quote: On Friday, two messages came through loud and clear as the State Board of Education voted on a new list of approved health books: That abstinence should be taught without any textbook discussion of contraception. And that the books should be explicit about marriage as a union between a man and a woman.
In case anyone is wondering, I am pioneering a new, groundbreaking thread where fluff and serious topics are combined.
They laughed at me at the Sorbonne and threw me out of JPL for this audacious idea, but who'll have the last laugh now, huh? HUH?!?
Posts: 43 | Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
Let me just state, for the record, that as a very religious person with strong moral values and powerful taboos against premarital sex, I think that limiting education about sex is retarded. Ignorance is not the solution to immorality. If anything, it's a contributor.
No amount of sheltering can fix a society that fails to rein in youthful behavior through social means. I am not one of those idiots that says "Kids will have sex anyway, so just live with it," but I DO say, "Kids will FIND OUT ABOUT sex anyway, so when they do, they will need to be given powerful reasons to act responsibly — otherwise, they will discover those reasons themselves by making mistakes that we'll all have to live with."
Basically, this program is barking up the wrong tree. Good intentions there, but really bad strategy for meeting those intentions.
Posts: 1907 | Registered: Feb 2000
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posted
I think kids should get information about how their bodies work, and how the bodies of the opposite sex work. I think they should know what causes pregnancy and what can prevent it from happening. And, I think parents that don't want their children taught about birth control should have the opportunity to opt out and keep their kids out of the class that day.
I think abstinence should be stressed and I don't think the school should encourage any type of sexual activity, but I don't have a problem with kids knowing about birth control.
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posted
Before anyone decides to post anti-religious rants -- something Geoff's and Belle's excellent posts should head off -- let me point out that this was a nicely balanced article from the Christian Science Monitor.
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quote:And, I think parents that don't want their children taught about birth control should have the opportunity to opt out and keep their kids out of the class that day.
Should parents have ultimate control in what their children learn though?
Posts: 3564 | Registered: Sep 2001
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quote:No amount of sheltering can fix a society that fails to rein in youthful behavior through social means. I am not one of those idiots that says "Kids will have sex anyway, so just live with it," but I DO say, "Kids will FIND OUT ABOUT sex anyway, so when they do, they will need to be given powerful reasons to act responsibly — otherwise, they will discover those reasons themselves by making mistakes that we'll all have to live with."
Yep. Speak the truth.
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posted
Does the dolphin go under water too? It wasn't clear from the article. Is it also a submarine as well as a surface PWC? If so I really really want one! If it's just a standard PWC that is shaped like a dolphin then it's only cute.
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quote:Before anyone decides to post anti-religious rants -- something Geoff's and Belle's excellent posts should head off -- let me point out that this was a nicely balanced article from the Christian Science Monitor.
I'm sorry, what? Does anyone here doubt that one of the prime influences in this decision was the people's religions? How does other religious people saying that they don't support this decision somehow make this not a religiously influenced issue? As such, if someone thinks that this is a poor decision, how is it that they can't talk about the weaknesses that these religious people are exhibiting in the name of their religion?
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
It's justified by religion, but it's based on ignorance, fear, and short-sightedness. By pointing this out I was hoping to avoid "those whacky Christians are at it again" posts.
I was also impressed that the Christian Science Monitor wrote about it in a way that could have been printed by any other newspaper, without giving any sign of how the writer personally felt about it. After months of election coverage, that's refreshing to see.
[ November 11, 2004, 07:31 AM: Message edited by: Chris Bridges ]
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posted
My eight year-old son asked how a baby was made, after a discussion of mammals and amphibians. My daughter(10) told him he was not ready for the answer and should wait until he, too, was ten. He pushed for more information. I did what i thought was an excellent third grade level sex ed talk. He then said, "You mean I have to take off my penis and put it in a girl??" No, no(further explanation) "You mean a baby grows from the end of my penis??" No, no. Then he says, "Alyssa was right. I'll just wait til I'm ten." I almost drove off the road. What a good job I did, eh?
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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posted
Um, I'd just like to jump in and say that the Christian Science Monitor is about as far from Bible-thumping as the religion itself is. I can't even imagine a Christian Science church advocating for abstinence-only education, anti-homosexual legislation, or eroding separation of church and state.
The Christian Science Monitor is one of the most respected institutions in journalism, and is known for its well-balanced approach to issues without trying to make things which aren't balanced appear balanced.
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quote: The Christian Science Monitor is one of the most respected institutions in journalism, and is known for its well-balanced approach to issues without trying to make things which aren't balanced appear balanced.
But I bet their health insurance sucks.
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posted
Not to mention the serious repercussions of abstinence only education: 1. of students who take chastity vows, 88 percent of them break them 2. of the students who break them, 60 percent have unprotected sex, as opposed to only 40 percent of students having sex without having taken chastity vows 3. Although students on both sides have about the same percentage of people getting STDs, those who have had abstinance only education are less likely to know they have STDs and less likely to get them treated. 4. Many abstinence only programs give faulty information about contraceptives, even to the point of leading students to believe they're so faulty as to be useless. Although the programs that go that far tend to be more the religious initiatives, rather than the public school ones.
posted
I don’t understand advocating withholding knowledge. Sex is a part of life, and even if they won’t use it now, they will use it sometime. Isn’t the purpose of school to prepare people for life? At some point, they need to know about sex and how bodies work. That’s what school is for!
Sex education doesn’t mean tips on technique. At some point, they’ll probably use birth control. We learn things in school we won’t immediately use all the time. Why is this different?
I was at lunch the other day with a 45-year-old mother-of-two coworker who has started going through menopause and was surprised to learn that one of the benefits is that she will stop having her period. Good golly, give them knowledge.
posted
Chris, I see it as their decision being a product of their religion, which contains elements of ignorance, fear, and short-sightedness. These people self-identify as are identified by others as Christians. They will most likely say that their reasons for this come from their religion. Their preachers and religious leaders are telling them this is part of their religion. How do you determine that all this is incorrect?
What makes something that is doctrinally and/or structurally part of someone's religion actually not religious? Is it just that you disagree with it? I remember a discssion a little while back about hell where someone claimed, in response to statements that hell was considered a place of torture, "Actually, hell is separation from God." and left it at that. And I thought to myself, "What amazing arrogance."
Maybe these people are right and God doesn't want children to have sex education? Who are you to say that this isn't a valid thing? Maybe Hell is actually a firery pit of torture as many people sincerely believe their religion teaches them.
From a more practical standpoint, leaving issues of absolute truth out of it, these people are organized into a group that holds certain beliefs and these beliefs are what are coming into this decision. How is this not influenced by that group then? Are they not actually Christians because you don't believe in what they are saying? At what point can we make the determination that people's beliefs that we don't agree with make it so they aren't actually sincere beliefs?
The way I see it, this sort of repressive attitude towards sex is a widespread aspect of Christian culture (apparently, I missed being taught in Catholic school that masturbation would make me go blind by about 10 years or so). It's not shared by all Christians, but it is shared by many. Now, you may say hat it is due to ignorance, fear, and short-sightedness. I would agree, but that means to me that ignorance, fear, and short-sightedness are also widespread in Christian culture. I'm unsure as to what reasons you have for saying that they aren't, that real Christians don't believe things like this.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
So wait a second... All they do with abstinence only education is tell them not to have sex? Since when does telling someone NOT to do something work? Especially since you get whole heaps of half naked people running around on television and in billboards tempting everyone constantly.
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
MrSquicky, I'm not sure where you're getting any of the conclusions I've apparently made.
I have not drawn distinctions between "real" Christians and other Christians. I was trying to head off claims along the lines of "Christians keep doing things like this" when that assigns specific beliefs that are not, in fact, shared by all Christians as evidenced by the other posts here.
The reason I don't want to see arguments like that isn't because I disagree that many of the anti-sex social beliefs are Christian in nature. I would rather avoid such arguments because condemning the religion to speak out against specific bits of it is ineffective and counterproductive since you lose the support of Christians who agree with you.
Posts: 7790 | Registered: Aug 2000
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But isn't the statement "Christians keep doing things like this." accurate? I mean, this is the entire state of Texas we're talking about, right? It's only saying "All Christians keep doing things like this." that would be inaccurate.
What I saw was you trying to say was that this wasn't a problem with a popular interpretation of Christianity, but rather due to something other than what these people consider their Christian beliefs. From my perspective, that's a common interpretation of the bad things that Christians keep doing and your response to my first post contained the hallmarks of it. Perhaps I was mistaken and your point was that not all Christians doing things like this, even though many do. If so, I appologize, but I've got to wonder, where were you trying to get that across that I missed?
edit: And if I lose the support of Christians who agree with me because I dare to say that it because these people are acting according to their beliefs of what Christianity is and their Christian group association, then the support of the Christians who agree with me really isn't worth much.
posted
...the support of the Christians who agree with me really isn't worth much.
I'd say the last election proves that wrong.
I disagree with "Christians keep doing this" or even "some Christians keep doing this." I think "Narrow-minded, fearful people with Christian beliefs keep doing this," which I think is a more accurate representation of my opinion.
Christianity doesn't make you narrow-minded, but narrow-minded people can find plenty of justification there if they want it. It's an important distinction, I think.
Posts: 7790 | Registered: Aug 2000
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See, I would disagree. I think that certain versions of Christianity both appeal to narrow-minded people and encourage the growth and maintainence of narrow-mindedness. I believe in subjecting Christianity to the same sort of analysis that other belief systems are fair game for and from that perspective it seems suportable to me to say that Christianity in most of its forms carries potential problems in its history, structure, and dogma. I have in fact talked about this at length in many other threads.
And if people are more invested in their group loyalty than in their principles (as would be the case in the losing their support thing) than it's not that their support wouldn't be useful, but that I wouldn't be able to get it if I was in any way criticizing Christians.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
And I would never start a persuasive pitch that way. Of course, it's unlikely that I would ever put much effort into trying to convince the Christians (which is not all of them by a long shot) who have made narrow-mindess a principle tenet of their religion through logical argument anyway, as if my argument was convincing they'd actually most likely become more narrow minded. I'm much more interested in getting Christians who are not so narrow-minded or driven by group loyalty to realize and admit that many Christians do have these problems and it is part of what they see as their religion.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote:Not to mention the serious repercussions of abstinence only education: 1. of students who take chastity vows, 88 percent of them break them 2. of the students who break them, 60 percent have unprotected sex, as opposed to only 40 percent of students having sex without having taken chastity vows
School-imposed "abstinence vows" are a stupid idea anyway, when enacted within a larger society that offers (1) no consequences for breaking them, and (2) no real consequences for breaking your word on ANY subject.
People scream "You can't judge me!" whenever there is a social consequence assigned to an immoral act, but in truth, this is the only effective way to encourage people to live responsibly. Now, I was a pretty good kid, and may have lived by the chastity standards of my community regardless of consequences. BUT, the fact that if I broke them, I ...
(1) couldn't go on a mission, which is THE critical rite of passage that every young Mormon man is expected to complete
(2) couldn't bless the sacrament on Sunday, a very public and noticeable responsibility
(3) could not have married in the temple, another critical rite of passage, without going through a long repentance process
(4) would have seriously shamed my parents
... made my decision MUCH, MUCH easier. I wasn't just taking some meaningless vow because I was asked to in a class. My expected fulfillment of my culture's expectations were a key element of my life from birth. They were a defining part of my identity, and giving them up would have meant giving up almost everything that I held dear.
As a result, while I had an active romantic life, I kept my sex life in check before I was married, I fathered no illegitimate children, I caught no STD's, and I suffered none of the emotional consequences of being "used". Plus, from my own moral standpoint, while I have many stupid and embarrassing romantic memories, I don't have to deal with any truly soul-wrenching regrets of having slept with the wrong person.
Offering true social consequences for self-destructive choices can feel like pouring salt in a wound when you DO violate a taboo and incur them, and because of that, many people see them for nothing but the guilt and pain they cause, and seek to strip them from society.
But look at the future we've created for ourselves by doing so. We have a massive problem with illegitimate and teenage births, single-parent homes, widespread abortion, and the potential to spread STDs like wildfire. And we have almost NO effective tools in our arsenal for reining in these problems, because the tools that actually WORK have been thrown away.
Education helps, to a degree, but expectations work far better. But these days, all we expect from kids is the worst. And wow, what a surprise, that's what we get.
quote:People scream "You can't judge me!" whenever there is a social consequence assigned to an immoral act, but in truth, this is the only effective way to encourage people to live responsibly.
I have major problems with this statement. I think that this is a horrible, disrespectful view of human nature. Maybe you didn't cheat just because you might get caught, but while I'll admit that factored into my decision, I had plenty of other reasons not to do so and if I was in a situation where I could cheat without any social consequences, I still wouldn't do it.
Besides that, reward/punishment systems have a pretty poor record in terms of encouraging positive behavior.
posted
Puppy, your post gives good evidence of why so many Mormons are the way they are. Thanks. I always knew there had to be methods of control built into the church, but no Mormons here would ever admit to it or talk about it. Again, thanks.
Posts: 43 | Registered: Nov 2004
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Squick, I think I stated pretty clearly that I was a good kid, and probably wouldn't have made those choices anyway, even without the societal consequences. My point was, though, that stripping society of artificial social consequences for immoral behavior leaves people to head merrily down destructive paths until they reap the real, unavoidable, physical consequences of their actions. I believe that one of the functions of society is to discourage self- and society-destructive behavior by creating early consequences that head off the most extreme results of such behavior. We put murderers in jail to stop them from becoming mass-murderers. We treat racists with the utmost contempt to prevent racism from returning to prominence as a feature of our culture. And in some shrinking segments of our society, we still view sexually-irresponsible behavior as a shameful wrong to prevent the destructive results of rampant promiscuity.
Society is not only made up of good and scrupulous people. It is a place where, like it or not, the scrupulous must live alongside the selfish. Which means that we must create ways to encourage ethical and responsible behavior even among people to whom ethics and responsibility do not come naturally. If you know another effective way to do so, I'm all ears, but so far, from what I've seen, simply telling an unethical person what the ethical choice in a situation might be (ie, "Use birth control because you shouldn't give your girlfriend an unwanted child") doesn't actually increase his chances of making that choice when the situation arises.
As far as "methods of control" go, Johnny, I think you're reading some nefarious motivations into my post that weren't there. The Mormon church isn't about controlling people, regardless of what our most paranoid detractors would have you believe. But it is unabashedly about creating a functional, moral society, where people can live together in harmony, without constant fear and distrust. That means more than just preaching pretty platitudes about being nice. In the real world, it means clearly defining and expecting honorable, ethical behavior from members, and mutually agreeing to live up to a very high standard. And it WORKS. I can't say the same for many of these school programs ...
posted
"The Mormon church isn't about controlling people, regardless of what our most paranoid detractors would have you believe. But it is unabashedly about creating a functional, moral society...."
Although you just pointed out that society is all about controlling people, within the context of this conversation. Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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Tom, I avoid the phrase "controlling people" because that brings with it a lot of connotations that do not apply. It makes you think of brainwashing, cult leaders, mind-control, tyranny, etc ... when in truth, the Church strives to strike a fair and comfortable balance between clear, high expectations on one hand, and self-determination on the other. It isn't motivated to control every aspect of a person's life, and there are clear lines set in place that church leaders cannot cross.
It is, however, motivated to enrich a person's life by heading them off from self-desctructive decisions, and by heading off other people from causing hurt. It's a fine line to walk, and it requires sacrifices sometimes on the part of the individual. I don't get to use alcohol, for instance, as a means of relaxing my mind at the end of a tough day of work. But as a result, I and many other people in the Church are headed off from the ravages of alcoholism.
So yes, I had a lot more to worry about as a kid than many of my non-Mormon peers. I had a standard to live up to, which was a weight on my shoulders that I might have been more comfortable without, regardless of whether or not I actually desired to break the rules. And some people do abandon that weight in favor of a "freer" lifestyle, unhindered by expectations.
But this little society of mine is a better place to live, specifically because of the social expectations. Don't get me wrong, I constantly fight against Pharisaic drift — the tendency of religious cultures to become more demanding and pointlessly stringent as time goes by. There are rules that the more structure-loving segment of Mormon society tries to impose, such as a taboo against beards, or against watching R-rated movies, that I disagree with and argue against. But that does not render the underlying principle false, that members of a healthy society should be held to a real standard of behavior towards other members.
posted
Oh, so anyway, my answer to you is, society isn't about "controlling people" in the most pejorative sense. But it should set a soft hedge around permissible ethical behavior.
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