In which Lori Alexander attempts to rewrite history...

[chaotic life]

I use the Zinn Project for my middle school history materials that I homeschool my boys with. Both of my boys can tell Lori how WRONG her assessments on American history are. But then, they are learning history from primary source materials from the perspective of the masses and not the power elite who wrote the history books she fantasized about in her treatise.

My 6th grader would gladly tell her about cassava root poisoning and why indegenious populations preferred to die that horrible death than to succomb to the will of Europeans. My 4th grader would prefer to lecture her on the uprisings of the working poor of the US from colonial American onward. Niether has the misconceptions she thinks fashioned this nation.

[Talitha Cumi]

Really? I grew up SDA and we always said the pledge of allegiance in the SDA schools... I have never heard of an SDA refusing to say the pledge...

Hey, me too! And yes, I remember saying the pledge. We did NOT, however, pledge allegiance to the Christian flag, so when I spent a year in a Baptist school, I was pretty confused.

(Trynn, did you go to academy? Adventist college?)

[Trynn]

Hey, me too! And yes, I remember saying the pledge. We did NOT, however, pledge allegiance to the Christian flag, so when I spent a year in a Baptist school, I was pretty confused.

(Trynn, did you go to academy? Adventist college?)

We never said the pledge to the Christian flag...ever. Except maybe once or twice when I was in Pathfinders... (for those who don't know, Pathfinders is like boy/girlscouts, only an Adventist version thereof.)

How many years did you go to SDA schools vs. Christian schools? Was your particular brand of SDAism fundy, fundy lite, or mainstream?

I went to... 4 different Adventist schools for elementary/middle school. (In the Adventist system they don't really have a "middle school" stage...they consider grades K-8 elementary). And then I went to an Adventist boarding school (the only one left in Michigan.)

At SDA elementary school #1, we recited the pledge. I think. I was only there for first grade. My memory is very dim.

In Adventist elementary school #2 I went to, we said the pledge until about 5th grade. At least, I THINK we stopped in 5th grade...

Then in the sixth grade I was forced to move to SDA school #3, in which we did not recite the pledge of allegiance. I thought that maybe it was something one stopped doing when one got to a certain age.

Then the year after that, in my 8th grade year, we got a new teacher (because the old teacher's son was caught molesting a child... I hated that teacher anyway, he made fun of my disability) and she made us say the pledge every morning. I hated it.

At the boarding Academy they never made us say the pledge. At all. I just assumed it was something the teachers eventually figured we outgrew.

Heh, random side note. At about...mm... 4th grade or so, I think, I decided that I hated the pledge of allegiance and was not going to say it anymore. But I had to stand up with the rest and say SOMETHING, so I came up with my own Pledge of Alligators:

I pledge alligators, to the plague

of the united cakes of Comerica

and to the stu-public

for wicked stands

one nation

under.... I had something that rhymed with God here but I can't remember what

with wizardry and Justin for Paul

When I would tell other kids about it, they often got mad at me for messing up God's name, so sometimes I would put God in there.... but then I realized that America was not a nation under God anyway, so I stopped caring.

Haha, when I came up with the "Justin for Paul" line, I had no idea what homosexuality even was... I read so many books published before...well, whenever the meaning changed, that I Thought the word Gay meant happy. When I found out, I decided I was in support of gay marriage anyway and was glad I'd found my own little way to rebel.

We won't get started on my version of the star spangled banner.....

[Elle]

My very long reply is very long.

So what do you expect to happen to someone who works hard and then is in an accident at work and can no longer work? Should that person not be fed? I agree that those who are able-bodied and able-minded who who choose not to work and don't even try to do anything should be stuck fending for themselves, but do you realize that not all of those who receive help are not people who are choosing to be in a position of need? What do you think should have happened to families when the recession hit and jobs were lost by the tens of thousands? I was in the Bay Area when that hit, and we lost hundreds of thousands of jobs in mere months, and there were not enough jobs for those of us laid off. Fast food places received so many applications that some put up signs that they weren't taking any more applications. Should we all have starved because we weren't working hard at a job, though we sure as hell were working hard at trying to find work? Those of us who received any sort of help received help from a system that we paid into. We didn't expect "others" to pay for us. We were the ones paying in, and so were getting money we paid.

Open your bible and look up all the men who had concubines, all the men who had sex with their slaves. It was condoned!

And syphilis has been common for centuries. What do you think was meant in the 30's and 40's by "avoid the clap"? Do you think it meant avoid people applauding you? It was code for syphilis.

Marriage between a man and a woman? Not only have MANY cultures "since the beginning of time" actually accepted two men or two women, but again, open your bible and count the men who had multiple wives. A man and A woman? Try a man and many women. how many wives did Solomon have? Or David? How many concubines in the mix?

Porn has been around since the dawn of time. There are cave paintings depicting sex. During the Reformation there was porn of nuns! It was something done jokingly "in secret." Porn was very very common, and when it was truly in secret, it was done in secret from the authorities. Even the Marquis de Sade's books were publicly adored until forced underground by the authorities. If you think visual pornography is bad, you don't even want to know what he wrote about. Here's a hint: Even the most liberal of porn-lovers are often turned off by what he wrote. As a society, we are far more prude now than we were hundreds of years ago.

Also you're wrong about therapists claiming porn is good for a marriage. If one spouse objects, it's bad for the marriage, and every therapist knows that. Some will say it can be good for a marriage if BOTH enjoy it together, but if one isn't oaky with it, then it's harmful. Every therapist knows this, and not a single one will try to convince the reluctant spouse that it's positive. Also many women enjoy porn while husbands don't. More porn is made for women because an increasing percentage of porn-viewers are women instead of men.

I'm against abortion, but do you really think it was as easy as just giving a baby to a couple that wanted a baby? Babies born to unwed mothers often ended up in orphanages where they lived until adopted by someone looking for a domestic servant. Rarely did they end up in a home to be raised as someone's beloved child. You probably love the book Anne of Green Gables. While it was a work of fiction, it was a story that could have happened. The Cuthberts basically "ordered" a child to be picked by someone else to live with them to work. That was very common. What was uncommon was for the child to be loved as their own flesh and blood. Anne was lucky with them, but her life before them, being taken in by a family needing help with their own precious children until she was no longer wanted and sent off somewhere else, was more common. Even in that work of fiction that ended happily, she was still terrified of not being loved and of being hurt. And you know what? Those kids, the ones in orphanages and adopted as servants were lucky compared to the many of small children, even toddlers, who were homeless and sometimes completely on their own. Tiny children a handful of years old fending for themselves after being abandoned by mothers who had no help (apparently it was okay for the fathers to run off, and even you only condemn the mothers), and couldn't work with a child, but couldn't afford to hire childcare. A woman with a child was damaged goods.

You said a woman pregnant out of wedlock should deal with the consequences. What the hell about the men? Is it because the bible okay's concubines that it's okay for men to have all the sex they want that they shouldn't have to deal with it? Because guess what. Before DNA testing, men who didn't want to deal with their children could just deny them, and often did, and the women were the ones accused of trying to destroy the men's reputations.

I don't know what America you live in, but in the one I live in even many atheists celebrate December 25h as Christmas and sing Christmas carols. We just acknowledge that there are those who celebrate other events in December, and we are being inclusive of them when we say Happy Holidays. You might not celebrate Hannukah (did you know the story behind it is in your bible?) because Jewish people do (Jesus was Jewish, so I guess you are ignoring something he'd celebrate if he were here today), but Kwanzaa isn't a religious holiday. It's cultural, and many who celebrate it are Christians who also celebrate Christmas. And there are even more holidays. Those of us who say Happy Holidays to those we don't know are being inclusive of whatever holidays that person happens to celebrate. And if a friend celebrates Hannukah instead of Christmas, why is it wrong to wish that person a Happy Hannukah? No one who knows a specific person celebrates Christmas will say anything other than Merry Christmas.

"Under god" was added to the pledge during the Red Scare under Dwight D. Eisenhower. It wasn't there until the late 1950's. Soon after the hippie generation came about. The children of the 50's who had to say "under god" because the "free love" teens and young adults in the next decade. How ironic. I'm sure you heard of the Summer of Love. It was, well, sex, lots of it, people "loving" each other in 1968. Those who were the first to be forced to say "under god." Before that, it was "one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

During the Great Depression violence was higher. You could argue there was less violence if you take out the murders, but you'd still be wrong. More families had fathers who were absent, whether because of suicide, death, or leaving to try to find work. More families were broken up than today. Many children were put in orphanages by mothers who couldn't feed them. Since abuse by mothers didn't always count, the stats from the 30's will show less abuse than there was. And the children! They were angry. They fought. There was violence among them competing for what little there was. The authorities didn't bother with a lot of it. There was so much f it that there was no point. Plus a lot of it was chalked up to be ruffians doing what ruffians do. Nowadays every fight between poor kids that is reported is tallied, and parents are far more likely to report every scrap and every fist that's been swung.

You'd be surprised at how many people went to church just because it was the thing to do and was expected. Even now, even in the bible belt states, a lot of people went, and go, to church just to make an appearance and to seem to conform. It might surprise you how many people, both then and now, sat and sit in church inwardly snickering or even snoozing. You'd find men in church by morning and out gambling and drinking and spending time with prostitutes by night. Did you know that Hitler was a devout Christian who believes he was doing god's work ridding the world of those he believed the bible to be against? Do you really want to see another time where Jews, the "murderers of Christ", and gays, and minorities, and those perceived as thieves because of their race, are sent to ovens to literally be burned or cooked to death, where the lucky ones were gased instead of dying by their flesh melting off? That's what happened back when you think the world was an ideal place.

Yes, divorce is more common now. But once upon a time, it didn't matter. Men who didn't want to be divorced still left and found mistresses. Even hundreds of years ago, back in the days when being not Christian got you killed by order of the king in England, there was divorce. King Henry VIII divorced his first wife. Beheaded his second. Third died. Fourth beheaded. Fifth divorced. He was working on divorcing or beheading the last, but then he died. His youngest daughter, Elizabeth, had many lovers, including married men. If that's what the royalty were up to, what do you think the citizens were doing?

The ONLY semi-valid point you have is that there is less discipline today, a growing number of parents who see any discipline as harmful to a child's development and individuality. But there are still plenty of mainstream parents who discipline, and stats put those who spank as the overall majority (though those who follow the Pearls' methods of wiping kids with pipe for appearing to even be considering misbehavior are in the extreme minority). You have elevated yourself too much to see how much people do help each other out though, how many people are donating food and money to help others get by, who help each other with their children.

Wisdom comes not from the bible, but from having a conscience to tell the difference between right and wrong without having to look up in a book what should be right or wrong (here's a hint: most of us consider the wrong things to be the things we wouldn't want others to do to us), and having the heart to care. You think you're wise, yet you are so wrong in almost every single way. You are ignorant, nothing more than a parrot. You are ignorant enough that I don't expect this reply to be up 12 hours from when I submit it. I don't think you're going to know how to reply to being shown your wrong in anyway that's not passive aggressive, so I think you'll ignore it and "say a prayer for the heathen."

[alba]

You'd be surprised at how many people went to church just because it was the thing to do and was expected. Even now, even in the bible belt states, a lot of people went, and go, to church just to make an appearance and to seem to conform. It might surprise you how many people, both then and now, sat and sit in church inwardly snickering or even snoozing. You'd find men in church by morning and out gambling and drinking and spending time with prostitutes by night.

Great reply! There's no way she'll post it, though.

This bit in particular reminds me of a passage in Tam o'Shanter, a poem published in the 18th century:

O Tam! had'st thou but been sae wise,

As ta'en thy ain wife Kate's advice!

She tauld thee weel thou was a skellum,

A blethering, blustering, drunken blellum

...

That at the Lord's house, even on Sunday,

Thou drank wi' Kirkton Jean till Monday.

She prophesied that late or soon,

Thou would be found deep drown'd in Doon;

Or catch'd wi' warlocks in the mirk,

By Alloway's auld haunted kirk.

Sure, Tam's criticised for his boozing, and he gets a bit of Karmic retribution in the poem (well, more accurately, his female horse is the one who is punished when a witch pulls her tail off). However, I think this shows that even in the 18th century there were people who went to church but the rest of the time got drunk or otherwise behaved immorally.

[Koala]

I love that every.single.comment on that post is patting her on the back for such a wonderful post. In the meantime she's sitting there hitting "Delete". She doesn't want anyone undermining her "authority" over the younger women she "mentors". Wouldn't work out so well if they saw what how inaccurate you are would it Lori?

I also love her potatoes post (in which she makes passive aggressive jabs at her daughter and father), her Mother's Day post (in which she takes passive aggressive jabs at her mother), and her newest post on emotional purity (in which she disregards the life experiences of other women in comments). She is disgusting. Just vile.

[Koala]

I love that every.single.comment on that post is patting her on the back for such a wonderful post. In the meantime she's sitting there hitting "Delete". She doesn't want anyone undermining her "authority" over the younger women she "mentors". Wouldn't work out so well if they saw what how inaccurate you are would it Lori?

I also love her potatoes post (in which she makes passive aggressive jabs at her daughter and father), her Mother's Day post (in which she takes passive aggressive jabs at her mother), and her newest post on emotional purity (in which she disregards the life experiences of other women in comments). She is disgusting. Just vile.

[Talitha Cumi]

We never said the pledge to the Christian flag...ever. Except maybe once or twice when I was in Pathfinders... (for those who don't know, Pathfinders is like boy/girlscouts, only an Adventist version thereof.)

How many years did you go to SDA schools vs. Christian schools? Was your particular brand of SDAism fundy, fundy lite, or mainstream?

I went to... 4 different Adventist schools for elementary/middle school. (In the Adventist system they don't really have a "middle school" stage...they consider grades K-8 elementary). And then I went to an Adventist boarding school (the only one left in Michigan.)

At SDA elementary school #1, we recited the pledge. I think. I was only there for first grade. My memory is very dim.

In Adventist elementary school #2 I went to, we said the pledge until about 5th grade. At least, I THINK we stopped in 5th grade...

Then in the sixth grade I was forced to move to SDA school #3, in which we did not recite the pledge of allegiance. I thought that maybe it was something one stopped doing when one got to a certain age.

Then the year after that, in my 8th grade year, we got a new teacher (because the old teacher's son was caught molesting a child... I hated that teacher anyway, he made fun of my disability) and she made us say the pledge every morning. I hated it.

At the boarding Academy they never made us say the pledge. At all. I just assumed it was something the teachers eventually figured we outgrew.

Heh, random side note. At about...mm... 4th grade or so, I think, I decided that I hated the pledge of allegiance and was not going to say it anymore. But I had to stand up with the rest and say SOMETHING, so I came up with my own Pledge of Alligators:

I pledge alligators, to the plague

of the united cakes of Comerica

and to the stu-public

for wicked stands

one nation

under.... I had something that rhymed with God here but I can't remember what

with wizardry and Justin for Paul

When I would tell other kids about it, they often got mad at me for messing up God's name, so sometimes I would put God in there.... but then I realized that America was not a nation under God anyway, so I stopped caring.

Haha, when I came up with the "Justin for Paul" line, I had no idea what homosexuality even was... I read so many books published before...well, whenever the meaning changed, that I Thought the word Gay meant happy. When I found out, I decided I was in support of gay marriage anyway and was glad I'd found my own little way to rebel.

We won't get started on my version of the star spangled banner.....

I went to SDA schools from 1st grade through 6th, spent 7th grade in a Baptist school (worst year of my life), back to SDA from 8th grade through college. Academy was a boarding school, but I was a village student, so didn't go through the crap that the boarding kids did. We didn't do the pledge in academy either.

We started as fundie-lite, then ended up fairly mainstream. Still no jewelry though, and when I got my ears pierced at age 21, my mother cried. :roll:

I love your pledge!

[Trynn]

I went to SDA schools from 1st grade through 6th, spent 7th grade in a Baptist school (worst year of my life), back to SDA from 8th grade through college. Academy was a boarding school, but I was a village student, so didn't go through the crap that the boarding kids did. We didn't do the pledge in academy either.

We started as fundie-lite, then ended up fairly mainstream. Still no jewelry though, and when I got my ears pierced at age 21, my mother cried. :roll:

I love your pledge!

Me too! I got mine pierced at 19. When my dad saw it, he said, "well, at least the studs are tasteful." I went to a public school in 7th grade, but by then I was too sheltered to make it in the real world, so I went back to the SDA school in 8th grade. My parents wanted me to go to an SDA college, but by then I was literally scared that I wouldn't be able to survive outside the Adventist bubble. I go to a secular college now. I am friends with the Adventists, and think this is a nice balance.

Besides, when I found out that at Andrews, if you live in the dorm (and you have to until you're 22) you have to get your parents permission to go anywhere overnight AND you have a 10/10:30 curfew... I was like, no way. And even my parents weren't sure they believed me. They said they didn't want to deal with that.

My parents started out mainstream, but my dad tried to get a bit more conservative as I got older...tried to forbid science fiction/Harry Potter...that worked out...so well.... I think by the time he got into the thick of that though I was 2 years away from Academy, and then at the Academy no one really cared what books you had, which surprised me. I was thinking I'd have to get EGW book covers to hide the Harry Potter books...

I kinda envied the village students, but I was glad to be at Academy, because living with my parents was rough. I was lucky I had someplace to go. Even then though, it was pretty rough, especially when I decided not to be Adventist anymore. Seventh Day Adventists think they're persecuted? Try being a non Adventist in an SDA institution. EEgad!