Korean Job Discussion Forums :: View topic - Study: Religion is Good for Kids

Speak Korean Now!

Teach English Abroad and Get Paid to see the World!

Korean Job Discussion Forums
"The Internet's Meeting Place for ESL/EFL Teachers from Around the World!"

FAQ

Memberlist

Usergroups

Profile

Study: Religion is Good for Kids
Goto page Previous 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 Next

Korean Job Discussion Forums Forum Index -> Off-Topic Forum

View previous topic :: View next topic

Author

Message

Missile Command Kid

Joined: 17 Jul 2006
Location: Daegu

Posted: Sat Apr 28, 2007 2:33 am Post subject:

gang ah jee wrote:

I looked through the link you provided but couldn't find anything to back up your claim. That paedophiles attend church in hopes of self-control might be obvious to you, but where does it say that in your link?

Oh, the link wasn't intended to back up the claim; rather it was just meant as an example of a devout churchgoer and Christian leader who was unable to keep himself from sexually exploiting children. From an outsider's perspective, cases where high profile religious leaders show themselves to be unable to refrain from behaviour that they publically condemn are very puzzling. There are various ways of accounting for this of course - for example, demonic possession is one explanation, systemic corruption is another. But personally, I find the thesis that certain types are drawn to religious morality because they feel that they cannot control their urges through their own internal systems of self-control and morality.[/quote]

A simpler explanation would be that we're all screwed up, and despite our personal ideologies we all fail to be perfect at one time or another. Some fall harder than others. I don't think that there's a causal relationship between paedophilia and religious beliefs, but I don't have enough information to say that a correlative relationship is impossible.

tomato

Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: I get so little foreign language experience, I must be in Koreatown, Los Angeles.

Posted: Sat Apr 28, 2007 2:37 am Post subject:

Missile Command Kid wrote:

That situation had nothing to do with religion. It's not comparable, in my opinion. (The girls are the band "Prussian Blue" and they're still touring the US.)

You missed the point.
We may be intolerant of people brainwashing their kids with something we don't believe in, and you don't like that.
What I wanted to know was: are YOU tolerant of people brainwashing their kids with something YOU don't believe in.

I am assuming that you don't believe in white racism.

Last edited by tomato on Sat Apr 28, 2007 2:45 am; edited 1 time in total

Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat

Joined: 01 Apr 2007

Posted: Sat Apr 28, 2007 2:42 am Post subject:

Missile Command Kid wrote:

Melissa Harrington had naked pictures taken of herself in a public bar. The police arrested and ticketed her because of those pictures. Now, if the police give out tickets for something innoculous like this that was caught on film, don't you think the police would arrest "child abusers" had they been depicted on the film? It's not a difficult point to see. If there was child abuse on the video, the people would be arrested. Since nobody was arrested, there was no crime.

Seriously, are you going out of your way to sound daft? Do you honestly believe the law to be some universal, objective, inbiased force that magically swoops down and does good in the world? Haven't you heard of injustice? Or hypocrisy? Or exploitation? Immoral laws exist and are legally sanctioned (by definition). It's beyond obvious, and your trivial example is irrelevant. Try a little critical thinking (and empty syllogisms don't count).

Quote:

So ignoring for a second that, by your own admission, your own definition of child abuse does not coincide with the legal definition of child abuse, according to what definition are you stating that the contents of the film Jesus Camp amount to child abuse?

Here's one definition (seems fairly reasonable):

Quote:

Child abuse is the physical, sexual, or emotional maltreatment or neglect of children by parents, guardians, or others responsible for a child's welfare. While most child abuse happens in the child's home, large numbers of cases of child abuse have been identified within some organizations involving children, such as churches, schools, child care businesses, and in particular native residential schools

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_abuse)

and here was my original one in this thread:

I wrote:

Psychologically torturing/terrorizing children by teaching them they are going to burn in hell if they don't unquestioningly obey, causing them to have emotional breakdowns, and training them to be in a so-called 'army of god' is abuse

Missile Command Kid

Joined: 17 Jul 2006
Location: Daegu

Posted: Sat Apr 28, 2007 2:45 am Post subject:

tomato wrote:

Missile Command Kid wrote:

That situation had nothing to do with religion. It's not comparable, in my opinion. (The girls are the band "Prussian Blue" and they're still touring the US.)

You missed the point.
We may be intolerant of people brainwashing their kids with something we don't believe in, and you don't like that.
My question was: are YOU tolerant of people brainwashing their kids with something YOU don't believe in.

I was assuming that you don't believe in white racism.

Ah, but see, that's not where my problem lies. My problem is equating religious education with "child abuse." You have every right to not like what I teach my children. You can even object to it if you want. But the moment that somebody says that religious indoctrination is "child abuse," a line has been crossed. Even in the Prussian Blue example, it's not "child abuse" to teach a child to be racist. There are very clear legal definitions for what constitutes child abuse.

To sum it up: just because you don't like it, it doesn't mean that it's "child abuse."

gang ah jee

Joined: 14 Jan 2003
Location: city of paper

Posted: Sat Apr 28, 2007 2:53 am Post subject:

Missile Command Kid wrote:

A simpler explanation would be that we're all screwed up, and despite our personal ideologies we all fail to be perfect at one time or another. Some fall harder than others. I don't think that there's a causal relationship between paedophilia and religious beliefs, but I don't have enough information to say that a correlative relationship is impossible.

I think I mostly agree with you; I'm certainly not trying to suggest that there are any strong deterministic relationships. But when you've got cases where religious leaders and demogogues like Capill or Haggard (not to equate consensual man-action with child molestation here) are engaging in behaviours that are complete anathema to everything they have ever said, then you have to wonder about the relationship between their beliefs and their desires. Some people doth protest too much, it seems.

Missile Command Kid

Joined: 17 Jul 2006
Location: Daegu

Posted: Sat Apr 28, 2007 2:56 am Post subject:

Leopard, do something about it, rather than whinging about it on an ESL forum. You're not going to change my mind, and seeing as how you're not likely going to take the time to prove that religious indoctrination comprises emotional maltreatment or neglect (look up "neglect" in the dictionary, by the way - I'm not sure you understand what it actually means), I'm not sure there's any point in continuing this conversation. To quote you:

Leopard wrote:

You are wrong.

Last edited by Missile Command Kid on Sat Apr 28, 2007 3:01 am; edited 1 time in total

Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat

Joined: 01 Apr 2007

Posted: Sat Apr 28, 2007 2:59 am Post subject:

Missile Command Kid wrote:

Leopard, do something about it, rather than whinging about it on an ESL forum. You're not going to change your mind, and seeing as how you're not likely going to take the time to prove that religious indoctrination comprises emotional maltreatment or neglect (look up "neglect" in the dictionary, by the way - I'm not sure you understand what it actually means), I'm not sure there's any point in continuing this decision.

You've got nothing. You're trying to save face by acting indignant, but again you don't fool me.

Missile Command Kid

Joined: 17 Jul 2006
Location: Daegu

Posted: Sat Apr 28, 2007 3:01 am Post subject:

Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat wrote:

Missile Command Kid wrote:

You've got nothing. You're trying to save face by acting indignant, but again you don't fool me.

Leopard wrote:

You are wrong.

Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat

Joined: 01 Apr 2007

Posted: Sat Apr 28, 2007 3:02 am Post subject:

Missile Command Kid wrote:

Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat wrote:

Missile Command Kid wrote:

You've got nothing. You're trying to save face by acting indignant, but again you don't fool me.

As a reply to Missile Command, Leopard aptly wrote:

You are wrong.

ED209

Joined: 17 Oct 2006

Posted: Sat Apr 28, 2007 3:17 am Post subject:

Julia Sweeney: Letting Go of God The age of reason!

Novernae

Joined: 02 Mar 2005

Posted: Sat Apr 28, 2007 4:26 am Post subject:

Missile Command Kid wrote:

Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat wrote:

Quote:

Well, let's see. If I were wrong, you think that governments around the world would have viewed the film Jesus Camp with shock and horror, and would have immediately enacted laws equating these camps with the sort of psychological terror and torture that you describe.

Yeah, cuz that's how things are done in the world... Are you really that naive?

Are you joking? US legislation is full of knee-jerk reactionary laws. The DMCA and Patriot Act ring a bell? You're hiding behind a rhetorical question when you're ignoring the obvious: if the film contained child abuse, something would have been done about it. Nothing was done about it, so therefore it wasn't child abuse according to the legal definition of the term. You might choose to believe that what you saw was child abuse according to your own definition, but that doesn't mean that you're right.

To think that laws do anything other than support the status quo is naive as best. The legal definition of child abuse does include emotional abuse (I'm sure, though I don't know the law), but unfortunately emotional abuse in the form of religious teaching is not part of it because a very large majority of people see nothing wrong with it. In the same way, years ago many people saw nothing wrong with enslaving black people, putting gays in jail, beating your kid nearly to death for talking back, and refusing person status to anyone who wasn't a white male. We've grown past those shortcomings as a society and they are no longer accepted as the status quo, and the laws don't support those mindsets anymore since the majority supports the outlawing of such discrimination and abuse. At the moment, the majority still thinks it's okay to raise children in fear eternal damnation for things over which they have little or no control. People think it's okay to make children think that they are inherently evil. People think it's okay to make children believe that if they break any of many baseless rules of the bible they will spend an eternity in hell. People think that it's okay to make children think that sex is a dirty, impure act to be reviled. You have made it clear what you believe, but I believe that it is child abuse to make a child so scared that they can't sleep at night or so guilty that they think their father's death was a smite from God for their misbehaviour or 'impure thoughts'.

Missile Command Kid

Joined: 17 Jul 2006
Location: Daegu

Posted: Sat Apr 28, 2007 5:08 am Post subject:

Novernae wrote:

There's a lot of points in your post that you've just plain got wrong. First of all, I don't know a single parent who raises their children to fear "eternal damnation." I know I was certainly never taught this as a child. I was 11 or 12 before I truly came to understand the notion of hell. Most Sunday schools and child-oriented Christian literature deals with stories of the lives of Jewish/Christian patriarchs: what Adam did, what Noah did, Abraham, David, Jesus, Paul, and so on. The positive aspects of the religion are emphasised. I'm not planning on teaching my children that sex is a "dirty, impure act." I wasn't taught this and neither was my wife. I've never been taught that God punishes people by killing those around you for misbehaving or thinking impure thoughts.

As for humans being inherently evil: you disagree? Look around at the world out there. Do you honestly see our civilisation as being built by inherently good people? There's not a single aspect of our civilisation that isn't fraught with problems ranging from minor to heinous. Humanity is a deeply flawed race - you only need to pick up any newspaper in any juristiction around the planet to see that.

The facts are this: children generally aren't told about hell. In fact, over the past several years of attending weekly church services, I've heard perhaps three or four that have dealt with the topic of hell. Within a Christian community, the message that is taught generally has to do with how to live a better life, with all the various aspects that this touches upon. Talking to a group of Christians about how non-Christians go to hell is, if you'll pardon the expression, merely preaching to the choir.

The idea that bringing up a child to be Christian is equitable to slavery, gay bashing/discrimination, *REAL* child abuse, or discrimination is laughable. You have absolutely no idea how saddened I am at this twisted world, where the message of the Gospel has now been twisted so that its very teachings to children are considered to be as bad, if not worse, to physically causing a child harm. I also find it very interesting that the focus of this illogical rant is Christianity. Why not Islam? Why not Judaism? Why not Hinduism? Why is it that whenever this issue is brought up, it's always the Christians that are the "child abusers." Why don't I ever hear about Hindus or Buddhists abusing their children by teaching them about their faith?

You've got your facts seriously wrong. Where are you getting them from?

tomato

Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: I get so little foreign language experience, I must be in Koreatown, Los Angeles.

Posted: Sat Apr 28, 2007 5:55 am Post subject:

Missile Command Kid wrote:

First of all, I don't know a single parent who raises their children to fear "eternal damnation."

James Joyce was.
At least, that's what he tells us in Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
So was Mark Twain.
At least, that's what he tells us in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

Quote:

I've never been taught that God punishes people by killing those around you for misbehaving or thinking impure thoughts.

Then you weren't taught the whole message.
Don't you know that God killed 42 children for making fun of a bald man?

Quote:

I also find it very interesting that the focus of this illogical rant is Christianity. Why not Islam? Why not Judaism? Why not Hinduism? Why is it that whenever this issue is brought up, it's always the Christians that are the "child abusers."

We don't attack Hindus?
Ask Rteacher!

Last edited by tomato on Sat Apr 28, 2007 6:11 am; edited 1 time in total

tomato

Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: I get so little foreign language experience, I must be in Koreatown, Los Angeles.

Posted: Sat Apr 28, 2007 6:03 am Post subject:

Quote:

As for humans being inherently evil: you disagree?

I have made a list of possible sources of evil--or that which is called evil.
For those of you who have already seen this list on the other thread, I apologize for the repetition:

■ violation of instincts

Just as animals of other species establish an orderly society, our prehistoric ancestors established an orderly society. There may have been other animal species which did NOT establish an orderly society, but if there were, those species quickly went extinct.

Most likely, we arrived at the rules of "thou shalt not kill" and "thou shall not steal" long ago. If there was an occasional violation, the rest of the tribe quickly took care of it. This was long before know-it-all preachers started standing at the pulpit and talking down to us.

Heterosexuals are in the majority because heterosexuals can reproduce. Moreover, there is survival value in fear of the unknown, which is why heterosexuals reject homosexuals. Preachers can harp all they want to about homosexuality being "an abomination in the eyes of God," but that doesn't fool us Evolutionists one bit.

■ male instincts

No matter what the police, the court, the legislature, and the criminologists do, men will be more criminal than women for a long time to come. No matter what the preachers and the Sunday School teachers do, men will be more evil than women for a long time to come.

Men are in a double-bind. We carry the same law-and-order instincts as women, but we also carry violent and aggressive instincts which conflict with the law-and-order instincts. Without the violent and aggressive instincts, we could not have been good hunters and warriors.

Most of us do not work as hunters or warriors now, but our inner brains don't know that.

■ disparity between our evolutionary past and modern times

This disparity manifests itself in so many ways that I will have to subcategorize.

▶ disrespectful disagreement

Nothing would delight the skeptics on this thread more than to convert the theists to skepticism. But they aren't going to convert as long as we keep insulting them.

In like manner, nothing would delight the theists more than to convert US to theism. But we aren't going to convert as long as THEY keep insulting US.

So why do we keep insulting each other?

Because our inner brains tell us that we are on the battlefield. In prehistoric times, there probably wasn't much intellectual discourse. Whenever there was strife, it was on the battlefield. So even today, every time we click onto this thread, our inner brains tell us that we are on the battlefield.

▶ bad habits

Can you name some things which are attractive but harmful? I can name a few:
alcohol, cigarettes, junk food, illegal drugs, and excessive TV and video.

Now turn it around and name some things which are unattractive but beneficial. Here again, I can name a few: schoolwork, hypodermic needles, dental operations, and medical operations.

All of these items have one thing in common--they weren't around a million years ago. If they were, our instincts would have adapted accordingly.

▶ sex hang-ups

In the extended family system, everyone grew up in an environment with people of all ages and both genders. Now that we live in the nuclear family system, we are not so richly blessed.

I wonder, then, if homosexuality, pedophilia, the sissy boy syndrome, the tomboy girl syndrome, the Oedipus complex, and the Electra complex are inventions of the nuclear family system.

▶ pollution

Why are we so ecologically unwise?

Because we don't love our great-great-grandchildren. In prehistoric times, there was no need to love someone who hasn't even been born yet, so why should we?

▶ abortion

In prehistoric times, we only loved people we could see. We can't see a fetus, at least not without modern technology. So what is the point of loving a fetus?

▶ war

Iran disagrees with us? Kill them! Iraq disagrees with us? Kill them!

This seems like an easy solution, as long as you don't think about the millions of innocent people who are affected. And those people are hundreds of miles away, so it is easy NOT to think about them.

Here again, we are indifferent to people whom we can't see.

▶ international relations

Why do we have so much trouble getting along with Koreans? And why do Koreans have so much trouble getting along with us?

Because in prehistoric times, modern transportation and communication did not exist. There was no need, then, to "love the whole wide world."

Most of the people you knew looked like you and talked like you. But what about those exceptions? If they spoke a different language, you couldn't understand them. Foreign language textbooks and cassette tapes were long in the future. If someone who looked different from you came up to you and said something nonsensical like "안녕 하세요,� you wouldn't know WHAT that meant!

The safest assumption would be that it means "I'm going to tear you limb from limb."

Last edited by tomato on Sat Apr 28, 2007 6:22 am; edited 1 time in total

tomato

Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: I get so little foreign language experience, I must be in Koreatown, Los Angeles.

Posted: Sat Apr 28, 2007 6:17 am Post subject:

If you are implying that children are conceived in Original Sin,, I invite you to make four lists: 1. What is attractive to children and good for children? 2. What is attractive to children but harmful to children? 3. What is unattractive to children but good for children? 4. What is unattractive to children and harmful to children? If a child were born good, as Rousseau would have us believe, only #1 and #4 would have answers. If a child were conceived in Original Sin, only #2 and #3 would have answers. If a child were born as a tabula rasa, as John Locke would have us believe, all four questions would be left blank. However, all four questions can be answered. Yet there is a pattern. For #1, you might list outdoor exercise, friends, healthy affection, and juicy fruit. For #2, you might list excessive TV, and excessive video, and junk foods. For #3, you might list school work, bitter medicine, and hypodermic needles. For #4, you might list wild animals, high places, and fire. Note that #1 and #4 have been around since prehistoric times, whereas #2 and #3 are modern inventions. This leads me to conclude that children are born for survival in the wilderness.

Display posts from previous:

	Korean Job Discussion Forums Forum Index -> Off-Topic Forum	All times are GMT - 8 Hours Goto page Previous 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 Next
Page 5 of 6

You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum

TEFL International Supports Dave's ESL Cafe