church issues · goals

Ahhhh…

thebethy

a day off. nice.

I’m officially over this whole OooRetailWillBeFun thing. Selling makeup was fun for a bit, but the scheduling has been horrific. This Christmas was supposed to be my holiday with the girls, and I think I had a total of 36 hours with them. Whirlwind 4 hour drives to North Florida do not exactly make for meaningful family time, ya know?
So I’ve applied for a few Instructional Assistant positions with the county schools, and I’m awaiting a phone call from a friend-of-a-friend who may have a job for me as well. I can’t wait to get out of retail world and be a real mom again.
The ex had the BethyGirls for New Years, and I went to Cinci to see my favorite male. We went to a fabulous shindig at Shadowbox in Newport Kentucky, and for New Years Day enjoyed an IronChef marathon and some yummy chili with J5’s mom and brother. (hi!) God made some pretty snow for me too, thrilling for my native Floridian self. It was a great trip, just way too short.

My only New Year’s Resolution is to get myself back to church. Yes, I know, you can have church anywhere, and God is with us all the time, etc etc. But I miss it, and I know that I have to present some sort of alternative to the BethyGirls. If they have to choose between something and nothing when they grow up, they’ll choose something. I plan on at least giving them an alternative that doesn’t make them think that the world around them is evil and scary.
Because it’s quite the opposite.

pics to come, as soon as I unlazy myself and make a slideshow. wonder how long that’ll take..?

Published by thebethy

The ongoing saga of my indecision and foibles. It's fun.

17 thoughts on “Ahhhh…”

  1. You know I’m not pushing titles or creeds, but I think your resolution is more valuable than some would give credit to. Yes, God is everywhere and not confined to a building, but Jesus did come to set up a church, described as His body. Without any association to it, are we not just amputated body parts? We can live for awhile without it, but eventually we’ll wither and die. I hope the job hunt turns out positively. I bet it will. Happy New Year!

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  2. i found your blog by accident and would like to let you know that i will never visit a blog of such a narrow-minded person again…
    because…
    in your 4th sentence of your 3rd paragraph you say “if they have to choose between something and nothing when they grow up, they’ll choose something.”
    firstly you are implying that if you don’t believe in god then you believe in “nothing”. contrary to popular belief Atheists believe that there are always scientific explanations for everything in the world/universe…and that is not “nothing”. the final part of that sentence you say “they’ll choose something.”
    this statement proves to me that you are NOT giving your children a choice…you are telling them what to believe and not giving them a choice. in the 5th sentence you say “I plan on giving them an alternative that doesn’t make them think that the world around them is evil and scary” you say you plan on giving them an alternative”….firstly you contradict your 4th sentence where you say that you are giving them a choice when in the following sentence you are graciously giving them an alternative…..i say again your 3rd sentence you are NOT giving them a choice and now you are..this is not an open mind it is brainwashing..especially if one of your children doesn’t believe in your god..then if you force your belief standars on your children it is a form of child abuse….secondly christianity is NOT an alternative it is the status quo for most americans…thirdly not everyone who does not believe in god believes that “the world around them is evil and scary” a statement like that is just plain ignorant of “alternatives” that present themselves to you (whether you ackowledge them or not is your choice) and present themselves to your children…. i agree with your final statement that the world is not evil and scary….speaking as an Athiest i believe that the world is a beautiful place where awesome things happen every day like child birth or doctor’s conquering my father’s cancer….
    i don’t expect a response and that is fine because people like you tend to shove Atheists like me under the carpet….peace…

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  3. Corey~
    I’m glad you visited, and I’m happy to respond, even though you “will never visit a blog of such a narrow-minded person again.”
    It’s pretty obvious to me that you haven’t read the rest of my blog, because if you had, you would understand what this entry is about. I won’t rehash, because it’s all pretty much here in black and white, but there are a few points I’d like to make.
    1) I read a few entries of yours, and I think you and I probably have some commonalities, namely the disgust felt when people say one thing and do another, and especially when they try to force something intensely personal, like a belief in God, on other people. We’re not so different there.
    2) I would expect that, regardless of your belief in God, or the lack thereof, you would agree that a parent has a right and a responsibility to raise his or her children in the best way that they know how. You would probably also agree that part of a parent’s job is to make sure that their children grow up with the skills necessary to determine right from wrong, to make good decisions that will make them happy healthy members of society when they hit adulthood. Right? Because we are adults, and because we live in America, we all get to choose exactly which way we want to do that. I wouldn’t expect you, as an atheist, to teach your children about God, so why would you expect me to teach mine that there isn’t one? That is curious to me. I respect your right to raise your children, please be respectful of my right to raise mine. I don’t teach them to hate you for your beliefs. In fact, that’s exactly what I’m trying to save them from. If you had read my blog at all, you would see that.
    3) You were far too quick to label me, and throw me into the category of “people like you”… perhaps you need to rethink who is the narrow-minded one here. I don’t throw anyone under the carpet. I’ve been thrown too many times myself to treat someone like that.
    Peace. For real. Wherever you find it.

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  6. firstly, i am not talking about you “rehashing what is there in black and white” i am talking about this entry…
    secondly, whether you have read my entries or not and whether we have something in common or not is AGAIN irrelevant…
    thirdly, i am not questioning your ability or rights on how to raise your children…i am questioning why you would say that your belief in your god/christianity is “something” and the rest is “nothing”….an example…
    if your children bring home a muslim friend and you all hangout and when the muslim friend goes home you tell your children that your belief in god is “something” and the muslim’s belief in allah is “nothing”….
    raise your children how you want but if you teach your children that there is only god and everything else is “nothing” then that is called brainwashing and is, in my opinion, child abuse….
    have you ever thought of clarryfing that something/nothing statement?
    fourthly, my narrow-mindedness is AGAIN irrelevant i was talking about a statement you made that made YOU look narrow minded….
    your response was inadequate and evasive because you never answered any of my questions…
    try harder next time…

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  8. Corey. Pumpkin. Listen up.
    I’ll try to speak your language.
    Firstly, I never referred to christianity as something and atheism as nothing. You seemed to infer that. Understandable, given your determination to discover some sort of hidden hatred inside me. Not sure why you picked me, but I can roll with it.
    My reference to “something” and “nothing” is not something I’m willing to retell just so that you can understand it. If you would like an understanding of what I’m speaking of, feel free to read the rest of my blog. I will say that I have friends of many faiths, including yours, and I would never refer to someone else’s beliefs as “nothing.” Again, if you bothered to read any bit of my other writing about church issues, you would know this. Your accusation of evasiveness on my part is laughable, being that your entire rant consists of your own misunderstanding and bias. You are arguing with me (or attempting to) over a point I never made.

    Feel free to comment again, if you’d like, once you’ve done some homework.

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  11. As a devout non-believer, it’s discouraging to see a member of my tribe toss around a phrase like child abuse in so cavalier a fashion.

    I know intolerant Christians, plenty of them, who would view my telling my children that I didn’t believe in any type of gods, that I prefer to live my life according to reason and not faith, as “child abuse.” When one is a religious minority (and I sort of consider myself one, I suppose) there is occasional persecution.

    But that’s not what’s going on here; I’d suggest that if Corey is a person of goodwill, he’ll re-read this conversation and realize that terms like child abuse are way, way, way over the line in a discussion like this and hardly serve to raise people’s opinions of the ability of people to live ethically without being religious. Beth isn’t the one who is intolerant in this conversation; she’s handling this, honestly, about a million times more rationally than would I if i were accused of child abuse for teaching my children why I don’t believe.

    We should all be able to raise our children, Christians, Muslims, and we nonbelievers too, within whatever level of religious tradition (or lack thereof) we feel is best. Calling someone’s choice which might differ from yours “child abuse” is beneath the level of civil dialogue.

    Now, raising a kid as a Dallas Cowboy fan – that’s some goddamn child abuse. For reals.

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  12. Thanks for your “machine” vote of confidence. I wish I were. Tonight I’m hoping some member of my family will find me sitting in the brown chair at 4 a.m. and hit me very hard over the head. I would love to be unconscious. Sinus infection snuck up on me. Pain killers available during pregnancy don’t kill pain. 3 weeks from tonight I’ll be in the hospital with Baby #4. I can have the babies, but can I raise them? Let’s hope.
    Love,
    m

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  15. Corey,

    From the moment you came across this blog, you had a notion in your mind about Beth’s opinions on religion and parenthood. Beth treated you respectfully, while trying to point out that you were starting with a false pretense.

    From the beginning, you misconstrued her definitions of “something” and “nothing”… and despite all of your efforts to look intelligent with your sentence diagrams, it’s quite clear you’ve no interest in actually understanding the opinions you chose to criticize.

    Your inferences have been completely wrong. When it’s been repeatedly pointed out to you, your response has been either silence or mocking.

    Beth attempted to explain what she meant, yet you merely shoved that aside as unimportant… her explanation showed you to be in err, so you ignored it. Beth has not denigrated your beliefs. The only person being insulting in the whole matter has been you.

    You believe you’re enlightened with your lack of religion and your belief in nothing, but you don’t really lack beliefs at all. Your religion is anger and resentment, and your prophets are Christopher Hitchens and 80’s metal bands.

    The more I read your poems and see your comments here, the more pictures I see of your derivative tattoos and your silly hats, the more understanding I’ve gained into why your girlfriend dumped you and her family detested you.

    If they were like most people I’ve know, it had little to do with your atheism and a lot more to do with the fact you’re simply a close-minded, bitter individual and likely incredibly unpleasant to be around.

    Despite disagreeing with your comments, Beth has left them here for all to read. You, on the other hand, apparently cannot handle criticism and deleted her comments from your latest poetic spew.

    And in the end, Corey, you’re just a sad, angry little man.

    A coward.

    I’d pity you if I felt you deserved it.

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  16. I just thought that I would take time between my two jobs to send thorn and bethy a response, even though one of you implies my mouth is open too much and the other complains about my silence. Oh well, you can’t please everybody. Firstly bethy not wanting to “re-hash old entries” is sheer laziness because i see nothing wrong with sending me the links to appropriate pages with information that could possibly change my mind. I do it all the time. Secondly, as for me mocking bethy, yes I did, only after she called me a pet name MOCKINGLY. the only people who can call me pet names are my parents, my grand parents and my current girlfriend. Bethy is (thankfully) none of the above. Thirdly thorn had you read the rest of my “silly hat rant” you would have read that I do NOT believe in any prophets, messiahs, gods, devils, heavens or hells. To quote Bethy, “you should have done your homework.” Fourthly I deleted Bethy response to my critique of her because it did not off any insight to my brilliant writing skills. By the way, I delete far more comments than I let be posted and most of the time the people who I graciously let their comments grace my blog I know personally. As for you two, well, need I say more. Fifthly, thorn called me a coward yet he is the one who hides behind a N.R.A. card and a gun. Anybody who hides behind a gun is a coward, I have been teaching Judo for 10 years and I still don’t feel the need for a gun. Oh thorn, what’s this fascination with guns? I think you must be over-compensating for a small penis or something of that nature. Sixthly, I respect myself first and foremost and I believe that no self respecting human being should want and/or need pity, in other words if you pity anyone it should be your sorry excuse for an insult. I started off by saying that I took this time between my two jobs to respond, my first job being practicing and teacher of brain surgery at one of the hospitals in this city and my second job at night is an air traffic controller at the international airport. So a few days ago three colleagues and I were discussing your sorry ass attempt at a blog and I said that thorn called my tattoos “derivative”, my three colleagues asked in unison (the same thing I asked myself), “derivative of what?” I see that you are a graphic designer for television so I understand it might be hard to grasp the english language when you are drawing and looking at pictures all day. I will help you out, there is a book called a dictionary. In this book it definitions of all words in the english language, for your ease I will now place a link to a website called dictionary which has a definition of “derivative”. I would suggest that before you use big words you try a dictionary first. Once you have mastered that book you may want to graduate to something called a “thesaurus”, and no it is not a extinct, prehistoric mammal. It is another book, feel free to look up “thesaurus” in a dictionary if you would like. If you were trying to insult me and my lifestyle choice for body art I would suggest a smaller word, like “dumb” (the “b” on the end is silent) I think it is safe to say you know what “dumb” means because when referring to people like you “dumb” is usually followed by “ass”, which is what my American brother calls Americans (of the likes of which he is embarrassed by) who fall into several stereotypes. 1:American who can’t read 2:Right wing american who can’t read 3: Religious right wing gun-toting wing nut American who can’t read. so to keep a level playing field I will stereotype myself as well. So up here in Canada in our muk luks and snow shoes all we do is hunt moose, watch hockey and drink beer, eh. We don’t know anything about you savages…er…Americans and your guns and all were far too busy building igloos and breeding dogs to run our sleds. So if you don’t like some or all of this rant, what are you going to do declare war on Canada, invade us and shoot us? My final parting words…
    Take off, eh!

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  17. CoreY, I’m done being nice and respectful and adult about this.
    You’re an idiot, and I’m sorry that you cannot see that. Not because of your opinion, you’re entitled, but because of your complete inability to even attempt to see another’s point of view. It’s a real pity, but I’m seriously done trying to speak to you in a grownup manner. You just don’t get it.
    I will leave your posts up til now, just to show all who are interested your true nature. Any more will be promptly deleted, because I’m tired of dealing with your ignorance. Feel free to email me if you want to have a real discussion.

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