Kevin's Watch

I may have said this elsewhere, and going back to the original discussion of this thread, but I want my kids exposed to religion even though I don't really follow it myself. My plan is to try to seek out a place of worship of each type I can find and bring my kids when they are old enough to understand to each of the major schools of thought. I doubt I'll visit every branch of, say, Christianity, because I have no interest in seeing how snake handler's receive God's judgment as much as I want to see a Black Mass being performed (as Satanists are essentially Christians just...uhhh....siding with the other guy). And probably round it off with some namby pamby unitarian church like my wife attends that brings it all together, or whatever. Still in the planning stages, to be honest.

Not to derail the thread, but what age do you all think would be good to start this exploration of spirituality for young thinking minds? I know churches usually want them young before they start forming their own opinions, but I'm just wondering what those with kids would think they could think critically enough to make their own decisions.

I don't want my kids "exposed to "religion" AT ALL. I want them exposed to the TRUTH, and if what I have ain't it, then I don't want it.

"Religion" is not the driving interest. Truth is.

Amen, rus! Exactly how I feel!

I want my kids to find their own truth, because they are going to do it anyway. I'll beat in my own views, certainly, but my view of truth is different from both of my parents, or maybe is a combination of the two. Regardless, I'll be helping in their finding of "truth," and the experience will be educational for me as well. Being started early in a Baptist church, I initially thought that was what religion was until I found out there are many other flavors. Nowadays, I think the truth may lie somewhere in the middle once biases and dogma are laid aside.

Cagliostro wrote:I want my kids to find their own truth, because they are going to do it anyway. I'll beat in my own views, certainly, but my view of truth is different from both of my parents, or maybe is a combination of the two. Regardless, I'll be helping in their finding of "truth," and the experience will be educational for me as well. Being started early in a Baptist church, I initially thought that was what religion was until I found out there are many other flavors. Nowadays, I think the truth may lie somewhere in the middle once biases and dogma are laid aside.

Interesting, how you speak of one's "personal truth" and then in the next breath of "the truth". I think the truth lies closer to your last statement, although what exactly constitutes a "middle" may be open for discussion. If the truth is bizarre, it would be better to discover that and act on it than to seek some kind of 'moderation' that was not true.

And if there is any objective reality, then obviously, that truth is not personal - only understandings inconsistent with it (ie 'false') would be.

Reality is objective, our experience of it is not. What kind of truths you seek depend on your subjective perception of reality, and so even those who look for or believe they have found objective truth are in fact participating only in their own personal version of it.

In short, humans are fallible, and as such can never experience a true objective truth.

Well, I'm not going to be dragged into this discussion again. But does everyone agree with Hashi about the ages then? Just curious. Thanks everyone.

Cagliostro wrote:Well, I'm not going to be dragged into this discussion again. But does everyone agree with Hashi about the ages then? Just curious. Thanks everyone.

What a question--of course they agree with me. Everyone always agrees with me because I am always correct.

Cagliostro wrote:Well, I'm not going to be dragged into this discussion again. But does everyone agree with Hashi about the ages then? Just curious. Thanks everyone.

I'll only chime in that typically afterschool Hebrew school usually starts in 3rd grade at most shuls I know of. Some biblical education goes on at younger ages for those who enroll their children in private Jewish day schools, but that is mostly bible stories and instruction on how to observe the various Jewish holidays.

I would say Hashi has it about right. Around ten is when the more philosophical aspects and reasons of the tenants of observance is broached, I think.

Cool! Thanks.

Cagliostro wrote:I want my kids to find their own truth, because they are going to do it anyway. I'll beat in my own views, certainly, but my view of truth is different from both of my parents, or maybe is a combination of the two. Regardless, I'll be helping in their finding of "truth," and the experience will be educational for me as well. Being started early in a Baptist church, I initially thought that was what religion was until I found out there are many other flavors. Nowadays, I think the truth may lie somewhere in the middle once biases and dogma are laid aside.

previously in Menolly's signature it was wrote:Behind the mask of every religion is the one True face of G-d.

By this I mean that each person needs to find what is the Truth for them. The All is the source and wishes us to acknowledge it (or not) by whatever means resonates with each of us. Nothing more.

We choose for ourselves and should respect others right to choose for themselves.

Hashi Lebwohl wrote:

Cagliostro wrote:Well, I'm not going to be dragged into this discussion again. But does everyone agree with Hashi about the ages then? Just curious. Thanks everyone.

What a question--of course they agree with me. Everyone always agrees with me because I am always correct.

Cag, it does depend on the kid in question. My friends began worrying about my immortal soul (and taking me to church with them) when I was in early elementary school. So anywhere between 7 and 10 sounds about right to me.

Menolly wrote:(E)ach person needs to find what is the Truth for them. The All is the source and wishes us to acknowledge it (or not) by whatever means resonates with each of us. Nothing more.

Well said.

Cagliostro wrote:Well, I'm not going to be dragged into this discussion again. But does everyone agree with Hashi about the ages then? Just curious. Thanks everyone.

No. In Orthodoxy we commune babies. They are raised and steeped in the faith. We don't leave them in some kind of vacuum until "they are old enough". Neither do we expect them to do or understand more than they can. Bu t they are members of the Church from baptism - intellectual consent is not an issue (unless it is deliberately rejected). Children - even small ones - are members of the family.

aliantha wrote:

Menolly wrote:(E)ach person needs to find what is the Truth for them. The All is the source and wishes us to acknowledge it (or not) by whatever means resonates with each of us. Nothing more.

Well said.

I think that to be the most pernicious falsehood there is. That is one of the last lies straight from hell (which I reserve the right to be able to define more clearly at a later point) - but I do not believe it to be a deception on the part of a poster but a demonic lie received as true by fallible humans.

I suppose it's useless saying that to you, but that is the heart of all disagreement whatsoever. What is truth? That statement denies that it exists. There can be no conversation between people who think it doesn't exist - whether you call it "personal" or "subjective" or whatever and people who know that it does.

Please understand that none of that is personal slight. Truth IS, and is independent of our perception of it - so we may correctly or incorrectly perceive it, or to greater or lesser degrees. THAT is truth.

rusmeister wrote:

aliantha wrote:

Menolly wrote:(E)ach person needs to find what is the Truth for them. The All is the source and wishes us to acknowledge it (or not) by whatever means resonates with each of us. Nothing more.

Well said.

I think that to be the most pernicious falsehood there is. That is one of the last lies straight from hell (which I reserve the right to be able to define more clearly at a later point) - but I do not believe it to be a deception on the part of a poster but a demonic lie received as true by fallible humans.

I suppose it's useless saying that to you, but that is the heart of all disagreement whatsoever. What is truth? That statement denies that it exists. There can be no conversation between people who think it doesn't exist - whether you call it "personal" or "subjective" or whatever and people who know that it does.

Please understand that none of that is personal slight. Truth IS, and is independent of our perception of it - so we may correctly or incorrectly perceive it, or to greater or lesser degrees. THAT is truth.

Truth, if it IS, which I am far from certain of, would be independent of our perception...and also indiscernible by our perceptions.
No one is "of an age" to be exposed to the truth [cuz no one around them knows it]...
You have two choices: train them like a dog to follow some path, OR teach them to keep searching/asking questions/analyzing.
Living is the process of asking...the moment you have the answer, the Truth, you are dead whether your heart keeps beating or not.

Vraith wrote: You have two choices: train them like a dog to follow some path, OR teach them to keep searching/asking questions/analyzing.
Living is the process of asking...the moment you have the answer, the Truth, you are dead whether your heart keeps beating or not.

As to the first, you left out a third choice - teach them according to the truth AND encourage them to ask questions and discover answers.

The latter, though, is nonsense. It means that answers are unattainable, and that there is therefore no reason to ask questions. Are you familiar with Chesterton's comment on open minds and open mouths?

But I think he thought that the object of opening the mind is simply
opening the mind. Whereas I am incurably convinced that the object
of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again
on something solid.

From his autobiography

The reason the latter is nonsense is that what you really mean is "encourage them to ask questions and not question the answers I give them." Since you are teaching them according to the truth, they cannot possibly gain anything by not accepting your answers.


And where's my ducks!

Fist and Faith wrote:The reason the latter is nonsense is that what you really mean is "encourage them to ask questions and not question the answers I give them." Since you are teaching them according to the truth, they cannot possibly gain anything by not accepting your answers.


And where's my ducks!

The huge assumption being made here appears to be that ideas are being taught by rote with no way to test or demonstrate them. The merit in questioning is when there is real reason to doubt something. The vice is in simply teaching them to doubt everything; that even any answers they might find are wholly unreliable; that they can never know truth.

But we know that people who know nearly nothing must learn things which they do NOT doubt before they begin to question what they may. If you teach them to doubt everything, then they can know nothing. You are bound to teach a child dogmas no matter what you do. You can offer explanations of why a thing is so - as we will about sin - that fact 'as practical as potatoes' and eminently provable - but you must affirm something, that you teach as fact, and answer the child's questions as best they can understand the answers.

So the idea that a faith-based education teaches a child to "blindly believe things unquestioningly" is a rather strange idea, inconsistent with what intelligent believing parents actually do. I think that the rhetoric is actually a coded complaint that we do not teach our children skepticism; that THAT is what is really meant by "teaching them to question things".

Fist and Faith wrote:Remember why I started this thread? Well, here's Shaina's first Easter.


I picked out the cross for her the other day as a gift from my mother. Mom lives in NC, so couldn't do it herself. Shaina was very happy to get it.

She's beautiful, Fisty.