Hi everyone, my name is Lize, and I am delighted to have found a place where it seems ignorance is NOT the order of the day! I am a 26 year old millwright, and I live in a small town in the Northern Cape. I look forward to meeting everyone!
Hi Lize, and welcome! Hope you’ll enjoy it here. So … what are you skeptical about? 
Thanks! I was raised in a Christian household, but I have amazing parents who, despite talking religious nonsense into my head and forcing me to go to church, also regularly took me to the library and encouraged me to read everything I could lay my hands on. Since I could remember I was interested in science, and I never really bought the whole ‘intelligent design’ thing.
I quickly learned that being verbal about my skepticism was not productive, as this caused the kids at school to label me a witch, and the teacher in charge of religious studies regularly harassed me about it as well. Since then I graduated from high school, went to college, graduated, got married, and had a child. I baptized my child because my family put pressure on me to do so. But I recently decided that I would no longer be bullied. I went to my church and removed myself and my child from the church database, and I informed the head of my child’s Christianity-based pre-school that I am an Atheist and that I raise my child as an Atheist. This was very unwelcome information for them, and they informed me that we would have problems when my child goes to Grade R, because that is also a Christianity based school.
I am afraid that I am making life difficult for my child, because know what it’s like to grow up as an outsider, but I refuse to tell her the lies that religion puts forth as facts, it discourages curiosity, and I value curiosity above fitting in at school. As I am living in a small town full of small minds, I have nobody to turn to for help, no way to stop the discrimination, and no idea what to do about my situation. But I finally found a glimmer of hope, a whole forum filled with people like me, and even if it doesn’t solve my problems, it feels good to know I’m not alone.
Glad to meet you! 
Welcome, welcome! I think your profession may come in handy here. Every so often we get some crazies wanting to convert the world to their brand of woo. Now you can help us mill them a little in the hope of setting them wright…
'Luthon64
Oh, and by the way, my first language is Afrikaans, so please excuse my grammar
Haha!! Thanks Mefiante, and I will surely mill away at anyone who needs milling! ;D
Hey, there’s nothing to excuse because there’s nothing at all wrong with your prose. It suggests to me that you’ve read a lot of English. Daar is ook ’n hele Afrikaanse sub-forum hier waar dikwels mielies gegooi word.
'Luthon64
So, what are you guys skeptical about? And what do you do for a living?
Sweet! I’ll be sure to gooi some mielies there soon!
This is a grave concern for me too. My son is in grade 1 in an explicitly Christian school. The school is otherwise very, very good and in close proximity to where we live. It is a stable, consistent school with dedicated teachers, and passionate governing bodies. Old fashioned discipline still reigns supreme, and there is even a set of rules for hair legth. It reminds me of my own primary school back in the day,except that this school even sports its own clubhouse and a bar (for parental use, obviously). But ja, I know that my kid is exposed to an immense amount of praying and Bible thumping. I ask him a lot of probing questions about what’s been learnt at school, and many a time, “Jesus” is ultimately the reason for where stuff came from. (Jesus the creator seems to feature prominently at the moment). I try to downplay Jesus by equating him with other flights of fancy: Father Chrismas, the Easter Bunny, Barney etc. Hopefully, one day, they will all disappear in the same puff of disillusionment.
I think we live in an awkward time of transition towards full blown educational secularism. And it will come eventually. But at the moment there is very little by way of precedent or guidelines that a godless parent can draw from. Declaring one’s atheism to your child’s school is certainly one way of going about it (Vive la revolución, and all that), but doing so is exceptionally brave, and more than I could muster at the moment. I do rebel, though, by brazenly filling in the attendance register at parent-teacher meetings whilst the opening prayer is in session.
Rigil
Lessee …
- The government
- The government’s opposition
- The government’s opposition’s motives
- Car salesmen
- Car manufacturers’ Green Policies
- The expiry date on milk cartons
- God, her associates and their motives
- The puported value added by human resource officers
- Selflessness
- Several laws
And what do you do for a living?On-and-off student and house renovator. I hope to end up tutoring secondary school mathematics one day.
Rigil
I used to rebel in the exact same way at SIVOS, the place where I was an apprentice for three years. They open every meeting in prayer, and I also used to use that time to fill in the register, my scribbling and paper rustling breaking the silence to the annoyance of everyone around me. But I refused to attend the mini-sermon that they held every Wednesday, which earned me plenty of dirty looks and bad attitudes. I told the pre-school about the way I raise my child after I got wind of the fact that they tell the children that they are the “devil’s child” whenever they would do something wrong.
I did not want my child to greet me with a “Hello, Beelzebub!” after a long day of such ridiculous indoctrination.
Wow Rigil Kent, you gave now added a million things to my list of things to brood about day and night, such as the expiry date on milk cartons, which I have always blindly and stupidly accepted as the truth!
Skepticism is agonizing work! I am yet to find a box of milk still fit for consumption by the BB date. (wtf!!) But the search continues.
I did not want my child to greet me with a "Hello, Beelzebub!" after a long day of such ridiculous indoctrination;D ;D
Rigil
The value of widespread belief in all manner of what is demonstrably nonsensical, even irrational, in this, the 21st century. Indeed, I think many of these beliefs are serious obstacles to progress, if not downright dangerous to humanity’s future.
Perpetual student of life here. Between lectures, I build mathematical/statistical models that enable risk management and scenario investigation/planning for banks and credit providers (and also spend time here at the forum when some tricky aspect of a model needs thinking about). Sadly, it pays much better than the hard science I’d rather be doing but a girl’s gotta live.
'Luthon64
Well, it’s been more than a pleasure to meet you guys, and I have a feeling I’m going to have a lot of interesting (and arse-rippingly funny) conversations here… But for now my daughter is burning to go and play with the magnifying glass I bought her yesterday, so off we go into the wild and scary back yard. See you around! And thanks for the warm welcome ;D
Welcome. Also Afrikaans. Traveling astronomer (amateur). Sceptical about the usual woo-woo stuff and that there is a way for me to become rich.
But a true professional when it comes to brutally assaulting defenseless children. >:D
Some say money is bad for the soul, bad for the rock, bad for the roll - Eddie van Halen 8)
It’s of some interest to note that a wise and enlightened Indian man and a few ancient Greeks held similar views … and without the help of an expensive guitar.
R.
Yes, they say that money can’t buy you happiness but it sure helps a lot!