Anyone non-religious here? Please be nice!

[EweSheep]

Quote:
No, I could not. My daughter's life is paramount nor would I sacrifice her to save my soul. It just irks me and the mothering instinct in me to keep my daughter's life intact overrules God's word. I just can't. Sorry about that.

I think much of the religous literature out there is not meant to be taken literally. To me, I think putting a relationship with God first means being centered and living from a place of truth, not making excuses when opportunties for situational ethics pop up. In that case, putting God first is a touchstone sort of like "to thine own self be true". I mean, I know people who lie for their kids to cover up their own stupidity. I know people who won't punish their children when they are holy terrors in public....maybe I am being too simplistic but hell, look at Casey Anthony's parents. They are lying their butts of to cover for their murdering daughter. If they had their priorities straight, they wouldn't be doing that. KWIM?

Yes I know about parents covering up their children's error of ways and both parents and children would be paying for their wrongdoings....remember that quote, Spare the rod, spoil the child??? NOT!

 

[EweSheep]

Quote:
No, I could not. My daughter's life is paramount nor would I sacrifice her to save my soul. It just irks me and the mothering instinct in me to keep my daughter's life intact overrules God's word. I just can't. Sorry about that.

No need to apologise, I feel the same even although I'm a father rather than a mother. But I don't think that there is any circumstance in which a god worthy of the name would ask that of you, despite what his self-appointed mouthpieces might say.

Self appoointed mouthpieces....I am seeing falsies (false teeth) talking non stop!

 

[1stepcloser]

Yah but I am not in favor of beating my kid with a rod, either. Nor do I have any future plans to stone him to death outside of the city for being disobedient...although there are some days....LOL!

 

[EweSheep]

Quote:

Oh I got my days but love my dd to death. Nor would I trade her for ANYONE's child.

Spanking and beating are two different things. Spoiling the child is NOT all bad but if you use it the wrong way, it would backfire.

See how one interpret the words and meanings? Not all of us can follow that. Even those "mouthpieces" could not clarify many things and too many questions are being made and not enough answers.

 

[deb1]

Quote:

I have been told that Japan is not a very religious society and they seem to somehow teach morality to their children. Granted, I know very little about Japan so I could be wrong.

This link might help:

http://www.asianinfo.org/asianinfo/japan/religion.htm

This is interesting too:

http://www.hellosiam.com/html/thailand/thailand-religion.htm

Note how newly adopted religions have merged or sat alongside existing ones in much the same way as Christianity adopted pagan festivals and the old Mediterranean mother-son religions. In Britain the early Christian churches were even built deliberately along ley lines which were give the names of saints such as St. Mary. That might have been a ploy to subjugate the older religions but it does show a degree of flexibility.

Thank you. I read the first link and will start reading the second soon.

 

[deb1]

Quote:
No, I could not. My daughter's life is paramount nor would I sacrifice her to save my soul. It just irks me and the mothering instinct in me to keep my daughter's life intact overrules God's word. I just can't. Sorry about that.

I could not either. But if my child did something illegal or wrong, I would push them to accept the consequences. If they rob a bank, I will encourage my children to confess to the police, but I won't stone them for doing that. Never would I believe that I was getting messges from God telling me to kill my kids. If I hear other voices telling me to do wrong, I will turn myself into the mental ward for a complete psych evaluation.

 

[EweSheep]

Quote:
No, I could not. My daughter's life is paramount nor would I sacrifice her to save my soul. It just irks me and the mothering instinct in me to keep my daughter's life intact overrules God's word. I just can't. Sorry about that.

I could not either. But if my child did something illegal or wrong, I would push them to accept the consequences. If they rob a bank, I will encourage my children to confess to the police, but I won't stone them for doing that. Never would I believe that I was getting messges from God telling me to kill my kids. If I hear other voices telling me to do wrong, I will turn myself into the mental ward for a complete psych evaluation.

EXACTLY!

 

[deb1]

j.luetkemeyer :

I haven't had a chance to read every post in this thread; however, what I have read tells me there is some confusion of what Christianity really is. I have found much hippocracy in the christian churches these days because of this confusion. I would like to make some clarification simply for informational sake, not to try and stir anything up. Morality is totally seperate from Christianity, in fact it is seperate from all religion. You can be non-religious and have high moral standards. Christianity is the belief of salvation through acceptance of Jesus Christ as ones savior. There is a relationship between the Christian and Christ. This is where I seem to find a lot of hippocracy in the Churches. Many go to Church and take the pastor's/preacher's word for it instead of reading the Bible and more importantly establishing a relationship with Christ. Many times some people will think and act as if they are holier, or have higher moral standards, because they attended church. They do not realize they are not a true Christian unless they have accepted Christ as their savior and undertand salvation while maintaining a relationship with Christ.

Again, I wanted to only point this out for informational purposes. This is very basic information so if any Christians do read this I know it is not a complete and full detailed description; however, I only wanted to point out the not-so-obvious aspect of Christianity for those who are not sure of the difference.

I don't think that you are trying to stir anything up, just giving us your definition of Christianity. That is all right.

One of the most oppressive churches that I ever attended believed very strongly in faith alone. At first this message might see to be freeing. Your works or deeds don't count, it is only believing in Christ that counts. Once a person accept Jesus, grace is supposed to make changes in the individual's life so he or she is supposed to become a better person. I came across a lot of Christians who assumed that anyone whose salvation experience was real would think, dress and interpret the bible as they do. Anyone else was not a 'real' or 'true' Christian. So for me, this was not any less controlling then the bigger, more organized churches.

Of course, not everyone's experience is like this and I understand that most Christians use their faith to become better people.​

 

[OccamsTazer]

Quote:
No, I could not. My daughter's life is paramount nor would I sacrifice her to save my soul. It just irks me and the mothering instinct in me to keep my daughter's life intact overrules God's word. I just can't. Sorry about that.

I could not either. But if my child did something illegal or wrong, I would push them to accept the consequences. If they rob a bank, I will encourage my children to confess to the police, but I won't stone them for doing that. Never would I believe that I was getting messges from God telling me to kill my kids. If I hear other voices telling me to do wrong, I will turn myself into the mental ward for a complete psych evaluation.

I went to a service in December at a family member's (terrible, fundie) church that dealt with this very thing. I was literally quivering with fury by the end of the sermon. He was all over the place about how God should be the only real love in a person's life, how if God's not first you're doing it wrong, blah blah blah.
I leaned over to my partner and whispered, "Oh, we've been doing it wrong...I guess that's why we're so happy and successful...",
which set us to giggling and nicely cut the tension.
To me, the "God should come before anything else" is a very transparent bid to get/keep power in the hands of the church. It's one of my biggest beefs with organized religion of any stripe.

 

[chicken_china_mom]

I have a dear friend that is deeply religious, and I learned long ago not to engage him in a religious debate, because he gets very aggressive and firmly believes that his beliefs are right, and everyone else's are wrong, and so I avoid such conversations with him, because I want to keep him as a friend. But, something he said to me last year, it kind of irked me, and I'm not exactly sure why, other than that the idea of it just seems WRONG. He made a comment about the sins of the father being visited upon the heads of the son, and he said that the sins of our ancestors, we are being held accountable for, and we need to lead Christian lives, free of sin, in order to clear that debt for our children, and that it's extremely difficult to do. I just can't imagine that God would punish me because my grandfather had an affair, or because my father walked out on my mother when she was pregnant with me, or because my great, great, great, great uncle back in Ireland forgot to feed his cows and one died. Why would I be held to blame for such occurances? It's just one of the many things I can't wrap my brain around. I imagine God as being loving, firm in his love, yet fair, not as a cruel dictator that holds a grudge. With the mindset of my friend it feels like, if what he thinks is true, then there is no hope for mankind, ever. Not if things like pride, lust, etc. are sins. What, you can't be proud that the child you worked so hard raising is graduating high school with a 4.0 GPA? Or you can't have lustful feelings toward your wife or husband on a night when you sent the kids to grandma's and you are home alone? It just seems absurd to me. I've also heard that there are not just 10 Commandments for mankind to follow, but literally hundreds. If I had the mindset of my friend, my children would never be free of the sins of myself and our ancestors. I'd have to lock my grandkids up in a sensory deprivation chamber right from birth because it's already too late for my 10 and 11 year old. Am I making sense to anyone?