How much of whatsupyall/musclemans's posts do u comprehend?

I haven't read all that many, but i voted 100% easily.

The posts i saw were extremely easy to comprehend. You mean you people couldn't understand them?

They may not have any significance, or could be destroyed by someone exhibiting more education, or don't show a lot of reasoning, but they're certainly easy to understand.

Couldn't state what he thinks much more directly.

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BTW, i'm new and just happened across this place after visiting another forum.

Since i don't know much about it, i began reading to try and get some understanding of 'atheism'. Seems pretty peculiar to me. :bugeye:
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One other little comment. "They are eye openers" has not to do with comprehension, but with ability to alter one's perspective. I did not find them to be eye opening .

 

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I can't stand it... Lurking mode disengaged.

Vienna. DAH-ling. A spanking is in order.

You're guilty of a logical fallacy, I'm afraid. Since humans have the ability to recognise patterns in nature, this suddenly is the work of some divine Creator? The fact that there is complexity in nature that humans can codify does NOT lead to the statement "Well God must have done it, since our minds can make sense of it!" Nothing could WORK without some kind organisation, so it seems, but to simply ascribe it all to 'God' without a second thought is both naive and foolish in the extreme.

Like the fact that there is a God?

*Sigh*... peruse http://www.talkorigins.org/. I don't have the energy to nail you for your ignorance about evolution.

You're putting the cart before the horse. These laws are the sum of human observations upon a set of happenstances. We did not 'make' these laws, we simply observed the world/universe in action and then made sense of it.

You mistake science for religion; religion is dogma that is simply said to BE while science is based upon observation. Religion has a vested interested in calling the status quo 'fact', while science exists to uncover FACT, regardless of what it may be.

Nor did, I think, the dinosaurs quiver in their skins.

No, your brain is faulty. You dropped a sound-byte followed by a series of ignorant observations and called it a valid arguement and he called you on it. I suggest taking your own advice, if the shlock I'm reading is the best you can come up with.

Don't be simple. You just answered your own question while asking it; religion breeds fear because it RELIES on it to keep the flock in lock-step, and its teachings about the world are wholly ignorant to observed and established fact.

How will science overcome religion? You obviously are ignorant of history as well as science. Galileo comes to mind as someone who discovered that science said differently from the religious party line. Galileo was forced by the church to recant his statements about the nature of the solar system (i.e. that it's heliocentric as opposed to terracentric as church doctrine would have it), even though today every man, woman and child with a SCRAP of education takes this observable fact for granted.

Countless times throughout history science and religion have come to a head, and 100% of the time science has emerged the victor, even if it isn't believed by all for centuries after the fact. I challenge you to name ONE instance when religion has irrevocably disproved scientific observation.

(sidenote: you demonstrate your ignorance about LANGUAGE by using the term 'wallah', which is a depressingly American bastardisation of 'voila'. Science, logic, history, language... will the list never end?)

Actually, he ILLUSTRATED the answer for anybody with half a brain to see by pulling out of your religion's own holy book the inescapable attitude toward God. Fear him, fear him and his mighty wrath! Love him and he'll love you, but if you don't love him... watch out!

THAT'S the kind of fear he refers to. Obviously, seeing a dozen seperate biblical references to FEARING GOD (pretty cut and dry to me) has gone completely over your head.

Perhaps one needs a talent such as this to 'understand' the bible as you do?

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I really wish I hadn't used up my 'don't be simple' insult... it feels so very appropriate for re-use.

Huh? What the hell are you babbling about? 'the word that describes all faiths'? Are you daft, or did you take a special course (such as getting into a motorcycle accident without a helmet on)? Buddhism does NOT use fear (which is the main theme in ALL of Q's bible quotes); in fact it actively works against it, since fear is one of the many enemies of intelligence/enlightenment.

You're starting to remind me of someone... I'm not sure who yet. I'm sure it will come to me.

He's answered all of your questions. Naturally, since the answers were rational and based in FACT, they went over your brain-damaged head.

Wow... now I know who you are...

... MUSCLEMAN/whatsupyall, my old friend! Now you're smurfing with at LEAST two other aliases! What new depths will you sink to next?

Want some advice? If you're going to smurf, at least TRY to make new arguements, rather than just cutting and pasting your old ones, then removing the caps and improving the spelling. It's far more convincing than someone spouting IDENTICAL nonsense to yourself.

"You cram these words in mine ears against the stomach of my sense."
William Shakespeare - The Tempest, act II.

Too true...

You must have had a terrifying childhood. Fear is the opposite of respect. Fear is just that, FEARING somone for what they might do (or have done). Respect is based upon admiration, trust, and mutual decency.

I think Govenor Tarkin said it quite well:

"Fear will now keep the outer systems in line... fear of this battlestation!" Namely, the power that the Deathstar had to destroy an entire planet would be more than sufficient to keep otherwise disgruntled worlds in line.

If Orwell had commented on religion, he might have had this to say...

Fear=Respect
Hate=Love
Ignorance=Wisdom

I am astounded at how blithely you can contradict yourself. A man who fears God listens to what he has to say with seriousness and respect? If a man truely respected God he WOULD NOT FEAR HIM. You simply rehash your grossly inaccurate point that Fear=Respect in far more words.

To anybody with sense, that's a base insult because it means that you're head is so far up your ass you're breathing grey-matter. My case that you are muscleman/whatsupyall is strengthened.

Typical Christian thinking. One does not 'respect' (READ: fear) God, therefore one respects nobody. Idiot.

Note the operative word: TRYING. So far, you've done nothing but demonstrate supreme ignorance and the inability to beat my dingleberries in a rational debate, let alone Q or Phenetic or Thor or GB-GIL or fadingCaptain or Xev or Tiassa or myself or... etc etc ad nauseum ad infinitum.

Are you quite finished? Because there's a WHOLE lot more where that came from. Return to the hole you crawled from, muscleman, I have smacked down far better debators than you could ever hope to be.

"I do desire we be better strangers."
William Shakespeare - As You Like It, act III.

 

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Re: Views

Dear MarcAc,
For a moment, forget whether your views match those of MusclUpAll and try logic. I have seen you can do that.
A logical argument:
---------------------------------
X: I think this way becoz...
Y: I don't agree becoz...
X: Yes, but...
Y: Maybe, but I still don't agree

A MusclUpAll argument (see I haven't added the AC suffix, yet)
-----------------------------------------------------------
X: I think this way becoz...
MusclUpAll : IT ALWAYS IS THIS. AND I KNOW ALL
X: Is it. But why do you think so?
MusclUpAll : THAT ALWAYS IS THIS, FOOLISH CHILD. AND I KNOW ALL
X: I don't agree becoz...
MusclUpAll : ROCKS BREATHE, YOU IDIOT. AND I KNOW ALL AND I HAVE VANQUISHED YOU WITH MY SUPERB DEBATING SKILLS! LOL

Are you sure you don't know or are you feeling MusclUpAlly? Google for net etiquette.

You are free to have your viewpoint. I am not MusclUpAll to post pages in CAPS for that! But "still" indicates that there an inclination though!

You name it...

The content in a discussion is immaterial. I am not an atheist myself but do enjoy and appreciate the view points of Cris, Thor, ThatJerk and all reasonable people who argue with content and style. No body knows it all and we can enrich one another with various perspectives.
For that matter, I should align with MusclUpAll if it about whether God exists! (though I am not a christian!)

One can have one's own viewpoint on anything. I think this is a forum to put up viewpoints and debate, not try to thrust. And I am sure hardly anybody has converted to RCC after all the rant from MusclUpAll (forget those who have been repelled).

And MusclUpAll, where is that promised list of religious texts (of religions you know of) that you have researched upon?

 

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Vienna,

It’s Cris BTW. Cris is my real name as well. But no big deal.

Thanks for your straightforward explanation.

I see from Webster – fear –

1 a : an unpleasant often strong emotion caused by anticipation or awareness of danger.
2 : anxious concern : SOLICITUDE.
3 : profound reverence and awe especially toward God.
4 : reason for alarm : DANGER.
synonyms FEAR, DREAD, FRIGHT, ALARM, PANIC, TERROR, TREPIDATION

Here we see the conventional meanings but also a special religious definition. So your explanation fits fairly well with this.

There are a couple of points you made that I’d like to highlight and then there is a wider issue that I’d like to explore.

Fair enough. But the portrayal here is of a strict authoritarian relationship. I am a parent to three children, 16,18 and 20. And my style is very much not authoritarian, however, I know many parents who do take that approach.

Ok, so this again emphasizes the authoritarian mechanism, but of course with the overtone of compassion.

Authoritarianism takes the approach of expecting obedience without question, on the basis that the authority figure knows more than the subordinate. The reward for obedience is perhaps love and compassion but really the primary motivation for obedience is less about reward but more about the fear of punishment if one disobeys. And I think this lends support for Qs argument.

Authoritarianism was the typical form of government in ancient times, and fear of authority was the expected and traditional way of life. The bible was written in those times and people would have had difficulty accepting any other approach.

In these more enlightened times where education is given enormous significance compared to those ancient times, we find that an authoritarian approach is far less effective than if “subordinates” are taught what is correct rather than be commanded.

Throughout my parenthood I have never demanded that my children take any particular action. My approach has always been one of discussion, persuasion, cooperation, and education of why certain actions are needed. I have never punished my children since the concept of obedience and reward and punishment is simply alien for us.

My children and I often find it amusing when we see their friends being punished by their Christian style parents. The concept of ‘grounding’ is particularly strange.

However, I digress.

For most of the past 2000 years it has not been the love of God that has been promoted but the fear of God. Take for example the many fire and brimstone preachers that have peppered history. But really the concept of hell, a concept that didn’t exist until Jesus allegedly arrived, is the epitome of the ultimate punishment and fear. There are few other religions that invoke such an extreme. And perhaps that is why Christianity is so widespread, fear of something is a great motivator.

In secular morality one does the right thing because it is the right thing. In Christianity one does the right thing because to do otherwise would mean eternal torment, or if it isn’t the fear of hell then it is because God has issued a command. The Christian then becomes one who does what he or she has been told or takes whatever action is needed to avoid punishment. Control by mindless obedience or control by fear – that seems to be the essential hallmarks of Christianity.

Take for example the 10 commandments. There is no attempt to educate or state why the commands are important, they are simply commands to be obeyed without question. What is not usually stated is that the punishment for every command except one of them, is DEATH. Again the point is clear, do as God says or die.

Why do courts of law make people swear on the bible before giving evidence? It is certainly not a reminder that god is loving, but more a reminder that if you lie you might go to hell. Again the emphasis on fear of punishment.

This archaic and outdated method for controlling the ignorant masses has had its day. It is time we moved forward with rational morality, a system where actions are taken because they are of benefit to the human race. A system where people are educated to understand the benefits of reasoned actions and where they are not told to follow commands as mindless robots.

If you have reached this far in my ramblings then indeed I will be impressed.

Take care
Cris

 

ThatJerk

You had me following you along right nicely for some time there. Agreeably logical and everything in it's place. Then about the point you posted the picture, you started to drift.

Your frustration began to show and you started a definite turn toward name calling arrogance. Then you finished up with a full on blowout.

Hmm. You speak of your own words like you've just been throwing daggers. I find something of a contradiction when someone seems perfectly capable of making sufficiently strong arguments to dispute points clearly and yet they feel they have to say "so there". Your last sentence... After all the logic. Translates to my ear as "Hah, i won the battle because i'm a better debator than you!" Suddenly declaring yourself the winner as if it's a tennis match.

I'm not saying that the person whose points you were debating was correct. It's just that after essentially having successfully refuted most of his/her statements, you then began drifting to insult, and finally to seemingly reverse yourself as far as confidence and logic, claiming victory (which seems out of place) because you can debate better.

I have indeed read and heard far too many debates where the success of one point of view over the other has rested on ability of the debator to manipulate words prettily rather than on the merits of the argument.

These were apro... apropo... (okay so i can't spell it) to what you were saying and assuming you didn't look them up, an impressive feat of memory, but they still read like "see how superior my intellect is?" I've come across a lot of educated people who were...not stupid but.... foolish perhaps, or deluded as to their level of certainty, or the power that their education in a few areas gave them in vastly different ones. A very recent former US president comes to mind. Top of his class and still something of a moron.

Now, why was i writing all this? I guess because i felt like expressing how you came off. I haven't read enough here yet to get a feeling for who's who and who believes what; so i didn't want to actually jump into the God exists/God doesn't exist bit.

Just noted your arguments were knocking over his/her arguments just fine and then you stepped into his/her shoes a few moments and sounded ranting and superior in much the same way.

(If i'm mistaken and you were purposely sounding that way to live up to your screen name then that puts a bit of a twist on things. But personally, i find it difficult and unwise to eagerly align myself with the positions of someone who endangers his own credibility by being an ass. I hope therefore that the tone you finished your post with was unintentional.)

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I wish muscleman would stop trying so <caps>HARD</caps> and let truth speak for itself. He makes a little sense sometimes and then goes off on a fire and brimstone rant that completely alienates any audience that might be trying to take anything he is saying seriously.

There was a point where I thought he was an AI purposely designed to be obnoxious

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Muscleman/upyall: Try to imagine listening to yourselves, and think whether you would have listened.

 

Cris

Still much too early (my having only read a few posts today) to even think about entering the God/no God debate. Still warming up my brain and my fingers. So here i go again. Just going to say what struck me weird as i read your post.

May have been other things (realized i went pretty easy on ThatJerk when i reread his post) but these are those that i chose.

First part strikes a strange chord; that is, the phrase "more enlightened times". While humankind's amassed knowledge must be thousands or tens of thousands of times what it would have been in biblical times, 'enlightened' could be argued in some ways. Enlightened sounds like wisdom to me and therefore doesn't really fit. With all that we know scientifically, few agree on what's wise. Even the powers of science fail to inspire all scientists to the same conclusions. And on a pretty regular basis, long, long held theories bite the dust.

Something i find interesting is what seems on the surface to be an almost universally accepted theory: the greenhouse effect and consequent global warming; which is not. So many of the scientists who take it for granted as fact have no expertise in the fields which would give them that knowledge. I very recently heard a group of scientists asked if there was a general consensus among those who are knowledgeable on the topic. Most looked oddly at each other. Some burst out laughing. The scientists not only disagreed widely on what future results greenhouse effects and global warming might cause, they disagreed also on the causes of, and beyond that, even whether the effect actually exists.

There i go into the stratusphere. Back to wisdom. Utter chaos. Ethnic groups around the globe are taking up old battles. People are killing doctors for performing abortions and spiking trees: killing one life form to save another. There are fights over land, over resources, over race, over religion [hey, look where we're posting], over freedoms, over political systems, over just about everything from huge issues of human dignity down to what we should be allowed to eat. Personally i don't see 'enlightenment' extending much past the individual. People whose lives have been transformed for the better use the word enlightenment.

(now we see who can ramble

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)

Second bit of the quote. Greater effectiveness in teaching subordinates what's right over commanding them.... in general, perhaps. It jumped out at me because over the past decade or so as political correctness has spread it's roots, "education" seems to be the buzzword everywhere i look or listen. If something is wrong with social system X, it requires only that those involved are educated better. X can be virtually any part of society which is deemed lacking or any activity that could be dangerous and needs to be monitored more closely.

If education is all that's required then i'm stumped. If i'm not mistaken, people don't necessarily do what they're taught is right or moral or good for them. From the tiniest things to the biggest. Kids are taught Illicit drugs are bad. Hell, in High School i remember being shown the most revolting pictures of diseased organs resulting from them. All still in use. Everybody knows wars are nasty ugly dehumanizing destructive wastes of....just about everything. There are dozens going on now. Gotta teach those school kids about the psychological and physical consequences of sex! Just read a report about 13 year old girls thinking oral sex is no big deal and ending up having difficulty with serious relationships for half their lives after. Everybody knows you've got to keep your cholesterol down to protect yourself from heart disease. I know someone who eats miracle whip sandwiches and just had a triple bypass. Know another who melts an entire pint of Ben&Jerry's (sometimes 2) and drinks it.

No need to put any pressure on or coerce or punish anyone, right? As long as their educated. Somebody forgot to tell inmates on death row murder wasn't kosher, that's all.

Here's a good tidbit:

Read that and (sorry to say), laughed. I'm as certain that the statement is a lie, as i am that you or i exist (especially with "never" in there). Are you really going to stand behind that bit of nonsense? i.e. You were NEVER in a hurry to go somewhere when your kids dawdled along and you had to demand or compel them, say, to get into the car, or hurry and put their toys away? You "never" required that one go to the dentist or doctor or any other activity they found frightening? They didn't find drills and syringes daunting at all, i guess. And you just let your teens come and go at any time of day or night and do exactly as they pleased because you'd never demand they be home at a certain time, or that they not participate in some dangerous activity. And you wouldn't have to because...

Another whopper! You "never" punished them at any age for arriving home hours late, for going behind your back and doing something you'd told them not to? None ever once listened to all that gentle persuasion, and education and defied you because people are individuals and don't necessarily do what makes sense? Nothing of any sort? I guess i can believe that if you can believe i once levitated myself by holding my hand tight over my mouth during a big sneeze. (gimme a break)

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The last part of that quote just cracks me up.

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Obedience, reward, and punishment is simply alien? First the easy cheap shot: If they were truly alien, you wouldn't know what they are. But let's get real. Break it down, given that you really don't mean alien in the absolutely literal sense as of never having encountered it.

A) Obedience - They've never been compelled to do something simply because someone in authority told them to do it.

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So you must be the most efficient person in the universe. You obviously have time to pause and discuss every little thing and explain why it's good and important to undertake at that moment or why it's bad and shouldn't be, and perhaps even go along with them as they do it, or do some alternate. (you did say cooperation) Child is some distance away from you and encounters something potentially dangerous, e.g. a shallow waterway which you know is contaminated, or has a sharply rocky bottom. You look up and child is about to hop in and wade around. That child is never expected to simply be obedient without further reason. So how's that work? Seems to me you'd have to charge over there and explain about the danger and persuade this child not to enter the water in the split second it would take her to step off the bank.

B) Reward - Whoo-boy. I don't even know a good place to start. All i can think is that whether the reward or gratification for doing something is delayed or immediate, it is the reason human beings do 99% of what they do. But apparently, selfless or not, no matter how unpleasant, or how tedious or time consuming some activity is, your kids would do it simply because they were taught why it was a good thing to do and maybe had been persuaded to help do it in the past?

Woops. There goes the contradiction alarm. It's so obvious i don't know why i had to sit here and ponder. Duh! You said 1- concept of rewards is alien and 2 -you only teach through discussion, persuasion, and cooperation and education. Thing is, when you teach them why activity X is desireable, by definition you are teaching them what the reward(s), whether immediate or delayed or abstract, are to taking on that activity. It's a reward for a behavior.

Tee-hee. As if all Christians belong to the same style of parenting.

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Um... anyway; meaning while your kids run wild doing whatever they want whenever they want however they want, to whomever they want, because you never stopped them or disincentived them other than saying "thats a bad thing to do because...". I don't know you so i don't have any idea what your kids are like. I'm just commenting on some claims you may have made hastily and now sound highly improbable if not impossible.

I'm just adding the silliness you claimed in the other quote to the silliness of the above quote. Punishment is a perfectly reasonable response when that 'discussion, persuasion, cooperation, and education' of yours is followed by the "subordinate" then going out and being pressured or just getting caught up, or being a bit young to take it in, or getting thrown off by hormones, and forgetting about the discussion. You aren't there to continue the persuasion, or to cooperate with, and the education seems abstract in the face of a real live intense situation. Makes sense to give them another dose of all those after but if that's the only result of their actions, they're likely to have a similar lapse in judgement on another occasion of similar or greater pressure, especially because their doing the "wrong" thing cannot be guaranteed to result in the "bad consequence" you fortold with all that info.

On grounding. Nothing so odd about that unless you're talking about trying to enforce it with somebody who's a late teen. Giving responsibility and freedom for desired behavior, and taking those away for undesirable behavior makes plain sense until they're old enough to control what they take on for themselves and/or beyond your influence. It's reinforcement.

And furthermore, i will now shut the hell up. But if you still insist on maintaining that what i quoted and refuted is truth, please feel free to explain how you manufactured these wonder kids. Reading those statements, it occurred to me that God(s) do exist in the form of you and your family.

 

Chromatose:

When I look back upon my post and read it through this morning (after I've had a good 10 hours of sleep

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), I find that I agree with your assessment of it.

True enough. I'd had my wisdom teeth pulled that morning and I was a little foggy; I'm amazed that I managed to stay logical and rational for as long as I did!

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I usually don't feel the need to be so derisive, but I feel that musclewhatsupvienna's case is a special one. Logic and insults have the same result on him: nil. There comes a time when logic becomes tiresome (ESPECIALLY when it's falling on deaf ears) and insults are just more fun. Why should I waste perfectly good brain-power on someone who'll just ignore it?

I'm aware of how my last sentence could translate as such, and in this case that's almost how I meant it (though with anybody else I'd dare not be so arrogant, mostly because they might actually try to contradict some of my points). I've seen ALL of this person's arguements before, and I've smacked them down before, and he STILL keeps coming back for more. Hell, even his fellow Christians/theists don't take him seriously and they're supposedly on the same side! The battle has been over for a long time, and he still insists on trying to rally his dead and defeated troops for one more charge. I don't need to declare myself winner; he's declared himself loser by trying to whip a thrice-dead horse.

*sigh* Yes, again I can see how it may come off that way, but that's about as far from the truth as can be. I am, by no stretch of the meaning, trying to show off how edumacated or well-read I am by quoting the Bard; rather, I am in awe of his command of language and am quoting him where I think it could lend some humour to my post AS WELL as insult musclewhatsupvienna. And no, I didn't pull those out of my ass, I actually have a list of Shakespeare's best insults on a poster.

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Of course, you're welcome to make your own judgements about my foolishness or stupidity, but I sincerely hope that my posts speak for themselves in that regard, slippage into insults and drowsy thrashing about aside.

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Yes, I agree completely. Let this be a lesson to all of us... NEVER try to debate when you're in a tylenol-3 induced haze. It's hard to stay focused.

Well... you are somewhat right with that, though I hardly have to TRY to live up to my screen name, since I have a hard time suffering fools.

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But you're right. In this case, I was trying to take the debating high-ground by laying out all of his fallacies and shooting them down one-by-one, and I ALMOST succeeded in staying focused, drugs and all. Next time I'll do better.

Vienna/muscleman/whatsupyall... *shaking head*

I may have sunk to your level for a good portion of my post, but you STILL fail to address even a singular ONE of my points. Does this mean that you concede defeat and are merely trying to insult me to salvage your pride? Perhaps I wasn't premature in declaring myself the victor right off the bat if this is what you call a rebuttal, since it really isn't so much a rebuttal as a desperate ad hominem attack.

Again I ask: are you quite done? I grow tired of wasting my time on you and want to DEBATE with intelligent people, rather than exchange childish insults with an immature mind.

If you try to respond, have the good grace NOT to cut-and-past one of your previous arguements... reusing the term 'mr. earthquake' was a dead giveaway, one among many.

 

Hi Chromatose,
U Verbose
I Comatose

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Logic???

I'm not really avoiding any questions bro or sis or thing. I merely asked you to answer it to see if you could. Wasn't it supposed to be a rhetorical question?

The corollary.

It all depends on what you concieve as logic my brother or sister or fellow inhabitant of earth.

Logic led Greek mathematicians to state the existence of irrational numbers example... 1.5749383434087340658 as absurd. Logic is totally dependent on knowledge my 'brother or the rest'. That same absurd logic now sates that square root 7 is 2.645751311. The Greek mathematicians back then would have called us 'logical ones' up here now religious.

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The only people who can transcend that logic my, 'brother etc.', are people who are brave enough to believe things which lie outside of that limited logic. You can't use logic to transcend any time period. Usually you reason logically and you end up with what you call paradoxes. Those can be solved as shown above.

Noone can transcend the time period they live in by using the knowledge which is available at that time. If anyone could do that 'bro sis or thing' it would surely prove an outside influence caused that. Just like us religious folks now. We 'transcend' the logic of today.

Transcending the time by using the logic of the time... wow... I guess we all think religiously don't we?

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Interesting way to look at it huh?

Lata fellow earthling.

 

ThatJerk

What is this I hear, you want an INTELLIGENT conversation, huh, I could make a monkey out of you, but why should I take all the credit?

You have blamed your stupidy on analgesia, that excuse is soooo weak. Remember this jerky, there is no vaccine against stupidity, and I'd like to leave you with one thought...but I'm not sure you have anywhere to put it!

ThatJerk, yup, the name sums it all up beautifully, THAT JERK!

Yours

musclewhatsupvienna

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ROFLMAO

 

Chrome,

You certainly trumped me on the rambling issue.

Outside of a spiritual sense, the term means to have access to more knowledge. Wisdom does not come into this. We seem as intelligent now as we were several thousand years ago. But now we have a greater understanding of our environment because of the knowledge we have accumulated. There is no need to make any more of it than that.

Yes, I didn’t emphasize what needs to be taught. You seem to have fallen into the trap of assuming the spraying of information constitutes teaching. I am more concerned with teaching how to think so people can solve their own problems.

Yup you’ve got it. There is never a need to give blanket commands. Once the consequences of an action are clear then they are able to make their own choice. They didn’t always make the right choice, and they learned a great deal from their errors. My response was never one of punishment but a question of what was learnt. When trained in this method from an early age they soon learnt my tactics.

My personal approach to life is that every event, seemingly pleasant or unpleasant, is an opportunity to learn and to experience. There are very few things that are purely right or wrong just mainly shades of gray. But if you teach someone how to think and to tackle problems, then problems disappear, they simply become learning opportunities.

I am far from a conventional parent, try not to judge me by conventional standards, you simply do not know me well enough. The rest of your post seems to be based on your own standards. Perhaps you should consider that other alternatives are possible.

You assume I set deadlines, or commanded them not to do things. You appear stuck on the concept that authoritarianism is the only approach to life. None of these things are necessary.

Sure they made lots of mistakes. And I let them. Perfect opportunities to learn.

Oh sure, they soon recognized that others used that archaic system. It irritated them as much as it irritated me. But then the world seems largely backward in this area, as you are demonstrating with your attitude here.

In the beginning it was time consuming. The results paid off later since they knew how to think and analyze for themselves. That is the advantage to teaching how to think rather than forever spraying information and hope the student absorbs some of it. This is a different paradigm to your conventional view.

I think you’ve missed the point. I never give a reward for them doing what I command, because I never command. So the concept of reward isn’t relevant here. If they do something right because they have thought it through, and they gain pleasure from that then fine.

Well of course that’s why anyone does anything, essentially for some form of pleasure, short term or long term. But they take the action not because I told them to but because they can see the reasoning for themselves.

Note I specifically said Christian STYLE, not Christian parents. And here Christian style is biblical authoritarianism.

You have much to learn about alternatives to authoritarianism. When you teach the consequences to certain actions rather than threaten punishment then you empower them with the information they need to make their own decisions. Teaching them how to think and then showing them trust, works extremely well.

If the teaching is sound then they are able to cope with most situations, the rest comes down to experience, and that can’t be taught.

I’m sure you know the story – give a man a fish and he is fed for a day, teach him how to fish and he can feed himself forever.

No, no, no. That is the same authoritarian nightmare mechanism that has made the world such a chaotic place.

You should teach that someone does something because of reason not because of an arbitrary rule. Then teach and stress the consequences of taking the wrong action. Then trust the youngster. If the teaching and training has been consistent throughout their life then it works. If you try to impose restrictions just at the time when they demand greater freedom (e.g. late teens) then you have potential and real disaster.

If you have never inflicted authoritarianism on your children and you have taught them how to think then there is no way they will rebel in their late teens, as so many do. But you will have enormous confidence that when they do exercise that greater freedom they so much desire then you know they will be equipped to think for themselves and be able to deal with the dangers and challenges that await them. That is what I mean by education.

Are you a parent, or are you quoting all of this from just theory? Do you have any late teens?

Take care
Cris

 

Marcac,

Nice job avoiding the question once again. This time I answered my own question just to have you avoid it further. And why did you keep saying that 'bro, whatever, etc.' nonsense? You have some serious issues with written communication. So are you going to go back to my original question and answer it? If not, I'm done because this discussion is pointless...

Cris,
It was very interesting to learn some about your parenting techniques. I might be needing some advice fairly soon (I have a newborn)...

-fc

 

Sure they made lots of mistakes. And I let them. Perfect opportunities to learn.
Like you never tried to stop your four year kid from running on a busy road.

When you teach the consequences to certain actions rather than threaten punishment then you empower them with the information they need to make their own decisions.

So you say to him "Please don't run on the busy road, it is full of cars which can kill you, but it's your choice son", your four year old just looks at you in bewilderment.

This is one of thousands of examples I could give. I don't understand your principles and I agree with Chrome.

 

Um, back to the poll, I voted the smallest percent. (Can't remember what it was now, that was PAGES ago now, LOL)

I picked that choice because I DO understand the words he uses. I just don't understand what the hell he's trying to say when he strings them all together like he just picked them randomly off the floor, capped off with juvenile insults. Any glimmer of understanding I get is, I think, purely coincidental.

As to where the rest of this thread has gone, I have a scattering of comments...

For MarkAC;

*raises a hand* I have faith in Zeus, Jupiter, Thor, Ganesh, and many others. (Not the Thor that posts here, though I do like him too). The planet Jupiter is not a god itself, of course, merely named after one. Ditto for the rest of the planets. (Though I suppose it may have its own indeginous spirit, I dunno, haven't been there)

Do I think these are conscious beings, sitting on golden thrones on mountaintops? No. (I'd be a Christian if I believed in such things, LOL) I have faith in them as great symbols for the archetypes human beings tend to sort and see everything as belonging to. Each one is a symbol of many things, a convenient and easily accessible container for a variety of concepts.

(And for the record, I harbor a severe dislike for both Kevin Sorbo AND Lucy Lawless)

Cris,

Boy, I sure wish I had YOU as a parent!

Actually, my Dad was always very much as you describe yourself. He never hollered at me, insulted me, or punished me. I was safe in discussing ANY topic with him, and he always treated me as a PERSON, not a pet. As a result, the "lessons" he gave me (discussions we had) are still with me, whereas I've disregarded just about everything my punishing mother has ever said to me. Her "lessons" were based on humiliation, fear and guilt.

So, to the naysayers, I can say that I've had close to both styles of parenting, and I can say the personal approach is much more effective than the punishing and domineering approach. At least with me it was.

Of course, when your child is an infant and actually incapable of logical thought, you must do things to ensure they don't kill themselves. Obviously - Cris' children wouldn't be in their late teens & twenties if he did.

Theist, Atheist, Agnostic...

What's the word for someone who believes there IS a god, but it's not a thinking being? Scientheist? ROFLMAO!

 

Vienna,

Now you are being silly.

Use your common sense. If they are incapable of understanding reason then you introduce alternatives e.g. avoid the danger in the first place. But if they can understand a command then they can equally understand a simple reason behind the command. My point is that you can always use a tactic where you never give a command.

If you’ve done your job right then any suggestion that they shouldn’t do something is inevitably followed by the question why? If they’ve been conditioned to follow commands without question then they learn even less. The whole process is interactive and with colossal feedback loops.

And the authoritarian approach is – don’t run on the busy road kid or I’ll take away your teddy. So this way he has not been given any chance to understand the problem but is now being controlled by fear. Yeah very healthy.

If the child is unable to understand either a simple explanation or a command then the child should not be placed in the position of danger. So your example is invalid and I don’t think you have grasped the concept yet.

There are degrees of mistake you allow them to make. The key is to make sure they can’t make mistakes that are fatal. The explanation of consequences and dangers takes considerable effort; in the end there is an element of risk.

 

Cupric,

Awright, good for you.

 

!!! beautiful =] reminds me of the "confucious says" jokes

 

Not really, I kinda think your way of bringing up kids is really weird. How do you apply your tactics to a toddler who is having a tantrum, you know the kind, won't reason with anything.

And the authoritarian approach is – don’t run on the busy road kid or I’ll take away your teddy. So this way he has not been given any chance to understand the problem but is now being controlled by fear. Yeah very healthy.

No, this is not the way to do it. And you will be able to do what you want with the teddy, cos it wont matter will it?

Did you have anything to do with bringing up toddlers, did you help with all the jobs that come with them. There's a lot more to bringing up kids properly than talking about reason. Do you really have any experience at all. Or are you the type who goes to work all day, comes home, slumps in front of the computer for hours on end typing to forums, oblivious to what the kids are up to, but they'll be fine cos you've taught them through your tactics. Sorry , it stinks, I bet you don't know half of it. Can you imagine how they probably speak of you to their buddies. "Yeah, my Dad/ Mum is a real soft touch, lets us do anything".

Ah well, if your happy with the way you do things, so what.