Barbara writes:

Marie wrote:
SNIP I tend to stay away from the bible thumpers,
because I'd rather not be told that I'm going to hell, or my kids need
to be in church.
SNIP

And this would differ from religious people who would prefer that their
children not play with non-religious people ... exactly how?

In whether the person concerned is attempting to impose their beliefs on
someone else, or not. A "Bible thumper" is by definition a person who does
this wrt Christianity, or at least that's my understanding.

I do think there's a difficult angle where children are concerned, though.
As an adult, I don't need to avoid religious people as a group: if someone
does push their religion on me, I can recognise what's happening and choose
whether to avoid that individual in future. I'm slightly concerned, though,
that preschoolers may not have adult sensitivities on this. If it ever
happened that someone else's preschooler told mine he was going to hell, or
that Jesus saved us, for that matter, I'd be a lot more concerned about
whom he talked unsupervised to in future, and yes, if that happened, I
could imagine wanting myself or a trusted adult to be present any time he
talked to a child from a fundamentalist household.

I'm not sure whether this is a reasonable concern, or whether actually even
very young children have enough tact that it isn't likely to happen in
practice. I *do* remember this kind of talk directed at me by other
children when I was a child, but age 8-10, at which point I could more or
less cope.

Sidheag
DS Colin Oct 27 2003