As to the quality of his writing, he seemed adequately clear [shrug].

Oh well.

He is a known bad actor and was removed before he could work his craft. Try reading more about his history in his other thread. Apparently only Revenant and Nursey remember him from the past, everyone else joined later. He is a one trick pony though, with a unique style. Unmistakable,  and also he hung himself by knowing who "clown" was when no one told him and most didn't even know. Everyone else assumed we were calling him "a clown", but he knew we were referring to his old moniker "wicked clown" and said he was not him. Caught and removed like the cancer he is.

It has nothing to do with his quirky personality, that dude is seriously disturbed and takes pleasure in destroying forums. I am just glad we caught him well before the circus started.

It's good to have people with long memories in charge of things!