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First Line Centre
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Cheese
I am glad that you are a volunteer and do good things with children. Children look up to adults to provide them with facts about life, love and family. When you in turn teach them that fantasy = reality it skews their minds. When you talk to the VAST majority of church leaders they dont believe that the bible is to be used allegorically. Those that struggle with its contents probably shouldnt be part of the Christian faith.
Once again the idea that moral lessons can only be taught at a church pops up, and I fervently disagree that this is the role of the church. If you for instance only believe that the bible is written allegorically and a fundy like CalgaryBorn believes it word for word, what on earth are you doing to the kids? Cant children simply be taught that doing good for others is a great thing, and hurting people is bad WITHOUT the use of a 2000 year old scripture? Absolutely 100% it can...morality is definately NOT the backbone of any church. You have no clue that by ridding the earth of religion that it will be replaced with something worse. Thats as big a hypothesis as Jesus himself.
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Cheese, sorry for taking so long to respond to your post, and having to bump this thread. Although we are on opposite sides of the debate, I believe there are areas where we are on the same page.
As for your fantasy = reality comment, in my experience children do not tend to separate the two until about the age of 7 or 8 i.e. about the time they stop believing in Santa Claus. (I assume you let your children believe in him). I agree with you that there is potential for harm, when young minds are subjected to dogma that creates undue feelings of fear and guilt. However, I have never witnessed anything of this nature in the United Church, to which I belong. Most of the teaching is done by mothers of the children involved, and great care is taken to present the material in a positive and light hearted manner. In teaching my youth group, the emphasis was mainly on 3 things which I thought would make them “super teens”:
1. Love God, their neighbor, and themselves
2. Help other people, especially those in need
3. Always tell the truth
I am no expert in religious studies and certainly not as eloquent and versed in scripture as Textcritic. I appreciate the effort these days by those scholars like him who are taking the time to analyze scripture and coming up with interpretations which are much easier to accept and appreciate. As for sorting out fact from fiction, I really don’t believe it is, or ever will be, possible to do so. Anyway, it really doesn’t matter to me. The scripture still has meaning and relevance in the lessons that it teaches. Realizing that much of the material is dated, and makes use of allegory, parables, poetry, etc. helps in the interpretation, and is certainly not a reason for leaving the church. Fantasies, legends, fictional stories i.e. Aesop’s fables, children’s books, movies, etc. have long been used for the purpose of teaching moral lessons – why not the Bible?
As a geologist, I believe in evolution and think that adding the Creation Legend to the science curriculum is ridiculous.
I don’t pretend to know how the majority of the faith community interpret the Bible. There is a great diversity of churches and the manner in which they function - from the fundamentalist Christian Right, to the top down dogmatic Catholics to the very liberal churches like the United Church of Canada. Personally, I am more inclined to go with a church which allows me the freedom to choose for myself how to interpret scripture, and has the courage to take steps to keep up with the times.
I did not say that the church is the only, or even the most important place to receive moral instruction – it is only one of many avenues to reinforce good behavior. I agree that the home is where moral instruction should begin, however, we both know that this is not always the case. I believe that most children will grow up adopting the value system modeled by those closest to them in their formative years – in most cases their parent(s).
The church needs you 30 to 45 year olds. Should you ever decide to join, you may be pleasantly surprised at your reception, and how your input is appreciated, however controversial. When our minister hears someone say, “I don’t join the church because it’s full of hypocrites.” he responds by saying, “Come and join us, we can always use another one”.
Merry Christmas
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