Show of Hands

No you didn't

That's their fault?

Isn't it?
The measure of how a parent did is how their kid turns out, no?

Up to a point, it's the parents' responsibility. However, the child has to take ownership in the long run because ultimately it is his/her choice. The parents are responsible for the foundation; what you do with it (or don't do) is on you.

And if they didn't prepare me for the real world, I'm supposed to get those skills from?

Geez, step up and take some responsibility! Otherwise, what, you'll sit around and cry that your parents didn't do enough? Your plan is to be unemployed and unproductive forever? At what point do you think it falls on you to grow up and figure it out? 40? 50? No, that time was your early 20s at the latest.

Your parents teach you. Then it is YOUR job to make your own choices. I can give thousands of examples of good parents with kids who make bad choices.

Troll alert.

I'm not unemployed, I'm under employed. I'm not saying I had bad parents, I'm just saying they fell a little short of great.

Well I guess they didn't teach you personal responsibility

And, yet, I graduated from college AND have never been arrested.

Strange.

Well, good job to them.

I find it VERY interesting that the highest percentages saying their parents did well on raising them are Catholics and Protestants and the lowest are atheists. I’m wondering what might be the reasons for this demographic phenomena.

Anyone have any theories?

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I would have too see how many atheists and Christians voted to reach a solid conclusion

Yes. If you also notice that libertarians are less likely to say their parents did a good job, you can make a supposition that rejection of authority is at least somewhat related to poor parenting. When I was very active with the Libertarian Party I noticed and commented on how few had good relationships with their parents.

Wow! I didn’t notice that part, Mark! Great point!

Red makes a good point about the small size of the sample represented here, so I'd be leery of drawing a definite conclusion.

There seems to be a logical possible connection between the rejection of authority by both atheists and libertarians, and I'm the only Christian libertarian I personally know, although there are others I've only heard about.

So I’m curious, Mark. Are your libertarian leanings a holdover from when you were an atheist?

Mark of you equate libertarianism to a blanket rejection of authority then I'm afraid you have little understanding of the ideology.

I don't, so I don't.

What?

No, my libertarianism comes from watching large systems of force fail, reading a book on economic consequences that accurately predicted government actions in both the short and long term, and then hearing Roger MacBride explain why he was a rogue elector. His explanations left me with my mouth hanging open, knowing that I'd just heard my first thoroughly logical and consistent defense of human liberty.
Within months I'd read much more and contacted others for the purpose of starting a state LP and spreading the philosophy through media appearances. Much more followed, but that was how it began for me.

My salvation has only reinforced that philosophy since the Bible, from one end to the other says do not put your trust in human power as God is your only sovereign.

Thanks, Mark! Interesting!

I’m just wondering how you deal with the anarchy side of libertarianism—the snubbing of authority, since the Bible sets down laws and God’s creation is all about order, NOT anarchy, and that God is the ultimate authority that we should obey and that we should also honor our commitments to government, i.e. paying taxes, etc.?

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It's even more. Human power is all about circumscribing human action, hemming people in. Our Constitution on the other hand, that most blessed of human writings and coming out of a European Protestant understanding has as it's purpose circumscribing the actions of people in power. Our system of laws sets forth a humanly flawed repetition of God to the Hebrews. "See, I have set before you this day good and evil, life and death. Choose!"

The choice, of course, is to opt for the way the universe is made and thrive, or rail against reality, react against it, and suffer.

Let me start with the last. Obedience to human power is a deadly mistake made by Paul. The lesson is made quite forcefully. It killed him. It ended the wonderful career of one of God's most successful followers, and kept him from continuing on to Spain to start churches there. Acknowledging that Paul wrote admiringly of human power without seeking what happened and didn't happen because of it isn't a proper exegesis even if it's a popular one.

It's generally accepted that Jesus' reply about taxes was avoidance of a premature trap.

Most Libertarians tend to express an expectation that some form of order arises without it being imposed, and are thus anarchists in the dictionary sense but not in terms of lawless dis-behavior.

I have to disagree, I think, Mark. The Bible also talks about giving double honor to those who lead you well—talking about pastors, and obeying those in authority over us. I believe that one of the reasons we’re having trouble in America now is that a lot of parents are not teaching respect for authority—starting with parents, then teachers, their bosses, government authorities, those that lead you in the church, and ultimately God.

Hubby’s dad used to say that his number one obligation as a parent was to teach his kids to respect authority—and we’re finding now that those that do NOT respect authority are becoming unemployable.

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Those I've known have been, other than in youthful male exuberance and most even then, quite mindful of doing unto others as they be done to, adhering to a determined set of ethics mirroring biblical principles with little to no mindfulness of possible punishment.

It’s funny that you should say these things, since I just answered a poll in which it asked if people obey laws out of ethics or out of fear of punishment. The vast majority of libertarians said fear of punishment.

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So my experience denies your last.

The sort of honor spoken of is very voluntary, just as God's admonition of choosing life over death. God does not hem you about with doors preventing your going astray so far as I can determine but does everything possible, EVERYTHING to convince you to CHOOSE rightly. One thing not possible though, in an existence with meaning, is absence of consequence.

That is a correct response, fear of punishment from perverse human authority, when it comes to many if not most road regulations.

Stop signs require a full stop although usually a rolling stop is best for both traffic flow and fuel economy. Speed limits don't make much sense and really the only one needed is against Driving to Endanger.

So you see, that doesn't really apply to what I wrote, but I see how it could be confusing.

I do confess that when it comes to the poll you refer to, the responses may be by people not so well versed as those with whom I associated. The very young do have a wild bent.

With mark on this one

As to the direction society has taken in the last 55 years, when a legislature is out of control, taking as it's right the power to try to control all of life, rebellion is an appealing option. Take just the subject of marijuana. People are how much poorer, how much less safe, how much more apt to encounter corrupt police, lawyers, judges, legislators because some want to enforce their morality on others rather than to do the Christian thing?

One more thing. About all those "Thou shalt not" commandments. There are remarkably few, don't you think?

Thanks, Mark. I had no clue you believed all this. I’m really surprised and this makes me really wonder if you really ARE Mark3! Lol Btw, why did you change your username?

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It's me!
😉

I had a major problem with the old iPad2 after the recent iOS upgrade.

You do a good job of posting from a Christian viewpoint. Let's keep that at the forefront. But I do wish more Christians could stop trying to control people with force. It's directly against the voluntarist nature of the scriptures, and the purpose of Protestantism. What are people doing replacing the Pope with the President, the Cardinals with the legislature. Top-down organizations have nothing to do with heaven where those most honored are the best servants.

With the use of force comes an impossible responsibility for the outcome of its use. No one is more responsible for the horrors attendant to the drug "war" than those who support it.

Please don't.

I really like your example of pastors as leaders. It should be so, and that leader/follower relationship is heaven's model so far as I gather from Jesus' reprimand of those who wanted a position with a fancy hat.

No force involved, just an authority derived from the pastor recognized as a servant true to his calling.

And you have no idea how much I'd like to go along to get along. It's been a long time since I was able.

I went to a divinity school to get my masters, recommended to me by a retired pastor who mentored me. The staff and faculty were so liberal they were those of who it's said they don't stand for anything because they fall for anything. When I insisted that salvation is a personal, individual interaction between the mortal and the eternal rather than a communal event my interaction with faculty pretty much dried up. It got worse when a guest speaker from Kansas gabbed on and on about global warming and I told her that the Amazon is not the lungs of the planet and a Kansas wheat field scrubs more carbon out of the air. By the time I called out a translator of the NRSV Bible for changing a singular pronoun to a plural one, I was pretty much persona non grata.

Thanks for complimenting me on speaking from a Christian viewpoint, and speaking of a pastor as a leader.

I’m sorry about your seminary experience. Hubby had just the opposite. He went to a Southern Baptist seminary and got a good education, other than the fact that they really didn’t teach enough about how to deal with conflict in the church, which has been a major issue for us.

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One possibility would be that their parents attempted to raise them by indoctrination and they hold them in ill regard due to that.
Another may be that they "became" atheist due to various forms of parental abuse and their representation of the almighty failed to intervene in that.

Thanks for your thoughts, Steelworker. Would you agree that an atheist that teaches their child their is no God is also indoctrinating their child in their beliefs?

My point is that most parents teach their kids their deepest held beliefs, and this is considered to be normal and the rights of those parents to do so.

Would you think that an atheist’s child would be justified in accepting Christ in that situation and that they are more likely to do so because they were indoctrinated in atheism and they hold their parents in ill regard due to that?

Would you say the same thing about atheist parents that abuse their children—that this would turn them toward Christianity?

Just some food for thought! Lol

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Also you have to remember there are agnostics, and then there are atheists. Sometimes the two get clumped together.
Typically, I would say kids raised in atheist homes aren't indoctrinated-- they just aren't exposed to any form of religion, and then they go to public school where they can't get taught about religion, so they just grow up in a world where they aren't impacted by religion. But that won't necessarily stop them from finding it later in life.

That's good Red, but there may be, and in at least some instances be indoctrination of children by atheists.

Would you say that an atheist parent is indoctrinating their children just by their expressed disbelief when I† is accompanied by scorn expressed toward believers? (I have no idea how that cross popped up.)

I'm very glad your husband had such a good experience. I was accepted into Southeastern Seminary for a doctoral program and was looking forward to it, but after counting the hours I needed to deal with the congregation + the hours I wanted to spend with our new grandchildren = I told them thanks but no thanks.

I really miss that experience. It would be something like I encountered at the Divinity School but coming from the opposite driec†ion. (There it is again. Anyone have a clue?)

I would so like to have that happen, committed fundamentalists challenging my appreciation of science. Maybe after the kids and I are ten years older. May God allow it.

Good point, Mark. I wanted to say something like that to Red, but couldn’t think how to say it. For instance, a person that has a magnet on their fridge that makes fun of the nativity and says that it isn’t true. Will that be indoctrinating their children?

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We looked at Southeastern, but decided to go another way. Are you saying that your divinity school entailed a lot less hours?

Most people don’t realize that a Master’s in a seminary (at least a Southern Baptist Seminary) entails 88 hours (I think it’s even more now) which is 3 years full time schooling above the 4 years of college. Hubby already had a Bachelor’s with a major in religion, so he has a LOT of education in that area! Lol

I don’t know why that cross is popping up. Did you notice it’s taking the place of the t? Are you using an onscreen keyboard or a real keyboard?

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Let me clear that up. I got my masters from the liberal Divinity School and then tried to apply to their doctoral program, but they weren't about to put up with me for several more years. I met with the administration and faculty and explained what I hoped to achieve. If you've ever seen a cartoon of a bunch of vultures eyeing someone about to expire, you've seen that room.

So I applied to Southeastern and was accepted to their doctoral program.

Thanks, I'm using a Logitech bluetooth keyboard.

A point of interest is that ALL those professors were employed at Baptist seminaries when the conservatives used their underhanded methods to take over the SBC.

Oh, ok. I didn’t realize you have a doctorate. Is it a D.Min or a Ph.D?

All I can figure is that you could possibly be accidentally hitting Control or Alt when you also hit the t and it’s changing it to a cross? Or there is a glitch in SOH?

I know sometimes I see something where there is an octagon around question mark. Don’t know what that is, either! Lol

I don’t know much about the conservative takeover of the SBC. I was still a late teen, young adult when all that was taking place, and I was also new to Christianity and the SBC at the time.

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It's neither and I'm still cleaning up my poor explanations.

I applied and was accepted at SE. I did the prerequisites for the first class. I totaled up the number of hours per week it would take and decided against continuing, so I still only have a masters.

The underhanded method the conservatives used, which Page Patterson has apologized for, was to bus in huge numbers of students who were instructed how to vote.

Don't get me wrong, I understand the necessity of wresting power from the liberals who were so bent on purging superstitious nonsense from the Baptist faith that they were starting to deny the existence of miracles as commonly understood.

But as I say all the time here on SOH, a world without miracle is a world without meaning, and science without miracle is to no purpose all. All those people on the left were trying to be oh-so-smart and were oh-so-stupid in their conclusions.

But the conservatives aren't any better. The liberals are justified in sneering at the method the conservatives used. They're right in feeling hurt a about how they were treated, summarily dismissed from their jobs as in, go find somewhere to work if you can.

@4JC I would agree that if an Atheist taught their child to believe in atheism uncritically, it would be indoctrination by definition.

How about if the atheist routinely expressed disdain at those expressing faith?

Ohhhh, ok! So you have an M.Div?

I don’t remember hearing about that. Are you talking about high school students, college students, seminary students?

Thanks, Steelworker. And yes, I’d like the answer to Mark’s question about disdain, as that’s what I get the most from atheists here on SOH. I just don’t understand it. If they don’t even believe there IS a God, why should it bother them that I worship Someone they don’t believe exists?! Lol

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You got me!

I don't recall anyone saying the age of the students. I have a mental image of middle-school students without a shred of evidence.

(Thanks.)

Mark, I seriously doubt it was middle school students. The reason why is that messengers to the SBC convention have to be voted on by their churches to be able to attend and vote. I just don’t see many (if ANY) SBC churches voting on middle school students to go to the convention, especially since it takes place over a week, and they would have to pay their own way to the convention, etc.

I just can’t see churches ok’ing that.

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Let’s put it this way—I know of some SBC churches that don’t even think that teenaged members should be able to vote in monthly church business meetings, much less at the SBC! Lol

You Catholic I assume

Correctamundo

Now, my siblings, that's a different story...

Same for me