There are three of them (bolded in red.) Should I put a full stop there, something else, or keep it as is? Is there a better way to knock some of these semi's out?
I would do a little rewriting, cutting the long sentence to a several sentences, and removing the "not..." in the way that your points are presented. For example: As unique as they may seem, fanatical cults, like the now infamous Westboro Baptist Church, are far more common than most churchgoers are willing to admit. When I was growing up, radical views toward science, religion, women, gays, sexuality, and the "evils" of modern culture were the norm at nearly every church my family attended. It certainly never occurred to me that not every church worshipped God the way ours did. I thought that all churches condoned domestic violence, so long as it was "justified", and treated women like glorified slaves, and children like prisoners. I assumed that they all preached misanthropy, misogyny, intolerance, and judgmentalism. Surely all churches used the fear of divine wrath as a manipulative device to command their congregation's unfaltering obedience.
apologies, my goof!... i just read your comments/question and didn't take a good enough look at the material... if you feel there are too many, all you have to do is reword/restructure some sentences, so one won't be called for... as capably demonstrated by chicken freak... my personal and editor's view is that for either fiction or non-fiction, in all instances, a period, comma, em dash, or conjunction will do as good a job, or even a much better job...
What is the best way to cut down on some of these semi-colons? Substitute them with healthy portions of fruit and vegetables, and don't be tempted to buy those "buy one semi-colon get one free" things you see when you're shopping. But I suggest you just keep it as it is, honestly. If it is an essay, then I see nothing wrong with how you used the semi-colons.
cf... how did you get to paste that quote into your post?... i tried, but though i used to be able to just do a c/p, i now can't get the material highlighted...
Mamma, you mean like this? As unique as they may seem, fanatical cults, like the now infamous Westboro Baptist Church, are far more common than most churchgoer's are willing to admit. When I was growing up, radical views toward science, religion, women, gays, sexuality, and the "evils" of modern culture were the norm at nearly every church my family attended. It certainly never occurred to me that not every church worshipped God the way ours did, nor could imagine there being such a thing as a church that didn't condone domestic violence, so long as it was justified; that didn't treat women like glorified slaves, and children like prisoners; that didn't preach such practices as misanthropy, misogyny, intolerance, and judgmentalism; that didn't use the fear of divine wrath as a manipulative device to command their congregations unfaltering obedience. That's just a simple drag/highlight c&p with text coloring. There is a button in the editor: the letter A with an underscore.
Hmm. My browser still selects fine for copy and paste--though in this case I suspect I quoted and then took the quote attribution off when I did the rewrite. And then I highlighted it and did the underlined-A thing to color it.
for some crazy reason, i can highlight it today, though i couldn't yesterday... thanks for the info, robert, but i know there's an underscore option... however that doesn't aid in highlighting to c/p...
My editing of this passage: They may seem unique, but fanatical cults like the infamous Westboro Baptist Church are far more common than most churchgoers admit. When I was growing up, our family attended several churches. Nearly every one held radical views about science, religion, women, gays, sexuality, and the "evils" of modern culture. It never occurred to me that a church might hold more moderate views. What kind of religion would not condone domestic violence when justified? How could a church not regard women as glorified slaves, or children as prisoners? Did a faith exist that didn’t practice misanthropy, misogyny, intolerance, and judgmentalism—one that didn’t invoke the fear of divine retribution to terrorize their congregations into unfaltering obedience? I couldn’t imagine such a thing. As posted: As unique as they may seem, fanatical cults, like the now infamous Westboro Baptist Church, are far more common than most churchgoer's are willing to admit. When I was growing up, radical views toward science, religion, women, gays, sexuality, and the "evils" of modern culture were the norm at nearly every church my family attended. It certainly never occurred to me that not every church worshipped God the way ours did, nor could imagine there being such a thing as a church that didn't condone domestic violence, so long as it was justified; that didn't treat women like glorified slaves, and children like prisoners; that didn't preach such practices as misanthropy, misogyny, intolerance, and judgmentalism; that didn't use the fear of divine wrath as a manipulative device to command their congregations unfaltering obedience.
Hmmm, I get what you're saying and trying to do. For me the semis don't pose much of a problem, but here's one way I'd go at editing this section:
