Originally posted by madame_zora@Jan 3 2005, 09:25 PM
Lascap, I agree with you about your views as to why Americans have so many problems with alcohol. I think it has a lot to do with repression and "glamorizing" that young people feel about what is out of reach. Despite being a recovering alcolohic myself, I am aware of the health benefits to most people of light drinking and would even be in agreement about dropping the drinking age altogether if not for one thing- Americans are mostly stupid! We WILL NOT take responsibility for teaching our children anything- safe sex, discipline, manners- nothing. We will just put them in front of the tv until they are old enough to ship off to school, then we'll blame the educational system for everything that goes wrong with them. We won't attend pta meetings (I was there- they are grossly underattended). Our kids don't know the alphabet when they enter Kindergarten, can't spell simple words, many have never seen a book. In our country, if the drinking age was removed, there would just be a ton more unattended young people getting drunk. I doubt we'd manage this any better than we have managed anything else. I wish it were not so, but I am coming to realise that we are not so great a nation as I had once believed.
Spank, I don't know anything at all about England, but I commend you for seeing something you don't like and deciding not to participate in it. That is the nature of true character.
[post=271854]Quoted post[/post]
Jana,First I decided to just highlight the major sentences and delete the rest so that your quote would be so long. I couldn't find a sentence I wanted to delete.
As a school teacher and a youth director in a church, I agree wholeheartedly with everything you said in your post. I had a 19 year old in my youth group who was not Methodist, which is my church. I was teaching that masturbation was OK. I told them that it was wrong to take a girl to bed simply for sex all the while telling her she was the one for you completely deceiving her and breaking her heart when she found out the truth. This is dishonesty and dishonesty is wrong.
I caught hell from that 19 year old from one of those "non denonminatoinal" churches. He said that masturbation is a major sin and I was telling the boys to sin because I told them that if they did have sex to practice safe sex. He said that premarital sex was a sin and I was teaching the boys to sin. I said no that I wasn't. I said the boys have already decided to have sex. That premarital sex "may" be a sin, but to bring an unwanted baby into the world was an even greater "sin" and that to do something that would cause you to get a disease would also be a "sin".
(For the record, masturbation was prohibited in the camp grounds by the soldiers. Anyone caught masturbating was removed to a private area the rest of the battle or specified time. That is the only reference that I know of in the Bible.)
The bottom line is that 99 % of guys masturbate and the other 1 percent is lying. Less than 20 % of people getting married are virgins. It is time that the chuurh and the government and schools recognize this. I do teach that sex with other people is an adult activity though. I tell them there is a reason that 16 is the age of consent. This particular group had no one under 16.
I say it now and I will say it a thousand times. If you read between the lines of the Bible, you will find responsibility as one of, if not the top attribute. There is a story about King David who already had multiple wives who found a woman he really wanted. He had sex with her and she got pregnant. King David arranged for her husband to come home. In those days, soldiers weren't supposed to engage in sex or masturbation during war. Well the soldier refused to enter into the wives bedroom and chose to sleep outside. So David decided to arrange for the "murder" of the soldier so he could marry the woman. (a casulaty of the war of course.) David was punished and for what? The murder of the soldier. And what did God say about David in the Bible. David was a man after God's own heart. King David is admired by both Jewish and Christians as one of the great saints and the author of Psalms, the most beloved book of the Bible. God has a way for forgiving even our worst faults and our failures don't keep us from being great people who are loved and cared for by God. We are judged by the good we do and and our relationship with God according to my understanding of the Bible. If we were judged by our faults then we would all fail miserably.
Why am I bringing God into this? Because America's understanding of God is the reason Americans are so stupid as Jana said. And a nation's belief system and and what is OK and what is taboo in a society gives the essence of the culture of that society and from that predictions can be made about the actions of that society. And those actions may determine whether that society makes it or whether that society colapses under the weight of a bipolar belief system.
Christians are supposed to be Christlike. That is what the word means. Christ is another word for Jesus. Jesus never condemend anyone except some of the high religious authorities. And Jesus broke some of the silly rules they had in place at the time, And he got into trouble for it.
Adultery whitch is sex outside of marriage is condemned in the bible. There is not that much condemnation of premarital sex in the Bible. Like masturbation you have to take a Scripture out of context and use it to justify your position. The Bible does condemn lack of responsibility.
Now I know that you can find several verses throughout the Bible that indicate that a woman being a virgin before marriage. The word virgin means young woman. That is all that it means. It is saying that the woman is a young lady.
The only prohiition against masturbation is at the scene of a battle and soldiers can't go and find their wives to have sex either. That is the only place masturbation is condemned.
Now for my next example of how stupid Americans are about sex. In my sixth grade classroom, there was a girl with a baby already born, incest from stepdad. There were I think two girls pregnant that delieverd after leaving sixth grade and as I recall there were two boys who had fathered a child. Now the last number is debatable as other boys were also rumered to be the father of one of the babies. But he was also in the sixth grade. In the end the two sixth grade boys were identified as fathers.
So, our beloved school board in its most pious authority determined that sixth graders were so "innocent" and were just too young for sex education. There was a program offered to the school that only taught that sex was for adults. It didn't even teach wait for marriage, It tuaght Just wait until adulthood and the value of love in a realatinship. Nope. Couldn't teach that either. They were just too young. This is pure bulshit.
In closing of my long discourse on sex I have to admit that I get quite agitated about this subject. Children aren't being taught anything and I mean anything by audlts. Boys should not have a wet dream and not know what it is and think they are terrribly sick. Girls should not have their first period and not know what it is before hand. And it happens all the time. There are girls who are hysterical thinking they are dying. How is that a way to teach sex education in the various grades in elementary school. The school said to teach the girls in sixth grade about menstration. I said why most have started by then. When should it be started? Well some girls have their first period in third grade. Oh my Jezabel, the poor girl will just have to wait to learn about how to take care of that until hey why not nineth grade? Yes, that was the decision. Ninth grade. We will teach the boys and girls about puberty in the nineth grade. The nineth grade is an obvious choice, it is required by the state. But forget the bannanas in learning how to put on a condom. There is nothing in the growth and development that requires that subject now is there? I knew you would understand. Besides they did use bananas in the Bible. Nevermind the fact that banaas didn't grow their and condoms hadn't been invented. Don't mess with the story. This is the fundamentalist line and they are sticking to it.
I may be wrong. But I teach absinence to children. I teach them to wait for that right person. I teach them that their first sexual act should be one they will always remember fondly and have no regrets about. I don't teach them that it has to be in the marital bed. In our times, people don't get married until after college. It is totally unreasonable that most people are going to wait 10 or more years after puberty to have their first sex act with another person. Sure it happens every now and then, but not for 70 percent of the people. In most stories in the Bible, they didnt' wait either and God never said a word about it in many of those stories. Sure waiting until marriage is noble. But to not do so is not one of the major sins. Dishonesty, lack of integrity, greed, murder, stealing, complete laziness, lack of charity and others like this are the major sins.
We are dealing with a nation that is turning to fundamentalism. In our case it is Christianity. Fundamentalism is dangerous regardless which religion it occurs in. Fundamentalism is a stale regressive "law" based religion. Where the kind of Christianity I beieve in is relationship based. It is not really even about sin. It is about having a relatinship with God and if you believe that Jesus is God that with Jesus. It is about having the spirit of God being with you all the time givng you comfort. It is about having lieglitmate relationships with people that are honest and have integrity. I know I haven't told my wife everything. But I haven't violated anything I have committed to either. All married people see other people that they find sexualy attractive. Nothing wrong with that. My wife and I agreed that our marriage would be stronger if we just didn't share that informatoin about any one perosn with either other.
I married a person, and a family. Her parents are my parents. I lvoe them dearly.
So before I close, I have to look back and see what it was that set me off on this tangent. But before I do, my big beef is those sanctimonious, holier than thou people who spout forth what others should be doing while themselves leading a life that is completely opposite of what they are souting forth for the world to hear. People who tell these wonderful stories of how good they were as teenagers, whem I know they were hauled of to jail one night and the ones that talk so big about how AWFUL premarital sex is and I know they got married at age 16 because they were pregnant. If they would tell the truth and explain why they wish they waited for sex becasue one of them never got to go to medical school and stories lke that it would be fine. But no, from what they spout forth you would think that their children were born through immaculate conception and that these sanctimonious people were still vigins.
Well Jana's post that stirred me up was about alcohol. Actually the whole thread the last two or three days stirred me up. Well Jana coverd that alcohol pretty good. If children were taught to drink sociallly at the table. One glass We teach them that they can only have one piece of dessert. We teach them not to nibble on fattning foods all day long. So alcohol use can be taught. But no, Amercan teenagers are introduced to alcohol out on some back road in rural America around a fire with no adult supervision. Years ago after prom my sister-in-law offered her country home for a party. To come you had to give her the keys to your car when you got there. The kids (high school juniors and seniors) were given a save haven to drink and not drive to have adults monitor and if someone were overdosing on alcohol to stop it. On but OH no. some adults found out about it and called the cops and the cops came and eplained that was a no no. So the kids gathered around a camp fire in the country driving while intoxicated after the party and no supervision at all. Same kids. Real smart thinking on the part of adults.
Then there was the dance at our church. Bitch city came to town. "Kids shouldn't be dancing in the church." I found an old buletin from 1948 announcing a dance a the church. Opps! I read all the passages than have the word dance in them at the meeting. To allow the dance passed with 90 percent of the vote. But some kids didn't come to the dance where there was supervision. And one girl OD's on alcohol while out at the party in the country with no adults supervision. I played for her funeral. I just announced in church. I REST MY CASE. THANK GOD MY BOYS WERE AT THE CHURCH DANCING AND HAVING A GOOD TIME. No one challenged it and there was looks of agreement about it and the issue became a dead issue. No one dared to criticise the policy of providing a clean safe place for our kids. Then came the bitches about the music....... sadly I lost that battle. But not the war. Waited a few months and resumed to normal activity. It is easier to get forgiveness than permission!!! i hate some of the music. But I try to let kids listen to what they want to as much as possible unless it is really bad vulgar.
For those of you who feel that I have over emphasized religion in this post. I appreciate you feelings. But the point of this post is that it is the fundamental holier than thou "bitches and bastards" who invade the church and make life hell for the real believers and they screw up the whole country and churches with their narrowminded sanctimonious crap. But the Bible says the church will always have them. According to the Bible they are false prophets. There words and deeds have condemned themselves.
And from what I have read the fundamental Muslims have twisted Islam much worse the fundamental Christians have twisted Christianity. That is a shame. When talking to "real" muslims, the real ones practice peace and love. I don't know. I am just repeating what I was told by them to me.
So, for those who read this disertation, thanks. It is long. But it is imposible to understand America without understanding fundamentalism. I tell you this with the greatest regret and some anger. My understanding of Christianity has been hijacked and I don't like it one bit.
Jesus was a kind and very forgiving man. In my opinion we should focus more on what He said and less on the rest of the Bible. That is if we are going to call ourselves Christians.
And as a nation, we must first accept responsibility for our actions. We must be honest and truthful with our teenagers. We must end this two faced morality that we are practicing. As a nation we are almost bipolar. The cost for this situation we are in could be the unending of the great American Empire.
Thanks for listening.
Freddie
