Looking for the silver lining...

[AntoniaB]

IB my mom was here the past few days, and we talked about religion a bit. She's a pretty devout Catholic. She told me at one point that she disagrees with the church on marriage when a spouse is abusive in some way. She said that she thinks God would not want a person to be "standing" for a potentially abusive relationship to return to them. In the past, I also know that she disagreed on birth control. There are 4 kids in our family, all born within 5 years. She said she tried all the methods they instructed and kept getting pregnant and went to a priest way back when and said look, I'm going to HAVE to use b control. I think sometimes the rules of religions are SO impossible to live by because life is messy and there is so much variation. I still think my mom is a good Catholic despite her disagreeing with a few things.

If we accept that there is free will, then a lot of these things that religions put out there as absolutes really have to be looked at closely.

It is hard for me to understand a faith where God would say, "ok, you married someone who betrayed you. That means that you can only wait for the betrayer to be saved and repent. Otherwise, you must remain single the rest of your life."

It's like you're paying for that person's actions. This is one of the reasons that I really struggle with organized religion. The rules.

So I'm probably not the best person to respond here, and you can take what I say with a grain of salt ;-) But I do think that these classes are really provoking you to think about things and I think that is really good for you and I'm glad you're sharing it with us.