God Protects Our Children?

Although the bible should sometimes be taken with a grain of salt, it is an excellent source for learning how to raise children. The advice it gives for dealing with a problem child is simple, straightforward, and 100% effective. Here's is an excerpt from Deuteronomy 21: 18-21 according to the New American Standard Bible:

18. If any man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey his father or his mother, and when they chastise him, he will not even listen to them, 19. then his father and mother shall seize him, and bring him out to the elders of his city at the gateway of his hometown. 20. They shall say to the elders of his city, `This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey us, he is a glutton and a drunkard.' 21. Then all the men of his city shall stone him to death; so you shall remove the evil from your midst, and all Israel will hear of it and fear.

So, according to wisdom the bible, God's way of dealing with a problem child is to have them lovingly stoned to death by the local community. God's loving nature comes through very clearly in this command to his people.

Now, someone may say that I'm taking this text out of context. To such a defensive comment, I gladly suggest such a person should read whole chapter of Duet. 21. It is a list of commandments on when to kill cattle for murder, how to properly rape a woman captured during military conquests, and when to stone people to death for various deeds; among other things. This commandment to stone a problem child to death is simply one commandment from among that list, similar to the famous Ten Commandments.

This brief expose on the Bible's consideration of children was triggered because I recently ran across a request by a person looking for a scripture in the bible that showed God protects children from harm. Being the good former pseudo-fundamentalist that I am, I immediately felt inclined to clear up the issue on just how God treats children in the bible. Deut. 21: 18-21 is just one of a hundred examples where children are treated with disdain, as afterthoughts, and as property. The bible isn't the best place to look when trying to learn how to raise children. It doesn't really give any practical advice at all. There's nothing on how to change a baby's diaper, how to burp a baby, how to deal with bully's in school, how to read and write, how to teach a child about sex, etc etc. It does have a commandment about how one's hair should be cut, but if we followed that, we'd all look like a bunch of nappy hippies. More to the point, the bible promotes physical abuse and murder of our children. This more than offsets any supposed scriptures in the Bible that do offer mildly useful advise if interpreted in a particular way.

Agnosticism is false

From my view point, the word agnostic is a Christian-centric term use to describe something that is foreign to Christianity; that is something which Christians cannot understand. In the Christian mind set, an agnostic person isn’t sure whether their God exists are not. They are a person that doesn’t necessarily believe in the bible, but doesn’t really believe that the Universe came about by some random chance. In other words, a person who is agnostic is someone that hasn’t made up their mind as to whether they believe that God exists or not.

It seems that this is a false belief on the part of Christians. Also, it seems that this is why there really is no such thing as an agnostic person. When someone doesn’t have evidence as to whether or not there is a god or gods, this isn’t the lack of making one’s mind up about the matter. This is a statement that person does not hold to beliefs that cannot be proven about gods or otherwise. They are open to whatever can be proven with regards to reality, and are not held down by some ancient beliefs.

For example, by the Christian use of the term agnostic, a person would say, “I don’t know whether there is a God or not.” However, for myself, I know enough to know that-I-don’t-know. What does this mean? Well, I know that the idea of God is simply a metaphor for what is unknowable. At issue is the fact that I also know the idea of God comes with a ton of cultural baggage. For me to say that I don’t know the reality of God is itself an acceptance of society’s ideas about God. I know that God is an over used metaphor. I don’t need the God metaphor to make me comfortable about what I cannot know, that is the unknowable. Again, I know enough to know that-I-don’t-know. That is to say, I’m comfortable with not knowing what I don’t know. Another way I’ve said this before is, “I’m confused, but I’m comfortable with that confusion.”

So, because the term agnostic is used by Christians to define that which they don’t understand regarding the lack of belief in their god, it seems that the term doesn’t describe any person, but is only describes a phrase that people go through when they are losing their faith in Christianity, before they give up on the Christian metaphor all-together.

What are people called when they don’t have beliefs about gods, but also don't hold to the traditional ideas of atheism? The term freethinker comes to mind. However, freethought is also heavily loaded with history in which the average person just isn’t interested. I don’t care, for one. At this point, I contend there is no term coined as of yet which describes the average person who just doesn’t have god beliefs.

Why am I not an atheist? Well, this is a whole other topic. Let me just say my personal experiences and traditional atheism are mutually exclusive.

Wedding Bells

So, it's coming time for me to don the penguin suit. The big day is coming up quick. It's been a long time, but my cuzin is finally going to tie the knot with her man. I'm going to be in the wedding party. They we going through the usual last minute rush trying to pull everything together, even though the day is still 3 weeks away. Well, I'm happy for them. Been way too long. It's been a tough road for them at times, especially since they've been together since their mid-teens. Best wishes! Now, when's the bachelor party?

Out of nowhere

Someone working for the Attorney General pleds the 5th? This crack in the dam is starting to widen.

Organized mess

I'm not going to comment beyond just saying I never trust someone who keeps a neat desk: Here's the article about having messy organization.

SolidWorks Website

Ok, so I'm shamelessly self-promoting again. I have an ever expanding SolidWorks website at: Lorono's SolidWorks Resources. I have also just added an Amazon shopping (Tools of the Trade)page for SolidWorks and Engineering related items. This is all in the hopes of providing immediate information resources useful to the mechanical engineering field.