Don Bradley on MormonThink

[_Stormy Waters]

This all reminds me of the story Ricky Gervais tells about how he became an atheist. http://youtu.be/nBdhnmnLnUc

He says that when he was younger his older brother tried to challenge his belief in God, but that their mom immediately told his other brother to shut up. From that he says he realized he mom had something to "hide."
Anyway the point is that if children or teenagers realize that you're trying to control the narrative or hide information from them; it could just backfire. If you're trying to control all their sources of information, you probably deserve it to backfire. You probably do have something to hide.
I wish I had been bright enough to realize that calling information "anti-Mormon" was an attempt by the church to keep me away from information that they didn't want me to know.

[_Josh Seconal]

1) we don't have cable or network television broadcasts in our home

Wow, really? What about Netflix or Hulu? What about video games?

Just curious.

[_Jaybear]

I was led to believe that by age 8, Mormon children were sufficiently mature intellectually and emotionally to make a lifelong religious commitment, one which has eternal consequences. Now Kish and Don are telling me that 17 and 18 year old Mormon "children" (ie college freshman) are fragile and impressionable, and need to be protected from predators masquerading as Mormons who wish to expose them to embarrassing or troublesome historical facts about their religion.

[_sock puppet]

I wish I had been bright enough to realize that calling information "anti-Mormon" was an attempt by the church to keep me away from information that they didn't want me to know.

This. And I wish I had an environment, family, community, etc., that was not heavily steeped in upwards of 20 years of indoctrination with SLC lies.

If the beef with futuremissionary.com is that it does not have a big banner saying to a future missionary that might find the site that their might be inconvenient facts presented, then by the same token lds.org needs to have a disclaimer on its homepage that "viewer beware, you are about to be exposed to religious lies."

[_Arrakis]

Since Don is really concerned about the age of the web site's potential audience, didn't The Brethren create the issue when they lowered the missionary age requirement?

[_Stormy Waters]

One excuse offered by defenders of such deceit is that these kids have been indoctrinated, so the only way to get past their culturally-crafted defenses is through the sort of bait and switch that FutureMissionary does.

I am not defending what FutureMissionary does. I'm challenging the ethics of the "culturally-crafted defenses." The poisoning of the well against critical information.
Feel free to address that unless you've bailed on this thread as well.

[_Ceeboo]

Dear Kish,

I offer you my sincere apology for coming across to you as a prick in this thread (attempted silly banter/humor that likely failed)

While it is true that I disagree with you concerning the majority of the thoughts and opinions you have contributed to this thread, it does not diminish the many valuable and thought provoking things you have shared in other discussions/topics on this board.

for what it's worth, I do respect and appreciate your participation here a great deal and I am thankful to consider you a friend!

(Even if you have lost your mind in this particular thread!)


Peace,
Ceeboo

[_Madison54]

I agree with the ideal that children should be taught to think critically. In my own life, I try my best to teach my children to think well. It can be a big challenge. My kids lead a pretty normal, secular life. We have not indoctrinated them in any religion, but they do, for some reason or other, believe in God. The biggest differences between the way my kids are raised and the way many other kids are raised are that 1) we don't have cable or network television broadcasts in our home, and 2) we will not allow our children to make a life-commitment to a religion as children. On the positive side, as professors we value learning a great deal, so we encourage them to read and practice foreign languages and math on an almost daily basis.

Hi Kish,
You and your wife sound like very balanced, great parents....I'm impressed.

I am curious to know if any of your kids are active in the church and if any plan to serve missions at this point? (You don't have to answer that if it's not something you want to divulge). You may have already posted that somewhere else in this thread, but I haven't read all the way through the posts.

I honestly have very mixed feelings on this subject (and on the website being discussed). I have only briefly looked at it and I need to spend some time over there before I reach any conclusions.

I have 2 sons and 1 of them served a full time mission. My other son is of the age where he should be going out right now. I saw my older son gain so much from serving a mission (I was completely TBM at that time), but I also saw how incredibly difficult it was for him (both physically and emotionally). I do wish he'd known more of the truth about the church before he went out (he still does not know and has remained very active). I am extremely happy that my younger son does not want to go on a mission, but I would fully support him if he decided to go as he would do so knowing about all the difficult issues and history of the church. He does have many friends who are leaving and I've advised him not to ever feel like it's his place to fill them in on what he knows. He wouldn't do this anyway, but I believe each person needs to figure things out for themselves and I would not want him to be responsible for talking someone out of serving their mission.

So again, I have pretty mixed feelings on this whole topic.

[_Arrakis]

Anyway the point is that if children or teenagers realize that you're trying to control the narrative or hide information from them; it could just backfire. If you're trying to control all their sources of information, you probably deserve it to backfire.

Very well said.

by the way, I enjoyed the dinosaurs/other planet comment. It reminds me of the "stork delivers babies" story folks told a long time ago.
My older son was identifying dinosaurs by name at 5, reading about them at 6, and spending time in the library learning more about them at 7. Had I used that explanation he would have given me such a look......

[_Kishkumen]

1) we don't have cable or network television broadcasts in our home

Wow, really? What about Netflix or Hulu? What about video games?

Just curious.

We have Netflix, Hulu, and video games (Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and Nintendo Wii). Our kids have their own Kindle Fires. We limit the time they spend on video and games. They can read as long as they like.