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Bred in the bone? (Study suggests children have a sense of morality at a very young age)
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| June 19, 2010
| Janie B. Cheaney
Posted on 06/09/2010 6:20:24 AM PDT by rhema
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To: camle
[kids are extremely perceptive - they can tell whether they are supposed to like or detest something. they pick up on subtle signals.]
Most folks don't need to be taught not to eat rotten fruit. If it smells bad... don't eat it. That's an instinctive physiological mechanism that can make the difference between good health and death from food poisoning.
Likewise, individuals with healthy sexual instincts recognize the unhealthy nature of homosexual behavior.
But recognizing THAT, or at least articulating it, will likely soon be a "hate" crime.
41
posted on
06/09/2010 8:04:49 AM PDT
by
LomanBill
(Animals! The DemocRats blew up the windmill with an Acorn!)
To: stuartcr
Well, there is the Prophet Enoch and his city which was taken into heaven, isn't there?
Seriously, corruption is scaled and the level of corruption makes a great deal of difference. At one extreme, you have Sodom, where Lot was unable to find even 10 righteous people for God to spare the city. At the other, you have America at its founding, who recognized God as a foundation even if they all had personal imperfections (corruptions) and great theological differences.
Thomas Jefferson himself might have been the classic conundrum. On one hand, he was a Godly man, who studied deeply of the scripture. On the other, he eschewed organized religion. On one hand, he was a loyal and devoted husband and father. On the other, he may have fathered children by a slave after his wife died. On one hand, he was at least our second greatest president of all time and a masterful spokesman for the concept of limited government. On the other hand, he had the wisdom to put his strict beliefs for limited government on the back burner when the opportunity to make the Louisiana Purchase surfaced.
Thus, it has been from the beginning of time. All of us have choices to make. Not just between good and evil, but also between good and a greater good.
42
posted on
06/09/2010 8:05:12 AM PDT
by
Vigilanteman
(Obama: Fake black man. Fake Messiah. Fake American. How many fakes can you fit in one Zer0?)
To: GraceG
Lord of the Flies is exactly accurate.
Left to their own devices, children, especially young males, devolve into barbarous, vicious entities.
43
posted on
06/09/2010 8:06:44 AM PDT
by
MrB
(The difference between a (de)humanist and a Satanist is that the latter knows who he's working for.)
To: Vigilanteman
But admitting the existence of a conscience would tend to support those who argue that children are born with an innate nature to do good and thus weaken the argument that children are born with a sinful nature.
Not at all. The Bible is very clear that we are born with both. The sin nature does not mean we fail to recognize good. Our conscience shows of the moral path from a very early age. Our sin nature means we are incapable of following the moral path all of the time. Of course even the definition and extent of 'sin nature' varies between various denominations. But sin nature in no way is contradictory with an inborn conscience.
44
posted on
06/09/2010 8:06:58 AM PDT
by
TalonDJ
To: metmom
“Outside of biblical references, how would one be able to tell that we are born with a sinful nature?
Because no one needs to teach a child how to be bad.
All the teaching and training is to teach them to be good, to overcome the badness. “
Children are inherently selfish to a fault, it is a trait that was given to them for base survival, that selfishness if left unchecked will eventually turn a child into a feral animal unless it is conditioned out of them at an early age. My sister’s two kids were taught the meaning of the word NO at a very early age, even before they could walk. Today they are some of the Happiest well adjusted young women you would ever have the fourtune of meeting. Did she beat them, NO she didn’t, she was firm when it was called for and kind when they needed kindness.
45
posted on
06/09/2010 8:08:02 AM PDT
by
GraceG
To: MrB
“Lord of the Flies is exactly accurate.
Left to their own devices, children, especially young males, devolve into barbarous, vicious entities. “
When young males are given the priovledge of overuling their mothers, you end up with Hezbolla.
46
posted on
06/09/2010 8:09:08 AM PDT
by
GraceG
To: metmom
[All the teaching and training is to teach them to be good, to overcome the badness.]
Evidently homosexual activists agree with you.
Natural recognition of the unhealthy nature of homosexual behavior is BAD, they think, and must be edumacated out of children.
Do your children have to be taught not to eat rotten food? Or do they avoid doing so simply because their nose tells them it smells bad?
[All the teaching and training]
ALL? Even the training of religionist eunuchs who envy the power and authority of the royal hierarchies they were inbred to serve?
47
posted on
06/09/2010 8:10:20 AM PDT
by
LomanBill
(Animals! The DemocRats blew up the windmill with an Acorn!)
To: TalonDJ
That “contradiction”, IMO, is what refutes the evolutionary angle of the development of the conscience.
If doing good for the group (ie, the horizontal commandments) is an evolved survival mechanism,
why did we not also evolve a desire to do good?
This is what Lewis states is the “internal revelation” of God.
48
posted on
06/09/2010 8:14:19 AM PDT
by
MrB
(The difference between a (de)humanist and a Satanist is that the latter knows who he's working for.)
To: MrB
Your assertion that they are corrupted by their environment leads to the liberal conclusion that if we just made the proper environment through empowering elites, everyone would act in a good way. Wrong! That's merely a perverted liberal solution to accumulate power. A more valid argument is that giving people access to information (including moral training offered by the Word of God), truth and the freedom to choose will best enable them to overcome the evil influences presented by the environment.
There are a lot of conservatives (especially home schoolers) who make this very argument, regardless of which side of the nature/nurture divide they may fall on from either a theological or philosophical viewpoint.
Incidentally, not even all liberals believe people are basically good. Many argue that we are basically evil, which is why government power and enlightened elitism needs to force us to be good.
49
posted on
06/09/2010 8:16:05 AM PDT
by
Vigilanteman
(Obama: Fake black man. Fake Messiah. Fake American. How many fakes can you fit in one Zer0?)
To: GraceG
When young males are given the privilege of overruling their mothers, you end up with Hezbollah. Ah, but is that nature? Or is it the nurture of fundamental Islamic philosophy?
50
posted on
06/09/2010 8:18:00 AM PDT
by
Vigilanteman
(Obama: Fake black man. Fake Messiah. Fake American. How many fakes can you fit in one Zer0?)
To: Vigilanteman
To temper your argument,
I suggest you read Thomas Sowell’s “Conflict of Visions”.
51
posted on
06/09/2010 8:21:42 AM PDT
by
MrB
(The difference between a (de)humanist and a Satanist is that the latter knows who he's working for.)
To: MrB
Coveting, for instance, leads to dissatisfaction, discontent, unhappiness, and often to further sins like theft... ...or registering Democrat.
52
posted on
06/09/2010 8:21:56 AM PDT
by
Albion Wilde
( Racism is the first refuge of liberals. --J.T. Young)
To: Albion Wilde
To: Albion Wilde
voting democRat is simply hiding your sins of theft and coveting behind the “legitimacy” of a majority vote.
54
posted on
06/09/2010 8:30:30 AM PDT
by
MrB
(The difference between a (de)humanist and a Satanist is that the latter knows who he's working for.)
To: MrB
I will have to get this book.
I've read his earlier book Vision of the Anointed which I suppose addresses much the same topic.
But my point remains that you can still believe innate human nature is good and be a conservative or that innate human nature is evil and be a liberal.
What side of the fence you fall on in the nature/nurture argument has far less to do with it than your proposed solutions.
55
posted on
06/09/2010 8:32:16 AM PDT
by
Vigilanteman
(Obama: Fake black man. Fake Messiah. Fake American. How many fakes can you fit in one Zer0?)
To: Diggity
indeed...we are over half of what we are by birth
56
posted on
06/09/2010 8:33:48 AM PDT
by
wardaddy
(I am not in favor of practical endorsements in primaries, endorse the conservative please)
To: Vigilanteman; GraceG
>>Or is it the nurture of fundamental Islamic philosophy?
Both - when Islam is recognized to be a hierarchically organized selective breeding program. One desired result evidently being a genome that is no more able to control its obediently aggressive behavior than pit bulls or cockfighting roosters.
Human Nature is predictable. Being predictable makes it exploitable; and religionists are especially adept at that. Observe how the sheeple of Rwanda, for example, were pacified and corralled in missions by one vestigial arm... to be hacked to death by another.
57
posted on
06/09/2010 8:39:33 AM PDT
by
LomanBill
(Animals! The DemocRats blew up the windmill with an Acorn!)
To: stuartcr
God and Politics never made good bedfellows. Leave what belongs to God to God and what belongs to Man to Man.
58
posted on
06/09/2010 8:40:20 AM PDT
by
Diggity
To: rhema
it’s in the genes. everything is. DNA is a coding language and God is the Supreme Geek.
59
posted on
06/09/2010 8:40:54 AM PDT
by
Ancient Drive
(DRINK COFFEE! - Do Stupid Things Faster with More Energy!)
To: wardaddy
Yes, I have always thought that. It’s to humankind’s benefit to treat each other well, to cooperate with each other, to make society better. Those that participated in it had better luck surviving and having the opportunity to pass their genes along.
DNA is the link between the creative, organizing force that permeates creation and its expression in the world.
“As above, as below”.
60
posted on
06/09/2010 8:41:27 AM PDT
by
Diggity
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