Who Is Teaching Whom About Religion?

Too funny. Earlier this year, my older daughter had to do big research project on the spread of Christianity during the middle ages. No, I do not send my kids to private school. This was history, they said, not teaching religion. Whatever. My daughter's essay was on the fall of Jerusalem. She learned a lot and got an A.

Now, you've probable figured out that I'm not a very religious person. I didn't attend church growing up, except for a few years when my older sister thought we should. That didn't last. Neither do we attend church now. I was turned off from formal religion as a kid, and early on recognized the hypocrisy in it. I don't feel that I need it in my life in order to be a good person.

My religious education, really, came from sleepovers. If I spent Saturday night with a friend whose family attended church, I generally went with them on Sunday. I pretty much thought church was boring. But, that was my religious teaching, that and Moses parting the Red Sea on TV.

Last night, Emily spent the night with a friend, and her family went to church today, so Emily went along. Luckily, it was the local Presbyterian Church, not some small fanatical one. Anyway, she went with the friend to the Youth Group. The Leader apparently asked her, after finding out she didn't attend church, what she knew about religion and the Bible.

So, she told him. She told him everything she learned from doing her research project on the Fall of Jerusalem. She told him things he didn't know. I think she enlightened him. My job here is done.

That's Your Opinion...

I hate that people assume everyone goes to church and believes the way they do. I took my younger daughter to the doctor, as she has been complaining about her stomach for a long time. She is a great worrier, and has begun to think something is wrong. So to put her worries, about her stomach at least, to rest, I took her in. The doctor, whom I really don't care for, as she strikes me as being too abrasive, checked her stomach and declared it fine. We talked a bit about the fact that my daughter is a worrier. The doctor said, "Well, that's just the way God made her."

I'm sure that comment was meant to alleviate my worries as well as my daughter's worries; however, why would the doctor make that comment? Why did she assume that I believe in God?

I wish I had responded, "We believe that that is how she has evolved..." It's time to find a new doctor-I think I'll go back to the clinic I took the kids to before we moved. It's just a little bit too "We all must think and believe the same way..." down here.