(May 14, 2009 at 11:23 pm)Madscientist Wrote: Hello all.
A beloved aunt of mine died recently, and it brought up some problems that bug me quite a lot.
the fact is that this person was mentally impaired, and i was the one who took care of her. She was somewhat autonomous and lived in her own appartments in the basement of my house, along with her companion and her brother, both of wich are also mentally impaired.
Fact is that those people where really close to my childrens, and i don't really know how to make them understand what happenned.
More so, my girlfriend (i'm not married and will never be) is a low level believer, wich she claimed not to be a few years ago but changed her mind in the meantime. She does'nt claim any organized religion links, and her view seem to me like tending toward boudhism. Problem is that at every occasion, be it new birth, marriage or funerals, she insist on taking the children to the church, more in fear of what the people will say if we do not than anything else i presume, but it is getting quite painfull on me.
When i met her, i claerly insisted on the fact that i did'nt wanted any religion near mw children till they are old enough to understant what it is all about, but looks like it did'nt worked that way finally... Well, i managed to prevent them from being babtised (sure it is not the good word...) but they got in a church way to soon for my taste.
Anyway, i'm getting of my at hand subject...
In a few word, what i want to heard about is how you would deal with all this death thing, considering that i live in an environnement where my ''extreme'' anti-religious views arre more often than not considered as bordering the ridiculous...
How old are they?
Personally, I'd just tell it as it is. She's gone. People's bodies stop working and they die, it's a fact of life.
As for your children being taking to chuch, I'd insist that if she wants to take them to a church, she spends an equal amount of time taking them to a synagogue, mosque, temple to the greek pantheon, holy pasta shop
etc etc. Exposure to more than one religion is a good demonstration that choice between religions is arbitrary, and the conflictions between them show that none have any truth value.Also, I think she needs to realise that taking children to church is indoctrinating them into christianity, and that telling children unprovable assertions that have no evidence for them, as though they are fact, is child abuse.
Galileo was a man of science oppressed by the irrational and superstitious. Today, he is used by the irrational and superstitious who claim they are being oppressed by science - Mark Crislip
