There is an ultra-orthadox all boy Jewish elementary school right next door to my high school, consisting of about 20 to 30 kids. Its barely even a school. Every single one of these kids had religion forced upon them. They blindly and happily accept it, and they never had a chance to make their own decisions. Its so unnatural to see a 6 year old kid with peyus (Jewish boys are forbidden from cutting their sideburns, its called peyus) down to their belly button and a keepah on their nearly bald heads. When they graduate they will be socially retarded having never communicated with girls their own age, and will feel extremely uncomfortable around anyone not Jewish. Most of them will end up as rabbis or whatever. I know that there isn't anything anyone can do about this, but still I don't think its fair. What does Totse think about this issue?


btw Im not anti-semetic and this thread isn't ment about Jews specifically

Personally, I find no problem with it. They're born into a community and unless they feel the pull to move outside of it they will most likely live as happy a life as anyone else.

I do think you presume an awful lot, unless you are from the same community and have experienced what it is like and sought to leave it.

I really don't see what you think the problem is.

Personally, I find no problem with it. They're born into a community and unless they feel the pull to move outside of it they will most likely live as happy a life as anyone else.

I do think you presume an awful lot, unless you are from the same community and have experienced what it is like and sought to leave it.

I really don't see what you think the problem is.

But there are certain things missing in their life, certain things that must be restricted.

But there are certain things missing in their life, certain things that must be restricted.

The problem with that is...?

But there are certain things missing in their life, certain things that must be restricted.

It happens, it isn't their fault for it to be like that and in a lot of cases it isn't fair, but that is how it is. The only thing you can do is offer the things missing, cause if you force it upon them, that doesn't make you any better.

A lot of people have a hard time realizing something about growing up in America, (or other free democratic societies) things that are blatantly unamerican aren't always necessarily wrong. To be denied many things that average american kids have given to them freely is not, in itself evil. Denial of certain material pleasures ie: the things that johnny next door is allowed to do and doing wrong by your child are not the same thing. The jews have been doing this forever (if you ask them) and they've, except for a couple of rough spots, made it out pretty well, our culture -as it stands now- hasn't even been around for one hundred years and we've already fucked things up, a lot. A rich Jewish businessman's daughter grows up and marries a doctor, a rich white businessmans daughter grows up fucks hundreds of guys and goes to jail last week. You tell me who fucked up what when and where.
Everyone grows up with restrictions, those that don't rarely live happliy or live long.

A lot of people have a hard time realizing something about growing up in America, (or other free democratic societies) things that are blatantly unamerican aren't always necessarily wrong. To be denied many things that average american kids have given to them freely is not, in itself evil. Denial of certain material pleasures ie: the things that johnny next door is allowed to do and doing wrong by your child are not the same thing.

Exactly. Who are we to be the moral authority on what these children need or want? It's a different culture, and I have no problem with letting them live according to their own standards.

Hmmmm, interesting comment. I too feel sympathetic to those who were raised to be devoutly religious. I think children deserve freedom of choice.

If kids weren't forced into religion, it probably wouldn't exist.

It is pretty upsetting though.

My county has a problem with Hasidic Jews. They don't treat anyone with respect, and are a hassle to deal with. And half of the county is regular Jewish.

I don't mind religion, but please, "Everything in moderation."

If kids weren't forced into religion, it probably wouldn't exist.

It is pretty upsetting though.

"

exactly, Its a fucking virus.

Hmmmm, interesting comment. I too feel sympathetic to those who were raised to be devoutly religious. I think children deserve freedom of choice.

How would you go about raising your own children without influencing any choices they might make in life?

@OP: It's called socialisation. It's how all communities manage to transfer values and norms across the generations. Most societies even transfer the value that all other forms of socialisation are wrong.

Well you don't need religion to be moral or to pass on values to your kids, even though not everyone believes that.

Would you allow a child to decide if it wants to brush its teeth or not? As these people see it their spiritual health is just as if not more important than their physical health and weather you believe in religion or not its ultimately the father and mother to decide whats best for the child and if you dont agree with that that is your opinion and yours alone.

Spiritual health would imply that there's a downside to not believing akin to holes and pain in your teeth if you're not taught to brush. You're full of shit Sam

A lot of people have a hard time realizing something about growing up in America, (or other free democratic societies) things that are blatantly unamerican aren't always necessarily wrong. To be denied many things that average american kids have given to them freely is not, in itself evil. Denial of certain material pleasures ie: the things that johnny next door is allowed to do and doing wrong by your child are not the same thing. The jews have been doing this forever (if you ask them) and they've, except for a couple of rough spots, made it out pretty well, our culture -as it stands now- hasn't even been around for one hundred years and we've already fucked things up, a lot. A rich Jewish businessman's daughter grows up and marries a doctor, a rich white businessmans daughter grows up fucks hundreds of guys and goes to jail last week. You tell me who fucked up what when and where.
Everyone grows up with restrictions, those that don't rarely live happliy or live long.

Sir, your idiocy is unmatched. As if a jewish girl of traditional backround couldnt or wouldnt be just as likely to do the same. Same goes for American girl. Why exactly is either more likely to be corrupt/pure and who the fuck are you to judge? That was just pure anti-american bullshit.

Good for the parents for keeping their culture alive. Kids can rebel and have since the dawn of time. Better growing up as a Jew knowing Jewish tradition and culture then getting thrown in with the McDonalds eating PS2 playing rabid group mentality of an average western elementary school. I bet they have a much stronger sense of self and community then they otherwise would have chances are a better education and work ethic too.

exactly, Its a fucking virus.

QFMFT!!!

Sir, your idiocy is unmatched. As if a jewish girl of traditional backround couldnt or wouldnt be just as likely to do the same. Same goes for American girl. Why exactly is either more likely to be corrupt/pure and who the fuck are you to judge? That was just pure anti-american bullshit.

I'm not judging, I'm stating facts as they have been presented to me by history. We, I'm American too -and proud (and republican with the libertarian slant that most of us youth seem to have today)-, the people, for all our accomplishments, have only been around, at most, for about 225 years and we have a strong history of fucking shit up royally, whereas the jews have either kept to themselves or engaged in the wholesale slaughter of anyone and everyone near to them for thousands of years. The jews control the media and politics, allegedly, have a history of being rich educated savvy businessmen with modest quiet children who go on to lead boring successful lives. American businessmen have a history of being morally bankrupt people with children who spend up all the family money on drugs and sex and are meer shadows of their parents. Not to say that these things are exclusive to their respective groups but saying that maybe, just maybe, the jews have a way of doing things that is every bit as correct as ours.
Children shouldn't have freedom of choice because they have been scientifically proven to be complete fuckups at informed decisionmaking(Probably a word).
Here in America we have a constitutional right to get off on the idea of someone coming here from a different country with their ways and customs and becoming like us while retaining their original culture, yet the jews can't do it, fuck that, let them raise their kids and I'll raise mine.
The sword of truth, my friend, is a two handed weapon and it appears to me that while you hold the dagger of flaming sarcasm quite handily your two handed weapon skill is at low level, might I suggest you attack some lower level noobs and come up some levels before stepping to Uri(I play a lot of RPG's).

P.S I don't really believe the jews control the media or politics.

Spiritual health would imply that there's a downside to not believing akin to holes and pain in your teeth if you're not taught to brush. You're full of shit Sam

Seeing as it says your from Finland ill let your ignorance of the English language slide because you for some reason attack me when all I was saying was "AS THESE PEOPLE SEE IT" meaning to them there is a downside which is eternal damnation in a fiery pit, I would say that would be a good reason to keep my kids in line that of course assuming I was Jewish(which Im not).

You've proven yourself to be religious by now so excuse me if my brain misreads something. It was definitely something you could have said so didn't notice it

Its so unnatural to see a 6 year old kid with peyus (Jewish boys are forbidden from cutting their sideburns, its called peyus) down to their belly button and a keepah on their nearly bald heads.



Wow... These Jews mature fast, I didn't have facial hair till I was in my teens, but these fuckers are getting sideburns at the age of six? Fucking wow.

Wow... These Jews mature fast, I didn't have facial hair till I was in my teens, but these fuckers are getting sideburns at the age of six? Fucking wow.

its probably just the part of their hair thats on the side of their heads, as oppposed to full on mullet-chops.

but anyway

Parents are the ultimate form of mind control, there's no way around it.

Since everything is relative, there's no real "right" way to bring up your kids, just because you choose not to live a certain kind of lifestyle doesn't mean that others aren't happy with theirs.

It'd be like a society of nudists saying "why the hell do those parents force their poor kids to wear clothes! it's sickening!". Or how american islamic women choose to wear headgear that is often viewed as sexist and oppressive in the eyes of others, but is in fact a personal choice.

I dunno, I'm against indoctrinating kids with anything (including religion/lack thereof) in principle, but until we all start devolving it's not gonna be possible.

The only thing I have a problem with is the ritual sexual mutilation of infants.

A newborn who can't even speak can not consent to a painful and permanent body modification, and should be presented with a choice only when they reach adulthood.

I'm not judging, I'm stating facts as they have been presented to me by history. We, I'm American too -and proud (and republican with the libertarian slant that most of us youth seem to have today)-, the people, for all our accomplishments, have only been around, at most, for about 225 years and we have a strong history of fucking shit up royally, whereas the jews have either kept to themselves or engaged in the wholesale slaughter of anyone and everyone near to them for thousands of years. The jews control the media and politics, allegedly, have a history of being rich educated savvy businessmen with modest quiet children who go on to lead boring successful lives. American businessmen have a history of being morally bankrupt people with children who spend up all the family money on drugs and sex and are meer shadows of their parents. Not to say that these things are exclusive to their respective groups but saying that maybe, just maybe, the jews have a way of doing things that is every bit as correct as ours.
Children shouldn't have freedom of choice because they have been scientifically proven to be complete fuckups at informed decisionmaking(Probably a word).
Here in America we have a constitutional right to get off on the idea of someone coming here from a different country with their ways and customs and becoming like us while retaining their original culture, yet the jews can't do it, fuck that, let them raise their kids and I'll raise mine.
The sword of truth, my friend, is a two handed weapon and it appears to me that while you hold the dagger of flaming sarcasm quite handily your two handed weapon skill is at low level, might I suggest you attack some lower level noobs and come up some levels before stepping to Uri(I play a lot of RPG's).

P.S I don't really believe the jews control the media or politics.

MMORPG lingo aside, all you did was say things that piss you off about your limited idea of what encompasses the common American. I nearly completely agree with you on all but one point that you seem to have contradicted. I do not think that culture defines human actions. Individual choice is the number one determinant in a persons actions as every person is solely and completely responsible for their own lives and destiny, therefore making the blaming of American or Jewish society (despite 5000 years or 200 years worth of growth) for ills or splendor...useless and nonsensical.

On all other points I 100% agree with you and apologize for my quick tongue and unnecesarry insults.

Step to Uri? lol.

Good sir! I very nearly think you are on the right track. It would appear that we agree on everything except for whether or not culture determines actions. I am a firm believer that culture determines actions because the culture one grows up in gives him the basis for any response to a new situation. If you grew up in a polite society where no one fights, ever your first response to someone yelling at you in an agressive manner may be to shrink away from said person, whereas if you were come from a violent background your first reaction may be to pop the sonofabitch in the jaw.
Here's the kicker, if you come from a violent society but are by nature a docile person you still may shy away from the violent person in spite of everything you were ever taught. Stupid humanity. I am a firm believer that one's background doesn't so much dictate as strongly suggest responses to any situation life throws at him, some people aren't, God bless America.
Also, in my previous post I meant freakishly successful businessmen(Rockefeller, Hilton, Hearst) and I spelled mere wrong, I died a little inside when I discovered that. Having a history of doing something isn't the same as doing it every time. We kicked ass in the world wars.

so? you've have everything in your world forced on you. What makes you think that there is more value to your worthless world as opposed to theirs?

unless they feel the pull to move outside of it they will most likely live as happy a life as anyone else.

If they for the rest of their lives want to shelter themselves from the rest of the world you say? That's a pretty big if.

@OP: It's called socialisation. It's how all communities manage to transfer values and norms across the generations. Most societies even transfer the value that all other forms of socialisation are wrong.

And it's 'fucked up' as the saying goes...

Dont be too worried. Maynard Keenan went to a military academy, now he fronts two of the most anti-pop, anti-religion bands.

And it's 'fucked up' as the saying goes...

Can you explain why parents transferring their values to their children is wrong?

Can you explain why parents transferring their values to their children is wrong?

He can't because it's not. Parents transfer values like they do genetic material. Moreover, I believe that parents, grandparents, great grandparents, and even great great granparents contribute more than just genetic material and a set of values. I believe that certain behaviors, preferences, mentalities, and maybe even memories can be passed on genetically. I know that behavior and mentality can be passed genetically, but recently I've been wondering if memory could be handed down to offspring.

Think about it. Instincts are present in the young at birth. They are very strong, and essential to survival. How were these instincts formed? I believe they were formed by our very distant ancestors, who experienced life and passed on a very small and succinct summary of that experience to their offspring in the form of instinct. Of course this didn't happen over night. It may have taken many hundreds of years worth of experience before that knowledge became so strong and essential to survival that the pre-born mind was formed with this knowledge already in place. Thus, instinct is born.

If knowledge can be placed in the mind genetically, then why not memory? What if people who believe they have lived a life previous to the one they are living, were actually basing their judgements and assumptions off bad information? What if the memories they have of that life are not their own? What if those memories were passed down genetically, laying dormant through the generations, until a relative is born who can actively access those memories, not in the form of instinct, but actual memory? Might that person mistakenly interpret their experience as a past life?

Skills, talents, preferences, beliefs, behaviors, all can be passed, to some degree, genetically from parent to child. What if the mechanism responsible for encoding these things onto strands of DNA were somehow stimulated to produce super-precise copies of this information? Wouldn't memory be the most precise copy of some of this information? Obviously, memory isn't a very good place to find the information needed to produce an organ, or a limb, but the physical blueprint is only a portion of the DNA strand which, is the larger, complete blueprint for the actual organism. Preference comes from memory. Behavior comes from memory. Skill and talent have as much to do with memory, as they do with natural physical ability. If it is easy to believe that traits can be lost during their passing, then why can't they be expressed as good as the original?

Ok, rant break. My kitty just had kitties. We now have five baby kittens to care for. On topic, two look like the mother, two like the father, and one solid gray one that looks like neither. Thems genetics fer ya.

I, actually don't have much to say past this point, but I will say this: space is not the final frontier, the human mind and life itself, by nature, carry more mysteries than that which lies beyond our atmosphere. Sometimes, the hardest things to see aren't the things that exist far from our sight, but that which lies directly in front of it.


As an after-thought; what if encoding the information isn't where the secret lies...what if the key to genetic memory lies where it is decoded and processed? What if it's the "reader" not the "burner?" That would mean that everyone passes on their memories and only a select few can actually access them. If this subject intrigues you, do some research on transplant recipients. Some have reported life changes that modern science just can not explain.

The "it's their culture, so it's justified" defense is a misleading form of moral relativism. Honor killings, male and female circumcision, death penalties for deconversion and more, are all cultural elements but still immoral and unjustified.

The analogies with ...oral hygiene are ridiculous. Just as a child is unable to make health choices, it is also unable to make religious choices. The difference is making a religious choice at this age is of no benefit to the child. The only benefit is for the religion itself and the practice of faith schools serves noone but religious memes.

Good parenting doesn't mean making little copies of yourself! It means raising an independent person that will grow to be an individual, able to make informed decisions on his/her own. Since religions are so certain of their truth, such a process should not scare them. The indoctrination of little children as a religious practice is very revealing.

HampTheToker: what you are describing is Lamarckism, which has been thoroughly debunked since Darwin's time. Instincts and memory are not the same thing either.

The "it's their culture, so it's justified" defense is a misleading form of moral relativism. Honor killings, male and female circumcision, death penalties for deconversion and more, are all cultural elements but still immoral and unjustified.

The analogies with ...oral hygiene are ridiculous. Just as a child is unable to make health choices, it is also unable to make religious choices. The difference is making a religious choice at this age is of no benefit to the child. The only benefit is for the religion itself and the practice of faith schools serves noone but religious memes.

Good parenting doesn't mean making little copies of yourself! It means raising an independent person that will grow to be an individual, able to make informed decisions on his/her own. Since religions are so certain of their truth, such a process should not scare them. The indoctrination of little children as a religious practice is very revealing.

HampTheToker: what you are describing is Lamarckism, which has been thoroughly debunked since Darwin's time. Instincts and memory are not the same thing either.

Since when do we raise children to be "independant thinker" your supposed to raise children to always do right and always make the right choices telling them to be independent thinkers opens up a window that can lead to drugs and alcohol of course thats the extreme but if you raise your child right it isnt even a possibility.

And isnt raising them to be independent an oxymoron considering they didnt independantly choose to be raised that way?

The "it's their culture, so it's justified" defense is a misleading form of moral relativism. Honor killings, male and female circumcision, death penalties for deconversion and more, are all cultural elements but still immoral and unjustified.

Obviously most of us believe that things such as honor killings and death for deconversion are wrong. The reason we believe these things to be wrong is because of our upbringing, by our society and culture, but most importantly by our parents. According to you, these things are immoral. Your example shows that different cultures have different views on ethics and morality. What gives you the right to decide what's right and what's wrong?

The analogies with ...oral hygiene are ridiculous. Just as a child is unable to make health choices, it is also unable to make religious choices. The difference is making a religious choice at this age is of no benefit to the child. The only benefit is for the religion itself and the practice of faith schools serves noone but religious memes.

In the example of the OP, for ultra-orthodox Jews, religion and life are not seperate things. You may feel that teaching religious values to a child does not benefit them, but to orthodox Jews religion is inherently entwined with life, and to not teach their children their values would cause the disappearance of their culture and way life. Just because they live a different way than you doesn't mean it's wrong.

Good parenting doesn't mean making little copies of yourself! It means raising an independent person that will grow to be an individual, able to make informed decisions on his/her own.

You may feel that you're an 'independent' person, but you undoubtedly base your moral and ethical values within the confines of your culture. Good parenting means raising children in a way that will benefit them the most, and everyone has a different idea of what this is.

Since religions are so certain of their truth, such a process should not scare them. The indoctrination of little children as a religious practice is very revealing.

Judaism, especially in the ultra-orthodox form, is highly ritualistic, and its belief system is extremely intricate. The purpose of these religious schools is not "THIS IS OUR RELIGION, IT IS TRUE." The purpose of the school is to teach the children about their religion's belief system. According to you, religious leaders teach religion to children because they themselves are unsure of its truth, and that is it was really true, people would find it on its own. This belief suggests that you think humans are omnipotent and automatically know what is true and what isn't. Parents feel that teaching their religion to their children will benefit them, so if it doesn't negativelly affect them or others, what's wrong with it?