> I've always thought it says a lot about our "belief system," that about > age 7, just when kids are getting into Piaget's operational stage, where > we expect them to realize that it's not logically possible for Santa, > the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny to exist, we start plying them with > a challenge to their newfound logical system: Now we have them believe > in a being they can't see, can't hear, and have no physical evidence to > prove that it exists.
"Now" suggests that we wait to condition them to believe in God when we see them ditching TF and EB...you make it sound as if there is a deliberate conspiracy and deep down the guilty parties know they are full of it. > Yet they are supposed to believe they're loved > and cared for, and everything that happens to them has a divine reason. > And it's a failsafe system too: If something bad happens, it just could > be that they didn't pray hard enough. The problem with connecting events to prayer is that you'll never be able to prove or disprove the connection. If all of my prayers worked, I would believe I am God If none of my prayers worked, then there is no God or this god is not nice If some of my prayers worked, then it could be God, it could be coincidence. To me, the only time you can really build a good case for the prayer-event connection is when you can legitimately and intelligently rule out more immediate, more plausible causes. I think it's also more telling if like a good experiment there is replication :) --- To make changes to your subscription go to: http://acsun.frostburg.edu/cgi-bin/lyris.pl?enter=tips&text_mode=0&lang=english
