HOW DO YOU DECIDE WHO TO MARRY? (Written by kids)


You got to find somebody who likes the same stuff. Like, if you like sports, she should like it that you like sports, and she should keep the chips and dip coming.

-- Alan, age 10


No person really decides before they grow up who they're going to marry. God decides it all way before, and you get to find out later who you're stuck with.

-- Kristen, age 10



WHAT IS THE RIGHT AGE TO GET MARRIED?

Twenty-three is the best age because you know the person FOREVER by then.

-- Camille, age 10




WHAT DO MOST PEOPLE DO ON A DATE?

Dates are for having fun, and people should use them to get to know each other. Even boys have something to say if you listen long enough.

-- Lynnette, age 8 (isn't she a treasure?)



The law says you have to be eighteen, so I wouldn't want to mess with that.

-- Curt, age 7



The rule goes like this: If you kiss someone, then you should marry them and have kids with them. It's the right thing to do.

-- Howard, age 8



HOW WOULD THE WORLD BE DIFFERENT IF PEOPLE DIDN'T GET MARRIED?

There sure would be a lot of kids to explain. -- Kelvin, age 8



And the #1 Favorite is.......



HOW WOULD YOU MAKE A MARRIAGE WORK ?

Tell your wife that she looks pretty, even if she looks like a dump truck.

-- Ricky, age 10

good ones

Smart Kids....

I can't help be see the parental influence on these children and it's truly sad. Seriously it is.



Here's a poor 10 year old girl who thinks she has no choices in life and will become dust in the wind and never understand why God failed her. Unless she just happens to be lucky and have some really nice guy accidentally come her way.




Here's a poor 8 year old boy who has been taught that any form of intimacy and showing of affection should only be done in the covenant of a lifetime commitment.

Poor kid. He's either going to become extremely guilt ridden that he wasn't able to maintain this creed, or he's going to grow up to become a very inexperienced boy that the girls will all reject because of his gross inexperience with intimacy and close relationships.

Either way the kid already has big problems and he's only 8 years old.


I know that these were posted for humor, but on a serious note these poor kids have huge inhibitions and unrealistic expectations of life.

No wonder our society is so screwed up if this is a sample of what we've been teaching our kids.

I know I was taught the same things as Howard, and it had very negative consequences on my love life. Yep it did. And because of it I never married at all. How ironic that this would be posted under the heading of "How to Decide Who to Marry"

Maybe is should have been called, "What to Teach Your Children to Screw them up for Life"

Gee , you think you could be anymore negative ??

I feel sorry for you that your the one that only see the negative,sadness, downer, aspect .

Says alot about you......

Sweet Abra...

I'd love to see you start a thread titled something like:

"How to Teach Your Children to be Free"

Based on what I've read of your's, I know you have great wisdom on the subject.

Yes, you're prefectly correct.

I was raised in a negative society that taught preciesly the things that they taught little Kirsten and Howard.

1. Don't worry about a thing, God will do everything for you. He has a plan for you.

2. It's wrong to show affection or to be affectionally interested in the opposite sex. God will be very angry with you if you do that.

I was taught precisely these same things. They did indeed have a very negative affect on my life.

Yep, my heart goes out to Kirsen and Howard and all of the other children who have been emotionally damaged by parents who have told them these lies.

These are pretty common lies by the way. I'm not the only one who has been damaged and emotionally hurt by them.

I've met many people who have inhibitions about showing affection and loving someone simply because they were taught these lies as a child.

I've also met many people who have been waiting patictiently for God to bring them their God-choosen soulmates.

Many of them have never married and are still waiting for some sign of this God with a plan still holding out hope that their parents hadn't truly lied to them.

Others had given up waiting for God's intervention and married the wrong person out of desperation. I can't help but wonder if they would have chosen a better partner if they had known they were going to need to choose from the get go.

By the way, I don't hold this against my parents. I see now that this is what they had been brainwashed to believe. So they didn't even realize that they were lying. It wasn't their fault.

But society over-all needs to wake up and start teaching their children how to make personal choices instead of telling them that God will make their choices for them.

They also need to quit teaching children that showing affection outside of marriage is wrong.

Where does it even say that in their doctrine? They blew that one way out of proportion.

Yep it's negative alright. But don't look at me, I'm a victim of it, not the creator of it.

I also fight against this kind of negativity all day.

(not referring to your post). There is nothing at all wrong with your post. You meant well I'm sure.

I'm talking about the things that these children are being raised to believe. That's the negativity right there.

Poor kids.

Abracadabra,
Please allow me to tell abit of my chidhood,

My mother taught sunday school,played the piano in church service. She was the sweetest woman you would ever want to meet. Never pushed anything on me, she taught me by example. Her soft spoken words are still, instilled in me today.

My dad was another story lol. He was a good man, respectable indeed, but you did as he said , and didn't question it.
He made us go to church, and he use to go with us, but then lost interest for a long time, worked hard mostly.

I wish I had stuck with what was instilled in me , a solid christian, church upbringing.
Sure, as chidren do, I went astray, and found out about life, and people the hard way at times.But, I can only choose what I do, not what the other person does, and it WAS my choice to make the choices I did, and I had to take responsibility for that choice.
No, God doesn't do everything for us, we have free will to choose, learn from our mistakes.I do have the choice to learn from my failures,not place blame on others.


Yes, you are very correct, also we do indeed live in a negative society. Its called "the world' in which we live in.

And if we don't have someone, something POSITIVE to belive in, we are doomed from the start.I choose Jesus Christ, Lord,Saviour and always will til the day my physical spirit leaves, dies.
For I, my soul belongs to HIM.

You say,
It's wrong to show affection or to be affectionally interested in the opposite sex. God will be very angry with you if you do that.
There is a respectable way to show affection.
God is all about love.

Let's be frank, woman are emotional, men are physical .A man has a difficult time when a woman moves too fast for him with her emotional passions, while a woman has a difficult time when a man moves too fast with his physical passions
Neither are wrong, its the way it is, and always will be.The irony is that both come from the same experience. When passion is expressed, a man is primarily addressing a physical need, while a woman is primarily addressing an emotional need.
OK , Sorry I am getting off topic. I could go on and on lol.

I certainly can't say children were taught lies,
maybe more from the old school, just as our parents were, but today no.
Taught in a different manner,but not brainwashed.
That sounds more like a cult to me.

As far as God sending us our soulmates, it is again our choice who we pick to date, or marry.
That goes back to being taught good clean moral values. And it would be childish to blame parents, or anyone for who we pick.

No where in any church I have been to is it taught that God will pick,choose,or any of the things you have said.

And no , I truly am sorry you have heard , or think children are being taught that showing affection out of marriage is wrong.
If you mean having physical relations before marriage, well that is indeed a whole other story.

I will post a whole other topic about that.
Bet you can't wait LOL.

Thank you for your reply Abracadabra,
I do appreciate your views.

Rami Nuri, The ECK Master who is the guardian of the holy book, the Shariyat-Ki-Sugmad, on the Pinda Lok, the physical world, at the House of Moksha, Temple of Golden Wisdom in the city of Retz, Venus, can offer practical wisdom on all aspects of life, including love.


Soul's whole purpose for being in this world is to find divine love

Thank you for your comments Floridagurl

And now I'll share mind with you.

I also was brought up by a very loving sweet mother who was a devote christian. And yes, she even taught Sunday School classes on occassion.

She was very devout but not fantatical. She attented chruch twice a week ever week of her life that I knew here. Including Sunday School on Sunday morning.

My father also attended church but was not so devout. He died when I was 9. He wasn't overly religious, but certainly wasn't abusive either. Indifferent might be the best word here.

So it wasn't that I was raised by a family that was threatening me. They weren't mean about it at all. None the less, they did instill both of the beliefs that I had responded to above. That God will take care of you if you are good and that intimacy with the opposite sex is considered to be very wrong in the eyes of the lord.

Unlike you I did not stray from these beliefs. I accept them as God's Honest Truths. I believed them!

After all, my sweet loving mother told me they were true. Why would I doubt her?

Now before I say anything more allow me to be insulted by what you had stated,...



That's not being frank. That's assuming that all men are macho pigs, and all women are emotional caring individuals.

That might be true in some proportions, maybe the vast majority of men and women are like you say. But it doesn't apply to everyone.

I can assure you that I have always been very deeply emotional. And easily hurt. And not merely interested in the phsyical acts of sex.

In fact, I have never been one to think in terms of pure sex. If there's no emotional relationship with it then I'm not interested in physical sex at all.

How's that for shocker?

I'm not the stereotypical male chauvinistic pig that you seem to believe men are. I'm a deeply sensitive and emotional person (albeit hardened off over the years)

Of course I believed that God would connect me up with the right woman. Why wouldn't would he? I was told by my sweet loving mother that God is real and he actually intevenes in our lives etc.

This is what the faith is supposed to be all about!

Well, God seemed to have forgotten about me.

And yes, I had also given myself over to the Lord. I was a born again Christian. I BELIEVED that God would take care of me.

All I needed to do was obey his laws, which I did!

Surprise surprise!

Guess what?

Those deeply emotional women that you refer too aren't interested in young men who are sexually inexperience. They what a man who knows what he's doing and had experience!

Oh yeah. Being Mr. Righteous has it's drawbacks for sure. Let me assure you of this!

How long does a person wait for God to bring them a mate before they finally realize that it's not going to happen. How long does a person remain a virgin before they realize that all they did was deny themselve the experiences of intimacy that women demand in a man.

How about 30 years old? Is that long enough to give God his opportunity to bring you your mate?

How long do you wait until you realize that it ain't gonna happen?

How long do you wait until you realize that your poor little innocent mother had been duped by an ancient mythology that doesn't contain a single solitary word of truth?

If you're still a virgin at 40 they'll make a movie out of you.

If you're a virgin at 50 no one will believe you. If your a virgin at 60 people will say, "Are you going to live life or just stand around watching everyone else?"

You may think that all men are horny pigs who drink beer, watch the Three Stooges and scratch their balls, but I've got news for you, all men aren't like that.

The truth is that if you do what the religion asks (what the bible says to do) there's still not going to be any supernatural diety intervening into your life to make everything turn out just nice.

I fell for that lie, and I can assure you with absolute certainty that it's not true.

It didn't come to pass.

It was a lie.

Young children should be told the truth. Intimate experience is important. And no one is going to miraculously bring your pre-chosen soulmate into your life. Keep your eyes peeled and realize that you're on your own!

It doesn't matter how good you are. Or how much you give yourself over to God. If anything good happens to you in this life, consider yourself very lucky because it was pure luck and nothing more. Unless, of course, you made it happen yourself. But that's not what we were taught. We were taught that God has a plan and if you put your trust in him he will take care of you.

I can absolutely assure you that this is not the case.

And I have met a lot of other people who also believed this fairytale and were burnt by it.

I didn't turn away from the religion until much later in life when I realized that there's nothing to it and that the doctine can't possible be true anyway.

It's all lies.

And that's the truth.

It's better to teach children the truth.

In fact, children should be taught how to be physically intimate with each other without a need to actually have intercourse. Then people wouldn't be so hung up about sex.

It's no wonder that the vast majority of people in the USA have abandoned this religion in spirit at least (if not in name).

It doesn't work and all it does is cause people to become emotionally confused about love and sex, and to lose faith in a diety who is supposed to be intervening in their lives but never does.

Instead of building them up for this let down, why not just be honest with them in the first place and tell them that no one ever heard from this God in reality.

Amen

I'm just speaking out on behalf of all the children who are innocently being taught lies that will cause them serious emotional problems later in life.

I wish some wise adult would have spoken out on my behalf when I was a child.

This isn't about me.

It's about the poor children who are being taught lies.

Where do you think these children came up with these ideas?

Just off the top of their heads on their own?

Hardly!

Yes, you're prefectly correct.

I was raised in a negative society that taught preciesly the things that they taught little Kirsten and Howard.

(I don't think it was the society that taught you that, but some very misguided people.)

1. Don't worry about a thing, God will do everything for you. He has a plan for you.

(Yes God has a plan, but nowhere in the Bible does it say that God will do everything for. It says He will guide us, but we have always to do our part.)

2. It's wrong to show affection or to be affectionally interested in the opposite sex. God will be very angry with you if you do that.

(Maybe those around you were too strict about that, but I was never taught that affection was ever wrong, or that God would be angry with me. I was taught that premarital sex is against Gods will, but affection and sex are 2 totally different things. Which are you talking about?)

I was taught precisely these same things. They did indeed have a very negative affect on my life.

(I feel sorry for you and the person who taught you what love and marriage is really about. I also had negative things in my life, but I decided not to let it rule my life. I decided to go the opposite and look for the good in things.)

Yep, my heart goes out to Kirsen and Howard and all of the other children who have been emotionally damaged by parents who have told them these lies.

(Again, just because you were taught wrongly, doesn't mean these children have been. They aren't damaged, maybe immature, but not damaged.)

These are pretty common lies by the way. I'm not the only one who has been damaged and emotionally hurt by them.

(You need to take that hurt and use it to make you better, do good, not use it as an excuse to tear other people down.)

I've met many people who have inhibitions about showing affection and loving someone simply because they were taught these lies as a child.

(Maybe they have those inhibitions because they were abused as a child, not because they were taught "lies". I speak this from experience. Maybe you do as well.)

I've also met many people who have been waiting patictiently for God to bring them their God-choosen soulmates.

Many of them have never married and are still waiting for some sign of this God with a plan still holding out hope that their parents hadn't truly lied to them.

(Until they realize they have some part in the choosing of their mate, they may not find anyone. But also maybe they choose not to look, don't want to really find someone for fear of being hurt, maybe again.)

Others had given up waiting for God's intervention and married the wrong person out of desperation. I can't help but wonder if they would have chosen a better partner if they had known they were going to need to choose from the get go.

(What makes you think they gave up, and just chose. Maybe, like I did, chose to not listen to what God was trying to tell me, and went with someone I shouldn't have, because I was strong willed and married someone because I was looking for someone to love me, and thought I had found him. My fault, not God's.

By the way, I don't hold this against my parents. I see now that this is what they had been brainwashed to believe. So they didn't even realize that they were lying. It wasn't their fault.

(It is always someone's fault if they blindly believe everything they are taught, without looking at it and finding out if it is the truth. I could have decided that being molested as a child was ok because it happened to me. Or I could have decided to hate blacks because of their skin color because that is what I was taught. I chose to realize that both of those things were wrong, and decided for myself the truth and how to live. We all have that decision to make, and it is wrong to teach it to our children if we choose not to go with what God tells us in our hearts.)

But society over-all needs to wake up and start teaching their children how to make personal choices instead of telling them that God will make their choices for them.

(Again, I have never heard anyone say that God will make our choices for us. As a matter of fact, that is why he gave us the free will to make those choices ourselves. Sounds to me that whoever taught you those things, never really read their Bible.)

They also need to quit teaching children that showing affection outside of marriage is wrong.

(I was never taught that, and none of the churches that I have ever attended taught me that. But I am picky about the churches that I attend. You also have to look at, again, are you talking about affection or sex.)

Where does it even say that in their doctrine? They blew that one way out of proportion.

Yep it's negative alright. But don't look at me, I'm a victim of it, not the creator of it.

(Being a victim, doesn't give you the right to create other victims by being so negative.)

I also fight against this kind of negativity all day.

(How do you fight a negative with another negative?)

(not referring to your post). There is nothing at all wrong with your post. You meant well I'm sure.

I'm talking about the things that these children are being raised to believe. That's the negativity right there.

Poor kids.



Please see comments in under each statement. Easier to take it one statement at a time. I put them in parenthesis.

I agree, but I was going by what Howard says, “Kissing Girls before you’re married is wrong”

Who told the poor kid that kissing is sex?

Well, that’s the problem, where’s the line? Actual intercourse?

What about hugging and kissing? This kid believed that just making out with a girl is wrong.

And a lot of people take it to mean that. In fact, many people claim that Jesus said that so much as the thought of ‘sex’ is wrong. So surely if a mere thought it wrong then hugging and kissing must be way over the line!

Clearly this kid has been taught that making out is wrong. No sex required.



How do you know how damaging these beliefs can be? Howard can grow up to be completely inexperienced with sex and not be able to get a woman. Or he might decided to make out with girls early on and then feel like he’s a terrible sinner which might send him spiraling down into the depths of sin-ridden behavior because he already feels like he had failed God.

There are a lot of potentials hazards with this.

And Kristen thinks that God is going to find her a husband. How’s she going to feel about God if that doesn’t happen?

The religion teaches negative things whether it means to or not.



Who’s being negative?

I merely pointed out that these poor kids have been misguide at a very young age.

How is that being negative?

If there’s anything negative it’s in what these children have been taught.

Don't pin that negativity onto me.

Who's tearing anybody down?

I just pointed out child abuse.

I even said that Floridagurl had nothing to do with it. Just just posted the quotes because she thought they were cute.

But they aren't cute. They clearly show that these kids have been brainwashed to beleive things that can be potentially harmful to them.

How's that tearing anybody down?

I'm hoping to improve the world by pointing out the bad things within it.

The things these children were taught are not healthy.

If victims don't speak out and give testimony to how they have been damaged then how will anyone ever learn from their experiences?

Pointing out child abuse is not being negative in the least.

It's a very positive thing for me to do. It brings these issues into the open where they should be.

No, I'm talking about people who have stated clearly that it was their Christian upbringing that gave them guilt complexes and inhibitions about sex.

What those children were saying were not signs of abuse. Actually, they are speaking out, with what they have seen and heard around them, probably mostly from their friends, and voicing their opinions. I know a lot of children who are scared to do that because of REAL abuse.
I agree victims should speak out.
I made a mistake because I thought there was something up with my best friend, then changed my mind because I thought I was just being paranoid. I was wrong and she had it much worse that I did.
What you are doing is always seeing abuse when none exist. It is not a positive thing for you, not at all. You are actually continueing to live in your past, dragging things our for yourself. I know, from experience you need to learn to get on with your life and look for the good things, not dwell on the bad things in your life, or you will forever be unhappy.

There are a lot of people in claim to be Christian who disort real Christian beliefs to create their own version of it. You can't blame everyone for what a few people do. That is like saying that all Mississipians are red necks or all blacks are thieves, or all football players are dumb jocks. That is a blanket statement that is just not true. I have been in many churches over the last several years, depending on what state I was in. Only once did I ever leave a church because of what it was teaching, and it was about racial stuff, and hate. Never have I heard any of what you talk about. NEVER. It also depends on what religion those people were in. There are several religions that claim to be Christian, but are far from it. Look at the Mormans. They are more of a cult. You are basing everything on a few who do wrong.

You are trying to tear Christians as a whole, based on apparently what your parents and their church must have taught you. There was nothing unhealthy in what I read in the comments from the kids. They were more likely than not, basing their thoughts on what their friends were saying, than anything else. If you want real abuse, go to some of the orphanges, mental health centers, childrens wards, etc. Teaching children Biblical principles is not abuse. Distorting those principles is not necessarily abuse unless you beat the child to instill them, or severe mental abuse. When you became an adult, you had the ability to decide for yourself what is right or wrong. If you have children, are you going to teach them to believe as you do. If they decide they they want to believe the Bible, are you going to force them to believe as you do. Parents are supposed to teach their children. Even you will teach your children something. Will you only teach them your belief or will you tell them what the Bible says as well, and let them decide the truth that they want to follow.