That’s not what Poster B said.
No. I’m insulting you. Dobson has Biblical support for his position, loathsome as it is. Your interpretation differers, but that doesn’t mean Dobson’s doesn’t exist.
I’m not saying his position doesn’t exist–I’m saying it’s not the only position there is, despite being the only position that your generalizations about religion tend to acknowledge.
The OP said “…there is no fucking way that God supports child abuse.” gobear took issue with that statement on the grounds that various Bible passages had been used in defense of physically punishing children. He then cited them. Is he then required to want to have a polite discussion of them?
Ah, but I never said there was only one interpretation, did I? You put words in my mouth to dismiss an opinion you didn’t want to hear. Not very honest, but very typical.
I’m convinced sales of the rod will now skyrocket, as sadists and masochists rush to get this bargain sex toy perfect for the S&M market.
AFAIK, for centuries the consensus among Jewish scholars has been that spanking is a bad idea. This is not because it goes agains the Talmud, but because guilt is so much more effective.
EG
“Shlomo, did you eat all the cookies?”
“No, Mama.”
“Then this isn’t chocolate all over your face? How could I raise such a son? I thought your father and I did a good job. We thought our soon was a mensch. We thought we could trust him. We thought he loved us. Instead, we have a boy he could disobey us, and then lie to his own mother. How? How could this happen? Shlomo, I’m not dissappointed in you. I’m disappointed in me. I’m a terrible mother. I’m going to go to my room and cry now.”
Sadly, some groups resist this message. I was looking at the work of an Orthodox Jewish painter and assumed one picture must be symbolic. But, what did the young boy doing a headstand, while a father figure whipped his bare feet with a gian penis mean? Was it just a Freudian thing? The answer, was that it symbolized those times his teachers would punish him and othe boys by making them do headstands and recite prayers while they whipped the soles of their bare feet with the preserved penis of a kosher bull.
Exactly. He used verses from Proverbs to argue with the OP’s assertion that God didn’t support child abuse. That argument is only valid if you think that Proverbs correctly reflect God’s will, which isn’t a position your going to find much outside of fundamentalist groups. So, we have gobear using a fundamentalist argument against a poster (the OP) who, given his “Perhaps our Bible scholars can put that into context” and “there is no fucking way that God supports child abuse” comments, obviously isn’t a fundamentalist.
Absolutely not, which is why I was addressing Psycho Pirate and not gobear. This being the pit, I don’t think he’s under any kind of obligation to be polite.
Well it seems to me that if God has a will, and he wants humans to bend to that will, then only one of the possible interpretations of his will is correct. How can there be more than one true way? To put it bluntly, either God wants humans to strike their children (when warranted) or he does not. Advocacy of corporal punishment may be one of many positions, but as a matter of fact it is either justified or it is not.
Gobear made a statement. He provided three cites to back up that statement. While you may disagree with the interpretation of those cites, they are there.
I don’t mean to add to the pile-on here, but I must ask why an atheist can’t participate in a discussion over certains passages and their meaning in the bible? Isn’t the concept that the bible is for everyone, even us heathens. I’m assuming that it applies in the same way a father can talk about breast feeding, someone from a minority can compare their existence to that of a gay person or a theme park enthusiast versus one who always goes roller skating instead.
That’s what makes a democracy great, all the differing opinions. And it’s also what broadens our horizons in the greater world and teaches us things we didn’t know.
You got *that * right.
What, since it’s come back up, is the context in which the Proverbs verses should be understood?
DocCathode, didn’t that approach mean Shlomo would eat all the cookies he wanted, free from fear?
I don’t see any reason why not.
We had to cut our own switches from the persimmon tree, bring them in, and hand them to our father. He whipped us according to the size switch we cut. Anyone who thinks he abused us is a fucking idiot.
Actually, I believe faith and belief does make a difference. 1 Corinthians 2:14 “But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.”
I don’t mind hearing your opinion on the subject. I just recognize it as a biased opinion, and accept it for what it is. If one views spanking a child (however softly or lovingly) as brutality to children, then I suppose you could argue that the Bible condones brutality to children. But everyone I know that spanks their children does not participate in brutality, at least by the accepted definition of the word. No blood, no bruises, no lingering marks.
faithfool, an atheist can certainly participate in any discussion on this board, including passages from the Bible. I just don’t understand the motive. But, whatever floats one’s boat.
What belief is that? That God condones brutality to children? I don’t know anyone who believes that. I know several people who believe in spanking, but they would never couch it in such inflammatory terms. His quoted verses are indeed used for support of chastening, and I said as much in my original reply.
I do think motive matters. I also agree with you that a rod with a cushioned grip is over the top. I don’t think a child should be spanked with no preceding or follow-on discussion. Hitting a child simply because he or she misbehaved is IMO indeed abuse. However, if the child is made aware of the consequences of misbehaving, and is confronted when caught misbehaving by calmly discussing what happened, why he did it, why he shouldn’t have done it, and why he shouldn’t do it anymore, then spanked, this is not child abuse. Most times, especially with a first or minor offence, the spanking portion of the sentence above can be removed. However, repeated offences require some type of negative reinforcement, and I haven’t found anything that works half as good as spanking.
However, you seem to have built spanking up in your mind as violent abuse to set it up as a strawman you can easily knockdown. Chastening is not “Might makes right”, nor is it “a smack across the chops”. To insist that it is these things is dishonest. It is also dishonest to claim that those who spank their children “like the power they have over their kids”. I know no one who feels this way, and completely disagree with the notion that this is the predominant viewpoint of those who spank their children.
If he doesn’t mind that he’s breaking his poor mama’s heart, and that instead of sleeping his father stays up at night staring into the darkness and wondering what he did wrong, and that he’s bringing shame to his family, then Shlomo can have all the cookies he wants.
If a mouthful of dough and chips means more to this boy, than the suffering of the people who give him clothing and shelter and brought him into this world,
If a bunch of cookies are so important that he can betray his own mother, causing her even more pain than during the 30 hours of labor,
Then yes, Shlomo can have all the cookies he wants.
Gobear is equivocating. It is only recently — since leftists have given us their Great Society of underachieving and aimless slackers — that physically punishing children has been considered child abuse. Saying that God supports child abuse, and then offering scriptures about corporal punishment, is like saying that Fred Phelps has memorialized Matthew Sheppard, and then pointing people to the Westboro website.
I have no idea if this was a joke or not. My Jewish buds have made jokes about guilt and thier Jewish mothers before. Either way, I found the quoted material, especially when read in the voice of Dr. Zoidburg, to be laugh-out-loud funny.
If it’s not a joke, are children really being raised this way? My goodness, I can only imagine the hard-on a therapist must get when he sees the product of that kind of household coming. Ka-ching!
Finally, I always giggle at the name Shlomo. It’s so adorable.
UrbanChic
The above is exaggerated. But guilt is a very important tool to Jewish parents. Phrases such as “How could such a smart boy,” (which must be said in such a way as to convey your lofty view of the boy) “do such a dumb thing?” (which must be said in such a way as to convey that the boy has failed you, failed himself, and that you wonder if it’s your fault for raising him) are commonly heard when you’re being punished. As I’ve said many times, you can only spank a child if you find out they’ve done something wrong. You can make a child feel guilty whether or not anybody ever finds out. You can even make them feel guilty from beyond the grave.
This does cause some neurosis. But Woody Allen’s are more extreme cases than are usually found.
Shlomo is, IIRC, the original Hebrew version of a name you know better as Solomon.
From the preface to proverbs in the “New Oxford Annotated Study Bible”:
The book of Proverbs is a compendium of moral and religious instruction as given to Jewish youth by professional sages in the post-exilic period. It includes much older material from the long tradition of such training in the wisdom deemed necessary for the good life.
Personally, I’d say that those passages from proverbs were sayings considered wise be a society that was very different then our own; accordingly, I wouldn’t put much stock in them as parenting advice and would think very hard about how valid passages from Proverbs are in a modern context.
Consider:
“In Anytown today, a young parent was seen forcibly holding down a wailing child as another adult pierced the child’s skin with sharpened instruments.”
Barbaric and abusive, right?
Or maybe it’s just the average pediatric vaccination.
Now what were you calling nonsense, again?