Lie to your kids? What a foolish notion.
Posted on 12/06/2019 12:33:09 PM PST by DeweyCA
The alternative is to tell them they’re simply going to die and turn to dust.
As a therapist, I’m often asked to explain why depression and anxiety are so common among children and adolescents. One of the most important explanations—and perhaps the most neglected—is declining interest in religion. This cultural shift already has proved disastrous for millions of vulnerable young people.
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The result? Children or teens who reported attending a religious service at least once per week scored higher on psychological well-being measurements and had lower risks of mental illness. Weekly attendance was associated with higher rates of volunteering, a sense of mission, forgiveness, and lower probabilities of drug use and early sexual initiation. Pity then that the U.S. has seen a 20% decrease in attendance at formal religious services in the past 20 years, according to a Gallup report earlier this year. In 2018 the American Family Survey showed that nearly half of adults under 30 do not identify with any religion.
Nihilism is fertilizer for anxiety and depression, and being “realistic” is overrated. The belief in God—in a protective and guiding figure to rely on when times are tough—is one of the best kinds of support for kids in an increasingly pessimistic world. That’s only one reason, from a purely mental-health perspective, to pass down a faith tradition.
I am often asked by parents, “How do I talk to my child about death if I don’t believe in God or heaven?” My answer is always the same: “Lie.” The idea that you simply die and turn to dust may work for some adults, but it doesn’t help children.
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(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
Believing in God’s existence is not impossible, but believing that He cares for each individual is pretty difficult to do when observing the misery in this world.
Very true, just look at how happy RBG is at facing death, knowing that if there is a God, she has spent her entire life with her back turned to him.
I remember in a Woody Allen movie, his parents were called into his school when he was a child because he was terribly depressed. They asked him what was wrong and he said, “I just learned the earth is going to be destroyed in a few billion years. So what’s the point of anything?”
I laughed very hard at that one. :)
I’m 65 but I remember when I was young. I felt immortal. I had no vision for the future. At all. I was “never” going to be old. So my life “after death” was not a concern because death was out there in infinity somewhere.
With all due respect to the good doctor and the rest of the atheist community, the ones who lie to their children are those who claim there’s no God, afterlife, Judgment, spirit world or heaven. Just because you don’t understand the purpose being worked out here below, doesn’t mean it isn’t happening.
The cause of misery is the gift of free will. With free will comes the choice to do either good or bad. Without it, we’d be no different than animals, driven by instinct only. Since being tossed from the Garden of Eden for abusing that gift, God never said this world would be easy. We’d live by the sweat of our brow, subject to various calamities, and eventually die. Does a soldier complain about the danger he’s in? But he still loves his country.
bkmk
I've heard and read about scores of near death experiences (NDEs) from people who have been to the hereafter and returned. They've included formerly committed agnostics and atheists. Not a single one ever returned to their former state of disbelief. Why do you suppose that is?
I understand what you’re saying. But the misery is for a fraction of eternity. That’s a very small piece of a person’s existence.
I’m 53, I remember being in early elementary school thinking it was going to be forever until I got into High School. Graduating seemed an odd concept because you always came back. Always. And it would be 20 years until I was 30, my Dad’s age. 20 years! You know how long 20 years is? Forever!
And Now I’m here wondering if I have another 20 years left in me. I hope so. Seems short.
That’s what I struggle with. Is there a ‘personal’ God that cares about you as an individual. I think there probably is an afterlife and a God, but I don’t think he cares very much about daily affairs on our scale.
Just posted this on Steyn this am:
as we get farther and farther away from a culture-wide belief in a God and afterlife, we will be less willing to put our lives on the line. Death has little sting if the afterlife is waiting, which is why Islamics have little fear and much hope as they die.
We have eliminated these beliefs/possibilities in Western culture and thus have now valued our lives, at all costs, for if not protected, there would be nothing except the abyss.
‘With free will comes the choice to do either good or bad’
Ah, yes, I see...all those children being sucked up a tube in a vacuum aspiration, those scraped out through curettage, or those having their brains sucked out by intact dilation and extraction were all choosing to do bad...glad you cleared up that little bit of divinity for me...
That is clearly the choice to do bad. Humans make that choice, not God.
Lie to your kids? What a foolish notion.
And Now I’m here wondering if I have another 20 years left in me. I hope so. Seems short.
Yep.
If you, like I, are trusting Christ as your Personal Savior, death is farther out in the distance even than infinity; as in NEVER. At what we call death, a believer merely falls asleep, and wakes up in Heaven. When Christ died on the cross He tasted death for every person. (Hebrews 2:9 and context). The fact that not everyone ACCEPTS that gift and trusts in it does not nullify it for those who do.
Typical lazy journalism. Would it have been so hard to for this reporter to say how much higher or lower? Is it 1% or 100%?
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