I appreciate more knowledgeable people chiming on the actual research. I need to take more time to look at it.

A very "wise" man did go to a king and told him, if you personally tell me exactly what you want me to do, I will be utterly devoted to your words and do everything you ask of me.
Next morning people found him crucified in the center of the city. And there was a tattoo on his forehead: "I told a king what he has to do!"

Here's a direct link to the 2016 APA article that is often cited:

http://local.psy.miami.edu/faculty/d....jFamPsych.pdf

You will see that equating spanking with physical abuse is not a valid equality. In this particular study, the two were separated and the effect size difference was large enough to conclude that they aren't the same.

And in their conclusion they state explicitly that "the magnitude of the observed associations [are] small." So those arguing things such as "likely to cause severe emotional damage" are clearly speaking beyond the evidence.

I would similarly argue that those making "high probability" claims are overstating the impact as well. A strong correlation doesn't mean high probability of causation.

Nah, I bet what's happening here is another definiton game. They probably define abuse as x and spanking as y and then check effect size. I could do that with just about any two things that are likely to cause severe damage and conclude they aren't the same. What is the effect size of running someone over with a car vs hitting them with a bat? Doubt it's the same.

I'm not downloading from your link. I dont trust you. Can you provide a url that doesnt require DL?

I could post so many articles and studies which conclude spanking is harmful that 2+2 would probably think they're being DoSd.

Here's the abstract from a meta published the same year in the Journal of Family Psychology which concludes the opposite of what you claim the one you've linked does.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/27055181/

"Whether spanking is helpful or harmful to children continues to be the source of considerable debate among both researchers and the public. This article addresses 2 persistent issues, namely whether effect sizes for spanking are distinct from those for physical abuse, and whether effect sizes for spanking are robust to study design differences. Meta-analyses focused specifically on spanking were conducted on a total of 111 unique effect sizes representing 160,927 children. Thirteen of 17 mean effect sizes were significantly different from zero and all indicated a link between spanking and increased risk for detrimental child outcomes. Effect sizes did not substantially differ between spanking and physical abuse or by study design characteristics."

I support your right to free speech so don't take this question the wrong way. I'm just curious as to why you're fighting so hard here. Are you just playing devils advocate or do you really think it's ok to hit kids?

No, plants do not have the same legal rights as humans.

The "should" is irrelevant, since all of this is a response to a legal argument you made based on contemporary (US) law.

If you want to argue that law is often arbitrary, that is fine. But it will make your initial argument fall apart. It does not make sense to on one hand say "this would encroach on people's legal rights, thus it is wrong" and then respond to answers with "the law is arbitrary and irrelevant".

But it is completely fine by me to keep the debate rooted in ethics and not law, since any legal discussion on this board tends to get muddied by questioning the basis for law in the first place.

Yep. Be sure to keep it fresh. The field has changed dramatically in the last 10-15 years.

A good reminder of how strong the shift has been is that in this period the OHCHR has changed its stance and is now actively promoting the end of corporeal punishment of children and now explicitly states that such punishment violates the UN Convention on Rights of the Child.

The basis is pretty simple. There are no solid indicators of positive effects of physical punishment, but plenty of indicators for negative ones. This makes medical and psychological assessment of corporeal punishment trivial.

The remaining debate is pretty much purely cultural. As exemplified rather brilliantly by the US being one out of 11 countries which has not ratified the UN Convention on Rights of the Child, even though they played a key role in drafting it.

You don't have to trust me. I'm literally citing the exact same article you are. Did you actually read the article or did just skim the abstract and call it a day?

You are the one who made the following claim:

Implicit in this statement is that you're saying that spanking does this. It doesn't. The evidence does not suggest that spanking is equivalent to abuse. The effect sizes are not the same. It's literally in the article you cited. I asked you to quantify it, and you didn't. The reason is because you've overstated the claim, and this would be clear if you actually read the article you cited instead of just going through the abstract.

You might not believe me, but the reason you think I'm "fighting so hard here" isn't because I'm fighting so hard. I've conceded tons of ground on the topic. The thing that's happening is that you're fighting an ideological battle where you feel you can't concede anything.

Between the two of us, you're clearly more closed off to new information than I am. And because you feel so strongly about the matter, you are failing at having a rational conversation about it.

Your well-intended but actually patronizing "I empathize with you" to Original Position was ironic because you don't have empathy. It was a sympathetic expression that almost comes across as "Oh... Poor you... You were abused and don't even know it. Such a shame that you don't understand your own life story."

It really just shows how far you are from having any type of meaningful conversation on the topic. I'd equate it to a white person having a conversation with a black person and saying "Why don't you guys just do what the police officer tells you to do?" You're not actually having a conversation. You're not really listening what's being said. You're oversimplifying. And you can't even see it.

There is a strong feminine effect at the early stages of spiritual development. That’s not to say that everyone who shares that anti aggression worldview is in that stage, but I would guess that it applies to a significant amount of the loudest voices.

I would’ve made similar arguments against any type of punishment or negative reinforcement at a certain time in my life.

I should have been more tactful there. I apologize to OrP.

I empathize with the child experiencing feelings of humiliation, guilt, and pain. I don't think those are OrP's current feelings and I dont think his current feelings are wrong.

As far as the rest is concerned, at this point i'll let the facts do the talking.

Recommended practice or not (and it doesn't seem clear that the evidence shows research consensus), do you believe it should be within the rights of parents to discipline their children through spanking?

More broadly, do you believe that state-mandated laws and regulations around the raising and disciplining of children is a good thing overall?

So if you find a more tactful way to tell the black person to just obey the police, that's better? Just look at the data of how many black people are charged for resisting arrest (or whatever) compared to white people. The facts *clearly* speak for themselves.

No. It's not about tact, and it's not about facts. It's about how you're taking a complex subject and boiling it down to an overly simplistic assertion. It's about the sense of moral superiority that's conveyed by and contained within your ideology. And it's the thing you don't see that's the problem.

Well said. Even though we don't see the big picture, we choose to believe the one who created the sea and sky has everything under control, even if it seems like he's not intervening. I feel bad for complaining to him but I'm sure he understands our frustration. Also it must be very frustrating for him and sad when his creatures rebel and kill each other all the time. So we gotta have some sympathy for him too. Maybe he's just trying to figure out what to do about it all. He blinded Saul on the road to Demascus, and that brought him to his senses, I just wonder why he doesn't do that to these terrorists before they bomb churches. Maybe it's because he knows they're so stubborn they still wouldn't repent. It's all very sad.

"Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved." But first many false prophets and false christs will appear doing great signs and wonders to deceive if possible even the elect.

I think the only reason any believer deserves to go to heaven is because an infinitely loving God decided to take the punishment of those who sinned against Him on Himself and make a way for salvation. I've sinned against an infinite God, God gets all the credit and glory should I be saved.

Edit: I'm not a theologian so I might be looking at this wrong and someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but even faith is from God. Like me on my own, I've believed and accepted the gift God has given me, but the work has been done by God, I can't boast about anything. I'm a sinner and God has given me grace.

If God did stop these events, and we therefore lived in a much more manicured world, would anybody believe in God at all? Would there be a need for His grace? Would humanity be so puffed up, that almost everybody would be lost?

I'm definitely fascinated by these questions.

This is Kierkegaard's argument in a sense.

Faith in the face of unnecessary suffering is the only solution to it. Dostoyevsky makes a similar argument, noting that when Russians fed children to dogs, no amount of progress in the future would or could make up for that event - in other words, faith in human progress, technology, science, our children and so on, can never fully account for the existence of unnecessary suffering. Only faith in God can do this.

Alan Watts, in his own weird way, arrives at a similar conclusion, except his position is more nuanced. Alan clumps faith in human progress, technology and science into one category - faith in the future. From here, he sees that faith in the future - going on, just so we can keep going on, is a meaningless project. He needs more.

Alan looks at the Problem of Evil, as not really a problem (in the philosophical sense). He sees evil and unnecessary suffering as more of a device to make us feel immersed and invested in the world in which we find ourselves. The player (us) will fail to feel immersed within a world/game lacking of seriousness. The strong distinction between good and evil (/unnecessary suffering) provide that seriousness.

Watts further considers God to be - us. Like a tennis ball pierced a thousand times, looking outward through each hole - each hole, a single person's perspective on God's creation. In this context, evil is more a device for player immersion; a means by which we can enjoy life, as best lived - in vulnerability; a means by which we would never seriously consider that, in fact, we are the all-powerful.

The issue, at base, (or the axiom) is that life itself is meaningless, just as meaningless and random as the Earth is, rotating about a nuclear fireball within a solar system in an immense galaxy, that whorls about in an almost unfathomable immense Universe.

Faith should be jettisoned, it only muddles up the nature of our existence. Beer works better.

That narrative isn’t at base level. It is layered on top of a more concealed moral narrative of defeat and powerlessness. What’s at base is beyond narrative and reason. It’s pure chaos and potential which is the domain of intuition or the domain of the gods.

We don’t hold onto our narratives because they are true but because they are security blankets for the immediate. It’s better to put down the beer and take a deeper examination of the relationship between yourself and your narratives.

[My Bold}


Beer is what helps the examination of all narratives. And I disagree with the bolded.


The rest is silence.

You've got some faith in beer.
Well-founded, in my view.

I have faith in balance. Days on beer, days off. Days of indulgence, days of will.

For me, the rest being silence could be questioned only when I had a drive for meaningful progress at a phenomenological level, which is only possible in a prolonged state of meaning inadequacy. Faith allows for the pursuit of meaningful progress within a narrative of a meaningless world by remembering past direct experiences of meaning, decoupling that feeling from the context, and elevating that feeling over the narrative of meaninglessness.

The need for more sustaining meaning is the only thing that can ultimately dislodge us from our axioms. It’s destabilizing, but I’ve never heard of anyone who leveled up their relationship to meaning later regret the pursuit.

You're right. Faith is a gift from God, it doesn't depend on human effort but on God who shows mercy. It's my ego that makes me want to think I did something to earn being chosen, but God doesn't predestine based on our merit. It was wrong for me to give credit to myself.

Right. So if my merit doesn't matter, I'll just lie, steal and cheat. Excellent. Just as I was doing prior.

Open your heart to everyone and anything and you will get your voices.

I have. Every day. It's wonderful.

I don't see it that way. Sin has it's consequences, and God's grace is not a license to keep sinning. Romans 3:8, Romans 6:2. If you got caught running a red light and the judge forgave you, would you go out and run every red light the next day to spite him? What good would that do other than endanger your own life?

What a man reaps, he will also sow. If you go on lying, stealing, and cheating, you will probably end up in jail or dead. If you live a sexually promiscuous life, you will end up with a world of headache, STD's, or both. Sin only makes you miserable, so why continue in it?