Any comment on this? (The evil of television?)

Truthlover,Your posting above is something that, when it comes right down to it, is why religion has to be destroyed. I find it a terrible, terrible thing that you would be so abusive to your children as to impose these meaningless and pointless restrictions on their lived experience.Your children are sexual. How are you benefitting them by hiding sexuality from them? You are failing in your parental duty to equip them for the real world - no, worse, you are deliberately crippling them for your own ideological comfort. This, in my opinion, is a form of child abuse - you children are defenceless victims and trust you implicitly, so you can tell them any old lie and get away with it.Just as perhaps you have done with rock and roll. It is hard to understand how someone can hold such a perverse opinion of music. We dance - we have always danced. We sang before we had words to sing, and made music on stones and logs when that was all we had to hand. And when we do this, most of us experience Joy and a sense of union and togetherness.From my perspective, you are making your children into emotionally broken robots, loaded with a value system that is totally anti-thetical to human behaviour. You are crushing their capacity to relate to a whole range of entirely normal human behaviours; indeed, cruchsing out of them a huge chunk of the joy that is to be had in human existance. Why do you seek to so distort the sexuality and the emotional maturity of your offspring? Is it just so they will be an ever-present fan base who will sing your praises in your dotage, and go on to inflict the same cyclical tragedy and their own kids?Of all the evils perpetrated by religion, this private, small-time abuse is amongst the worst. Nothing strengthens me in my opposition to your faith more than to see the damage you have wreaked upon the very people you should be protecting and caring for.

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As far as I can see, you may not like religion, and you may want to get rid of it, but, as far as I can see, your post is proof that the atheist can be just as religious as any theist.

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I will concede "dogmatic", "motivated" and "enthused", but not religious - for none of my claims are based on supernatural revelation or divine insight.

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So, your opinion of what is meaningless and pointless is so accurate and so reliable that anyone who doesn't agree with it is being abused?

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Obviously, an opinion of what consititutes abuse does not imply universal recognition of that opinion. But given that opinion, it would be odd if I did not act on it or express it.

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That's what you're saying. You're saying that if my children grow up with my religious convicitions and my choice of values, instead of yours, then thay are abused and shortchanged in their life.

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Yes, that is correct. Becuase you are feeding them a set of claims you nkow you cannot demonstrate, and which they are not equipped to criticise. It is indeed exactly abuse. And incidentally, a scenario in which the abused collude with their abuses is well established in studies of abusive relationships.

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That, my friend, is exactly the arrogance that makes people not like religion. It is exactly the arrogance that makes me not like religion. It doesn't allow anyone to explore or experiment, but demands that they aquiesce just because you're so insightful and knowledgeable about human nature, life, and the spiritual realm.

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Arrogance I can deal with. Supernatural claims, however, are a different matter. Everyone eblievees theior ownb opinion to be valid and acts accprding;y - indeed, having an opinion would be pointless if it did not serve as a spur to action. And having witnessed the damage and depravity that theists inflict on their defenceless children, I feel it immoral to stand idly by and simply excuse this evil by acknowledging that people believe this things. I donl;t deny the honesty of your faith - nor do I deny that you are doing what you think to be best. That just is not good enough.

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Sorry, I don't trust you that much.

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Immaterial.

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Three of my seven children are sexual, and one of those three is young enough that he won't admit it. The other four are not sexual, although I know they will be.

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I once had a teacher who remarked that he saw his new-born son (1 day) with his fist around his penis. The biological architecture of sexuality is there froi both, although not all of it is active. Nevertheless, you are still presenting to them an idea that sexuality is perverse must be hidden and suppressed, it seems to me, which cannot be a healthy thing at all.

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The three that are sexual are able and have talked to us about sexual things. Life is not hidden from them. They have seen dogs and horses mating, and they know that human children are produced by mating as well.

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Granted. But you are not validating their own sexuality, it seems to me, only describing it in the abstract. As long as sexuality is bound up in a mythology of sin and morality, it cannot be free and honest. Why cripple your kids like that?

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So basically, I don't know what you're talking about. Should I encourage my 13-year-old to go have sex now that he's got underarm hair and a rumble in his voice?

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By no means - but why then are you so horrified by rock and roll and similar entirely normal expressions of teenage reflexes?

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I don't think Ozzy Osbourne plays music. I think he plays loud noises to crowds that are mostly not sober.

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Since my children are used to music, and they are used to dancing, I am not surprised when such loud noise is aggravating to them, not entertaining.

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Which only indicates the extent to which they are internalising your prejudices, rather than developing tastes of their own. Either way, if you are confident in their taste, then there would surely be no need for you to exercise parental constraining and can freely leave them to their own devices. You are perfectly entitle to feel, priovately, that Ozzy doesn;t make music. But if a large number of Ozzy fans feel offended, as self-described music-lovers, that is your problem not theirs.

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From the perspective of those who have met our children, our children are the most joyous and outgoing they have ever met.

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But as you have already mentioned, you live in an isolated community composed apparently of people who share you dame dogma, so it is not too surprising that they approve of the damage your have perpetrated ion your children - presumably they are doing the same to theirs.

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Fourteen DCS agents from all over the state interviewed every last one of our children and some of the adults. Their final comment was, "Everyone ought to raise their children this way. We wish we could send some to you."

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You'll excuse me if I have a dim view of the morality of American police. The blurring of church and state is far too developed to safely consider that a police officer does not themselves use their position to further their religious prejudices.

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The dad and mom finally came to visit. They were here all day, and when I came home from work, he met me on the porch, saying, in his Jewish accent, "You told me about your theology, but you should have just told me about the children. They're wonderful. As soon as I met the children, I knew, everything's okay."

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I cannot se ehow suppoert fropm other theists defends against my accusation; of course they synpathise, if they too feel that a childs place is to worship god and their parents. If, however, they felt a childs place was to be an independant person, I fear the reponse might be rather different.

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That's a typical reaction. I'll place our children next to any anywhere in the world, because they're the happiest, most well-adjusted children I've ever met, too

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The same phenomenon you see as happy and adjusted I may well see as evidence of damage and severe and sustained abuse. Certainly, in my experience of children raised by fervent theists, that is indeed the case - the things which they value in their children make me recoil with horror and disgust.

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At this point, you'd have to take my word for it.

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No, I don't at all. After all I know from the outset that you consider these to be good things. I know that theists train their chirldren to blindly worship a non-existant god becuase the parents also blindly worship a non-existant god and consider doing so something akin to a civic virtue. It makes them feel like good people, and the responsible thing to do would be to raise their children as good people too. But you are going further than that - living in an isolated community so that yo0ur children won;t be "contaminated" by the real world, restricting their social behaviours so that they will not come into contact with other forms of expression of which you disaprove. So I cannot under any circumstances take your word for the fact thet they are well adjusted - I'm sure you THINK that, but I don't.

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Come and see! We're very proud of our kids. We don't think it's exceptional parents, either, but an exceptional way of life, and, of course, an exceptional God :-).

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Thats is why it is so terribly abusive. The road to hell, as they say, is paved with good intentions. I am quite sure you mean well - you are just doing bad. Meaning well is not enough.{Fixed some quote boxes - Adminnemooseus}[This message has been edited by Adminnemooseus, 06-27-2003]

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You would have very little support saying that science can prove the supernatural doesn't exist or that God doesn't exist. It's simply outside the realm of science.

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But the EFFECTS of God are NOT outside the realm os science, otherwise we would not be able to be aware of god. And after countelss claims, notthing can be demonstrated. So as I have pointed out before, it is the presence or absence of god that we have tro explain - but the presence of BELIEF in god, which most certainly CAN be explained by science.

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And I am quite convinced the benefit of our lives and lifestyle is obvious.

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I'm sure you are. Thats what they all say.

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Children grow up and are able to make choices about continuing their parents' lifestyle, values, and religious beliefs all the time, especially in America, where public communication is so strong.

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Public communication is so strong? If you mean, the voluntary subordination of private media to the State, yes its very strong. And yet this argument undermines your claim to be doing good - if tyou expect your indoctrination of your kids will have no impact on their adult lives, then why do it? Just foe self-satisfaction? If you think it dopes not frame their thinking, then just let them do what they want.

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This is bizarre. Rock and roll is a normal expression of teen reflexes??? It is a very new cultural phenomena now closely related to the drug culture.

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No, it is not - in reality, it has much more to do woith the development of electrical instruments. Now its fair to say that a lot of rock is indeed drug-fueled: but that is IMO a good argument about how absurdly paranoid we are over psychoactives, themsleves a well established authentic human behaviour. Even elephants go out of their way to get drunk, so do babboons, and cats go all squiffy if allowed near a catnip bush, which they undertake voluntarily. All this is, is an attempt to control your childrens behaviour for selfish reasons and based on a moralistic denial of our bilogical nature.

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With statements like this, you validate even incest with young children. There are lines, and they must be drawn for society to exist.

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I do not. There are good biological reasons for an incest taboo - but that said, not all societies have used it IIRC (only most). Indeed, some human societies cleraly had no mechanism for identifying who was whose father, some some percentage of incest must have occurred. Once again, you have the arrogance to imply that your strange little moral programme inhereited from a bunch of ignorant goat-herders is should be held universally and unchallenged.Let your children develop their OWN morality.

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All I see, and saw before you ever wrote any posts to me, is a fanatically religious atheist, not one whit different from Jerry Falwell.

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With one major difference - I don't make a living spouting my beliefs, and I don't make threats about hellfire and damnation. Btu most importantly, people follow ideas vehemently: that is not an excuse or justification for those ideas being based on fairy tales.

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I hope you'll excuse me if from now on my reaction to you is the same as to him, which is to just turn you off. Fortunately, there's really very little likelihood that ideas like yours will gain even as much following as his moral majority.

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Huh, well, thus we see the cowardice of the "truthlover"... a lover of truth so long as they validates what is already believed. Fortunately, howevber, the demise of religious institutions is well on track and I am quite confident that my morality is substantially more likely to pass to the future than this ignorant hog-swill.

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I fear your opposition to Truthlover's village borders on the religious, yourself.

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Sigh. I thought that sort of posturing was limited to the theists argument to equivalence.

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You need to listen to NPR a little more, or something. Surprisingly, independant media is out there to be read and watched. Now, it's not as likely to shove itself in your face as "We distort, you comply" Fox News. But then, being an educated citizen is supposed to require a little effort.

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NPR is probably an Americanism with which I am unfamiliar. The extent to which the major American broadcasting bodies distort stories is very distrubing and very consistent - behaviour in the Gulf wars across more than a decade, severley misrepresentative reporting of the Battle of Seattle etc.

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Do you seriously think sex and drugs are good for kids? Don't you think there's a maturity level involved in those activites? And children, being who they are, don't you think that they're likely to attempt those activites far sooner than they have the requisite maturity?

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In a sense, yes. Kids used to learn about sex by being in the same hovel when mom and dad went at it. Theyt used to learn about drink by being directly exposed to dads drinking buddies. You can still find many small children in pubs in the UK, some of whom can even drink as long as its their parent buying the booze. My argument never was that 10-year olds should be out bonking (although I don't mind terribly as long as its with other 10-year olds) or raiding the liquor cabinet - I argue that excessive prurience about "exposure" and the myth of childhood "innocence" are standing in the way of childrens learning of human behaviours, of which those surrounding sex and drugs are among the most important.

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If not, you're potentially deluded or naive, and certainly have not had kids. Not that I have either, but even as a childless atheist I have much more sympathy for TL's position than yours.

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Possibly so - I would then launch an argument that the nuclear family is a major socio-political imposition, has no basis in autochthonous human communities, and especially when articulated in the modern form of "preserving family values" is an overt form of social engineering (to our detriment). Next I will attack schools and suggest that children learn best by falling out of trees, and that 6 hours of sitting is not a wise thing in a plains ape that evolved to walk. As you can see, we may will differ quite profoundly on what good and apprpriate parenting behaviour is - thuis your support for TL in this matter is not itself very worrying.

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This is just inflammatory and outrageous. Chill out, dude. One family, or even an entire village, raising their children they way they see fit (a right traditionally supported by the constitution, to my knowledge), does not create an institutionalized religion.

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My criticism is not restricted to institutions. The american constitution is of no relevance to me and will supporting most of its content abstractly, I maintain criticisms of bits. Even so, at no point have I asserted this behaviour is illegal, merely grossly immoral.

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I mean, it's one thing to combat religious ignorance. It's quite another to launch a campaign of total anti-religious intolerance.

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I understand your position. But IMO I'm not sure why we should tolerate parents lying to children on such a magnificent scale. I would suggest that the primary functions of religion are the teaching of Obedience and, perhaops more importantly, the production of soldiers. Religion teaches people that dying doesn't matter. That is too profound a personal intervention for me to excuse by citing parental privilige. People are not islands and the world has to deal with the mess left behind; it is not exclusively their business but everyones.

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It's totally one thing to be against an institutionalized religious power structure. But never to my knowledge has TL claimed to be part of such a thing. He's even railed against them himself. All you're doing is attacking another person's individual spirituality, and that's just ridiculously intolerant.

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I attack RELIGION - I have a whole different line of attack for INSTITUTIONS. And part of the reason for this is that Protestants, on whom I cut my anti-religous teeth, are tough to nail on an institutional criticism, and with some justice. But then, it is the very personal, family-oriented use of religious indocrtination that is to me the most profoundly distrubing - I genuinely see it as not very distinguishable form any other sort of child molestation, in this case one in which a parent feeds their child a pack of lies for no reason, really, other than the parents self-validation. It is about the most selfish act I can imagine and one I consider a moral nadir.

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Sounds just like religion to me. I'll cite specific exchanges, if you like.

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Please do.

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Sorry, that would be "National Public Radio". I'm afraid I assumed you were American; I wasn't sure how a non-American would have come to have such familiarity with American news media as to sweepingly damn the whole institution. I'm still not, actually.

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We see quite a lot of CBS, CNN etc. It's hard not to, really, a point worth bearing in mind in relation to the 1st worlds dealing with the third.

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And that's absolutely fine. I have a sense that, when and if you do have kids, your opinion will change drastically. Of course, I predict mine will do the same.

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I already have god-children

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At any rate, doesn't that make you just a little less qualified to speculate how to raise children than a person who actually has some?

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No, not if they believe in invisible fairies. Secondly, this implies an appeal to "instinctive parenting" of which there is very little evidence. So no, there is no reason to suppose that a parent is endowed with supernatural insight just becuase the chemistry all worked according to plan.

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Because it's their kids.

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And kids are PROPERTY, huh? Kids don't have human rights, they are not the recipients of sympathy, because they are just OBJECTS who are OWNED. That is not acceptable. It is totally untenable to suspend a childs humanity on the basis of deferral to their parents.

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And ultimately, everybody gets over the lies their parents told them.

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Not really. Some people are believers their whole lives. Some even go on to inflict it on their own children.

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Honestly, my parents raised me in a way that I percieve as similar to TL; as a youngster, they insulated me from certain things. And it had no effect.

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I am happy for your recovery.

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I found out about that stuff eventually, but when I was older and mature enough that "forbidden knowledge" had lost much of it's cachet. Thus was I able to approach those areas with clear judgement instead of youthful rebellion.

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Why is this superior to just not inflicting these lies on children in the first place?

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This isn't just the idea that "it takes a village to raise a child", this is all the way to "the village has the final say." With what authority do you judge parents? How do you know that your way is so much better? What data do you have? Because all I hear are empty assertion and blanket condemnation of people you don't even know.

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Well, in fact, as I have pointed out already, I can and do make alternative reccomendations. And yes, I think there is a huge amount of secular parenting advice and thought about how we should be raising children. But then again - I'm not sure that the burden of should lie on me, but rather with the odd cultists. Noen of this prevents or should prevent me dioscussing profound disgust at this for of child abuse.

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Oh? You don't think for a minute that TL could simply be trying to raise his kids in the best way he knows how? Out of a genuine concern for his own progeny?

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Yes, I do believe exactly that. In such a way that theprogeny will be fulfilling for TL:'s vision of their life. In other words, to validate the lies that TL has beleive their whole life by also beleieving it.

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Sure, it's a pack of lies, to you. To TL it's very, very true. Who's to say who is right on this?

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The world. And without some sort of basis beyond "god told me to do it this way", then there is no basis for idly standing by and watching this cruelty perpetrated with malice aforethought.

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I simply don't understand what authority you think you have that allows you to preempt TL's perogative in this.

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I simply don;t understand what prerogative you think TL has. Children are not property, they are not things. IS TL also free to kill their children, based on thiis prerogative? No, we impose limits.

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And as a result you sound just as dogmatic, intolerant, and judgemental as any religous bigot.

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Or, one might suggest, you just don't have the courage of your convictions and would rather fiddle while Rome burns.

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If anything, I guess this demonstrates the diversity of opinion in the atheist "community" - some of us are just as intolerant as the religions we reject. Too bad, really.

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Why? Seesm to me that that is pie in the sky; it rests on the assumption that the only people who convert their theory into action in the real world are irrational believers. ANd yet, what good is any theory if not implemented in the real world? Was it good enough to develop penicillin and then say that giving people mud baths for bullet wounds is entirely legitimate as long as they really, really believe it works? Thats not good enough; what after all is the point of science if we never use it for anything practical? But we do, all the time - why should this be an exception.?

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We weren't discussing. He had something to say, and he was going to say no matter what I said, no matter whether it applied.

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Thats right. Theres nobody reasonable in the world but you. Anyeone who disagrees with you is necessarily irrational - otherwise, why would they disagree with you?

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Throwing out words to be twisted and trampled on is not my idea of a good time. I used to have to do it back when I was a Christian, and I don't care to do it again, even with an atheist.

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Anmd yet that is exactly what you are doing when you use "protecting" to mean "smothering" and "teaching" to mean "suppression".

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It does amaze me that the most anti-Christian atheist I've seen on any message board so far is also the most like them I've ever seen.

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Withdraw that. I do not believe in invisible fairies.

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Until Contracycle I have never once had an unbeliever pay no attention to my side of the argument the way Christians do regularly.

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I have seen many families run on this sort of manipulative lines. Your particular delusion is not unusual or unique. Your appeal to "doing the best thing" is worthless when based on supernatural speculation. You don't have an argument, just dogma - and while others may be willing to turn a blind eye and allow religious zealots to inflict such gross psychological deformity on their own children, I am not without at least calling you on it. I leave crashfrog to wrstle with his own conscience.

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In his case I wonder if it's the truth. He does seem evolutionist not because of the evidence but because it's not religion.

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And this is wrong because.....People believe all sorts of absurd things. Some nutcases even believed that they should occupy Iraq, and did so. If it is merely FERVOUR which alienates you from religion, then you don't have a very valid stance - your criticism is with action rather than the spurious claims to supernatural insight. In which you are going to be a busy bee criticising every one and anyone who ever acts on any analysis of the world as they understand it. Either way, it substantially undermines your atheism - if it was only a criticism of fanatcism, and not supernaturalism, then what is your stance that makes you an atheist?"How could I indifferently stand by, and behold some of the very best of my fellow creatures cruelly treated by some of the very worst?" Richard Parker, Leader of the Nore Mutiny, executed 1797

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Go ahead. Do some science. Prove, using nonannecdotal data that supports your theory, that TL's theism does harm to his children.

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I cannot see the future, therefore I do not know for certain that harm will be caused. However, I have every reasons to thinkn that this will be the case. This is parent who is ostentatiously educating their child in a lie, in a MISREPRESENTATION of the world; I cannot see how this can be responsible parenting in any sense.And yes, I do use moral terminology. Theists all too often conflate adherence to their particular theology as an abstract virtue or practical good citizenship; and I wish to make it absolutely crystal clear that I consider their behaviour to be thoroughly bad and irresponsible citizenship, and indicative, not of moral strength, but moral cowardice.I can certainly demonstrate negative consequences of theistic upbringing. Every now and again we run across a theist who, for example, declines medical attention - such as blood transfusion, or antibiotics - to their children on the basis of theistic dogma.Furthermore, this is not a problem that is confined merely to the theistic family, in that the implicate others in their abuse; frex:http://www.uky.edu/Classes/PHI/305.002/jw.htm
http://www.uky.edu/Classes/PHI/305.002/rhodes.htmThis is an example of the well known scenario of a Jehovahs Witness refusing a blood transfusion, and the sort of textual authority they cit for so doing.Do we not, as a society, have a responsibility to prevent people from carrying out what it in effect homicide on their own children? I think that we do, and that a parent exhibiting this sort of disregard for their childrens lives is in short not competent to be a parent. IIRC some child protection orders have been issued on this basis in the UK.Then we have examples of the kinds of things that theistic parents might see as suitable treatments for disobedience, such as this brain washing gulag:The last resort (part one) | Schools | The Guardian

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And that raising them outside of a moral framework that includes abstinence from sex and drugs until an age of maturity is better.

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It seems to me there has been a lot of research in this area, mostly aimed at rates of incidence pregnancy in children. The majority appears to me to encourage the idea that the earlier and less moralistically the subject is addressed the healthier the childs appreciation of sexuality.http://www.findarticles.com/...129/66276486/p1/article.jhtmlIn fact, the trend in mainstream sex education over the last several decades has been away from delayed education and towards early education, as the New Statesman indicated in an article related to the above: "Only if we adopt these and other positive measures can Britain hope to reduce significantly the rate of teenage pregnancies. We lost a decade of progress during the 1980s and now lag behind several of our European neighbours. Those who oppose sex education and confidential advice are highly vociferous. But they are a tiny minority and ministers should not be distracted by them." So no, I don't think that a serious case can be advanced that witholding information has support as a useful approach to child-rearing.There is an analogous scenario with alcohol. As this page points out, "When children are served alcohol by their parents, drinking problems are generally low. When children are prevented from drinking until an older age, drinking problems tend to be high. The evidence is overwhelming."
http://www2.potsdam.edu/...ol-info/ChildrenAndParenting.html

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If you've got the data, as you continually imply, show it! Anything else is just your assertion that religion is harmful to children.

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Not RELIGION. Religious PARENTS are harmful to children.

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That's fine for you to say, but if you want that theory lent credence, we need to see data. That's science.

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Yes. And the science, certainly in the UK for the last 40 years, has tended strongly against moralistic and puritanical child-rearing.I maintain the TL's expressed intent to isolate themselves among a like-minded community that will never challenge any of this dangerous dogma but reinforce it, which bears all the hallmarks of contemporary puritinasm, carries a serious danger that extreme emphasis on obedience and surbordination to the patriarch, the endorsement of corporal punishment (not sparing the rod) and the willingness of co-religionists to employ something like the above re-education centre, should give everyone serious cause for concern over the health and wellbeing of TL's children.

Oh, and addendum: Given another thread in this forum, entitled "People please read this", what I wonder will happen if one of TL's children turns out to be gay?