Teenagers and god

[gary_s]

So my 15 year old daughter recently started attending a before school meeting of a non-denominational religious group. Most of the other kids are Baptists as is the adult leader. The intent of the meeting is to discuss moral and ethical issues and school issues, but she says that all the really talk about is how important it is to attend church regularly. I just throw this out for others to read and decide for themselves what it means.

[NH Baritone]

Sounds like an answer in search of a question.

Funny, though. I cannot think of a single existential or moral question where the best answer is "attend church regularly."

[mitchellmckain]

I think there is a danger in letting the stuff that they are pushing to pass uncritically. The choice is hers but it is better if the choices are plain and on the table. I would suggest writing the arguments they make down so that they can be examined to see if they make any sense. I have to admit that the first thought I have is that what is so important is their idea to indoctrinate youth at an age where they can most easily have an inpact on their thinking, and this is an aspect of typical Christian practice that I despise most. I think it is up to her to decide if they sincerely trying to be helpful or are just using a recruitment tactic. As for what to do if she decides it is the latter, then I am sure you can offer good advice. I would only suggest that it is given in the form of various options she can choose from. For example she could be the silent critical observer or the one to challenge them with embarrassing questions.

[gary_s]

I have no interest in what you have to say about it, Mitch. Your opinions are biased and intolerant so I will ignore it.

[mitchellmckain]

I have no interest in what you have to say about it, Mitch. Your opinions are biased and intolerant so I will ignore it.

If you don't want comments by people who don't see things the way that you do, I would suggest posting in the atheist section. I don't go there at all.

[gary_s]

I have no interest in what you have to say about it, Mitch. Your opinions are biased and intolerant so I will ignore it.

If you don't want comments by people who don't see things the way that you do, I would suggest posting in the atheist section. I don't go there at all.

I didn't say I'm not interested in comments by people who see things differently than I do; I said I'm not interested in comments by you specifically.

[mitchellmckain]

I cannot think of a single existential or moral question where the best answer is "attend church regularly."

No I do not either.

The legitimate Christian reasons that I can think of are clearly religious in nature with all the presumptions about what is valuable in a particular religious perspective. Christians think it is valuable to develop a relationship with God and think that fellowship with other Christians is valuable way of doing that. But personally I think it is obvious that this is not an effective way of acheiving this end for everyone and that for many all this accomplishes is social conformity and getting a lot of people just repeating the same empty words and doing the same things. For some people the best way of pursuing a relationship with God is climbing a mountain and getting away from other people and for others it breaking free of the social conformity of the local religious group. There are and have been many places and times in Christianity where this has been understood, but apparently there are other places these days where this is not understood at all.

[mitchellmckain]

I didn't say I'm not interested in comments by people who see things differently than I do; I said I'm not interested in comments by you specifically.

The world is a big place so you are free to go where you like, but no I am not accommodating your hatred by leaving or indeed accomodating anyone's hatred by doing what they want for that matter.

[gary_s]

I didn't say I'm not interested in comments by people who see things differently than I do; I said I'm not interested in comments by you specifically.

The world is a big place so you are free to go where you like, but no I am not accomodating your hatred by leaving or indeed accomodating anyone's hatred by doing what they want for that matter.

I didn't tell you to do anything; I just told you that I'm not interested in your opinions on this matter. But you are also welcome to go elsewhere if you like. And I will not accommodate you either (and I can even spell the word correctly). LOL LOL LOL

[mitchellmckain]

And I will not accommodate you either (and I can even spell the word correctly).

Yes I have always had difficulty with double letters in spelling.

[Moonwood the Hare]

So my 15 year old daughter recently started attending a before school meeting of a non-denominational religious group. Most of the other kids are Baptists as is the adult leader. The intent of the meeting is to discuss moral and ethical issues and school issues, but she says that all the really talk about is how important it is to attend church regularly. I just throw this out for others to read and decide for themselves what it means.

Not sure if this will be interesting but let me tell you about some of my experiences as a Christian youthworker. We set up a group because we had quite a few teenagers in Church. At first we had some issues because one clergyman felt what we were doing was not Christian enough. He's a close friend and we still have our differences on this kind of thing; I never thought the point of Christian youthwork was to get young people to come to church although some of the teenagers we worked with did and some didn't rather I felt we should start from where they were. Early on we were doing a lot of trust exercises such as blind walks and building towers out of paper because there was a lot of conflict within the group. The key to working with people that age is that they will form a group and in effect support each other if you give them the space to do that. What we found was that we started with people who mostly had some kind of Church connection and gradually they invited other people and after a lot of people went to university we ended with a group where most of them did not have that connection. We went for a combination of fun activities, open discussion and specifically Christian stuff but we let them take the lead in deciding how much of that they wanted. We had some great times and the group became very important in most of their lives. Some times we let them choose topics and the result could be interesting, for example I was asked to do a session on UFOs. We also learned an awful lot about local youth culture. I once asked who the earsy crew were (a local chav gang) and practically got a list of members names. I also got to hear a lot of new punk music (Blink 182 (including the one about the dog!) and Sum 41) and got to introduce the kids to Hendrix - they loved it - happy days!

The group you are describing sounds much more lead from the top so I suppose the key question is what your daughter gets out of it. It's probably a sense of belonging and the religious dimension may not be that important to her. It's also possible that the reports you get are biased and she mentions the go to church stuff to test your response.

[Keep The Reason]

So my 15 year old daughter recently started attending a before school meeting of a non-denominational religious group. Most of the other kids are Baptists as is the adult leader. The intent of the meeting is to discuss moral and ethical issues and school issues, but she says that all the really talk about is how important it is to attend church regularly. I just throw this out for others to read and decide for themselves what it means.

I am put in mind of the (I believe apocryphal) story of Freud and a cigar: "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar."

It just sounds like a religious recruitment center to me, nothing more.

[gary_s]

The group you are describing sounds much more lead from the top so I suppose the key question is what your daughter gets out of it. It's probably a sense of belonging and the religious dimension may not be that important to her. It's also possible that the reports you get are biased and she mentions the go to church stuff to test your response.

Very interesting thought. However, my daughter doesn't tend to test us at all, not yet at least. And I'm certainly the last person who would challenge such an affiliation and I think she knows this. I've never discouraged church. We've taken our kids to church, but they are typically the ones to balk, not us. There's a nice Methodist church that we attend occasionally that has a really talented music minister and we all love his music. It's not traditional at all, guitars, drums, syths...kind of folksy, singer/songwriter stuff. This church had an ongoing program of discussing and brainstorming why more people are leaving the church and it was strikingly honest about things like unwelcome visitations, hellfire and brimstone rhetoric, religious condemnations. This is not a fundamental church, obviously.

I am put in mind of the (I believe apocryphal) story of Freud and a cigar: "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar."

It just sounds like a religious recruitment center to me, nothing more.

I tend to agree, though I will withhold that conclusion until I've seen it myself. If this is the case, she will not continue going. Her time is quite valuable to her and she has plenty of more important things to do.