Jihad for kids

[Emerald]

If true, this is pretty frightening:<a href="http://www.worldnetdaily.com/bluesky_exnews/20001103_xex_palestinian_.shtml">Palestinian kids raised for war</a>

Does anyone know anything about the veracity of this article, or is this just more propaganda to add to the dung heap? I would appreciate any facts that anyone might have on this.


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An ye harm none, do what ye will.

[Bowser]

Are you really surprised? Of course children are used for politics and war! Look around you and look in your own schools. Do we teach our children only math, reading, and science? No. Do you remember pledging your allegiance to the United States of America in elementary school.

Somewhere someone asked why our children were so troubled. I believe that the answer has just fallen on my head. These young people are the battlefields of adult ambitions.



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It's all very large.

[Tony H2o]

If anyone causes one of these little ones to fall it would be better for them that they have a mill-stone tied around their neck and be cast into the sea - Jesus Christ.

I believe these words were not just a warning to the adults that would prey on innocent lives. Not just a warning to the child molesters, not just a warning to the child abusers.

But a sobering thought to each and every one of us who even consider the prospect of bringing a life into existence. There is an immense resposibility for the lives of the innocent who are so willing to do whatever it may take to please those who take charge of them.

Allcare

Tony H2o

[Cris]

This seems to be a recurring theme caused by organized religions where each group claims that their view is the only correct choice and that others must be converted by any means possible – and violence can be quite persuasive. This gave rise to the crusades and the inquisition and similar atrocities, all of which Christians have had to apologize. One of the current Christian onslaughts is against the freedom of individuals to seek sexual gratification how they wish – again the argument is that Christians are trying to force others to do things their way. We will most likely see in the future that Christians will have to apologize for this injustice as well. I hope that eventually all organized religions will apologize for having ever existed, especially Christianity.

The early conditioning and training of children will be seen by such institutions as logical and in their best interests, so we should not be surprised by such tactics. The issue is one of morality, or how we decide what is right or wrong. Once a religion takes on its typical emotional attraction then the justification to take any action becomes easier – my god says this is the way and therefore I must do what my god says because my god loves me, etc., etc.

To follow a code of morality introduced by an organized religion is to give up ones individual duty to determine ones own instinctual guide to appropriate morality. In this sense religious morality is far less genuine than that of the atheist. For example, if a Christian threw himself in front of a car to save a child because his God says that is the right thing to do is far less significant than an atheist doing the same thing for the reason that THAT IS THE RIGHT THING TO DO. Religions simply confuse the issues and instead try to unjustly force others to their will.

[Bowser]

"To follow a code of morality introduced by an organized religion is to give up ones individual duty to determine ones own instinctual guide to appropriate morality. In this sense religious morality is far less genuine than that of the atheist."

Cris, your assumption seems to be that we are born with a moral guide, an instinctual capacity to choose between right and wrong actions. Do you recognize the evil nature of the human animal? I feel that we are born savages; we are later domesticated by society and its devices.

For me, the logic of atheism dictates that I have no moral obligations to other people or to the society in which I live. Why would we waste our time when we could be serving our own needs and our own desires?

Even if you could remove the mask of religion from the face of this form of evil, you would still have human ambition and human fear. That, I feel, is the source of wars and abuses. Religion is only one of the tools used for hiding such things. It is, however, not the source.

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It's all very large.

[Tiassa]

A few notes, only vaguely relevant. I shall attempt to keep it short.

For example, if a Christian threw himself in front of a car to save a child because his God says that is the right thing to do is far less significant than an atheist doing the same thing for the reason that THAT IS THE RIGHT THING TO DO. Religions simply confuse the issues and instead try to unjustly force others to their will.

(Bells and whistles and flashing lights; general applause.)

Every year at my Catholic, high-school alma-Godder, students operate a parent- and teacher-organized charity breakfast for Christmas. Underprivileged families from the diocese are brought together and given a hot breakfast as well as presents for parents and kids. I must say that it's generally a touching event, and I will not disparage its intent or results, inasmuch as the intended beneficiaries are concerned. Few things are as warm in winter as a five-year old's unexpected smile.

The strange thing is, though, that to be around the students participating in the Brunch, one would think their participation is a punishment. I do not fault the students; some of these kids are 14, and I don't recall being excited about these things when I was 14.

But, just like First Communion, confession, and the whole of religion itself, it seems that these kids treated their work as something that had to be done, and therefore was made to be endured. And to ask them about the rewards, it is rarely that, It's just wonderful to see these families happy for a morning. Rather, it seems that It's really rewarding to see children smile and know that you're doing God's work.

My question, then, and notions about childrens' happiness being evil notwithstanding: What is it about doing God's work that is somehow more rewarding? Rather, is it really more rewarding, when a child is happy, to imagine that you've also made "God" happy? What is it that one hopes to gain by "doing God's work" instead of "being good to others"? If one does God's work by being good to others (or whatever that criteria might be), what makes those acts any more special than their accomplishment without considerations of God?

So much for short.

This gave rise to the crusades and the inquisition and similar atrocities, all of which Christians have had to apologize.

They have? Okay, it's irrelevant. I'll drop it.

(I should note that the Pope has already forgiven Christians for their last 1000 years of questionable conduct. All of those sins are off the table, now. Not that I'm implying that there's no apology needed, but why apologize when one can simply absolve?)

The issue is one of morality, or how we decide what is right or wrong. Once a religion takes on its typical emotional attraction then the justification to take any action becomes easier - my god says this is the way and therefore I must do what my god says because my god loves me, etc., etc.

Hip-hip! However, might I add the following alternative: My god says this is the way and therefore you must do what I say God says because God loves you enough to send you to Hell.

Or am I simply rubbing in the unnecessary?

I believe these words were not just a warning to the adults that would prey on innocent lives.

Tony, I believe you've hit a nail well on the head. Might I inquire, as a running consideration (rather than a full-blown digression), whether you feel modern parents economize this idea at all, or whether you think it's left intact in modern child-rearing. I would throw any number of ideas onto that list; seemingly major ones like homosexuality or such need not be considered at this point, since I'm wondering more about the first time a child knows a parent is lying, and other such comparative moral ideas. (I'm aware that's a volume in itself; like I said, a running consideration.

These young people are the battlefields of adult ambitions.

Bowser ... I'd say that's a nearly-perfect way of putting it. I have the strange feeling that you and I will be revisiting that idea in the future, but the election season seems to have left that philosophical region rather unpopular, merely out of habit.

And lastly, but hardly least ... Emerald ...

I apologize, as I've been watching this thread sit stale for a short while. Anyway, I couldn't find a polite way of saying, "And ...?" But, as Sethra Lavode advised Vlad, "Don't bother being polite."

I wish I could say I'm surprised. I wish I could say I'm dismayed. I wish I could say my comparative righteousness was functioning at a nearly-American level, but it's not.

I understand all of the concern about indoctrination of children. But there's nothing to be done about it right now. Education is a mighty slow process, especially when it's counterproductive to institutions, and Cataclysm generally leaves people unwilling to be reasonable. But where I'm offended that someone would try to pitch a child into armed conflict, why should I be any more offended than anything else? (This is a slightly frightening thing for me to deal with, so, yes, even I'm a little taken aback at my current mode.)

I mean, it's nice to say, "Teach a child rights and equality so that s/he may enjoy life." Okay, it's foofy, but it's a start. The problem is that we're raising children to "enjoy" other forms of bull-squirts. I mean, what do we ask children when they're young? "What are you going to be when you grow up?" And it's always something apropos: fireman, policeman, build skyscrapers, pro football, ad nauseam--though not to forget the have lots of babies and other "traditional" avenues for women.

But there's a Monster.com commercial that says it best, with the parade of children: "I want to be a Yes-man; yes, Sir. No, Sir."

But we teach children to move into an 8-5 existence. Work is something that "has to be done." From the word "Go" children are pushed into molds, which is well and fine except that we bother to teach them that these molds we're cramming them into are shaped like Freedom. In other words, We are preparing you to be Free to forfeit many of life's pleasures.

* My Grandmother's dying wish, upon being discharged from the hospital for the last time, was to go to Albertsons and Safeway, and see the butchers' shops and produce counters she had known for so long.

It wasn't the lake where she spent so many anniversaries with her husband. It wasn't the church where she loved God for all the years of her married life. It was the produce counter at Safeway.

That was life's pleasure: the place where she did her job.

When we ask children what they want to be, what do we tell them? I'm quite sure that nobody explained reality to me. Sure, they might have said, "It's tough." But nobody ever explained the futility of the "real world". For all the years I wanted to be an artist and a writer, I never gave up the facade of wanting to be ... well, ok ... a high school teacher or a psychologist ... you tell me which one is the proper ambition. Now that I've given up that facade, it's really hard to look at reality with a straight face. If I'm lucky, I'm amused; if not, well .... But it seems to me, based on experience, that a significant portion of my generation (I think we're part of X, but nobody I know admits it) feels very indoctrinated, and this toward "wrong" ideas.

Thus, the relevance. What's the difference between indoctrinating a child into the "working world" of yes-men, union dues, stupid taxes, dishonest bosses, ad nauseam, in which one lives a blues song, working fingers to the bone for nothing but the hope of a retirement even slightly better than abject poverty, and indoctrinating them into a war, where they'll experience all the shite-y ups and downs of living and dying in less than a third the time?

It isn't that I support warfare; heaven knows (and our fellow posters, too, that I cannot stand warfare. But it's kind of like dating: sure she's cute, nice, and seems to like me, but she's taken and, frankly, I can't afford her. It isn't that she's a bitch, but that I seriously don't have the money or energy to keep up. It would be a stupid thing for me to try to convince her to leave Joe and come my way if I can't offer her at least what she finds positive in Joe, and a little more on top. Likewise, I can't say that I've found any paradigm so considerably less absurd than practical life that I can advocate it as a blanket-policy. Certainly I find Camusite drudgery more--um, well, therein lies the problem, eh?--than warfare, but who's to say?

Thus the difference, or lack thereof:

* Child X is born.
* Child X is raised according to Junior Jihad and the Car Bomb Club, and dies in a battle with the cops at 15, having known only subsistence, futility, and violence. Or
* Child X is raised according to Western "real-world" values, and lives a long life as a working consumer. Official cause of death is Exhaustion, from playing a lifelong round of Keeping Up With the Joneses. X's wife left him with 2 kids, and his 2nd wife had a problem with the bottle; he spent time in jail for slapping her while trying to sober her up. Consumerism fuelled by second-rate products, economic moralism, urban battlegrounds, and never an honest moment among his neighbors. Child X sees everything wrong around him, but is taught that it's right by proxy of the wrong thing being too expensive to fix. Sure, it's melodramatic, but if you start keeping your own index and counting off your own criteria, it gets scary.

A reminder regarding the vagaries I rail against: It is Western "real-world" values which resulted in our recent--(cough)--election. Educated, working men and women in your neighborhoods helped contribute to it. Certes, you might be happy that one or the other won the election, but therein lies the problem. But we had two chances, at least, to avoid this.

Brought to you by Western values:

* War Against Drugs
* News media (hey, they're after ratings, which mean money, and someone's got to pay for it.)
* Prisons as a growth-industry (Hawthorne: gaols and graveyards.)
* $20 million per year athlete contracts. (Even the Capitalists shake when Scott Boras is at the table; agents are the epitome of forgetting why money's important, as Boras so believes in his players' right to make insidious amounts of money that he is referred to as "The Man Who Will Ruin Baseball".)
* Consider the juxtaposition: Henry Waxman (R, Calif.) complaining about the air pollution caused by cigarettes in Los Angeles; Waxman and others complaining about Surgeon General Elders' public admission that masturbation is not thoroughly and completely unhealthy. Okay, cigarettes cause LA's air pollution, but masturbation's not an issue meriting discussion while AIDS rages?
* Why is it that the #2 threat to your home is specifically excluded from your insurance? For instance, up here, it's earthquakes. Thus, earthquakes are excluded from your policy. If you live near a river in the midwest, it's floods. If you live in Florida, you are not covered if a hurricane strikes your house. Yet I can get an electronic media package that protects me against solar flares! Thus, I would list Actuaries as a genuine Western tragedy.

All I'm after is that it's all pretty darn negative, out there. The only positive stuff we find is inside. Certes, I think the world is better served by messages of peace, but when we get right down to it, the only difference is encouraging people to die quickly in battle versus dying slowly on the factory floor. If there was true liberty, where consumers were offered products instead of stylistic images; where peace was not achieved with guns; where life was not secondary to economy ... had we that kind of liberty, then I would be outraged beyond all measure.

On the other hand, I just sat and listened all Thanksgiving to the idea that one is defined by the promise of their ideas, as compared to their behavior. Specifically (as I was in Oregon, and it was just on the ballot measure) that even though a philosophy would: throw me in jail for smoking pot; throw me in jail for speaking my mind; throw me in jail for protecting myself (against cops or crooks? hard to tell, but that's a fine line, especially when the cops are crooks[/i]); fire me for not marrying the right person; shoot me for asking directions ... you get the picture, as I've railed about conservatism's bad sides on many occasions. But I just spent the weekend not being reminded of my inappropriate view of conservatism, but that I owe it to the idea to believe in it, and that it's unfair to expect it to be fair. Nobody argued with my picture of conservatism, but rather that I don't have the right to disagree with it.

I don't know. I live in a country where schools set up programs for police to lie to children, all in the name of money first, and racism next. Cajoling kids to war just doesn't seem that much of a stretch. We've talked about video games, before. What about those 1980's/early 90's games where you were an undercover anti-drug team, complete with a message from DEA and FBI in the game credits, and you ran around blowing the hell out of everything, indiscriminately? I played Half-Life for 200 hours at least during my romance with the damn game; I was awesome, with carnage flying everywhere. But I never thought I was DEA or anything. I would suggest a Ramparts video game, but the title's already taken. But there's a legit question:

* I personally have no objection to violent video games.
* What if the violence had a theme? To the extreme, what if it was to kill black people? Or something more benign, like gangstas (all depicted with dark skin, as was a trend in video games), or perhaps Arab extremists? I've blown up my share of camel-jockeys, as such.
* What if that violent theme was government-sponsored?
* What if that violent theme was church-sponsored?

All things equal, I think we do our own damage on many, many levels. I hate to see it so naked, and it's tragic when it's cajoling children to combat. But it's nothing new, and I hope not to sound cold or dismissive if I don't shed a tear.

Damn, too bad about that "short" bit.

thanx kindly,
Tiassa

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Whether God exists or does not exist, He has come to rank among the most sublime and useless truths.--Denis Diderot

[Emerald]

Wow, Tiassa - and that was the abridged version, was it? So what you're basically saying is, "Life is tough and then you die"?

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An ye harm none, do what ye will.

[Tiassa]

Umm ... I think so, actually

Can you tell how well I get along with the holidays?

Can you tell I'm reading Camus?

thanx,
Tiassa

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Whether God exists or does not exist, He has come to rank among the most sublime and useless truths.--Denis Diderot

[This message has been edited by tiassa (edited November 27, 2000).]

[Bowser]

"I shall attempt to keep it short."

<img src = "http://www.exosci.com/ubb/icons/icon10.gif"> You failed, but I read every word of it.

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It's all very large.

[Cris]

Bowser,

I posted my reply to your message to me in the 'right or wrong' thread.

Cris

[Bowser]

Cris,

I will get to it soon. Thank you.