Just think about it this way: people who choose to have faith in this very messed up world *really deserve* to go to heaven.

In an apparently godless world, people still have faith, and believe in a good God. God is so awesome--that even though the world appears to be godless, He is still worshiped.

Don't just push that away.

Faith is the key. Without it, it is impossible to please God.

Kierkegaard argued something similar.
Faith would mean less if it were a rational choice. To have faith, in a way, is to be irrational; to believe in that which we can't make sense of; that which is greater; impossible for us to understand.

It's an OK argument but there's no special reason why your faith should be placed in a God instead of for example, people, the future, intuition, emotion etc.

Why should faith be commended. It's willingly accepting something on poor (if even existing) evidence and making choices based on it that can affect others. If a child dies because their idiot parents don't have "faith" in modern medicine but think a floating space monkey will save their child then I'd say there are inherent problems with faith.

It's not like you can't be wrong when applying the best solution we know, but at least you've applied the best knowledge available to you. I couldn't have any respect for someone that makes important decisions based on faith.

You point out the downside of being closed off to feedback from reality and that’s important.

Faith allows us to operate at the metaphysical level which allows us to overcome nihilism (since the physical world is subordinate to the metaphysical). I understand it to be a universal truth that once we engage with the world in a direct enough way then we become nihilistic in rational thought. Most people’s nihilism is suppressed until the next sufficiently negative event in their life. However, even if suppressed, nihilism has strong and negative affects on how we act out our lives. Faith counteracts that.

At the level of individual, faith allows us to act in ways that are beyond our perceived limitations. In terms of relating to other human beings, faith allows us to treat others ethically even when our thinking is against it.

There is nothing in what neeeel has said so far that implies he seems to accept physical harm can be a good thing. So that is not a fact. Yet, from what you've said, we can gather it is a fact that it seems that way to you. You have a misunderstanding.

First, Here is an example of what's happening with your statement about facts:

Person A- "I do not like cherries"
Person B- "It seems to me you like cherries"

It is a fact that person A does not seem to like cherries. It is also a fact that it seems to person B that person A does like cherries.

So while person B is still making a true statement, the truth in that statement only pertains to facts about their own belief. It does not pertain to facts about person A's statement.

You, aaron, are person B in this scenario. Although the issue at hand with neel is much more subtle. I can see how you could come to this misunderstanding.

Neel is not accepting that harm can be a good thing. He is accepting that harm is sometimes an incidental factor in accomplishing good things.

You might be tempted to think these two instances (immunization and spanking) are similar in that regard- that harm caused by spanking would qualify as incidental harm and positive behavioral changes in children would qualify as the good thing. That would be false.

Harm (pain) is not the mechanism of action for the immunizations nor is it intentional. Harm (pain) is the mechanism of action for spanking and it is intentional. You could immunize without causing harm. Not so for spanking.

Also, it is just plain not true that spanking causes positive behavioral changes. At least in the longterm. It might stop a kid in that instant but will likley cause long term damage.

Not all kids would belong in the average, to which research consensus would point to (assuming there is consensus, and there rarely is with these kinds of things). The fact that not all kids belong in the average helps justify avoidance of mandatory anti-spanking laws.

I'm not really comfortable with arguments justifying the legality of spanking on the grounds that it isn't harmful. I'm guessing it probably is more likely to be harmful than not, at least to some extent. At the very least, if the argument hinges on believing strongly that there is no harm (psychological or physical), then that seems precarious to me.

On the other hand, it also seems like the social cost of enforcing a blanket prohibition on spanking might be worse than the problems caused by spanking, and other means of influencing parents away from spanking as a disciplinary choice might be better? Partly this involves some guess as to just how harmful spanking really is, i.e. the above would make no sense if it was a severe form of abuse, but I'm not sure I agree with that either.

Concesous is general agreement. So you're plain wrong.

And not all of anything belongs in the average. What in the world are you talking about?

So do you think the prohibition on recreational drugs should be lifted? Look at the social cost there. Should we influence people away from drugs instead of policing it?

I think that is a more appropriate situation for what you suggest. While acts of violence should remain illegal. We need to be clear here that even though spanking is a tempered act of violence, it is still violence. It is intentionally inflicting physical pain on another unwilling person. We need to protect those who are too weak to defend themselves.

I'm not an expert but a simple google search should provide enough evidence of the detrimental effects spanking tends to have on people. I believe, in general, the overall damage of being punched in the face as an adult pales in comparison to the damage caused by being struck by your own parents as a child.

I bring up drug use because it is a comparison which might help to shed some light on key differences between certain acts of freedom. There is a clear distinction to be drawn between the type of freedom allowed in drug use and the type of freedom allowed in violence. Drug use is a matter of self agency and does not directly effect anyone but the user. While acts of violence work outside of the scope of that self agency to directly impact and harm other people.

I don't think neeeel is anti-vax. Therefore...

Eh?

I would first make a distinction between pain and harm. Not all pain in harmful. For example, pain is used as a positive signal for behavior in the body. Hunger is a form of pain. As is the pain that tells you that you're getting close to something hot.

I would then make a distinction between potential harm and actual harm. Yes, there's a difference between discipline and abuse (abuse is harmful). And saying "I was spanked as a child" and "I was abused as a child" mean different things. I'm aware that some people argue that any type of physical discipline is abuse, and I would simply disagree with their definitions.

The "legal" question probably has much more to do with setting limits than anything else. You can discipline your child in non-abusive ways. Of course, that just shifts the question to what constitutes abuse, but it at least opens the definition to go beyond simply physical harm, and creates a category into which emotional and psychological harms are included. The downstream effects of those harms is probably greater than the harms of physical abuse, though I'm not sure I would be able to cite a study that says that.

But we can definitely shove medicine down the throat of a child, right?

Be careful not to overstate the quality of the research:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/a...bout-spanking/

The effect of lumping everything together into a binary question really doesn't capture discipline effectively. There's not a clear differentiation between "I only use spanking rarely and as the highest form of disciplining" and "I hit my child whenever they do anything wrong ever." It's often treated as a binary question.

It's also worth noting that the same research that purports that all spanking is bad also says that verbal reprimands are bad and should be avoided. But if you know more than two children, you probably have seen some children for whom "positive parenting" simply doesn't work.

Yes, IMO. I think we would be better off if we decriminalized most drugs. I might make a few exceptions, but I'd be doing the kind of cost/benefit analysis I suggested I'm not sure about for spanking. I agree that drug prohibition is the prototypical case for my reasoning.

So far my skepticism about whether or not all spanking constitutes child abuse is just based on my own experiences and background knowledge, since spanking was common when I was a child. It's entirely possible that if I studied the issue I would arrive at your conclusion. That's an open question to me, and it could absolutely cause my view to change.

I'd guess the only potentially valuable point I was making in my first post was just that maybe the dichotomy between "harmful" and "not harmful" as a binary wasn't the only way of thinking about the question, at least from a policy standpoint. It may be harmful but it's still better not to enforce a blanket ban. There's both an empirical and a philosophical question there, I think.

I agree that is a meaningful difference.

There are great points of teaching in the Christian religion (as in many others). But to the extent indoctrination/conversion/proselytizing/faith is based on the book, yes, it always includes brutal, fictional, immoral, threatening, primitive, magic tenets.

2.5 million murdered in the Old Testament for being human. Rapes, stonings for being a disobedient child, slavery, commands to kill witches and homosexuals. God never changes. "He" is exactly the same now. "That's the Old Testament" doesn't work. And it's a "he" because the society was misogynist in the extreme, whereas wouldn't we expect the female life-giver to be a more natural candidate? Not in the minds of primitive man.

IT IS BRUTAL PRIMITIVE MAN writing it. Miming talking points and apologetics is not analyzing or thinking. Sure there's a reason that a talking snake is in a story about how babies are now evil. If I do anything but apply reality standards to the situation, that is. Anywhere else such a thing is a fable on its face and by definition. Anywhere else you see it you automatically assume that. Now we go back millennium to totally superstitious, ignorant people seeing magic everywhere, and such a story is taken literally?? Not by thought. That Galileo quote, "God gave me this mind not to think?" Faith is the manipulative game played when thought just cannot back it up.

Is x true? Okay, I'm going to use faith. Is the square root of nine four? I have faith that it is. I'm not going to apply reality to the situation, I'm going on faith. Well, there is a reason for that. It cannot be justified ANY OTHER WAY, thus faith is called upon. What about faith of all the other religions. Important: believing a religion and using it as a guide is completely different. It isn't the faith that makes anything good. Faith in other gods? Not so good, huh? So in other words, only faith in my God is good and it saves me from the hell they are preaching. THEY MADE IT UP LIKE ALL THE OTHER RELIGIONS. People of god are some of the most disgusting historically, right up to the billion for Notre Dame Cathedral. People are starving, no problem. Priests are raping, no problem. All the slave owners doing the brutalizing and lynching were Christians, no problem. Everyone in the penitentiary has found Jesus, just like Paul.

Good points in the teachings. But the religion is a gimmick, predatory and immoral.

This is not a strongly held view for me and more contingent on the specific social traditions of the US than a more general philosophical idea. That is, I'm generally opposed to the government banning common practices among its citizens unless they reach a relatively high bar of harm - which I don't think spanking does (except for spanking that causes physical damage or injury as I'm using these terms).

This is my understanding as well. However, (1) my prior about the reliability of research by academics on parenting is relatively low, so this doesn't move me as much as it would for other academic research. (2) I have similar worries as Aaron and VeeDDzz` about the claimed distribution of harm here. A consensus among academics that spanking generally causes harm doesn't mean that spanking in all instances or forms causes harm. However, I haven't really looked at this research closely, so my mind could be changed here.

Parents have fiduciary duties towards their children to act as guardians towards them in many ways. They have a duty to financially support them, care for them when they are very young, teach them basic skills like eating, walking, talking, reading, using toilets, etc. They are supposed to make sure that they get an education and are generally prepared for adulthood, to raise them as far as they can to be moral in their actions towards others.

Acting violently towards children for no purpose or without a positive intention is wrong. Disciplining children in order to train or teach them to become more mature seems like a reasonable interpretation of the duties of parenthood, and spanking is a traditional means of discipline.

(Sorry if this is besides the subject, but I read a few answers which seemed to be about the role of religion (is it bad/good? Etc) and I think this is always relevant in that debate).

The function of religion is largely social control. While we can (probably) all agree there are both good intentions/teachings in most religions along with horrible anecdotes and the like, religion is first and foremost a mean of social control. It was Durkheim who talked about it iirc. Religion is largely responsible for civility around the world. Imagine if people in refugee camps and similar places with extremely scarce resources didn't believe that God think it's wrong to steal and lie - and especially that there would be no amazing afterlife after death. It would be a bloodbath. I'm generally optimistic about human beings being social at heart, but I also don't doubt that people in these extreme situations have religion as a way of coping with the fact that they or their children may die of starvation and as a mean to keep order no matter what happens. When people believe they will be rewarded at the end by God if they're virtuous we ensure that chaos doesn't ensue. It's obviously a pessimistic view and it's not that I don't think people are social and would support each other, but if people are seeing their child dying of starvation I also firmly believe that - barring something holding them back (like divine insurance) they would do ANYTHING for their dying child/their dying self.

And then you can argue if that's a good thing or a bad thing. But ultimately a lot of people live in places where, if there were no Religion-induced social norms, there would be total struggle and chaos, and the concept of religion and belief is what keeps these things from erupting.

Durkheim

I'm planning a blag on The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life for my playground, eventually.

At what point do you distinguish between spanking and abuse? If the justification for spanking is alteration of behaviour, then does that not justify stronger measures than spanking? If alteration of behaviour is justification for physical punishment, then is it not also justification for physical punishment of adults?

There are huge quantities of research showing that spanking is harmful, and that it almost never achieves what the supposed aim was. Add to this that physical punishment is illogical ( I am going to hit you in order to teach you not to hit, for example), not required ( there are infinite other possibilities) and an effect of the parents psychological state, rather than anything the child has done, and the idea that its not harmful and abusive is ridiculous.

1) The relationship between cost and benefit isn’t always fixed.
2) Children are not adults.

Do you not think the idea of negative reinforcement is valid?

Agree here for the most part.

I view the issue in a similar way OrP does. The costs of enforcing a spanking ban would far outweigh the benefits.

I concede that there is a classification problem. But this classification problem is no different from trying to distinguish between any other type of behavior. When does raising the volume of your voice become yelling?

And yes, you have to take things like age, emotional and intellectual maturity, and personality into account.

Only if you are focused on singular outcomes. When you start trying to put things in balance, you can talk about diminishing returns on effectiveness of various approaches or whatever.

First, you need to clarify the distinction between "punishment" and "discipline." The former is punitive with regards to past behavior and the latter is directed at behavior modification.

I don't actually have huge issues with physical punishment for adults, though I'd concede it's probably culturally not acceptable. I don't feel that bad for the 18 year old kid that got caned in Singapore for theft and vandalism (hit 4 times). Though I wouldn't consent to that punishment for a 10 year old.

I don't think the evidence is as strong as you think it is. I would view this as overstating the level of evidence kind of in the same way that there's a lot of nutrition evidence that's overstated and a lot of other psychology that's overstated. I've already cited an article that points out some of the difficulties of this research.

(1) Illogical: A couple notes on this. The first note is that spanking is not solely used for this one situation, so it doesn't exactly work as an argument. The second is that I don't have a problem with physical contact as being part of an escalation. If, as a kid, you are being bullied, you can use words and tell authorities, but at some level I think it becomes justifiable to use physical force to stop the offending behaviors. There is logic to it, and it's a logic that does actually have applications. Again, it's not that this is the first thing you do, but it is sometimes important to raise things to that level.

(2) Not required: That there are other options does not mean that it's not required. I walk to a lot of places. I have other options, but walking is often the choice. That doesn't mean driving should be off the table, or that there are no times when driving is better.

(3) Effect on the parent's mental state: I'm not sure what you're getting at here.

(4) The idea that it's not harmful or abusive is ridiculous: Incredulity isn't good enough here. I would again urge to talk about "potentially" and not try to make the blanket claim that it's always.

I remember in a philosophy class in college the professor was lecturing on ethics and "what is the good." At some point he was narrowing it down, and I threw in "faith" from the peanut gallery. Seemed reasonable. Because I had bought, hook, line and sinker the idea that faith as good is a given. I mean it's kind of indoctrinated in us upon the most severe penalty ever dreamed up in the history of humanity, so most people tend to swallow it without objection, analysis or thought.

Nowadays I would say this kind of faith is practiced in two places ... religion and con men. The con wants you to believe in him uncritically, because if you investigate he isn't for real. So he wants you to just believe it. Same story, shockingly, for supernatural claims by medieval and pre-medieval man. It's completely unbelievable if you compare it to the real world, so let's say, "Take it on faith and if you don't you'll be burned in hell forever, there that might work." It works. Legions come out of Sunday School and buy it, never asking the question: "Why is faith good? It's not good anywhere else." It has become synonymous with good in that system.

So the point is not that religion is bad, not at all. It's that blind faith is bad, not good, and there is a reason why it is employed as it is. The superstitious mind, pre-reason, pre-literacy, pre-"magic is bull****" .... believes it. Has no other standard.

Imagine: Just have faith that this drug works, we aren't going to do any trials. Just have faith that I will give you a 100% return every year on your money, we don't need any documents or past performance research. Just have faith that the captain of this plane can fly it safely, we don't need any proof of training. Faith is bizarre as a standard of belief, confidence or understanding, or truth - and everybody knows it and lives accordingly.

"My religion is good, it has great stuff, but it is a religion, is a manufactured god myth like the other 10,000 of them" ... that kind of attitude is all good. But faith is no standard of anything. It has no merit, no weight, no determining power of what is true. And that's why they use it. Using it you won't, and can't, discover that the whole thing might not be true.

It's not my style to be doing this. I'm writing something on this subject, and dogmatic religions, all of them, are an insult to caring about what the Great Mystery actually is. Are we to assume ancient man who couldn't add, couldn't read, was centuries pre-science ... are we to assume they knew the mysteries of the universe? Then use their medicine, use their astronomy, use their physics, use their technology. It's an insult to just dogmatically insist on something with no supporting evidence. Put one toe outside the indoctrination circle - something not easy to do - and then it dawns on you ... "I'm just miming this. Sheer momentum and fear. There is no actual reason to believe it but five empty letters, faith." It's an insult to understanding anything to say," The book with the witches, the talking snakes, the magic ... that's the truth and solves the mysteries of the universe. Einstein said there are three kinds of religion: fear-based, morality-based, and cosmos-based. You gotta love that quote. He's trying to understand ... not reciting ancient superstitions about talking snakes, apples, and magic. Galileo: Why is the subject of religion and divinity off-limits to this brain of mine? Because that is how you build a religion.

It isn't my intention to undercut anybody's religion, but to object to the standards that create it and call it ultimate truth. A fable can hold some truths, a myth can be a great teacher about life ... but they are completely as ignorant of the nature of things as Jesus was that leprosy was caused by a microorganism. He wasn't all-knowing. He didn't know they needed antibiotics. He couldn't read and write. It's mythological. Which is certainly not to say worthless. It just doesn't solve the mysteries of the universe.

No one said you thought that. If you genuinely wish to understand your mistake please refer back to post #205. You can click the little double play looking button next to citamgine to be taken to that post.

You are not making a distinction between pain and harm. You are making a distinction between types of harm.

We already went over that before you joined in on this topic. I elaborated further about the distinction between types of harm in post #205. From that explanation you should be able to understand what separates harm caused by violence from the types of harm you are referring to. Let me know if you're still having trouble grasping this concept and we can try a different approach.

Making a distinction between potential harm and actual harm is indeed valid. But nothing you say proceeds from that statement.

Googling the word "abuse"-
1. use (something) to bad effect or for a bad purpose; misuse.
2. treat (a person or an animal) with cruelty or violence, especially regularly or repeatedly.

If we use abuse in the first sense of the word then, then yes, I agree we can make a distinction between abuse and spanking. And by that definition we could justify any form of violence so long as it is used for a perceived good. For instance, you could not consider any form of punishment which falls under something like Sharia law to be abuse.

If we use the second definition....well then it's obvious that spanking is abuse.


Let's start by setting a limit at violence yeah?

No Not always. This is part of your misunderstanding.

Not when the pain of shoving medicine down the child's throat is the mechanism of action. It's only acceptable in an emergency when the pain is incidental and there is no other way to get it done. Can you shove medicine down a child's throat to get them to behave in a certain way you think is correct? The answer is NO.


For those who do not want to read the whole article it is about a meta analysis which concluded that spanking does pose increased risk of emotional and behavioral problems. Although the science on these types of issues is hard (maybe impossible) to ever get perfect, so there are still some people with different opinions. It is still fair to say that the general consensus amongst experts is to NOT spank children. That includes clinical practitioners outside the scope of the article as well as researchers involved in this particular study.

Pray and believe in Jesus, Kelvis. it is the only way!

Why do you think that?


I agree. You can do all of those things without violence. The responsibility of a parent is to be a loving guide. They should care for their children in a compassionate manner.

Refer to the post above addressed to Aaron for thoughts on your first sentence. Specifically the part about abuse.

Refer back to the video above for the bolded. What if you were born into the world when slavery was a traditional means of getting work done?