Christian suggestion

[Lynne Murphy]

"A. Maberry" wrote:The case of Islam is exactly the same as that of
Christianity. No one is

> born a Muslim, only of parents who are Muslim. And, unlike the case of
> Judaism, both "Muslim" and "Christian" imply absolutely no ethnic
> identity.
>

An ex of mine was a Lutheran of German-Norwegian (Illinois-N. Dakota) stock,
who, whenever she saw a Jello salad would gesture boldly and exclaim "Behold!
The food of my people!"  This joke got started because of the ubiquitous jello
salads at Lutheran "covered dish" (i.e., potluck) suppers in that part of the
country.  So, perhaps one can be a little bit culturally Lutheran, if not
ethnically so.

Several people  I know and I refer to ourselves as "culturally Catholic".
(Others refer to themselves as "recovering Catholics", of course.)  The idea
behind cultural Catholicism is kind of like ethnic Judaism--we were brought up
with ritual, righteous guilt, mysteries, and such that we're not altogether sure
that we want to get rid of.  Be an atheist?  That's fine.  But give up icons and
incense and Latin?  Well, that's a bit harder.  They're so cool...

I've also been trying to popularize the term "apathetic" as a religious term on
the model of "agnostic" and "atheist".  An apathetic is a person who doesn't
care whether there's a god.

Apathetically yours,
Lynne, who only sings the Latin verses of Christmas carols 'cause they're
prettier and more mysterious

P.S. A guy in my Unitarian-Universalist fellowship has a bumpersticker I like:
"MILITANT AGNOSTIC--I don't know and neither do you!"

P.P.S.  I find it appropriate that we're having this discussion at a time when
the Pope is angering all of South Asia.  His message that we should celebrate
all religions, but convert their members is the kind of thing that would make
me  write "LOGIC!" in the margins of a freshman paper.

P.P.S.  Ok, I'll shut up now...