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Teaching truth

How do you teach "truth" to a child, through Christianity, if you don't include the many graphic depictions of behavior in the personality of God?  Not many Christians take the time to study the personality of God, because they are told from the primary age that God is Love, "Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so" and then you tell them of the Flood.  Because you were taught the simplistic version of the flood story, and not allowed to challenge what is really said there when you are a sponge as a child, you grow up believing that it was a good and just thing God did.  But the children I taught had a profound sence of saddness over the flood story which I appeased by telling them it was a 'GOOD THING' to rid the world of evil and save a righteous seed of man.  I repent of that now that I know the depth of the story--in more ways than one.  First, it was because man was going about the business of living according to their own conscience.  The wickedness all the earth was drowned for was 'the imagination of the hearts of men'  There is no comment on the goodness of women or children or the dumbness  of animals and plants that cannot comprehend the will of a god.

Also, the marvelous story of The Promised Land--here we teach children that a certain group of people, chosen by god, get to take over the civilization of another group of people, by virtue of the will of this god.  The many stories of war in the bible are frought with "righteousness" to take the lives and place of others away from them because another god tells his people to do it.  This instills in children that 1. they are special above others 2. they can take away from others life and society simply because they are told to by a priest/god and that killing another human is acceptable under gods command--Then, you teach them the commandment Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not covet thy neighbors wife, ass, property, Thou shalt not steal--just a few of the commandments that are in conflict with the teaching of war.  It is no wonder so many conservative Christians stand behind GWB over Iraq and killing innocent women and children and men over land that doesn't belong to us rightly.  Today, Israel and Palistine are the living example of doing the "god" thing.  Israel is there because the OT God said it was theirs, even though it was occupied for hundreds of years by another set of people.  How would you like it if all of a sudden, the land you live on was taken from you and given to the Native Americans because some ancient writings were discovered that said the land was given to them by God?  It must have been, since they lived here for thousands of years before Europeans came and took it away.

You have to know the truth before you can teach it.  Consider that when you teach Christianity, Atheism, Buddism or any other religion or ideology.  I believe that religon should be taught in a critical and investigative way--but not in a closed manner that says one ideology is the only truth and all others are "evil" designed to keep the person from investigating on their own.

posted by freerain on January 18, 2004 at 3:07 PM | link to this | reply

On the point of not keeping the truth from our children, there is a difference between not sharing the graphic details with a young child and lying to them. I'm sure there are a lot of people who would say it's wrong to expose children to graphic stories, that have nothing to do with Christianity.

What you stated about how we should not teach children mythology as truth has no bearing on whether or not a Christian should teach a child about Christianity, since a Christian believes they are teaching the child the truth.

Children being afraid of going against their parents is true in any situation, not just a Christian home. What if your child hears about Christianity and wants to believe? Certainly they would be afraid to do so, knowing about how you feel about it. We all influence our children toward our own belief system.

I totally agree that a choice of faith cannot be made by an immature mind, and insinuated such in my previous comment (that I do not expect a child to make any statement of faith until they are old enough to truly understand). I just fail to see how it's wrong to teach a child about Christianity. Certainly there are plenty of people who were taught about Christianity as children and decided not to believe when they became adults. That kind of goes against the idea that it's "brainwashing."

posted by amychelle on January 18, 2004 at 2:14 PM | link to this | reply

Willingness

to send out a child into the wilderness, knowing that it would die, is the appauling point.  All the more a show of lack of faith to disobey a law that is immoral and fight or die to save the son from certain death.  We didn't say that God ordered the Hebrews to cast out their children to die, but that they did it anyway, to avoid pain of death themselves for disobedience to the law.  Also, there is no truth but what you accept in the bible story as to what really happened--and the mythology of the life of Moses is similar to that of other "saviors" found in Egyptian writings which predate the story of Moses.

Indoctrination of children into the beliefs of any religion is a subtle and violent act against the nature of a child.  A child does not think of his/her life as anything but perfect, until they are given messages that they are not and that in order to be what they naturally feel they are, they have to embrace the doctrines given to them by their parents and priest.   A simple way to explain this is by telling a child to BE "good" also tells them they are NOT GOOD.     Any two year old will tell you they ARE GOOD--but even by then, the damage is done through all the negative language imposed on his/her nature--shame about their bodies (touching private parts, soiling diapers, getting "dirty") and their self interest behavior (anger, possiveness, temper tantrums, jealousy, willfulness).  Parts of our nature that are misunderstood because they have been defined through religous doctrine as evil or wicked.

NO, we shouldn't keep the truth from our children.  We shouldn't give them mythology and tell them it is truth.  Children have a great capacity to understand "make believe" from an early age--and when you tell them something is real, then they trust you to be honest with them.  It is utterly confusing and imbeds a message of distrust when later on they find out that what you said was true was only a lie, a story.  Children cannot differentiate between reality and imagination until they are about 4-5 years old.  If you indoctrinate your child with your beliefs without telling them it is not real, they will accept it as real and then follow the same path that you followed in accepting the language that they are sinful and need salvation to be acceptable to a god and live forever with their mother and father in heaven.  Fear of being separated from their parents, the loves of their lives, is too great to go against, even if it doesn't ring true with what they are self-aware of. 

Jefferson said that making a choice of faith cannot be made by an immature mind, but by one that is grounded on a rational and inquisitive ability to determine what is best for themselves.  Children do not have this ability--only adults willing to exercise their minds outside the constraints of society.

posted by freerain on January 18, 2004 at 12:47 PM | link to this | reply

I don't understand the point of listing Acts 7:19 at the beginning of your post. That has to do with the story of a king who ordered firstborn sons to be killed by midwives. What that has to do with God being a violent God, I'm not sure.

As for the idea that children are "brainwashed" into believing in Christianity, don't you think that in general, parents instill into their children their own beliefs? Do you warn your children of the "evils" of Christianity? Then you are instilling them with your beliefs..."brainwashing" them, if you will.

Despite the idea that the Bible includes some bloody stories (which I agree is true), I fail to see how teaching children Christianity is "child abuse." Yes, Bible stories as read to children are simplified and the bloody parts are not really told to them. But isn't that the same as shielding your kids from gruesome stories of war? Most people generally guard their children from thinking too deeply about things like that. Besides that, there are plenty of children's stories that when you really think about it could be thought of as gruesome, but of course the gross parts are always glossed over. (Ex: Hansel and Gretel where they put the witch in the oven, etc.) Is telling those stories to children "child abuse" as well?

I am not a parent yet, but I will teach my children about Christianity. However, I don't believe in infant baptism, nor will I "force" my child to partake in communion. In fact, I would not have my child partake until they were at an age where it seemed like they really understood what was going on and believed for themselves. It has to be their decision. God does not force anyone to believe in him, and I'm not going to force my children to believe in him either. But that doesn't mean I won't teach them about it, take them to church, etc.

posted by amychelle on January 18, 2004 at 11:59 AM | link to this | reply

Shall we go for #1 on the hit parade, my friend? My recent post on moral relativism should have the fundies all twisting their heads in a spasmodic 360, puking green blood!

 

Shawn

posted by ShawnMichel on January 18, 2004 at 11:25 AM | link to this | reply