Margo I just watched Jesus Camp. OMG it is so scary that the right wing fringe of any religion are such zealots. That poor girl. No wonder she has questions. Who can blame her. As for the girl who her in laws think she can’t cook what she and her sister in law did is hillarious.

I’m sure there are fanatics like the parent in letter #1.  But I still think the letter writer is a ringer.

This opinion is colored by one of my own epistolary efforts.  While an undergraduate at a university which had a tradition of doing so, a roommate and I wrote a fake letter to Margo’s mother involving claims of wild orgies at our famously blueblood institution.  It was never published unfortunately.

 Margo sounds as though she was once the victim of a Catholic education. 

I know there have been remarks made to the legitimacy of Letter #1.  From my experiences it could be legit or it could be fake.  I’ve known religious people who can’t conceive of ever questioning their faith and believe any sort of reaching out to learn about others will send people to hell.  I also know of militant atheists who would go so far as to pull a stunt like this (or worse) and think nothing of it, having just discovered a friend of mine has been under fire as a target for a full year (after returning to religious beliefs after having been an atheist) by a Swede who has had American atheists trying to "break" him and reconvert or try to make him commit suicide for leaving the atheist fold.  How do I know for sure?  Because the Swede finally admitted he couldn’t break him (mainly because he didn’t know he had friends who stood by him) and later finding out on a forum where the discussion between him and my friend had been posted and people were congratulating the Swede. 

As to my take on Letter #1, continue the way you are and you will permanently drive her away forever.  Learn to accept she’s at college and exposed to many new things in life, including other religious beliefs and that she is not you, she is her own person and has the right to belief any way she chooses.  

The daughter in ltr.# 1 should run and not look back.

There is no medicine to cure fanatics, sadly, parents included……

May I inject a little levity into this very serious discussion?

Letter 2:  My mother was known as a very good cook. One day my husband and I were having dinner at my parents home when my mother, in the kitchen asked me to make the fried chicken. "Yours is so much better than mine" she said.  Naturally, i agreed.

When dinner was served my husband remarked, "Dorothy, why can’t you make chicken like your mother? This is so delicious!"  My mom and I roared with laughter.

You see, people get perceptions in their heads that remain whether warranted or not. In my husband’s head my mother was a good cook-ergo her chicken had to be better than mine! Her in-laws may have had one poor meal in her home and stamped her as a bad cook. Or, as one correspondent pointed out, they may be like Marie, Debra’s mother-in-law on "Everyone Loves Raymond".

Don’t sweat the small stuff honey. Laugh and let them do the cooking!

Holy Cow!  I would love to hear that call to the FBI on God-Fearing’s part!  This just goes too far, but unfortunately sounds like a lot of families from my church(Baptist).  Personally, I’ve always found the fastest way to drive a girl from the family is to draw a hard line with her,  but perhaps that is for the better here.

I never grew up with religion, but my husband’s family has always gone to the same church, and sometimes it can seem pretty ridiculous to me.  (No movies, no dancing, your not saved unless you’re in church every time the door opens, blah blah blah)  Everything is taken  too seriously.  I can understand how some things should be, but come on! 

They are probably the main reason she joined an athiest club to begin with!  What she needs is space from her family and their beliefs, so she can decide her own.  That is a common theme running in many religions where parents attempt to control everything about their child, hoping to save them from future problems.  Instead, it just creates new ones, as they rebel and can’t run fast enough to the exact opposite of what they’ve been taught(forced to believe).

The only thing possessing your daughter is a good dose of common sense and questioning her beliefs.  Congratulations to her!  Everyone has that right, and parents should encourage chidren to question everything about religion and test the "fruits"  to see if that religion is genuine of not so whacked out cult.

I think "Burnt" in Philly should tell her in-laws they have been busted. There is no way anyone should have to put up with that nonsense and because they are her in-laws it is presumed they will be a part of her life for a very long time. And after telling them they are busted she should inform them that since they prefer to not eat her cooking, all family meals will be taken at their house from now on. They get to eat food they know they like and Burnt doesn’t have the mess at her house. It’s a win-win and it would serve the in-laws right for being so rude.

why on earth would a "holy roller" English teacher ban books written by one of the premier Christian authors of the 20th Century? His most famous work came about as a result of his attempt to prove that God didn’t exist, and he couldn’t make that work in his head.

that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. (please understand, commenter that I am not disbelieving your comment, I’m making a comment on the fact that the teacher obviously had absolutely NO idea whom she was banning from her classroom.)

C.S. Lewis wrote Mere Christianity and many other Christian books. The Chronicles of Narnia were written as an introduction of the story of Jesus (as well as some mythology and such for good measure, which might be the reason for the teacher’s banning?) for children. you’d think a "holy roller" would be excited to have something like that allowed in his or her classroom.