Comments on: Brief Update

By: Gnostic

Gnostic — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 02:23:59 +0000

It isn’t Christianity – or any other religion – it is the take on it that is the problem. The idea of all caring about each other and there is some basic Principle that holds everything together and in a way IS everything is fine (and modern scientific, if not 19th century). Kids might find the abstraction hard so give it a name, call it ‘God’. Call the ‘spirit of Christmas’, that is generosity and ‘goodwill’ ‘Santa’ and make him a Disneyfied Woden (because the ‘real’ Father Christmas stuffs bad kids in his sack). Fine, that’s an image kids can understand better than abstractions. The problem is especially in the US, kindergarten is as far as their ‘spirituality’ ever got. They still see God and Santa as literal ‘people’ instead of representations of attitudes, whether they believe in them or not. They care far more about Genesis-as-history than about ‘Love thy neighbor’. THAT is the problem.

By: Parrotlover77

Parrotlover77 — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 13:54:19 +0000

That’s a bit of a reverse Poe’s Law since ericsan was making a joke that atheists should be the one doing that.

That’s the first time I’ve seen that. Disturbing.

By: Syldoran

Syldoran — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 22:52:29 +0000

Poe’s Law, ericsan . . . Poe’s Law.

By: ericsan

ericsan — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 19:48:32 +0000

Ron, I’m offended you thought I was being serious! I thought the reeducation camp reference alone would be enough to make it obvious I was making a joke

By: Ron Britton

Ron Britton — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 04:55:00 +0000

Ericsan:

I hope that last sentence was a joke. Do you really want to live in a society where the government has that much power? What’s to keep the government in control of the “correct” people? What if the fundies get ahold of power, and they get to decide who gets thrown into reeducation camps?

By: ericsan

ericsan — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 01:38:29 +0000

Parrotlover: I disagree with you. Teaching dogma to children corrupts their capacity to learn critical thinking and as such is grave abuse. All parents teaching religion to their children should be put in jail and reeducated.

By: Jeff Eyges

Jeff Eyges — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 17:15:25 +0000

Well, the one above that was directed at me.

By: Parrotlover77

Parrotlover77 — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 14:10:28 +0000

you know the topic at hand, the demographic group we’re discussing

Jeff/Ron – My post was directed to godlizard, not you guys, that’s why I quoted. I just needed to clear the air that there are plenty of religious folks who, by any definition, are not psychologically abusing their kids! It should be fairly easy to differentiate a standard religious upbrining where a kid can eventually make decisions on his or her own and is free to say BULLSHIT versus an abusive YOU NEED TO FEAR GOD type of upbringing, but the waters seemed (to me) to be getting pretty muddy in this thread.

By: Jeff Eyges

Jeff Eyges — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 00:07:01 +0000

No. We have to tolerate it. Intervention is interference. I can stand on the sidelines and tell them they’re abusing their kids, but I can’t interfere in their parental rights unless they’ve crossed the line of egregiousness (Such as praying instead of providing medical care).

Oh. Well, I’ll interfere, then. I have no problem telling people what to do!

By: godlizard

godlizard — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 17:27:07 +0000

Yes, we have to tolerate it, even as we stand around talking about it using our “outside voices”. But talking about it helps, if only to raise awareness among those who work with children, to be alert for signs of this kind of psychologically abusive parent
(example: http://failblog.org/2010/01/06/field-trip-fail/ )
and provide support and a shoulder to cry on. NOT to interfere, just to listen and care.

By: Ron Britton

Ron Britton — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 16:21:00 +0000

I agree with Ron, and I stand by everything I said. It’s abuse, and it shouldn’t be tolerated.

No. We have to tolerate it. Intervention is interference. I can stand on the sidelines and tell them they’re abusing their kids, but I can’t interfere in their parental rights unless they’ve crossed the line of egregiousness (Such as praying instead of providing medical care).

By: Jeff Eyges

Jeff Eyges — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 16:09:48 +0000

Well, for God’s sake, PL, you’re essentially arguing against yourself. You were brought up in a liberal Methodist Church. You know as well as I do that the people we’re talking about wouldn’t have considered your parents to be Christians! And we aren’t portraying every Christian as “eternally damaged” (although I do think the underlying message as expressed by all but the most liberal clergy is essentially unwholesome) – just the conservative evangelicals/fundamentalists. I’ll also be the first to make these complaints about ultra-Orthodox Jews.

You understand what’s going on here; you know the topic at hand, the demographic group we’re discussing – b/c it’s the same group we’re always discussing. You really know better than to make the statements above.

I agree with Ron, and I stand by everything I said. It’s abuse, and it shouldn’t be tolerated.