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I don' know how they forget to teach them about Azkaban prison, or Buddhist rebirth and notions of no-self.
The problem with your snark is that through an understanding of 'becoming one' in Buddhist rebirth and Hell is that they are actual natural responses to action. Not that I think Hell or Hindu Nirvana are actual places but states of mind. You state of mind has power effects, look at studies with word/visual priming, psychoanalytic visualization therapy, and even in treating PTSD.
A poor analogy given we have reason to think that fire exists and is a real threat. As do laws and the other dangers you list.
Whereas there is not a shred of argument, evidence, data or reasoning on offer.... much less from you.... to suggest that hell exists as anything other than a scare tactic to cajole people into believing something for which there is no other reason to believe.
If you need to use terror and emotional abuse to make people believe what you are selling then something is either wrong with what you are selling and/or with the seller.
If you personally believe that there is a hell then no one should have a problem with that. I certainly do not. If you terrorise children with the concept however then that is, to my eyes, emotional child abuse and emotional bullying.
Yes, it was a terrible ordeal for me when I was growing up. I had much more anxiety than a child should have worrying about whether I was doing something wrong to make me go there and/or whether my friends and/or family were destined to burn forever. I think that teaching this does indeed constitute child abuse.
A poor analogy given we have reason to think that fire exists and is a real threat. As do laws and the other dangers you list.
Whereas there is not a shred of argument, evidence, data or reasoning on offer.... much less from you.... to suggest that hell exists as anything other than a scare tactic to cajole people into believing something for which there is no other reason to believe.
If you need to use terror and emotional abuse to make people believe what you are selling then something is either wrong with what you are selling and/or with the seller.
If you personally believe that there is a hell then no one should have a problem with that. I certainly do not. If you terrorise children with the concept however then that is, to my eyes, emotional child abuse and emotional bullying.
That would be correct if I use hell as a threat to entice a child to believe a specific religion.
I did say age appropriate and proper means of teaching.
No where did I say the teaching of Hell should be done as a threat.
Children do need to be taught moral/social/legal obligations and the consequences of failing to do so.. The methods used need to be appropriate and productive.
I doubt if there is any one all purpose method, but some things I believe should be avoided are threats, intimidation and the use of fear tactics.
On a personal note I feel the best method of determining age appropriateness is by sticking to the child's specific questions. A child's questions are strong indicators of what a child is capable of understanding. Us adults have the responsibility of learning how to understand the questions of children.
I personally believe a child under the age of 7 is definitely too young for a detailed discussion of hell. Most under the age of 12 are still too young and for some the age of 21 might still be too young.
I feel part of teaching is the child should have the capacity to seek alternative answers and be able to accept self responsibility for verifying all things.
That would be correct if I use hell as a threat to entice a child to believe a specific religion.
I did say age appropriate and proper means of teaching.
No where did I say the teaching of Hell should be done as a threat.
Children do need to be taught moral/social/legal obligations and the consequences of failing to do so.. The methods used need to be appropriate and productive.
I doubt if there is any one all purpose method, but some things I believe should be avoided are threats, intimidation and the use of fear tactics.
On a personal note I feel the best method of determining age appropriateness is by sticking to the child's specific questions. A child's questions are strong indicators of what a child is capable of understanding. Us adults have the responsibility of learning how to understand the questions of children.
I personally believe a child under the age of 7 is definitely too young for a detailed discussion of hell. Most under the age of 12 are still too young and for some the age of 21 might still be too young.
I feel part of teaching is the child should have the capacity to seek alternative answers and be able to accept self responsibility for verifying all things.
Children should be taught to think critically and to question anything they are told. No child should be taught that Hell exists without providing them the evidence so they can come to their own conclusions.
Do any of you do that, if so why? do you really think it's a good idea to teach children that people will be burning in hell for rejecting a certain message that may or may not be divine?
NO.
You should not teach children about hell at all IMO.
I have three children. None of them have any concept of hell.
They are all 3 fantastic, bright, well behaved children.
In fact they are the best behaved children I know.
I have never threatened them in any way. Instead I have taught them to have respect for themselves, for others and for one another. What's wrong with kindness and a positive attitude?
To be honest in this day and age I'm astonished people still believe in the concept of hell.
There are 7 billion people on this earth today. How many of them are going to hell to burn for all eternity? How long can one person burn? Isn't this place a little crowded by now? Where do people think hell is exactly?
Good grief. What would people rather do? Teach children to work hard, get an education, be kind to others, and be well read or fill their innocent minds with imaginary images; horror stories of hell. It's not as if they don't get enough of that shoved in their faces in movies. And at least they know that is fiction.
Children need educating, not frightening to death.
That would be correct if I use hell as a threat to entice a child to believe a specific religion.
I did say age appropriate and proper means of teaching.
No where did I say the teaching of Hell should be done as a threat.
You do not need to. You do it on behalf of the people who invented hell with that agenda in mind. There is no reason to think there even IS a hell so whoever made it up likely did it in order to lend weight to their otherwise baseless notions.
That is what is great about memetic evolution. Memes adapt as they go. People help them do this without realising it. One can easily imagine how when some witch doctors postulations were starting to be doubted he sweetened the deal with ideas of pleasurable after lives. Rivers of honey and appeals to male base impulses by offering them virgins and the like. When even that started to lead to doubts of course the next step is clear. Consider the ALTERNATIVE to this pleasure the desperate witch doctor would have said....
YOU may not be teaching about "hell" with the intention of emotionally bullying and abusing defenseless children into believing otherwise unsubstantiated claims. But intention is not required for that to be exactly what you would be doing by teaching the concept to them, were you to do it.
Nor do I limit my discourse to children. It is especially despicable when we use such emotional threats to cajole the beliefs of children, yes. But I condemn the practice when applied to adults too. Emotional bullying and abuse is emotional bullying and abuse, regardless of the age of the victim.
Heaven and hell both representing an answer to life and its efforts are issues of mystery. Normal people religious or not don't go around talking about either heaven or hell to youngsters as a subject .
They and all know what wrong is and, they know what very wrong is, and then they know what flat out insane is. Fear a reality is what it is in man alone.
My sister , I was just talking to her a few days ago teaches 8 yr olds in a Catholic School. To be honest the only time Iv ever heard her say the word hell is at bowling or tennis, when this happens the best thing to do is let a few go down the gutter to pick things up. Tennis shes much better , the guys took a pass at tennis to give the kitchen experts something else to be extra good at, balance is a big part of everything including getting along. I don't think any religion teaches there is exactly someone in hell. it would require virtue hope in faith because its an unknown, and the hope would be rooted in a false knowing that an absolute total knowing and willful rejection of god has taken place. Ithink there would be consequences for everything but its a total unknown. Even in scripture there are things which can be commented on, its a mystery . I wouldn't want to play games with the issue of even too much talk about it, its not really the believers job other then things to do with consequence, but thats part of life pretty much as well, plus the big emphasis is God wants to save all, not anything else so its got some balance to apply , moderation so huge in everything. The Cross a key area in Christianity can be an extensive subject alongside, commenting in this issue. Fear is part of existence but the fact is, the message is, God wants to save all, thats my understanding , and Im pretty sure its what all the major religions focus on. everybody has there own ideas and it wouldn't be what it is without the different perspectives.
Last edited by macpherson; 11-07-2013 at 03:06 AM..
Heaven and hell both representing answer to life and its efforts are issues of mystery.
As are all unsubstantiated notions people simply make up out of their imagination. If a concept remains entirely unsubstantiated then yes, it does remain a mystery. One of the bigger mysteries being why people believe things for which there is no basis.
As are all unsubstantiated notions people simply make up out of their imagination. If a concept remains entirely unsubstantiated then yes, it does remain a mystery. One of the bigger mysteries being why people believe things for which there is no basis.
It's child abuse, and anyone who does teach their children about hell should be thrown in Jail. It's that simple
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