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I was talking in the Atheist forum on another thread and I happened to mention that I find the idea of instilling the notion of hell in a child's mind as something that could be seen as almost abusive in nature. Now, I'm not talking about watering it down and saying "Hell is a bad place, you don't want to go there" but really telling children about the hell so many believe in.
How do you present it to your kids? Do you tell them that it's a place full of agony, pain, evisceration and torment? Or do you water it down? How exactly do you present it? And do you fear that perhaps you're instilling too much fear in your child if you do explain it in full detail?
I think what concerns me more than anything is not only the fact that telling your child there is a 'very real' place they could go to but they could go there for something as simple as not believing in God. That whole idea just seems foreign and beyond my comprehension. I just can't fathom telling a child that. But, that's just me.
Good question. I was raised in a Christian home and grow up knowing about God and knowing about hell. Every child is different, maybe parents wait for the child to ask, I have no children. I would first make sure the child understands about God before I explained hell to them.
I was talking in the Atheist forum on another thread and I happened to mention that I find the idea of instilling the notion of hell in a child's mind as something that could be seen as almost abusive in nature. Now, I'm not talking about watering it down and saying "Hell is a bad place, you don't want to go there" but really telling children about the hell so many believe in.
How do you present it to your kids? Do you tell them that it's a place full of agony, pain, evisceration and torment? Or do you water it down? How exactly do you present it? And do you fear that perhaps you're instilling too much fear in your child if you do explain it in full detail?
I think what concerns me more than anything is not only the fact that telling your child there is a 'very real' place they could go to but they could go there for something as simple as not believing in God. That whole idea just seems foreign and beyond my comprehension. I just can't fathom telling a child that. But, that's just me.
Opinions?
But not believing in God isn't a "simple" matter. It is a huge matter. Either you are for Christ or you are against him. There is no middle ground. While you may be seeking him, if you haven't accepted him, you're still against him. But I digress....
I have 2 children, 14 and 13. They've been raised in church and in a Christian home. I've read them the bible since they were born until they were able to read it on their own. My son's favorite book of the bible is Job ... I know why, but that's not the topic here. They have both accepted Christ as their savior. They've studied their bibles and they come with questions and I answer them as honestly and as truthfully as I can. You can't read the bible without reading about hell/grave/eternal separation from God.
The topic of hell is approached on an age-appropriate level at all times. The same as with any difficult subject (like sex). You don't give them more than they can handle and you explain it in a way they can understand. But, like ILNC said, you can't talk about hell unless you also talk about God. And my children understand and have determined to follow what I believe also, that God doesn't send anyone to hell.... people send themselves based on the choices they make in this life. Also, they understand only God knows who will go there and who will not. It is not our place to say who will or will not. It is approached from a biblical worldview ... that which seems foreign to non-believers.
I spent the first eleven years of my education in Christian schools, and believe me when I say that hell scared the, well hell out of me, particularly in the early years. I was very hard on myself, as it seemed no matter how hard I tried I was often sinning and was certain that I was destined to spend eternity in hell. This was certainly not very good for my self image. For this reason I think that the concept of borders on child abuse when told to young children.
I also hope that your children will someday learn to examine what you have taught them with an open mind and make a choice for themselves about what is real, and what is not.
Eventually I began examining my faith and the doctrine I was taught. I also began to examine other beliefs and think that most of it just didn't follow any logic, and made no sense to me. Much of it seemed to be nothing but magical wishful thinking.
I decided then that a lot of the bible ( not all) is just fictional stories and hell was nothing more then a fear tactic made up in order to keep the flock from straying.
For me becoming an atheist was not a simple matter, but a part of my growth as a logical thinking being.
Mams, I do not agree that if you are not for Christ you are against him. I am certainly not against him, but think he was just a charismatic figure in history.
I was talking in the Atheist forum on another thread and I happened to mention that I find the idea of instilling the notion of hell in a child's mind as something that could be seen as almost abusive in nature. Now, I'm not talking about watering it down and saying "Hell is a bad place, you don't want to go there" but really telling children about the hell so many believe in.
How do you present it to your kids? Do you tell them that it's a place full of agony, pain, evisceration and torment? Or do you water it down? How exactly do you present it? And do you fear that perhaps you're instilling too much fear in your child if you do explain it in full detail?
I think what concerns me more than anything is not only the fact that telling your child there is a 'very real' place they could go to but they could go there for something as simple as not believing in God. That whole idea just seems foreign and beyond my comprehension. I just can't fathom telling a child that. But, that's just me.
Opinions?
Sometimes the truth is better told then hidden. It's like telling a child that if he wanders out into the street and does not watch for on coming traffic he might get hit by a car, and that car could crush his body or even kill him. Now we would not consider warning a child of such a thing as being beyond our comprehension. And we would do that because we know that such a thing is possible. And if we love our child we will want to protect him from harm. Well, warning a child about Hell amounts to the same thing.
But not believing in God isn't a "simple" matter. It is a huge matter. Either you are for Christ or you are against him. There is no middle ground. While you may be seeking him, if you haven't accepted him, you're still against him. But I digress....
I have 2 children, 14 and 13. They've been raised in church and in a Christian home. I've read them the bible since they were born until they were able to read it on their own. My son's favorite book of the bible is Job ... I know why, but that's not the topic here. They have both accepted Christ as their savior. They've studied their bibles and they come with questions and I answer them as honestly and as truthfully as I can. You can't read the bible without reading about hell/grave/eternal separation from God.
The topic of hell is approached on an age-appropriate level at all times. The same as with any difficult subject (like sex). You don't give them more than they can handle and you explain it in a way they can understand. But, like ILNC said, you can't talk about hell unless you also talk about God. And my children understand and have determined to follow what I believe also, that God doesn't send anyone to hell.... people send themselves based on the choices they make in this life. Also, they understand only God knows who will go there and who will not. It is not our place to say who will or will not. It is approached from a biblical worldview ... that which seems foreign to non-believers.
I don't know, mams. Maybe it's just me or maybe I'm just failing to understand but I think that non-believing is rather simple. Perhaps from your perspective you look at it as something complex because it is such a complex and intricate part of your life. For me, there's absolutely nothing there - and it doesn't get any simpler than that.
But, I do see what you're getting at in terms of how you explain things to them in incremental steps and not necessarily just bopping them over the head with eternal damnation at the age of three or four.
Growing up, my mom taught me that hell was a horrible place full of pain, agony, and torment. My first thought was that the only people I could imagine having to go there are people who have done very bad things. Murderers, rapists, pedophiles, etc are the only people I thought would go to hell. While I was raised in a religious family, we didn't attend church. When I got into my teenage years, we started going to church. It amazed me when I found out that people actually believed you could go to hell for things like liking your own gender and having sex without getting married. That really made me just stand back and take a look at what made sense and what didn't. Several years later, here I am as an atheist.
The church we attended when my kids were very young was big on preaching "hellfire and damnation" especially at the end of the service when they had what they referred to as "invitation"..The invitation, if you answered it, meant that you had met the requirements of "hear, believe, repent" and you were now ready for ther final step of baptism before you were considered a member of Christs church as described in the bible by the apostle Paul and others..Many congregations would not baptize you unless you were "ready"..I have see many children actually shaking and sobbing uncontrollably as they answered the "invitation" They were very frightened of eternal hellfire.
I considered it verbal abuse, because they were frightening children and some adults to believe as they did, but that is just my opinion..
I kept my children by my side during church service and always whispered an excuse to my H as invitation was announced and I would go to the car with my children..It depended mainly upon the preaching style of the particular preacher how loud and scary ther invitation became...
When my children asked me about hell I told them what I believed..An eternal death resulting in separation from God..We spent most of our time learning how to be loving, forgiving, tolerant , understanding, all the things that a christian should strive to be in his private and public life...
I was talking in the Atheist forum on another thread and I happened to mention that I find the idea of instilling the notion of hell in a child's mind as something that could be seen as almost abusive in nature. Now, I'm not talking about watering it down and saying "Hell is a bad place, you don't want to go there" but really telling children about the hell so many believe in.
How do you present it to your kids? Do you tell them that it's a place full of agony, pain, evisceration and torment? Or do you water it down? How exactly do you present it? And do you fear that perhaps you're instilling too much fear in your child if you do explain it in full detail?
I think what concerns me more than anything is not only the fact that telling your child there is a 'very real' place they could go to but they could go there for something as simple as not believing in God. That whole idea just seems foreign and beyond my comprehension. I just can't fathom telling a child that. But, that's just me.
Opinions?
I'm actually amazed why more of the atheists and agnostics crowd do'nt confront the religious groups here with what their own Holy Bible actually teaches on this subject, rather than confronting the posters. It's always been my experience that many of those professing non-belief, have a truer understanding because of their own research of what the Bible actually teaches as opposed to what clergyman try and teach. The History Channel here in Europe just this morning had an interesting bit on the Hellfire & damnation doctrine promoted by most churches. They revealed the proper conclusion that it was adopted by 3rd & 4th century Christianity to put fear in people for the purpose of power and control. The early Church Hierarchy observed how effective it was for past Pagan religious systems to control the masses and so they adopted it as their own. Much of the visual aids to believing in a firery Hell came from Artists employed by the early churches, hence most belief actually came from the art work approved by clergyman.
Having said that, if there really is a place of torment, then you certainly should fear it. However, if this teaching is not true, religious leaders who teach the doctrine create confusion and cause needless mental anguish to those who believe them, let alone teaching such a thing to children. They also defame God who they claim to represent.
One thing that that I've seen here in this forum are two sets of Non-Belief posters. There are those who make fun of what they consider wacked-out fundamentalist who make no logical argument for the Hellfire doctrine and then the more intellgent Non-Belief posters who have actually done a careful study of the Christendom Holy bible and find inconsistancies in what the Holy Bible actually says and what the clergy actually have taught. This also was brought out in the History Channel. The truth that many have found in the beginning, is that the Hebrew word "Sheol" and Greek word "Hades" do not mean and never have meant a firey place of eternal torment and damnation. In actuality , they simply mean the common grave of mankind.
The confussion comes mostly with the English reader's use of the Authorized King James Version which translates four different words (Sheol - Hades - Gehenna - Tartarus) simply as Hell. And yet it also will translate "Sheol" & "Hades" as three separate english words of "pit", "grave" and "hell". To make my point short as this has been discussed before over and over, the Bible hell is simply the grave. Gehenna is the grave with no hope of ressurection and Tartarus is simply a prisonlike abased condition into which God cast disobedient angels in Noah's day.
Now to answer the question of whether it is abusive to instill in the mind of a child the belief of a firey tomrment , then yes it is. There should be nothing shamefull in teaching kids the truth about death. When you die you are simply unconscious or asleep so to speak. Those were how Jesus described death when Lazarus died. In both cases of a non-believer and a believer explaining to kids these simple to understand truth on the condition of the dead, both would be correct.
When my children asked me about hell I told them what I believed..An eternal death resulting in separation from God..We spent most of our time learning how to be loving, forgiving, tolerant , understanding, all the things that a christian should strive to be in his private and public life...
Well this is most definitely the modern church explanation or definition of Hell given by many churches today. Many clergyman have backed off from promting hell being a literal place of torment. Here's a quote from
Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1994
Quote:
"The chief punishment of hell, . . . is eternal separation from God."
Notice what the Church of England's stance is now.
Doctrine Commission of the Church of England, 1995
Quote:
"Hell is not eternal torment, but it is the final and irrevocable choosing of that which is opposed to God so completely and so absolutely that the only end is total non-being."
Interestingly, both those definition more accurately describe the word in the bible of Gehenna. Simply put, Gehenna simply means an eternal death from which there is no hope of a ressurection or living again. This definition would also more accurately describe what and how most agnostics and atheists believe anyway.
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