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Kids Are People

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Lily: People say I shouldn't have opinions about raising kids because I don't HAVE kids. But kids aren't property, they're PEOPLE. It's not like telling someone how to arrange their bookshelf.
(a person looks at someone's bookshelf and says "You should really have them alphabetized." Other person says "EXCUSE me? You don't even READ books!")
Lily: I may not have kids, but I've BEEN a kid, and I know lots of other people who have been kids too!
Simon: Oh, do you really?
Lily: Heh. Believe it or not. So when I hear about how my friends were treated as children, and how that has negatively impacted their lives in adulthood, I think it's important for me to advocate for children to be treated with respect.

Primary Colors

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Lily: You know what bugs me? The way they teach primary colors in elementary school. They give kids the generic red, yellow, and blue. And the kids have to mix these awful color wheels with puke green and purple that looks like brown. And the poor kids are sitting there with their bright purple toys thinking, "why can't I make a purple that looks like this?" Only later they learn that the primary colors are ACTUALLY magenta, yellow, and cyan. But "red, yellow, and blue" is so ingrained into the cultural consciousness that we can't get rid of it. Whenever someone says "primary," those are the colors we're supposed to think of. It just shows that the stuff we teach kids when they're young is the stuff that shapes our whole society.
(a costume maker talks to Superman and his suit is cyan, magenta, and yellow. She says " You SAID you wanted primary colors." Superman says "Uh, yeah...")

The Core of Faith

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Simon: It's hard to believe you're still a Christian when you question so many things.
Lily: I constantly question my religion. Faith means not being sure of something but living like it's true anyway. If we had certainty, we wouldn't NEED faith.
Simon: Why do live like it's true if you're not sure?
Lily: Um... a lot of reasons. Traveling further down the road of belief in God leads me into states of mind that I don't know how to get to another way. Empowerment, freedom, and connection to the universe.
Simon: Huh. That's the OPPOSITE of how it seems to me. Like believing in God used to hold me BACK from that stuff.
Lily: In that case, I don't think the god you believed in was the real God.
Simon: That's like saying "there's no way you can dislike olives because the only REAL olives are the ones you like."
Lily: Yeah, but God isn't olives, he's the essence of everything good and true.

The Dognma of Science

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Lily: Science requires faith too. You have to believe other people when they describe what they've observed in a study. You can't verify all science by repeating it yourself, it would take forever. And a lot of science ends up being faulty because of biases.
Simon: Science has a pretty thorough system for that. But you're right, I am trusting the experts, and it's hard to weed out bias in certain areas.
Lily: Some people treat science like dogma, though, and if someone has a personal or political opinion they disagree with, they accuse that person of being anti-science. Simon: Yeah, science can't tell us what norms we should be okay with, it can only tell us what's most likely to happen. Like, science can tell you that cigarettes make you more likely to get certain diseases, but it can't tell you that they should be banned.
Lily: But banning addictive substances solves all our problems.
Simon: I know. Life is so simple that way.

Oxytocin

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Lily: When people say believing in God is not intelligent, they seem to be implying that science should be the only frame of reference we use to understand the world. Religion adds all these other elements to my perspective, like purpose, hope and forgiveness, and things being possible even if they seem IMpossible.
Simon: You can have all that stuff WITHOUT religion, though.
Lily: I know, but we have to think outside of the scientific paradigm to fully embrace it, and to trust each other and have healthy social bonds. Some people say love is just a chemical reaction, but how can you have meaningful relationships with that mentality? Simon: Love is definitely more than a chemical reaction. There are several physiological responses it could involve, depending on your definition of love.

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