I was just Googling for some tips on an argumentative child, but if all that’s coming up are Christian dogma blogs with this kinda crap…maybe I should just let it be lmao
Translation: if you don’t beat some submission into your kids they’ll never learn to follow the church without question.
Obedience is the main pillar upon which current society is built. Obedience to your government, to the law, your boss, your elders, your teachers, your parents. Every generation is trained to obey some form of authority. So why shouldn’t religion also get a piece of the pie?
Truth is, the deck is stacked against the individual. Whichever rights we have as individuals are those granted to us by a collective. And each different collective wants to impose their own authority over all others. So it isn’t weird organized religion asks for obedience, but it would definitely be out of place had it not.
Our society tries to be contractrarian, which is to say it asserts the rule of law (law applies to everyone equally and is legislated from everyone equally) but even in the short history of democracy-informed states, signs of disparity are evident, from motorists exceeding speed limits to white collar crime getting sentenced lighter punishment than petty crime even though it causes more cost, destruction and loss of life by multiple orders of magnitude.
All states in the world fail to carry out their side of the social contract. Few even try. And all states exhibit social stratification in which the ownership class is protected but not constrained, and the working class is constrained but not protected.
So while states might pretend to ask for consent to govern, they command obedience, by force. At the botton rungs, weare imprisoned or killed if we dont obey perfectly, and sometimes if we do.
So yes, on the chalkboard, but in reality, no.
It’s easy to get hung up on words, eh.
We do “submit”, daily, to a higher power or thing beyond our control.
It’s pouring with rain, I need to be three blocks away for a coffee catchup, I don’t have an umbrella and I have to walk. I don’t have control over time, my coffee date or the weather, so I’m going to suffer. I can’t argue with the weather or time, and while I can negotiate with my coffee date, this impacts them.
Somewhere in that I have to accept I’m either going to be late or going to be wet. I can worry about it, beat myself up about not bringing an umbrella or checking the forecast - or I can submit to the factors beyond my control and accept I’m going to be late or be wet.
That is one end of the “give your free will over” stick. The other end of it is a shorthand to saying the above, which is that God or Allah or fate willed it that way therefore there’s no point getting hung up upon being wet or being late. It was always going to happen, chill, someone else has this under control.
There is a peace to that thought. Nothing I do matters, it’s all pre ordained, therefore I don’t need to care. When I read the linked quote I think - oh, you’re worried about the kid thinking they can change everything just by fighting back. It doesn’t happen kid, best you accept the things you can’t control, and get on with a happier life.
My 2c etc etc
Was not expecting to read anything like that in this thread. Very well said. Thanks!
Submission is always social. You cannot submit to “elements” unless you personalise them, ie submitting to THE rain.
Naturalising hierarchy doesn’t lead to pretty results.
How old is the kid? Have you just tried asking them why they are arguing or asking how they are feeling at that moment and then helping them to explore those feelings and why they are feeling them?
Maybe they see what you are saying is unfair, and if they do, maybe try to explain it from the point of view of an adult. Depending on the age, it could just be a super young kid doing what young kids do, i.e., pushing boundaries, or it could be any number of issues. I think teaching kids to be as emotionally aware as possible is a good thing, though.
Subsluts for Jesus :3
UwU
F Me Jesus
Skill issue, power doesn’t work like that anymore, at least not without expensive brute force. Even states don’t do this open Submit-Or-Else anymore.
Well, not to everyone. At-least they wait for a dissident to have a following then make an example of them. Still submit or else, just with a degree of slack built into it for ease of enforcement.
Counterinsurgency basically. Naturalising your violence (If you keep doing this, we are forced to do x) and personalising resistance (You resisting our beloved cop, hurt them). What they won’t do is say SUBMIT OR I KILL. The euphemisation of power exertion is really important.
Blind obedience is required for religion
Keep your kinks to yourself.
