Well well well. I leave a simple thread with a few comments, thinking I have gotten my answer, and don't return for a day.
A lot sure can happen in a day.
So AFIN, apparantly you have decided to pass judgement on my quality as a parent based on a single word, and my desire to see them not participate field service. It appears I don't have to go to a great deal of effort to defend myself, since others here have done that ably. But still it is important to hear from the horses mouth.
First of all, don't get the idea that my lack of response in any way indicates that you got me with some sort of irrefutable, decisive zinger. I simply didn't look at the board. So all of your cheap bravado and taunting about "nobody has refuted me" is kind of silly to me. I wasn't here to read it. You probably cock off to people on tv alot don't you.
Second of all, you chose to label me as an uncaring parent based on a single post with no other knowledge of myself or my family. Kind of ballsy. I wonder if you would be willing to subject yourself to the same standard. I think we should all be glad that I am a Christian, dueling is no longer legal, and I don't know where you live. Otherwise it would be pistols at dawn, and you would lose.
As to my use of the word "pawn". I am admittedly irreverent and careless in my speech at times. Guilty as charged. In my defense, I was mostly looking at it from my brother's perspective. He would have to bear the brunt of choice I make. I am just naturally adverse to putting my problems on other people I guess. I would love to have them spend time with me instead, I love spending time with my children. As many here speculated correctly, I have a job.
As to my wanting to prevent them from field service. It is interesting that you used this example as proof that I am an unfit parent. The very reason I want them to avoid field service is because I want what is in their best interests. I do not feel it is in their best interests to participate in a religion that I find frankly to be blasphemous in claiming a divine appointment without any unique, and irrefutable evidence on par with the other known messengers of God. I also don't appreciate the way the group enforces/indoctrinates it's members with this belief system by use of well known and effective mind control techniques used by many similar groups ("where else can we go?" You would be surprised just how many groups are virtually identical).
Their mother is free to supply them with any information she sees fit. I am free to do the same. The children are free to make up their own minds in our household free from any coersion, judgement, or unethical indoctrination techniques.
This is my final word and the end of the discussion as far as I am concerned. Feel free to respond. I won't lie and say I won't read it. I probably will get bored and wonder what other words of mine you have picked out to attack me. I will not respond though. So don't flatter yourself again into thinking that my lack of response is somehow evidence of us all cowering in the face of your towering intellect. I simply have better things to do then respond to your inane, ignronant, and silly gibberish.
I do understand that I am criticizing your faith and that is difficult to hear. It is troubling when someone does not agree with our most cherished beliefs because it presents the possiblity that those beleifs might not be true. We are a communal animal you see. We use those around us to verify and validate our perceptions and conclusions. It keeps us from getting to detached from reality. It keeps us from engaging in wild fantasies and self-aggrandizing delusions. That is likely to happen to any of us in the absence of that constant reality check from our peers. You see it is simply human nature (pride) to imagine that world thinks us a lot more important than we really are.
Unfortuanately if you get around several people who share your delusions it can provide our fantasy with an illusion of reality! So much so, we are able to hold very tenaciously to those delusions. Then when someone does come around who challenges those most cherished beliefs, we are forced to rationalize it. The cheapest, easiest, and most cowardly way around this little challenge is to attack the person in question, and assume that they have dishonest or questionable motives. The fact that you were so willing to attack me so personally with so little other information makes me suspect that this particular method was used by you when you were met with a criticism of your most cherished beliefs.
I think all of us who are familiar with the witnesses are familiar with this technique. Anyone who does not accept their self-aggrandizing claims are always presumed to have dishonest and illegitimate motives. It is never considered that a person could possibly conscientiously disagree. Well sorry I am not putting up with that treatment and I therefore do not apply that treatment to anyone else. Hey, that sounds like a biblical principal I heard of... I can't put my finger on it though.... something about doing to people as you would have done to you.
Thanks to all my friends here who took up for me against all the cheap shots I took when my back was turned. See you in the trenches.
CYP
