Where we went wrong...

[maximum]

A friend passed this on to me..Worth noting:

-----------------
Let's see,
I think it started when Madeline Murray O'Hare complained she didn't want any prayer in our schools. And, we said, OK...
------------------
Then, someone said you better not read the Bible in school, The Bible that says "Thou shalt! Not kill", "Thou shalt not steal", "And love your neighbors as yourself", and we said, OK...
-----------------
Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn't spank our children when they misbehaved because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem. And we said, an expert should know what he's talking about. So we won't spank them anymore...
------------------
Then someone said teachers and principals better not discipline our children when they misbehave. And, the school administrators said no faculty member in the schools better touch a student when they misbehave because we don't want any bad publicity, and we surely don't want to be sued. And we accepted their reasoning..
------------------
And the entertainment industry said, let's make TV shows and movies that promote profanity, violence and illicit sex...And let's record music that encourages rape, drugs, murder, suicide, and satanic themes...And we said, it's just entertainment and it has no adverse effect, and nobody takes it seriously anyway, so go right ahead.
------------------
Now we're asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don't know right from wrong, and why it doesn't bother them to kill strangers, classmates or even themselves.
------------------
Undoubtedly, if we thought about it long and hard enough, we could figure it out. I'm sure it has a great deal to do with...

"WE REAP WHAT WE SOW."

 

[Kenny]

Bump!

 

[.X.]

Very Well Said, Imo

 

[Jasonn]

Utterly retarded. So if prayer was allowed in school there would be no bullying? No kids who feel like they don't belong? No kids excluded from anything? Yeah..thats what I thought. You don't need the bible to tell you common sense. If you do, you have deeper problems than religion could ever solve.

I could go on and on about whats wrong with every statement in that post but i'll just say that profanity, violence and "illcet sex" has been a large part of entertainment since before shakespeare.

 

[shockie]

two words: sunday school.

 

[Mark]

Utterly retarded. So if prayer was allowed in school there would be no bullying? No kids who feel like they don't belong? No kids excluded from anything? Yeah..thats what I thought. You don't need the bible to tell you common sense. If you do, you have deeper problems than religion could ever solve.

I could go on and on about whats wrong with every statement in that post but i'll just say that profanity, violence and "illcet sex" has been a large part of entertainment since before shakespeare.

I don't know about the Prayer portion helping much at this point , But it couldn't hurt any ... And if parents and teachers were allowed to discipline the children under their care :o I'll assure you it would sort most of it out.
I remember a neighbor asking my Mom once if she used "Dr. Spocks" book ... My Mom replied "Why sure - I'll whip one of my kids asses with that book just as quick as anything else" Geeez - I miss her ...


And just because all of those things "may" have been part of entertainment for a long time - That doesn't mean it was EVER intended to be entertainment for CHILDREN.

How about actually READING it all again.

 

[Peter]

Let's see,
I think it started when Madeline Murray O'Hare complained she didn't want any prayer in our schools. And, we said, OK...
------------------
Then, someone said you better not read the Bible in school, The Bible that says "Thou shalt! Not kill", "Thou shalt not steal", "And love your neighbors as yourself", and we said, OK

Why should it be the job of a school to teach/force religion onto people. I personally am not religious but I certainly would not walk into a school and shoot people.

If parents want their children taught religion then they should do it in the family environment.

If you really think religion is the answer then go have a look at what the biggest causes of conflict are. Most wars are started purely on religious grounds.

-----------------
Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn't spank our children when they misbehaved because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem. And we said, an expert should know what he's talking about. So we won't spank them anymore...

I must admit I totally agree on this 1. The culture we have at the moment of not punishing children when they do wrong is absurd.

Then someone said teachers and principals better not discipline our children when they misbehave. And, the school administrators said no faculty member in the schools better touch a student when they misbehave because we don't want any bad publicity, and we surely don't want to be sued. And we accepted their reasoning..

Unfortunately that is a sign of the times at the moment especially in the US. If people sniff a possibility of getting money then they will sue.

And the entertainment industry said, let's make TV shows and movies that promote profanity, violence and illicit sex...And let's record music that encourages rape, drugs, murder, suicide, and satanic themes...And we said, it's just entertainment and it has no adverse effect, and nobody takes it seriously anyway, so go right ahead.

Violent tv shows and music does not make a bad person. Unfortunately entertainment mediums have been blamed way too much for the problems that we face. Music and films have been violent for years. I can give you examples of satanic music from the 20's and 30's. Bands like the Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin were heavily influenced by such thing (never heard the song Sympathy For The Devil). Mick Jagger was meant to be in a film in the 60's entitled Invocation Of My Demon Brother by a director called Kenneth Anger and starred Anton Szander Levay (the high priest of the the Church Of Satan), however he was warned against it by his record company so he did the music instead under the name Mick J.

Now we're asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don't know right from wrong, and why it doesn't bother them to kill strangers, classmates or even themselves.

Unfortunately in todays society (especially in deprived areas) a lot of parents neglect their responsibility. They have the kids but they have no interest in looking after them. I see it where I live, parents throw their kids out and tell them to come back at dinner time, once they have had their dinner they are thrown out again and told to come back at bed time. If their parents do not care about them then the kids will not care about themselves, they have no self worth.

A few years back there was a fire in the block I lived in. We found out ho did it and it was a 10 year old boy. the mother refused to punish him. Her reason? Because he is family.

 

[Jasonn]

I don't know about the Prayer portion helping much at this point , But it couldn't hurt any ... And if parents and teachers were allowed to discipline the children under their care :o I'll assure you it would sort most of it out.
I remember a neighbor asking my Mom once if she used "Dr. Spocks" book ... My Mom replied "Why sure - I'll whip one of my kids asses with that book just as quick as anything else" Geeez - I miss her ...


And just because all of those things "may" have been part of entertainment for a long time - That doesn't mean it was EVER intended to be entertainment for CHILDREN.

How about actually READING it all again.

Ultimately its up to the parents to teach a kid right from wrong. Not the media, not society, not even schools. The present state of poltical correct BS is out of control, no doubt. Parents should be allowed to spank if that is how they want to disipline their children but there are always those who take it way too far and shouldn't even be parents in the first place unfortunately.

And about entertainment, again this is the parents responsiblity. Don't expect tv to be a babysitter and let them watch whatever they want. Parents who do this only have themselves to blame. Its the same thing with the internet. Children should not be on it unsupervised. Take some time and watch what your kids watch and it won't take long to realize if they should be watching it or not. We don't live in a G rated world. The evening news is pretty shocking itself.

Regarding prayer, it excludes people. Not everyone is the same religion and some people don't practice any religion at all. I don't see the need for it in school. If you want prayer to be such an important part of your childs daily life, have a family prayer in the morning before everyone heads their seperate ways.

 

[estibot.com]

Dear God,

Why did you not save the 320,000 people, many of them good christians, in the Tsunami?

Sincerely,
Concerned human being

-----
Dear Concerned Human Being,

Couldn't be bothered.

Sincerely,
God
------------------------------------

I respect everyone's beliefs, but to say that if religion is taught in schools, and if we start assaulting our children again, things will get better? - I don't see the logic there.

About the violence on TV, movies, games, that's definitely an important debate and we don't know the magnitude of their effect (if any) on violent crime. In Japan, entertainment is exceedingly violent and sadistic, but they have the lowest homicide rates. The violent games etc. may have an effect, but there's got to be something more, something deeper than that, like alienation in today's society. Also, the constant influx of horrible news, war and disaster footage from all over the globe, flooding our senses, may cause an accumulation of subconscious stress.

Satanic music, violent games and movies, atheism, reading Nietzsche, and a history of mental illness may be associated with homicidal behavior, but an association does not equal a cause-and-effect relationship. It seems more likely to me that these are all symptoms, not causes.

I agree with Jason and Peter that parents seem to be neglecting their responsibilities increasingly, and that is a worrisome development. Indifference is worst.

However, I disagree about the spanking. How exactly is physically assaulting our children going to teach them to avoid violence?

Laws or not, lack of spanking is not a problem in today's families. There's a lot of it going on, at the same time there's a lot of indifference, lack of love, lack of talking openly about issues.

Just my thoughts, nice to take part in a non-domain-related debate

 

[Sabre]

In regard to religion, I totally respect people who choose to be religious, but that is the key word. Choice.

Sure, I agree with the teaching of morales in schools. No doubt about it, there should be way more of this taking place. But pushing religion onto kids isn't going to change anything. One of my pet hates is when religious people have children and then force (yes, it's forcing as you aren't giving them a choice in the matter) to take up their religion.
I think the best thing we can do is let kids have the power to choose for themselves, and simply be there to push them down the right route. Give them too much leeway and they will be off the rails, don't give them enough and they will rebel. It's all about finding that safe midway point.

Oh, and the link between media violence and real life has no basis to it. Correlation does not equal causality. (Psychology does have it's uses :D)

 

[jstep]

wow, those first two posts were pretty shocking

 

[weblord]

GOD is ultimate Gentleman (if HE has sex) btw
HE won't interfere with your events unless you wanted to.

I Cor. 10:13

 

[Dan]

And the entertainment industry said, let's make TV shows and movies that promote profanity, violence and illicit sex...And let's record music that encourages rape, drugs, murder, suicide, and satanic themes...And we said, it's just entertainment and it has no adverse effect, and nobody takes it seriously anyway, so go right ahead.

"Let's make songs that promote rape." Hmm.. don't think anyone ever said that.

Now we're asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don't know right from wrong, and why it doesn't bother them to kill strangers, classmates or even themselves.

What percent of children go around killing people?...

However, I disagree about the spanking. How exactly is physically assaulting our children going to teach them to avoid violence?

If you get spanked when you do something wrong, are you going to do it again?


I just think (overly) religious people cause more problems than they solve. I don't see how this (religious) thread is going to help any problem, but instead it is causing more arguing.

Religion should teach good morals and give people hope. (Maybe not should give people hope, but that's one of the few good things that religion does.)

 

[estibot.com]

If you get spanked when you do something wrong, are you going to do it again?

I don't get spanked enough these days

But kids, yes, they will do it again, the spanking just teaches them to avoid getting caught.. they become pretty good at it.

Josh

 

[Sabre]

I don't get spanked enough these days

Amen to that :D

But kids, yes, they will do it again, the spanking just teaches them to avoid getting caught.. they become pretty good at it.

Spanking won't stop them doing it, but it is a deterant. It's the same with prison. It won't stop people commiting crimes but it will make them think twice before doing it and will prevent some crime taking place.

 

[Peter]

Can I point out that a lot of the argument in the original post (and some since) has been the lack of religion in schools.

What about the fact that the following attrocities took place in what is known as the bible belt:-

Virginia Tech
Pearl, Mississippi 10/1/97
West Paducah, Kentucky 12/1/97
Stam P, Arkansas 12/15/97
Jonesboro, Arkansas 3/24/98
Fayetteville, Tennessee 5/19/98
Ricmond, Virginia 6/15/98
Conyers, Georgia 5/20/99
Fort Gibson, Oklahoma 12/6/99

Now if I remember correctly the bible belt is called that because of the deeply religious sentiment within the area. If the lack of religion is the cause of such atrocities then why have about half of the ones mentioned in the original post been carried out within deeply religious areas?

Also surely there is a more important problem. How did the kids involved get hold of the guns in the first place? Surely if guns were kept out of reach and housed securely then these atrocities would never have happened. I am not suggesting guns should be banned in the US but surely tighter controls on who can have them and how they are stored should be made.

 

[Phoebe_]

It's God's way to decrease the #s of people alive in this planet

 

[Ixix]

:td: i always hate it when people speak for God....I question the faith/motivation/and sanity of anybody that states that that God somehow said that He allows school massacres because because prayer is not allowed in school.

just because "god isn't allowed in school" doesn't mean he isn't allowed in the hearts & minds.

i believe a prayer that is said in the heart means more than a prayer that is said from the mouth....one is more sincere than the other

those that frown upon religion in schools really really need to think if they are ready for ALL RELIGIONS and ALL Denominations to be accepted and represented.

If parents and officials are REALLY that open minded and willing to accept ALL religons in public school, then i say go for it...it might be a great way to promote religious tolerance, on the other hand it might also cause religious division among students (as it does with people in the outside world)

But i doubt most parents that are pushing for religion in schools would be willing to allow other forms of religious expression in public schools or allow their kids to explore other religions.

While i do not claim to know the real reason why kids are blowing themselves and other up....i would have to say that to blame...or hint that school violence is due to the lack of religious expression in a classroom is absurd and those that claim it is failing to look into the real issues and problems of school violence.

but that is my opinion