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Goodbye Jesus

Reading Bible Stories To Nephew.


Llwellyn

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My sister and brother-in-law are back from Africa (where they are missionaries) for a few months while my sister has a baby and my brother-in-law takes seminary classes. They have a 2 1/2 year old son. When I am visiting their family in the evening, my nephew likes to have me read to him a bedtime story instead of his parents. I suppose he likes some variety. Anyway, his parents typically read to him from an illustrated book of Bible stories. So his parents tell me to read to him from this book. They know that I am not a Christian and find Christianity to be an immoral belief system.

 

I can't imagine why you would read the Bible to a child -- it's so grim. In portions of this illustrated kids book, it says that "humans can't be with God because humans do bad things" and "Jesus died for us." I'm not sure if it gets into God's wrath, hell, and curses. Last night I read him about David killing Goliath -- is killing really appropriate in a story for children? I don't want to be a part of teaching a child the Christian religion. I think I am not going to participate in this in the future. I will just refuse to read to him at night. I don't think I could get away with reading him other things without them finding out, and he's in the habit of reading that book before sleep.

 

What do you think? Have you had similar experiences?

 

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I haven't had a similar experience, but what I think is that I'd no more read Bible stories to a child than I would read Silence of the Lambs. Religion (particularly xian it seems) tends to warp adults, and impressionable children even more. And why are all the Bible stories from the OT?

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Hannibal Rising is more for kids...

 

I grew up with little parental censorship of my reading, since they thought it was better I got it out of my system than make it 'special'...

 

Hence my long standing interest in the Jack the Ripper murders and liking for Philip K Dick and Isaac Asimov... an adult reading choice would be narrower and more directed... :)

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I wonder if you brought a book with you to read. Nothing offensive to your xtian relatives. Just a cute kids story. I recommend "Slugs in Love" which is my daughter's current obsession. Or "Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus". Surely your family can't really only want to read bible stories? Surely your nephew is allowed to laugh at a funny story now and then.

 

Heather

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Can I suggest perhaps just telling the child a story? Make one up~ it couldn't be any worse than the made up biblical ones. Just leave out the killing, rape, and hatred that the bible stories tell.

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Ugh... I can't believe I'm saying this, but is it any worse than reading them the currently popular and classic children's stories?

 

We've got:

Harry Potter (Lots of death and angst).

 

Lord of the Rings (lots of death and lots of war).

 

The Hobbit (same vein - lots of death).

 

The Chronicles of Narnia (more death, more war, more indoctrination - I HATE these books!).

 

The Spiderwick Chronicles (evil faeries! AHHH!).

 

The Series of Unfortunate Events (general death, murder, pain, suffering, and a really creepy uncle who tries to marry his own underage niece!).

 

His Dark Materials (death, war, betrayal, evil churches, people getting ripped away from their souls resulting in suffering and more death).

 

The Dark is Rising Sequence (magical child is the last of his kind ever to be born, and must fight as the ultimate warrior in a war pitting Dark against Light for the sake of the human race - Pagan items and themes and barely any Christianity to be seen, but there's death, war, pain, and generally "scary" things that would give kids nightmares), etc.

 

Those are just the ones that are generally "popular" at this time. There are tons of others.

 

Let's see:

 

Secret Garden (an emotionally neglected girl sent to live with an equally emotionally neglective household after the death of her parents - with an uncle who is never seen but greatly feared, and a "secret" cousin who is a total hypochondric. It may have a happy ending, but DAMN!).

 

Little Princess (bitchy & jealous headmistress of a boarding school physically and emotionally abuses the daughter of a prominent military man after it's assumed that she is orphaned).

 

The Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm (don't even get me into this one! Incest, murder, rape, disembowelment, cannibalism, etc).

 

The Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen (same vein as Grimm).

 

General nursery rhymes (Ring Around the Roses = Black Death).

 

Do I really need to continue?

 

If a children's bible is really that bad - then should we let our children read any popular new series? I think we should let our children read what they will, but be extremely clear in teaching them that there's a difference between fiction and non-fiction - and how to discern that.

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I agree with what you are saying Rhia. She did say her nephew is a toddler, so hopefully nothing you listed would be among any sane person's choices for that age group.

 

But I get your point. It's the reason I let my kids watch Veggie Tales. I see nothing wrong with them knowing stories from the bible. It's part of our cultural heritage and I've never regretting my knowledge of bible stories. As long as they understand that it's all made up. They enjoy the silliness and humour. They also love Andrew Lloyd Webber's Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat. I not steering them away from it simply because it's based on a bible story.

 

They also enjoy Spongebob Squarepants, and I think they are likely as indoctrinated by that as they are by Veggie Tales.

 

Heather

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But I get your point. It's the reason I let my kids watch Veggie Tales. I see nothing wrong with them knowing stories from the bible. It's part of our cultural heritage and I've never regretting my knowledge of bible stories. As long as they understand that it's all made up. They enjoy the silliness and humour.

Well, yeah, I see what you're saying but Veggie Tales is an honest portrayal while the childrens bible is not. Everyone knows that vegetables did all those things in the OT which is why there is no evidence. The bible lies and says actual humans did those same things. Look at the havoc this seemingly minor change has caused over the ages. :(

 

mwc

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Oh, yes, Llwellyn, I've been put in that spot. With my grandchildren, the kids of my fundie daughter and her fundie priest husband.

 

My solution was to sing a couple of songs instead. The kids seemed to like the singing, but at one point I was asked by the parents if I could alter some of the lyrics in the American country standard, "Old Paint." Could I change the line, "His wife got killed in a poolroom fight" to something more innocuous?

 

I had to bite my tongue to keep from suggesting they do a similar re-writing with the kids' bible stories.

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Ugh... I can't believe I'm saying this, but is it any worse than reading them the currently popular and classic children's stories?

In fact I have noticed how dark and violent some of these things are. The currently popular list seems to be geared mostly for older children, and all the way up to adulthood. I wouldn't read Harry Potter to a toddler, for example, but I don't think I'd have any qualms for an older child who could read it and take an interest in it.

 

Now some of the classics--that's a different matter. They have been read to young children for years, especially fairy tales and most of them seem very gruesome for babies, toddlers, and young children.

 

The difference I see between these and children's bible stories is that the bible stories are passed off as "Truth." They are an active part of the kids' indoctrination. THAT'S why I'd avoid children's bible stories in favor of other stories. It would be OK if they were presented as myth or fables, but invariably they are presented as historically accurate, and as the "Truth."

 

Incidentally, although I haven't paid much attention to children's bible stories since, well, I was a kid, I get the impression that they are LESS violent than many/most non-biblical children's stories. They are too busy selling kids on xianity, so they can't come on TOO strong. Set the lure first: god is good. jesus Loves us. jesus is our Savior. god is Just. Start weaving in: god is all powerful. god is all knowing. He knows when you've been sleeping, he knows if you're awake, he knows if you've been bad or good. You've been bad. We've all been bad. You hurt god when you're bad. god has to punish us when we're bad because he is just. We are bad when we don't follow god and his plan and his instruction book. We are bad when we don't embrace xianity because there is no other way.

 

I have not had any similar experiences to the OP, but I would be as wary of this as Llwellyn. And I'd feel REALLY bad for the kid if the parents aren't even interested in including regular old children's stories along with the bible stories. Current stuff written for 2 1/2 years is not gruesome--it's either fun stuff or educational.

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I hate recommending this, but we have a couple of Christian kids' books that are kind of innocuous, called something like "God's Love is..." and consists of bad rhymes about sharing and telling mom you love her. Maybe you could find something like this as a compromise. Theologically, they're not terribly offensive (although artistically, I could take offense ;) ). I could not handle reading Bible stories to my kids. They are gory or else just make God sound totally irrelevant.

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Isn't the point of a bedtime story to make kids fall asleep? If so then I recommend reading them the Bible directly.... if that doesn't put them to sleep I don't know what will! :P

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Hmm seeing as how your reading to the toddler and you dont really need to worry too much about toddler literacy (a national concern), why not forget about books and make up the stories? That way you dont have to worry about bad influences or scaring the child too much as the stories are all of your own making.

 

Or failing at that I recomend Stephen Kellogg (if thats spelled right) books. I really enjoyed these as a little tyke you might want to check them out, one I remember was called the Isle of Scog or some such. Cute story about a bunch of mice getting sick of cat attacks that sail way on a model ship to an isle inhabited by a creature called the "scog" which at first they try to get rid of but later find its only lonely and befriend it. A bit sugar coated but is that really a bad thing for toddlers?

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