Don Bradley on MormonThink

[_Kishkumen]

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

Thanks. I probably make us sound better than we are. And, the extent to which we are good is owed mostly to my wife, whose practicality and self-discipline outstrips my own immeasurably.

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 take my kids to the local LDS ward on occasion. Their reaction to it is mixed. So is my commitment to taking them. I am not happy about where the LDS Church is, and I am not sure I want my kids tangled up in it. We will not let them get baptized before they turn 18. If I were to guess what will happen, I doubt that they will end up LDS. We are not providing them the kind of background in it that is likely to end in a strong commitment to it.

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.

I can sympathize with your mixed feelings. My mission was an incredible experience for me. I benefited greatly from it. I doubt I would be who I am today without it. I owe so much to my experience as a missionary and BYU student and the values I came to cherish there. At the same time, these experiences soured me on the LDS Church and BYU. I identified a lot with Hugh Nibley's perspective as a critic of Mormon culture.

[_Kishkumen]

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

LOL. I am not upset with you, Ceeboo. I am not bothered by the fact that you disagree with me. I am open to the possibility that I am overreacting to this website.

[_Doctor Scratch]

Don,

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like your main objection is simply that these sites aren't saying up front, "We're anti-Mormons here," or "This is a site that is critical of the LDS Church." Is that about right? The nature of your criticism doesn't seem aimed at the actual content of any of the sites--i.e., you don't seem to be complaining that they've got inaccurate or incorrect information, but, rather, that there may be some doubt as to whether or not the folks involved are faithful, TR-carrying LDS. Is that about right?

[_Chap]

Okay, so....I am/was an elementary (primary in the UK) school teacher. I was the lead coordinator for Religious Education. We taught kids about the 6 major faiths and each day had an assembly for worship. The school was multicultural. We tried to be as fair and neutral as possible. We saw it as our responsibility in the multicultural world that we live in to give a balanced education around the subject of religious education. We were sensitive enough to stepping on toes that (usually JW's) could have their children sit out on the assemblies - which they chose to. We didn't get parents jumping up and down that we were stepping on their toes in terms of the National Curriculum.

In Secondary School the kids get taught evolution. Is this stepping on fundamentalist toes who want us to believe that God created the world in 6 days and rested on the 7th and that the earth is only a few thousand years old?

How far do you go in protecting your kids from what you see as other world views and is it really protecting them to bring them up in a vacuum where they never get to question or meet with difficult and contradictory information, motives or the whatnot. And further, is it right to downright demonize those that choose a different path in their search for truth and who want to share their perspectives with others?

Is this a Utah thing?

Children in the United States may be home-schooled or go to a private religious school. The parents can even (in some states) get vouchers that will help them pay tuition in these private schools.

Of course, I would prefer and love it if every child received essentially the same public education, and that this education was of the highest quality. At the same time, I am unwilling to sacrifice my liberty in order to make sure that this happens. I realize that if I assent to the coercion of others, then someday the situation could be flipped and I would be the coerced party.

Accepting a degree of coercion for yourself, and assenting to its imposition on others, is part of the deal if you belong to any society (isn't it?), all the way from losing the freedom to choose the side of the road you drive on upwards. I take it we agree on that. The question is where the coercion one accepts begins and ends, not whether or not there should be coercion.

There are things parents do not have the freedom to do to their children. No need to list them. Again, the question is where the boundaries of parental rights over children begin and end.

For some reason, the right of parents to indoctrinate their children into a certain religion seems to be discussed on the assumption that the child has no rights at all that may conflict with those of the parent. How about if parents were to bring up their children as devotees of the sun-worship practiced by the Aztecs, for instance? Does the child have the right to be protected against that by some outside authority coercing their parents? (I am assuming here that they don't actually practice the ripping out of human hearts to sustain the sun, at least not while they are under US jurisdiction, but that they do teach them how essential and right it is that this should be done.)

If you don't have a problem with coercing parents who want to teach that religion, then we have established that coercion that interferes with parents bringing up their children in their religion is, in some cases, something you are OK with. So isn't the question simply a question of how bad a religion has to be before we agree that coercion is appropriate?

[_Kishkumen]

If you don't have a problem with coercing parents who want to teach that religion, then we have established that coercion that interferes with parents bringing up their children in their religion is, in some cases, something you are OK with. So isn't the question simply a question of how bad a religion has to be before we agree that coercion is appropriate?

If the religion involves actual criminal activity, then the interests of the community trump individual liberty and the community should step in. I am not aware that Mormonism as it is practiced is in any way criminal or places its children at significant risk of harm. I am not at all comfortable with people deliberately seeking to interfere with the acculturation of Mormon kids as Mormons.

[_Kishkumen]

Don,

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like your main objection is simply that these sites aren't saying up front, "We're anti-Mormons here," or "This is a site that is critical of the LDS Church." Is that about right? The nature of your criticism doesn't seem aimed at the actual content of any of the sites--i.e., you don't seem to be complaining that they've got inaccurate or incorrect information, but, rather, that there may be some doubt as to whether or not the folks involved are faithful, TR-carrying LDS. Is that about right?

He can answer for himself, of course, but it is my impression that the problem is not their own religious choices so much as the apparent design to undermine, through deceptive means, the religious acculturation their parents have chosen for them.

[Guest]

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[_Kishkumen]

I think given the above dishonest, manipulative and exploitative behavior of the LDS Church putting up a website that provides missionaries with information is hardly such a terrible thing. I actually read everything FAIR had to offer before my mission because I wanted to be prepared and I had people ask me questions before I left for my mission that the Church doesn't provide answers to. It wasn't until someone from another Church gave me a leaflet laying all the information out that I realized that I hadn't been given all of the information before I left. With so much information online, shows like South Park and now the Book of Mormon musical missionaries are going to have to have better answers than to simply, "Turn it off". If someone wants to make a website that talks honestly about the Church and the mission experience then all I can say is I wish it existed before I left on my mission.

I will never get the idea that because the Church has acted inappropriately this justifies others acting inappropriately to combat them.

It is fine to say you wish you had seen such a website before you left, but you presumably left as a young adult out of your parents' home. This site is targeted at an audience comprised of many teenagers living at home. Does that not make a difference?

We can all speak with the benefit of hindsight about what we wish we had known, but that is different from assenting to others acting improperly toward minors.

[_Chap]

Children in the United States may be home-schooled or go to a private religious school. The parents can even (in some states) get vouchers that will help them pay tuition in these private schools.

Of course, I would prefer and love it if every child received essentially the same public education, and that this education was of the highest quality. At the same time, I am unwilling to sacrifice my liberty in order to make sure that this happens. I realize that if I assent to the coercion of others, then someday the situation could be flipped and I would be the coerced party.

If you don't have a problem with coercing parents who want to teach that religion, then we have established that coercion that interferes with parents bringing up their children in their religion is, in some cases, something you are OK with. So isn't the question simply a question of how bad a religion has to be before we agree that coercion is appropriate?

If the religion involves actual criminal activity, then the interests of the community trump individual liberty and the community should step in. I am not aware that Mormonism as it is practiced is in any way criminal or places its children at significant risk of harm. I am not at all comfortable with people deliberately seeking to interfere with the acculturation of Mormon kids as Mormons.

The point is now agreed that under some circumstances it is OK to interfere with the rights of parents to acculturate their children in the religion of their choice.

Henceforward the discussion is just about when one may interfere, to what degree, and in what way. You set the bar at 'criminal activity' being taught. Others may want to see it elsewhere.

I am not sure that there will be widespread agreement with the idea that parents do, in general, have a right to ensure that their children are not given certain kinds of historical information.

[_Kishkumen]

I am not sure that there will be widespread agreement with the idea that parents do, in general, have a right to ensure that their children are not given certain kinds of historical information.

Whether you like it or not, the fact that parents are able to opt out of certain kinds of education shows that, as far as the norms of our culture are concerned, my position is actually fairly common. I may not agree with those folks who don't want their kids to learn evolution, but my hope is to keep others from forcing my kids to learn their religion.