My four boys all go to the same elementary school. This is the only year that this is ever going to happen. Next year, Flipper will go to middle school. And he'll be graduating from high school before the twins get there. We love our elementary school - the teachers, the administrators, the support staff, the other kids' families. And we know that as the kids get older, we'll have less and less of a connection with their schools. It's just the way it works. So this year is special for us, and bittersweet. The boys are all in the same Cub Scout pack, too. That ends next month, as Flipper has to choose between leaving scouts or going on to the Boy Scouts. The Boy Scout troops are trying to recruit him, and he's visiting them to give them a try.

Last night, we went to a troop meeting that was held in an evangelical church. I was unimpressed, but I'm leaving the decision up to him. The Boy Scouts of America derive quite a bit of their funding from the Church of the Latter Day Saints. Some say that their policies of excluding gays and atheists were pursued much more aggressively as the LDS increased their sponsorship.

As I stood in the back, I was looking at the church's youth ministry messages. There was a big display for Awana. There were paperback books, piles of them, refuting the theory of evolution (written, btw, by someone with a B.S. degree). And there were the requisite fliers talking about how millions of beautiful, healthy (white) babies would be here, if only their mothers had been exposed to "proper" prenatal advisors. Fuck. that. shit.

To be a complete asshole for a minute, I would think that for those who believe that a baby is without Sin, and physical life is but a precursor to everlasting life in Heaven, then all of those "missing babies" just took a shortcut to Heaven*

I was getting pretty creeped out, standing in the church. I really wanted to get the fuck out of there. But Flipper was having a great time. Running around with his friends. Completely, appropriately, oblivious to the stuff that was bothering me. I hope that he develops a healthy critical/cynical eye of religion as he gets older. But I don't want him to take on my views, simply because they're my views. I think any kind of spirituality, or the lack thereof, should be something you decide on as independently as you can. I would no more want him accepting my dogma chapter and verse than I'd want him accepting any other belief system's tenets.

* Not my personal belief. Just being as asshole. As usual.

Labels: consternation, damnation, ponies