IDENTITY=Behavior There are no CAUSELESS crimes or innocent evils

by Terry 89 Replies latest watchtower bible

• 

  fifi40

  At what age are you suggesting people become accountable?

  If for a child right and wrong is never seperated, evil acts are committed against them, do you expect ALL of them to reach adulthood aware that the treatment they have experienced and their concept of life is wrong or would you agree that some may view it as NORMAL?

  If you can in part agree to the above, how do you suggest that such people re-learn how to live a life that is more beneficial to them and society?

  Are you saying that because you have educated yourself you are now free of any contamination of the impact of any negative behaviour you experienced as a child, and that others who may have experienced horrendous situations in their formative years should not be given the opportunity to become educated and to some degree healed?

  No rational person thinks Hitler was a nice person but at what age and from where do you expect the ability to reason to come from?

  Fi
• 

  DanTheMan

  You could have fooled me, Dan the man, because you've moved the keys on your keyboard and created a post while identifying your causation particularly as originating from you.

  This would tend to negate your assertion above.

  How do you explain that?

  Hi Terry,

  I take it you believe in free will. I don't. I think that everything that happens, happens as a result of prior causes. We're just leaves blowing in the wind. Wasn't that poetic...not
• 

  AlmostAtheist

  >>I take it you believe in free will. I don't.

  I don't believe in it either, but it occurs to me that I don't think we'd act any differently if we had it. I think we'd only BE different. Weird...

  Dave
• 

  Terry

  There is a difference in inexperienced youngsters and outright criminals.....Good Night JWD!...OUTLAW

  Okay.

  And therefore.........what?
• 

  Terry

  At what age are you suggesting people become accountable?

  People are held accountable for everything at every age in one way or another. Not everything done is harmful. Often, it is annoying.

  A baby cries and we gently shoosh it to stop the behavior.

  A child wets the bed or poops his pants and we don't ignore it, do we?

  These are hardly crimes.

  If for a child right and wrong is never seperated, evil acts are committed against them, do you expect ALL of them to reach adulthood aware that the treatment they have experienced and their concept of life is wrong or would you agree that some may view it as NORMAL?

  Pain = Bad Pleasure = Good. Inescapable education.

  The significance we attach to what causes or prevents the above is a socialization issue.

  how do you suggest that such people re-learn how to live a life that is more beneficial to them and society?
  

  You can't teach anybody anything they aren't ready and willing to learn.

  Are you saying that because you have educated yourself you are now free of any contamination of the impact of any negative behaviour you experienced as a child, and that others who may have experienced horrendous situations in their formative years should not be given the opportunity to become educated and to some degree healed?

  I've always been willing and ravenous to learn. My enthusiasm for self-improvement is always on high alert. Am I perfect? Jeezus, FiFi! No way!

  People need to create their own opportunities for learning and improvement and not waiting around for a handout or a shoulder to cry on. When you give people what they aren't willing to earn you weaken them and ruin their character.
• 

  Terry

  >>I take it you believe in free will. I don't.

  I don't believe in it either, but it occurs to me that I don't think we'd act any differently if we had it. I think we'd only BE different. Weird...

  People speak about "free will" without really examining what they are saying. It is not an absolute. It is a very, very narrow and dangerous mental construct much misunderstood.

  We follow our whims when we are young unless we are stopped or sidetracked. Then, we change our strategy. We either become clever and deceitful to get our way or we conform and become group-think automatons. It is our essential character which makes us one or the other.

  Rare is the individual. Rare is the self-identity which understands how to modify whims, longings and desires well enough to order them sequentially according to social norms without trading one's volition for crumbs.

  We can want, but; we can't decide what our wants are. We can postpone satisfaction and delay gratification, but; we can't sublimate ourselves into an authentic alternative personality.
• 

  bebu

  This reminds me of a song from Westside Story:

  GEE, OFFICER KRUPKE

  ACTION
  Dear kindly Sergeant Krupke,
  You gotta understand,
  It's just our bringin' up-ke
  That gets us out of hand.
  Our mothers all are junkies,
  Our fathers all are drunks.
  Golly Moses, natcherly we're punks!
  
  ACTION AND JETS
  Gee, Officer Krupke, we're very upset;
  We never had the love that ev'ry child oughta get.
  We ain't no delinquents,
  We're misunderstood.
  Deep down inside us there is good!
  
  ACTION
  There is good!
  
  ALL
  There is good, there is good,
  There is untapped good!
  Like inside, the worst of us is good!
  
  SNOWBOY: (Spoken) That's a touchin' good story.
  
  ACTION:(Spoken) Lemme tell it to the world!
  
  SNOWBOY: Just tell it to the judge.
  
  ACTION
  Dear kindly Judge, your Honor,
  My parents treat me rough.
  With all their marijuana,
  They won't give me a puff.
  They didn't wanna have me,
  But somehow I was had.
  Leapin' lizards! That's why I'm so bad!
  
  DIESEL: (As Judge) Right!
  
  Officer Krupke, you're really a square;
  This boy don't need a judge, he needs an analyst's care!
  It's just his neurosis that oughta be curbed.
  He's psychologic'ly disturbed!
  
  ACTION
  I'm disturbed!
  
  JETS
  We're disturbed, we're disturbed,
  We're the most disturbed,
  Like we're psychologic'ly disturbed.
  
  DIESEL: (Spoken, as Judge) In the opinion on this court, this child is depraved on account he ain't had a normal home.
  
  ACTION:(Spoken) Hey, I'm depraved on account I'm deprived.
  
  DIESEL: So take him to a headshrinker.
  
  ACTION(Sings)
  My father is a bastard,
  My ma's an S.O.B.
  My grandpa's always plastered,
  My grandma pushes tea.
  My sister wears a mustache,
  My brother wears a dress.
  Goodness gracious, that's why I'm a mess!
  
  A-RAB: (As Psychiatrist) Yes!
  Officer Krupke, you're really a slob.
  This boy don't need a doctor, just a good honest job.
  Society's played him a terrible trick,
  And sociologic'ly he's sick!
  
  ACTION
  I am sick!
  
  ALL
  We are sick, we are sick,
  We are sick, sick, sick,
  Like we're sociologically sick!
  
  A-RAB: In my opinion, this child don't need to have his head shrunk at all. Juvenile delinquency is purely a social disease!
  
  ACTION: Hey, I got a social disease!
  
  A-RAB: So take him to a social worker!
  
  ACTION
  Dear kindly social worker,
  They say go earn a buck.
  Like be a soda jerker,
  Which means like be a schumck.
  It's not I'm anti-social,
  I'm only anti-work.
  Gloryosky! That's why I'm a jerk!
  
  BABY JOHN:(As Female Social Worker)
  Eek!
  Officer Krupke, you've done it again.
  This boy don't need a job, he needs a year in the pen.
  It ain't just a question of misunderstood;
  Deep down inside him, he's no good!
  
  ACTION
  I'm no good!
  
  ALL
  We're no good, we're no good!
  We're no earthly good,
  Like the best of us is no damn good!
  
  DIESEL(As Judge)
  The trouble is he's crazy.
  
  A-RAB(As Psychiatrist)
  The trouble is he drinks.
  
  BABY JOHN(As Female Social Worker)
  The trouble is he's lazy.
  
  DIESEL
  The trouble is he stinks.
  
  A-RAB
  The trouble is he's growing.
  
  BABY JOHN
  The trouble is he's grown.
  
  ALL
  Krupke, we got troubles of our own!
  
  Gee, Officer Krupke,
  We're down on our knees,
  'Cause no one wants a fellow with a social disease.
  Gee, Officer Krupke,
  What are we to do?
  Gee, Officer Krupke,
  Krup you!

  We are what we are. This is our nature. We become what we are. There are many obstacles to the final being which is us. However we arrive the journey is inevitable.

  Do you think we are destined, then? Much like a seed has a destiny for only one result? Is there no averting destiny? Can nothing be changed, even by "accident"?

  Personally, I think we are free, and we discover who we are becoming. We are what we are, as you say, but there are other elements which make me think that our 'destiny' is something we would have to agree to. If that makes sense...

  If God held us to a more human standard of behavior (a fair standard, that is) only deliberate actions would count as sins.

  I think that is what He will actually do, but I don't know of anyone (yet) who has been able to hit that mark either.

  bebu
• 

  fifi40

  Terry

  If a child is told that it is thick, stupid, lazy etc as it is raised, how would you expect that child to feel about itself as it grows into adulthood?

  Are you refuting that enviroment has an impact on personality or a persons perception of life?

  Whilst I agree with you that punishment for crime is necessary, if you just lump the person and crime together you are not allowing for the individual to change their behaviour. And to clarify I mean change their behaviour, not necessarily their mental/emotional reaction to a situation.

  What do you think to the James Bulger case for example? Two ten year old boys abducted and murdered a two year old. The perpetrators of this crime were indeed locked up. But both of these boys came from dysfunctional families and one it is claimed had suffered at the hands of his father both physical and sexual abuse. It is also debated that they had both been regularly using violent computer games. So where does the 'buck' for responsibility for this crime stop? Are the parents accountable because of neglect of their children? Are social services responsible because of not realising that at least one of these boys (and his sibling's) were 'at risk'. Are the producers of violent games in part responsible for promoting this type of behaviour? Are we as a society responsible for allowing such 'trash' to be readily available on shop shelves? Were those boys victim of crime themselves?

  The crime was the murder of an innocent toddler. Those responsible for that crime were punished. If you do not seperate the crime from those responsible for it, you remove the opportunity for people to learn change, to educate themselves, for those that are questionably victims themselves to become 'rehabilitated' and 'reformed'.

  Education takes many forms; we can educate ourselves or we can be taught. As a child we learn much from our enviroment, our parents and our family. If we are raised where negative behaviour is the norm, then it may be that at a vunerable age we accept this as a norm. It can then be understood more easily why someone will replicate negative behaviour. You need only look at witness children who are raised to attend three meetings a week, go out on field service and adhere to JW teachings to know that children will accept and copy their parents behaviour and reasoning. When society judges that an individuals behaviour is wrong/evil/criminal the individual is punished. But the question I ask of you is this; Is that individual entitled to the opportunity to become re-taught?

  I have spent, and spend much time considering my reactions to situations and my motivations. I examine where my 'driving force' comes from, what inherited or learnt behaviour leads me to react in a certain way. On occasion I am able to remove myself from an impulsive knee jerk reaction, a learnt response and alter the course of my behaviour. I recognise now that some of the personality traits I adopted as a child serve no purpose and are of no value in my life now. I was fortunate enough to be able to afford and find the services of an extremely good counsellor who aided me in understanding myself, and at a time when I felt the world as I knew it had 'collapsed' helped me make sense of who I was and why, and learn to use the tools we are all given at birth in a different and more rewarding way. Although I had not committed any crime, I was the product of a JW upbringing, a somewhat dysfunctional family, and just out of a marriage I should have never got into, but all the same in part regretted ending.

  So in my experience, whilst I agree that crime requires puishment, I also think it is sometimes necessary to afford the perpetrator the opportunity to become educated about their response and reaction to events and be allowed the chance to change. To do this you need to seperate the CRIME from the PERSON RESPONSIBLE FOR THE CRIME.

  Fi
• 

  DanTheMan

  We follow our whims when we are young unless we are stopped or sidetracked. Then, we change our strategy.

  But what is this "we" that you speak of? While it would be impossible to communicate in English without using such terms as "I" and "we", aren't these terms just metaphors? Is there some essence within us that is free from cause, an "unmoved mover" as I stated in my previous post? I don't see how this is possible.
• 

  Gill

  RESPONSIBILITY is a dirty word nowadays!

  Everyone wants to evade the responsibilites caused by their actions that damage others.

  Is it Freuds fault? 'My mother made me bad!' the cry of the evil villain and the 'poor dear! There there!' of the psychoanalysts!