acu@stat-l (Shoe) (08/08/84)
Quote without comment -- from "Dear Abby," Wednesday August 8, 1984: >DEAR ABBY: It seems that lately in your attempts to "get with it," >you are really screwing up. You defend a child's right to privacy, >and say that parents should not look at their children's yearbooks >without permission. > > Come on, Abby. Everyone knows that children have no rights. It is >the responsibility of the parents to see that their children are >reared in a clean and wholesome atmosphere. > > Children need to be protected -- not given rights to do wrong. > > Outraged in Orange, Calif. Transcribed by: -- Mark Shoemaker /dev/shoe ...!pur-ee!pucc-k:acu mas@purdue Religion is the process of finding our inner strength. --Tolbert McCarroll
eokane@charm.UUCP (Evan Kane) (08/10/84)
For those of you who have already seen this one, I
apologize for the reposting.
Pygmalion Rejected
Let me feed you food
To make your body strong
And beautiful.
Let me feed you love
To make your psyche strong,
Compassionate.
Let me feed you rules
To make your conscience strong
And dutiful.
Let me feed you thoughts
To make your mind expand
And scintillate.
Let me feed you dreams
To make your conscience strong
And flexible.
But do not let me feed
You me, lest you not be
Someone entirely new and marvellous
Under the sun.
Evan Kane 4/20/84emma@uw-june (Joe Pfeiffer) (08/14/84)
Let's see here. I see that I have a responsibility to raise my child to be an independent, functioning member of society. I have no "right", and, I assume, no responsibility, to teach my son anything else. I have a responsibility to teach him to be honest and not to steal. Not because of any moral obligation, but only to better serve society. Apparently I am to accept the social contract as morally binding, but not teach any morals... I assume that I should teach him that the earth is round (to a first approximation). However, I should not teach him that God exists. I don't see the difference. After all, the Flat Earth Society has at least as compelling a position as the atheists... You've taken a completely untenable position, my friend. You are arguing that there is a set of beliefs which are "acceptable" to teach children, and another set that is not. Sorry, you can consistently argue either that I have an obligation to teach my son beliefs, or that I don't (moral behavior such as honesty or independence is, at its root, a moral belief). You can't claim a distinction between beliefs I can teach and beliefs I can't. -Joe P.
debray@sbcs.UUCP (Saumya Debray) (08/14/84)
<bah, humbug!> > I see that I have a responsibility to raise my child to be an > independent, functioning member of society. Agreed. > You can't claim a distinction between beliefs I can teach and beliefs I > can't. Hmm ... if I understand you correctly, you're claiming that it's as defensible to teach your kids to believe that rape and murder are okay, as it is to teach them to believe that they're not. Can't see how that'd produce "independent, functioning members of society" ... > You've taken a completely untenable position, my friend. You are > arguing that there is a set of beliefs which are "acceptable" to teach > children, and another set that is not. While it'd be stupid to claim that there's a *unique* set of "acceptable" beliefs (since the "acceptability" of any belief is a function of the culture we're referring to), once we fix a social setup as a frame of reference, a set of "acceptable" beliefs crystallizes to a great extent. Or would you say that cannibalism is as "acceptable" in downtown Manhattan as it is in certain societies in the Amazon valley? Clearly, the set of "acceptable" beliefs for your child depends on the society you expect him to live in. -- Saumya Debray, SUNY at Stony Brook uucp: {cbosgd, decvax, ihnp4, mcvax, cmcl2}!philabs \ {amd, akgua, decwrl, utzoo}!allegra > !sbcs!debray {tektronix, metheus}!ogcvax / CSNet: debray%suny-sbcs@CSNet-Relay
daw@sun.uucp (Doug Ward) (08/28/84)
This isn't meant as a flame, though I'm sure that one's opinions will flavor ones perception. Joe P.: >...the Flat Earth Society has at least as compelling a position as the >athiests. I ask you, compelling to who? How can you compare two completely different groups. The athiests arguement is a rational one based on a lack of evidence for the existence for gods/god (cf. "a + theos"), whereas the Flat Earth Society's argument is based on the rejection of repeatable experimentation and the contradiction of direct observation. The mind of a child will be educated. Withholding rational explanations works only if mystical/religious/spiritual explanations are offered instead. This is why children *must* be taught about gods/God, for otherwise they would develop a spirituality slightly different than that of their parents, due to their uninhibited different perception of the world around them. It could of course be argued that no perception can really be uninhibited, so parents should provide some *guidelines*, like a religious framework. -albie