Is anyone else an atheist with BC besides me?

PS. I'm more of agnostic. Hedging my bets I guess

Moth: LOL I sure will be getting my knee bends in today! We had all the of the above. our family had/has 4 girls and one brother. We did it all. My father use to take us and then sleep in the car while we were in church. There was a small store next to the church where you could get penny candy. Sometimes we could sneak by Dad and use a tiny bit of of our offering on a 1cent piece of candy. The owner always asked if we were spending our offering on candy. It was a damn penny! There's that guilt thing again! My mother never took us to mass or went herself ( altho she made us go) it was probably her break from 5 children. My SIL had 9 in her family, another Italian fam but Irish on her mom's side. I was taught by nuns and at 64 have never recovered. Weirdly one of the nicer nuns is a patient of mine, she said when you joined you had to choose teaching or nursing.

[This is all pre-Covid] My son joined an Episcopal church about five years ago. It's a lovely, very inclusive place where he feels welcome. Hubby and I have gone to a few events and services there to support him, and I must say, I felt more welcome there than I ever did at Hubby's catholic church when we lived in his old neighborhood. I was surprised to run into my old boss from years ago there. I remembered he and his wife (who I later worked with at another job - this big city is VERY small-town!) were Presbyterian at the time, so I asked about the switch. He explained that their daughter, now out of town in graduate school, was a member, so they switched for her. He was telling me some of the good things about this church, but then he said "I'll tell ya, learning the choreography was a bitch!" That's the best description of the kneeling denominations I'd ever heard!

Pictured at equinox. What a wonderful combination of nature and brains.

I don't think I've ever gotten a call from them. Around here it's the JW and LDS.

See if your phone carrier has a call blocking app. ATT does, it’s free, and pretty effective.

The call blocker I have from ATT, if you aren’t in my phone book, it won’t ring, and get blocked. I have a snarky message for voicemail, and that probably helps too

Magiclight and AliceB: Fun postings. Thanks. My middle girl turned 35 today . I will have to remind her it's the fall equinox.

Alice. Right - enough already!

Alice

Did any of you know about or ever hear of Gwen Shamblin? HBOMax has a series coming out about her soon. I always find the stories of cult leaders interesting, okay maybe even fascinating. She, her husband and several other people died in a small plane crash this summer; that's when I learned about her. HBO began filming the docuseries before she was killed; after her death, they went back in and covered the tragic event as well. I will be watching when I get HBOMax! Here's their summary about it:

"The Way Down: God, Greed and the Cult of Gwen Shamblin", a new five-part series, follows Shamblin Lara's rise to fame as an influential religious leader who convinced her followers that God had given her "the key to permanent weight control," which she reveals is "a matter of the heart."

"After rising to fame with her Weigh Down Workshop, a Christian-based diet program that preached slenderness as next to godliness, Gwen Shamblin Lara founded the Tennessee-based church. Despite a carefully curated image, Lara and the church soon fielded accusations of emotional, psychological, and physical abuse, and exploitation for their alleged cult-like practices. Encompassing years of investigation and extensive interviews with former members and others personally impacted, The Way Down explores the legacy of Remnant's infamous leader — whose life came to a shocking end after a plane crash in May 2021."

Or maybe an old horn like the one in my great grandfather's ancient Chevy truck that went "aaaoooga". It would scare the crap out of us great grandkids riding in the back of the truck. I think he knew it and did it on purpose. He had a wicked sense of humor. Probably what helped him live to 102.