Mode of the Debate: Targeting Children

Speaking as someone that was conned into believing in the magical world of christianity since my first memories til I was like 20, I think the only thing we can hope for is that these kids who are brainwashed will develop a sense of conscience which will help them reject the christian doctrine. You have to remember that the "science" these children are raised up to believe are bogus stuff. No amount of evidence will change their minds. I think it's the human spirit to do the right thing that will help them break free of the christian mentality.

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Disclaimer:

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Occasionally, owing to the deficiency of the English language, I have used he/him/his meaning he or she/him or her/his or her in order to avoid awkwardness of style.

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He, him, and his are not intended as exclusively masculine pronouns. They may refer to either sex or to both sexes!

For years, I tried to point out the "living words" as a way to get the christians to stop hating. The problem with this approach is Jesus never actually directly said anything about certain issues, like segregation, sexism, and gay marriage. To actually see anything in the bible, both NT and OT, we have to look to Letter to the Romans or Leviticus, which of course support a variety of bigotry and sexist attitudes. During times of slavery, christians used the bible as a mean to justify slavery. Then of course, during the segregation period the christians used the bible to justify the blatant racism that was going on. During women's rights movement, the christians was able to dig up stuff in the bible to oppose women's rights to vote and stuff. Nowadays, they are using the bible to oppose gay rights.Sure, if we analyze the bible deep enough, we can interpret it to support the basic human rights that we are fighting for and have been fighting for for decades. Purpledawn and jar have certainly been able to do this. But let's be honest. Do we honestly expect the average christian joe to think this deeply about theology? Remember that people's natural reaction to those who are different than them is hate. High school kids, myself included, stigmatized and even beat up gay kids in school. We then attended sunday sermons and our hate was reinforced by people like riverrat, buzsaw, and NJ. Do you honestly think that using Purpledawn's or jar's approach will change any of that?The simple truth is most children have underdeveloped conscience. Some grow out of it and some remain unempathetic to other people's sufferings. Regardless of what the bible says, whether it supports or denounces hate, one can certainly use it to support just about anything. And therein lies the danger. I would put my money on a good atheist's moral conscience over any christian's anyday. At least the atheist is doing right because he knows it's the right thing to do rather than hope of heavenly bliss or fear of eternal damnation.

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Disclaimer:

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Occasionally, owing to the deficiency of the English language, I have used he/him/his meaning he or she/him or her/his or her in order to avoid awkwardness of style.

​

He, him, and his are not intended as exclusively masculine pronouns. They may refer to either sex or to both sexes!

This is exactly why I abandoned the bible and god all together. The christians who hate chose the hateful texts to support their hate. The christians who love chose the loveful texts to support their love. Both are essentially just cherry picking their way through. How in the world does this demonstrate any sense of absolute morality? How in the world can you actually demonstrate that your version is the right one?

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Disclaimer:

​

Occasionally, owing to the deficiency of the English language, I have used he/him/his meaning he or she/him or her/his or her in order to avoid awkwardness of style.

​

He, him, and his are not intended as exclusively masculine pronouns. They may refer to either sex or to both sexes!

For years now, I've been telling people, especially around election months, that I fear for the life of our nation because the same people that can't locate where south korea is or iraq is on the map also go out and vote by the masses.Also reminds me of a news I heard a couple years ago. Educators in Malaysia were worried because the latest national test results showed that over 40% of their high school students couldn't locate their own country on the map.

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Disclaimer:

​

Occasionally, owing to the deficiency of the English language, I have used he/him/his meaning he or she/him or her/his or her in order to avoid awkwardness of style.

​

He, him, and his are not intended as exclusively masculine pronouns. They may refer to either sex or to both sexes!

Well... here in the US they used to use tests like the one you described to prevent non-whites from voting. The tests would have rediculously hard questions that they knew no sane person could answer. They were able to target non-whites by the fact that the law allowed them to "randomly" pick out potential voters or to only apply the tests in certain counties.I like your idea, however. We could make it mandatory for everyone to take the little general knowledge test.Seriously, when I saw that man on tv being asked to locate north and south korea and he pointed to australia as north korea and new zealand as south korea, I almost gave up hope for our nation. They asked a woman what the vice president's name was and she went blank. I think they also asked these people if they vote and they said yes.By the way, might as well ask you here... since you're from Australia. Has that godforsaken gay marriage ban that got passed a couple years ago in australia been struck down yet?Added by edit.In college, a french student wanted to make a point that us Americans didn't know jack about the world. He drew out by hand almost perfectly the map of the world with some general boundary lines. He then went around asking some students to locate certain countries. He didn't ask me because he already knew I knew my geography well. I was absolutely amazed at some fellow students. A girl pointed at Scandinavia when asked where France was, and that was after we told her where Europe was. Another student couldn't find New Zealand on the map. A lot of students struggled and missed Turkey. Amazingly enough, a lot of people couldn't locate Israel on a blank map. We're not even talking about obscure countries here. One student amazed me by asking "there was a vietnam war?" after being asked where the vietnam war took place. The question you have to ask yourself is have these people been living under a rock?Edited by Tazmanian Devil, : No reason given.Edited by Tazmanian Devil, : No reason given.

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Disclaimer:

​

Occasionally, owing to the deficiency of the English language, I have used he/him/his meaning he or she/him or her/his or her in order to avoid awkwardness of style.

​

He, him, and his are not intended as exclusively masculine pronouns. They may refer to either sex or to both sexes!