beastie wrote:This is just one more variation of the "God can do whatever he wants, and we can't question him because we can't possibly understand the issues". This, in turn, is just an attempt to prevent critical analysis of God claims.
No it isn't, and I've never made any such claim.
What children, or any immature, uninformed, and irresponsible individual, understand is teaching by example. In fact, it's the only way individuals learn. God wants us to be parents who take these things into consideration and modifies teaching and punitive actions responsibly, but then behaves in the opposite manner.
I don't believe He does. His method of parenting is authoritative but supportive, involving discipline and delayed gratification. These are sound principles on which to rear a child.
When I pointed out that the slave was allowed to go free but had to leave his wife and children behind as slaves, your response was "well, which does he love more"?
Yes, that's right.
This is your God, a God who not only allows his "chosen" people to enslave others, but then doesn't require a punishment if the slave is beaten to the point where death is possible but does NOT occur because he's already been punished by, I suppose, damaging his own equipment?
No, not 'damaging his own equipment', loss of income through loss of service, as I pointed out. As I also pointed out, the penalty for a free man beating another free man 'to the point where death is possible but does NOT occur' was also financial.
And your God tells his chosen people to let a slave go free after a certain point, but keep his wife and children as practical hostages?
What do you mean 'hostages'?
And the right to vote, to participate in how the power brokers - the very people who seriously impact every life - isn't that big of a deal?
No it's not that big of a deal. I could vote for my entire life, and I would never end up influencing the political or legal system of our society in the way that I think it should be.
Fort, these divides are too significant for us to bridge.
Yes, I can see that. When you've explained to me why modern society is so excellent, and demonstrated in particular modern societies' superior method of building strong families and avoiding permanently damaged children, you'll convince me that people today know what they're talking about when they talk about morals and sound societal principles. But we both know that this is an area in which Western societies are failing increasingly badly, and that Western societies almost all suffer from an epidemic of ruined families and mangled kids.
In my congregation back in Australia, there were about 110 adults and over 50 kids. In at least 20 years (I was there for 7, and only know the history back to about 20 years), not one of the children of that congregation had experienced any problems with drugs, alcohol, STDs, anti-social behaviour, or psychological issues such as depression. They were happy, healthy, well adjusted socially responsible kids.
Working at private schools for around 6 years gave me plenty of opportunity to see how the best provided for kids in secular families were faring in comparison. The problems I found among those kids were rampant - drug and alcohol abuse, sexual issues, psychological maladjustment and antisocial behaviour (bullying, fighting, vandalism), smoking, you name it. You don't have to tell me what works, I know what works. I've seen it with my own two eyes.
I invite you to read these psychological studies and reports. Then tell me how good modern Western societies are at building stable, healthy families and raising well adjusted children:
‘One characteristic of many of today’s young people, children and parents, is the need for instant pleasure, and little patience with any need for ‘delay of gratification’. This technical sounding term, which actually carries a wealth of meaning, is a description of behaviour first demonstrated in experimental studies by developmental psychologists in the 1950s, and then made prominent by the work of US psychologist Walter Mischel in the 1970s.
Mischel showed that young children varied in their capacity to wait some time for a reward when they were placed in a challenging situation, which required patience and self-control.
[…]
Mischel and many others have shown that the ability to self-regulate and to delay gratification or to wait for rewards is a very good predictor of many aspects of psycho-social health and wellbeing in childhood, and in later life.’
ABC Radio, ‘Instant Gratification versus Resilience in Children’, broadcast Sunday 7 July 2002
‘The children who waited longer went on to get higher SAT scores. They got into better colleges and had, on average, better adult outcomes.’
David Brooks, ‘Self-control Is The Key To Success’, New York Times Service Tuesday, May 9, 2006
On the other hand, those who adopt the mindset of ‘instant gratification’ are unable to regulate or discipline themselves effectively, and suffer for it:
‘Poor capacity to regulate oneself, on the other hand, is a predictor of psycho-social difficulties in the longer term, including problems in attending to, or persisting with a task, adapting to changing environments, and considering the perspectives and the needs and feelings of people around them.
ABC Radio, ‘Instant Gratification versus Resilience in Children’, broadcast Sunday 7 July 2002
‘The children who rang the bell quickest were more likely to become bullies. They received worse teacher and parental evaluations 10 years later and were more likely to have drug problems at age 32.’
David Brooks, ‘Self-control Is The Key To Success’, New York Times Service Tuesday, May 9, 2006
‘The learning that results from these kinds of experiences contributes to the growth of resilience. The resilient young person has the capacity to withstand setbacks, to rise to a challenge, to find new ways of solving problems, to feel a sense of self-confidence in managing the social and material world, and to know that hardship can be overcome.’
ABC Radio, ‘Instant Gratification versus Resilience in Children’, broadcast Sunday 7 July 2002
‘Young people who can delay gratification can sit through sometimes boring classes to get a degree. They can perform rote tasks in order to, say, master a language. They can avoid drugs and alcohol. For people without self-control skills, however, school is a series of failed ordeals. No wonder they drop out. Life is a parade of foolish decisions: teenage pregnancy, drug use, gambling, truancy and crime.’
David Brooks, ‘Self-control Is The Key To Success’, New York Times Service Tuesday, May 9, 2006
It is important to note that the character and circumstances of a child’s parents have a significant impact on whether or not the child is raised in an environment which will encourage delayed gratification:
‘The ability to delay gratification, like most skills, correlates with socioeconomic status and parenting styles. Children from poorer homes do much worse on delayed gratification tests than children from middle-class homes. That’s probably because children from poorer homes are more likely to have their lives disrupted by marital breakdown, violence, moving, etc. They think in the short term because there is no predictable long term.’
David Brooks, ‘Self-control Is The Key To Success’, New York Times Service Tuesday, May 9, 2006
It appears that contrary to prevailing 'wisdom', marital breakdown and divorce are actually harmful to children. Who'd 'a thunk it?
Some parents clearly lack the means or the will to provide such an environment. Certainly parents of lower socioeconomic status tend to have a mindset of instant gratification, or else do not have the will or means to provide an environment which encourages delayed gratification. But even many wealthy parents, who have the means to provide such an environment, lack the will to do so, and the ‘rich spoiled kid’ is proverbial as a result. Similarly, parents of a lower socioeconomic status may develop thrifty habits for themselves as a response to their poverty, and encourage such delayed gratification in their children.
The personal will and character of the parent is thus more important than socioeconomic status when determining whether or not parents will provide for their children an environment which encourages delayed gratification.
Those parents who do have the means and the will, and who provide for their children an environment which encourages delayed gratification, are intelligent, loving, and thoughtful parents. The provision of such an environment is therefore a positive reflection on the character of parents who do so. When we see parents providing this environment for their children, we know they are good parents:
‘What works, says Jonathan Haidt, the author of “The Happiness Hypothesis,” is creating stable, predictable environments for children, in which good behavior pays off — and practice. Young people who are given a series of tests that demand self-control get better at it.’
David Brooks, ‘Self-control Is The Key To Success’, New York Times Service Tuesday, May 9, 2006
The results of Scriptural discipline are clear:
‘In a landmark study of more than 4000 teens, Philadelphia’s own Dr. Laurence Steinberg, Professor of Psychology at Temple University, and colleagues asked teens to classify their parents according to these four styles and looked at how well the children were doing. Their research highlighted the important role that parents play in shaping their children.
Children from authoritative families (firm yet supportive) fared best - better adjustment, more competence and achievement, more confident about their abilities, and less likely to get into trouble.
[…]
In sum, parenting that involves firmness and clear expectations delivered in a supportive, loving, non-punitive environment that encourages social responsibility, self-regulation, and cooperation is the best recipe for success.’
Philadelphia Jewish Voice, ‘Raising A Mensch’, Dr. Flaura Koplin Winston M.D. Ph.D., 2005
Equally clear are the results of a life without such restraints:
‘Professor Martin Seligman, of the University of Pennsylvania at Philadelphia, is one of the top psychologists in the US, and before he turned to studying positive psychology and happiness, he devoted a lot of his research to depression.
[…]
Seligman says America and all the rich countries are facing an “epidemic of depression”. The question that interests me, however, is: why? What’s causing this deterioration in the quality of our lives? Is it happening because of, or in spite of, our obsession with economic growth?
[…]
First, the rise of individualism - what he calls “the big I and the small we”. [that's the prodcut of your your rights based society, beastie]
“The more I believe that I am all that matters, and the more I believe that my goals, my success and my pleasures are extremely important, the more hurtful the blow when I fail,” he says. And life inevitably brings occasions of failure and helplessness.
In earlier times we had more comfortable spiritual furniture to sit in - belief in causes bigger than ourselves, be it God, nation, family or Duty - and this brought us consolation in times of adversity.
[…]
Second, the depredations of the self-esteem movement. This is the notion that the job of parents and teachers is to make children feel well about themselves.
[…]
Third, the rise of victimology. Increasingly, we’re encouraged to blame our problems on someone else - our parents, the government, The System - rather than accepting responsibility and finding ways to overcome them.
This is a formula for what Seligman has pinpointed as “learned helplessness” (nothing I do matters) - a concept that helped make his name. “Notions of responsibility are importantly preventative,” he says.
Fourth, the growth in “short cuts to happiness”. We’re encouraged to do all manner of things that bring instant pleasure but require almost no effort on our part: junk food, television, drugs, shopping, loveless sex, spectator sport, chocolate and more.
The trouble is that the pleasure they bring is fleeting and they soon leave us feeling empty. Nature built us in a way that we gain more lasting satisfaction from things we have to work for. A lot of the satisfaction comes from the work itself.
A life spent pursuing short cuts to happiness allows our strengths and virtues to wither, rather than develop, and sets us up for depression.’
Ross Gittins, ‘Why All This Living It Up Gets Us Down’, The Australian, February 22, 2006
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