A family member bought my daughter

[gollygee]

Some Veggietales toys and a book called "GOD for Children" for Christmas.

I took the Veggietales stuff home but I quietly forgot the book.

This pisses me off because I would never dream of giving their kids something they found inappropriate in a religious sense. And if I *DID* they'd go absolutely nuts about it. They'd feel completely comfortable going crazy over that, and yet I didn't feel comfortable telling them how I felt.

So frustrating.

[slutticus]

1. One of those things looks like a dildo.

It also moves around in a very suggestive manner.

What's up with that?

These fundies have some serious denial going on... Check it out.

You should mention this to your family member. Tell them to stop perverting your daughter. :evilgrin:

[gollygee]

2. Yep that's one of the ones we got

the cucumber.

LOL

[SiouxJ]

4. OMG! That's hilarious!

It moves around? Cucumber vibrators for kids? Well, since they insist they abstain until marriage, I guess they're gonna need that thing.

[SiouxJ]

3. That's rude IMO - for them to give that to your daughter

I don't know what I would do in that situation. That's pretty blatant. I've received silly angel things that come with instructions on why they are special, and how they'll bring you good fortune etc. I'm polite at the time, but then I sell them at my next garage sale. All the angel stuff goes fast here in my fundie town :-) . If I were going to start a new business, I'd come up with anything to do with angels. Fundies are obsessed with them and can never have enough little angel knickknacks, books, key-chains etc.

[Longhorn]

5. My mother has a friend -- younger than I am --

who she has taken in from time to time and counseled her through her marriage and subsequent divorce (my mother is a lay minister.) June is from Venezuela and lost her mother the same year my mother lost hers. Anyway, at the Christmas get-together, June brought all of the females in the family a religious necklace called a "prayer box." This is the first time I've met June and I have no idea if she knows that I'm an atheist. I "accidentally" left it at my mother's house. I don't know what my three grown daughters did with theirs but it wouldn't shock me to find out that four necklaces were "accidentally" left behind!

[PassingFair]

6. Funny you bring this up...

Last year for my nephew's birthday, I gave him the "His Dark Materials" trilogy by Philip Pullman. (A GREAT series, written by an atheist that thrills both children and adults alike. The plot involves two children leading a (successful)war against God and the church.)
Well.....my fundie sister-in-law called me a few weeks after the birthday party to thank me profusely...her THREE kids read the whole series and LOVED IT! She wanted to know if he had written anything else! It's been kind of a joke around my house for some time...until....my husband offhandedly mentioned that a movie was being made from the books, but they have decided to censor all mention of God and the church from the movie. My sister-in-law asked a few more questions, and my husband blabbed that we had provided her VERY sheltered (home schooled, no church is godly enough)boys with books dedicated to atheist philosophy. She FREAKED. Now she's reading the books herself so as to perform damage control. This X-mas she admitted that they are page turners......

Conversely, my youngest daughter LOVED the veggietale videos. Just couldn't get enough of them, so I let her watch them. One day, a friend of mine brought her daughter over to play, and my daughter popped in the jehrico one...my friend happened into the living room, saw what was on the screen, strode over and ejected it! "No genocide-loving peapods for MY kid", she said. I couldn't believe it, she was a freethinker! That said, she's also a borderline Libertarian who wouldn't tell me who she voted for....she's really hard to figure out.

Bottom line is the veggietale videos have very catchy tunes and bright visuals, and almost everything you share with your kids can provide an opportunity for a good discussion.

[Phentex]

7. That stinks. We were able to avoid Veggietales...

but I'm not sure how damaging they would be. My SIL gave my kids a book of children's bible stories once and it was kinda entertaining. They read like myths anyway.

[Biased Liberal Media]

8. I'm surprised my mother didn't think of this one

so far she's been pretty cool about not sending DD xian related stuff. Now that she knows I'm a full blown Atheist we'll see where that goes! hmm!

[onager]

9. Y'all could always send those little bastions of religion...

...a subscription to SKEPTIC magazine. Which comes complete with an issue of "JUNIOR SKEPTIC" in every issue! (Some of you may have seen Lisa Simpson reading it, in the TV series.)

Along with the subscription, you'll get a membership in the Skeptics Society. A very good thing to have, these days.

[Is It Fascism Yet]

13. lol, good idea, n/t

[StrongbadTehAwesome]

10. the veggietales' silly songs are great, but the normal videos

are Christian as well. just thought I'd give you a heads-up.

[fugue]

11. So . . . why'd you keep the Veggietales stuff?

[gollygee]

14. They don't say anything religious

The cucumber sings about looking for a hairbrush, and the tomato basically just sings, "Veggie tales veggie tales" over and over again. So this stuff isn't preaching to her anyway.

I don't particularly want to get her any other Veggie Tales stuff though.

[fugue]

15. But Veggietales *is* Christian

You'll let her have the toys but not the videos? I mean . . . the videos are actively Christian.

[gollygee]

16. I don't have any videos

only the two toys. And the toys were made by Christians but in and of themselves do nothing Christian. A tomato and a cucumber are not inherently Christian. They sing about hairbrushes and say "Veggie Tales Veggie Tales" over and over again. She is not learning about Christianity from them.

I'm not Christian, but I'm not anti-Christian either. I don't mind buying something made by Christians so long as they don't preach to my kid. These two toys don't preach to her so they're OK with me.

[fugue]

17. It's not about being anti-Christian

It's about preventing the little one from screaming for "Veggie Tales" because the toys repeat it over and over and over.

[gollygee]

18. I considered that

But I'm in control of what I buy and I don't intend to buy any videos or anything.

And if these toys follow the life cycle of other toys of the same nature, she'll play with them for a few weeks and get tired of them. If we had a conflict over them, she'd be interested in them for months.

[fugue]

19. Ah, good point

Well, here's hoping she loses all interest soon. . . .

[Is It Fascism Yet]

12. good for you, that was just right, leave it behind, case closed, n/t

[lapislzi]

20. Sadly, one must be vigilant on all fronts

Veggietales is just one little piece of a very big propaganda campaign. Sometimes I just want to scream at people to get their hocus pocus out of my face.

Religious proseletyzing in any form offends me. I don't cram my atheism down people's throats. I expect the same courtesy from believers. Unfortunately, believers (or the deluded, as I like to call them), have this idea that their beliefs and behaviors must be "respected" at all times, and that said respect extends to their sales pitches as well. For what are Veggietales if not a sales pitch for Christianity? Get 'em young, to paraphrase Ignatius Loyola.

I treat the pushy pious as I would any other sales people--politely but firmly, with a "no thank you."

A long time ago I explained to my daughter that I disagreed strongly with the message behind Veggietales. She understood, and never asked for the toys or videos.

[arwalden]

21. Landover Baptist Church Wrote An Article On Veggietales

http://www.landoverbaptist.org/news0502/veggietales.html

FREEHOLD, IOWA - "Veggie Tales is not Christian!" yelled Pastor Deacon Fred as he burst into the Landover Baptist Baby Jesus Day Care Center last Friday afternoon. He was followed by four deacons who kicked veggie toys out from the hands of youngsters and smashed them to pieces. "Now gather up what's left of that trash and BURN IT!" Deacon Crenshaw told the children. Throughout the day, the deacons visited upon other day care centers around the church campus until all traces of veggie toys were eliminated from church property. Then it was off to the homes of church members with children to finish the Lord's business by ridding the community of filth.

continued... http://www.landoverbaptist.org/news0502/veggietales.html