SAVE the Children -

FROM salvation!

Where I got this quote is immaterial; it references the millions who think in this way and it makes me so compassionate toward innocent children.  The quote (underline is my addition):  ...our Vacaton Bible School at our small church.  Every night I delivered 4 neighbor kids there, then went back 2 1/2 hours later to take them home.   [This line reminded me instantly of the last time I attended a mass in the effort to be considerate of my Catholic friends.  The spectacle of a woman carrying high above her head a large, open volume (something akin to the book of life, I suppose), with dozens of young children following her obediently down the isle toward a place to be catechized, hit me as a clear fulfillment of the lambs led to slaughter image.] cont. - ... 3 out of the 4 have hardly been inside a church; not sure about the 4th one.  _____, 9yrs old, started asking me a lot of questions about what it means to be saved, what a Christian is, etc.  At the end of the first night _____ gave a short talk about what salvation is, what sin is  and how Jesus died for us.  _____ went up to him afterwards to talk with him, said she wanted to receive salvation.  [An emotional, ignorant and innocent 9-yr old wants to be accepted and adored by adults; any concept of salvation, which is an unsolvable mystery to adults, is too remote to even consider.]  ____ asked her lots of questions, trying to make sure that she fully understood. [!] She answered as if she full-well did so he prayed with her, and hopefully there's one more little girl on her way to heaven! 

Upon reading this comment (in a forum to which I subscribe) someone immediately took issue with the concept of going to heaven, which was cited as a non-biblical idea.  My own exasperated, throw-hands-into-the-air thought was simply, it's all hog-wash!  Why pick out any part of that whole quote and find singular fault with one tiny ludicrous item?  Even if the concept of going to heaven could be shown to be based in a bible verse, so what?  That concocted collection of books, written spuriously by various people from questionable, if any, educational backgrounds and from different centuries of life-span, all repeating age-old oral traditions and hearsay (including fantasies and outright lies at times, no doubt), has no realistic bearing on anything!  Unless, of course, you choose to place significance upon that source.  Your call!

Back in my fundamentalist kookdom days, our church (a small sect which was hyper-everything and fortunately has died away for the most part), thumped the bible heavily.  The King James Version, mind you - all others were considered to be faulty and not to be trusted.  Why the "original" KJV was beyond examination was never quite clear to me.  Good old King James in the early seventeenth century had not been there personally to hear words from a son of god and write them down.  The scribes of all eras and of all the various early manuscripts were as much removed from the "original" words as was James, so nobody can claim that all those words in the bible, KJV or any other, were actually worth anything as a purported history and recitation of words from some god-man. 

To further the out-and-out emptiness of devoted belief in any of this stuff, the kookery of our little sect went so far as to encourage all of us believers to purchase our new King James Versions in the wide-margin printing style because that allowed us to put tiny printing of our own beside the scriptures - an important step in returning at a later reading of the bible (which was supposed to be repeated often) and recall the interesting and meaningful nuances of these scriptures as explained to us by some preacher or instructor.  We also were shown how to use a variety of colored pencils and markers to easily reference from one scripture to another, thereby making it easier (apparently) to find the true meaning(!) of each by cross-referencing them with one another.

I often have wondered how many followers of that particular sect in later years had actually been trained in their beliefs (given their catechism of sorts) from the margins of those elaborate coloring books as much as they were from what was supposed to be "every word of God."  I'm sure many of those believers who did that intricate and painstaking notation did so with absolute devotion to the deepest understanding of and yearning for truth and had the best of motives; therefore, the notes themselves, since they were in the bible were thought to be pretty much the same as holy writ.

My point of all this is not to be overly critical of any individual (judging others is very unwise), but to bring attention to the foolishness that has grown over centuries and is often more harmful than helpful.  In particular, the idea of foisting off these wildly speculative ideas of heaven, hell, gods, angels, spirit, sin, salvation - any of the varying concepts of belief - onto the young minds of our innocent children is simply a crime.  When a young person who has reached his/her best learning years of early adulthood has questions that lead to studies of many religious concepts and traditional beliefs, then that maturing individual has access to abundant resources which can be checked out and evaluated.  I do not think it is criminal (even if a waste of time) for capable students to delve into any kind of research or interests on their own; but it is criminal of us adults to force religious ideas onto the unsuspecting and unprepared minds of young children.

Now I must add that I do understand that someone reading this will try that quoting of scripture thing - will point out that in the Book of Proverbs we are told to "train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it."  Right - the very thing that Catholics have accomplished to a superior level.  But I remind the reader that I have already stated my opinion that all those words are at best meaningless and at worst are harmful to the human psyche.  I readily reveal my own total disdain for any of those writings as being nothing more than stories that grew into methods of control over humans.  And will you train a child in ways known to ancient (biblical) man, i.e., a way of trade (barter) or of construction (cave or simple shelter) or of meat storage (curing with salt and hoping for the best), and then turn him out into a world for which he is ill-prepared?  Will you instruct him or her to fear a heavenly being?  Again, your call.  Hamper a child by loading him with traditional baggage and watch him struggle to carry it through a tough life.  Then tell me it was all for the best.