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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dayuhan who wrote (24260)	8/13/1998 10:37:00 AM
From: Rambi	Respond to of 108807

Yesterday I drove into Dallas and was listening to a radio talkshow, the main topic of which was the 7 and 8 year olds in Chicago who murdered the little girl for her bike. Were they evil? Could they be saved? Should we just get rid of them because they are damaged goods? At the same time, possible punishments for the the 13 and 14 year old killers in Arkansas were being argued. Death? Life? Rehabilitation? Who's to blame? Who is now responsible? Eighteen years of childrearing has left me convinced that children are born neither wicked nor good but amoral, and until their life experience teaches them one way or another they react only instinctively. While we are born with the potential to go in any direction, it can't be judged within an ethical framework until we receive basic socialization skills and some sort of moral training; then yes, we have choice, but isn't that choice made for us to a great extent by our parents and our environment and the moral "education" provided us? Children are little animals driven by their basic needs until they learn otherwise. Usually I stay away from these high-falutin' discussions, but when Emile believes that you once possessed an impossibly high moral standard in your youth , I would argue this is so only if this standard were taught to you, that it needn't be religiously based, and that it comes from earthly influences, not supernatural. We are witnessing a complete societal breakdown not only of morality, but any understanding of cooperative socialization at all. What was etched on the tabula rasa of those Chicago boys? Did their parents attempt to write anything? Are they little savages governed only by their own wants and needs? And what do we do with the children who have been taught by only pain and neglect, whose tabulae have been written on in blood? Original Sin? Redemption? Does God have a beard or is He a She? Does it matter how many angels dance on the head of a pin? All the esoteric and abstract discussions in the world, no matter how brilliant, ultimately mean nothing, are, as you say, an entertainment ( albeit better than watching Baywatch) until the beliefs are put into actions of love and caring in our lives.