Posted on 08/15/2005 2:44:54 PM PDT by SmithL
With conservative Christians calling the shots in Washington, creationism crawling back into the nation's schools and even normally decadent Hollywood hopping onto the spiritual bandwagon, it's a beleaguered time for atheists in America.
Comedian Julia Sweeney, a former Roman Catholic who lost her faith in God, tries to keep her sense of humor. Best known for her portrayal of the androgynous character "Pat" on "Saturday Night Live," Sweeney recently completed a successful run in Los Angeles of a one-woman show, "Letting Go of God," which chronicles her own disillusionment with religion.
Now she is telling her story in a book, "My Beautiful Loss of Faith Story" (Henry Holt). Sweeney, who grew up the oldest of five children in Spokane, Wash., is now the single mother of an adopted girl from China. She spoke with me from her home in Los Angeles.
No. It actually wasn't. If I had gone to Salt Lake City and done this show, maybe that would have been different. But here [in L.A.] you're not defined socially by your religious views.
I think most of my friends were shocked that I actually thought about religion that much. I had several people come up and say, "I didn't know you were so religious!" I think they were more surprised by how religious I was before I wasn't religious than they were by the fact that I wasn't religious. [laughter]
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Atheism is not a religion, it is the lack of religion.
Are you teaching your daughter about religion? How are you handling that?They never should have let that kid out of China. Given the spread of Christianity there, she would have been in a much more wholesome environment.Well, at school they say the pledge of allegiance, and that's actually been pretty upsetting to me because you have to say "under God." So I told her to say "under laws." [laughs]. And she said, "No, mom, you have to say under God in order to be nice." Her feeling is she doesn't want to stick out, right? She wants to do what everyone else is doing.
I'm glad they are admitting it is a religion. It is a religion. Why should one religion be allowed to oppose itself on society with a free pass?
For the purpose of a political classification, I suppose it could loosely be called a religion. They actively believe that everything in Christianity et al. is false- but that's the extent of it.
Chris and Pat
It is hard enough to prove an ordinary little "negative."
What incredible stupidity and arrogance to presume a "cosmic negative" and then bet your life and your eternity on it!
I guess her readin comprehension isn't too sharp- Jesus didn't turn anyone into pigs. The pigs were possessed by demons that had possessed a person. Maybe she was thinking of Circe.
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“The trouble with modern education is you never know how ignorant people are. With anyone over fifty you can be fairly confident what’s been taught and what’s been left out. But these young people have such an intelligent, knowledgeable surface, and then the crust suddenly breaks and you look down into depths of confusion you didn’t know existed. Take yesterday. He seemed to be doing very well. He’d learned large bits of the catechism by heart, and the Lord’s Prayer and the Hail Mary. Then I asked him as usual if there was anything troubling him, and he looked at me in a crafty way and said, ‘Look, Father, I don’t think you’re being straight with me. I want to join your Church and I’m going to join your Church, but you’re holding too much back.’ I asked what he meant, and he said: ‘I’ve had a long talk with a Catholic -- a very pious, well-educated one, and I’ve learned a thing or two. For instance, that you have to sleep with your feet pointing East because that’s the direction of heaven, and if you die in the night you can walk there. Now I’ll sleep with my feet pointing any way that suits Julia, but d’you expect a grown man to believe about walking to heaven? And what about the Pope who made one of his horses a cardinal? And what about the box you keep in the church porch, and if you put in a pound note with someone’s name on it, they get sent to hell. I don’t say there mayn’t be a good reason for all this,’ he said, ‘but you ought to tell me about it and not let me find out for myself.’”“What can the poor man have meant?” said Lady Marchmain.
“You see he’s a long way from the Church yet,” said Father Mowbray.
“But who can he have been talking to? Did he dream it all? Cordelia, what’s the matter?”
“What a chump! Oh, Mummy, what a glorious chump!”
“Cordelia, it was you.”
“Oh, Mummy, who could have dreamed he’d swallow it? I told him such a lot of things. About the sacred monkeys in the Vatican — all kinds of things.”
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-- Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited.
Her religion is the darkside of lesbianism.
http://www.culturevulture.net/Theater8/LettingGoofGod.htm
archives
Thanks - looks like one for one or t'other ping list.
(Been seriously overwhelmed lately - hope to ping tonight.)
Pray for her. May the Holy Spirit enlighten her heart. May she repent of her sins and may the Blessed Mother pray for her on Our Mother's day of Assumption.
This says it all about her own evolutionary failure.
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