What ever you do - dont read Harry Potter!! Satan will invade your kids minds and bodies!
My Book With Bible Stories - 91 stories of murder and rape to be used as bedtime stories for your little children
by Anders Andersen 27 Replies latest watchtower child-abuse
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stuckinarut2
Perhaps when reading those stories, ask children the question that the society always encouraged us to do when reading the bible: "what does this account teach us about Jehovah?"
By doing that, we can help children to see that Jehovah loves violence, rape, murder, wars, killing and burning animals, slavery etc.....
Not the sort of person I deem to be a "good associate"!
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nonjwspouse
No Kidding
You better buy and read them this:
Those old Grimm fairy tales were gruesome for sure! -
fulano
Well I only have nightmares from the Paradise lost pictures not from "Hansel and Gretel".
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nonjwspouse
Toushe' But did you read the original "Hansel and Gretel" or the more modern, toned down one?
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_Morpheus
And i bet, anders, that 99% of the nonviolent stories were Jesus based. Until he was killed, of course. The hebrew scriptures are violent and bloody as hell... and the christain greek promise more of the same to those that dont think exactly like their god.
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steve2
Anders Andersen, I have ordered smelling salts and a comfy recliner for you but I do not know where you can turn to find non-violent children's stories. Stay indoors; don't venture out. Violent children's stories fill book stores wherever I turn - and have done so for centuries.
Little Red Riding Hood is filled with blood-lust and feasting on a child (although I am somewhat relieved the child is regurgitated alive in some readings). Phew! That was close. Does your hood need now need dry-cleaning?
Somehow, the drip-feeding of violent stories to children is part and parcel of growing up in almost all societies and tribes. I understand its evolutionary purpose is to prepare children for life.
But if you prefer a cocoon for the little ones, so be it. I will order several small recliners for the little dears.
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stuckinarut2
The difference with "fairy tales" and "biblical accounts" is that biblical accounts are held up as REAL factual historical accounts, while "fairy tale stories" are just accepted as "make believe".
No one is permitted to say that the biblical accounts are just made up...
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steve2
Developmentally, pre-school children do not make meaningful distinctions between which stories are "true" and which are not. The wider family and social setting matters.
The important variable in how much children are affected by the violence in children's stories is the extent to which their parents and/or caregivers provide a supportive context to those stories.
I detest Bible stories for children, yet concede that loving parents may frame those stories in terms of God being a fair and good Creator who ensures all who obey him are protected. Yes, it's a message that sucks - but within the context of a loving family, the more violent aspects of the stories can be softened.
As a child, I loved the Paradise book and have fond memories of my JW parents reading it to my sister and me at bedtimes. Yet I acknowledge that in some JW households, the parents were not as attuned to the need to reassure their children and even played up the threatening aspect of the stories.
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jwundubbed
@Anders Andersen,
But we wouldn't read our little girl those stories yet either!
yes.... I said that too.
The big difference is that most people in the world got the watered down or white-washed version of their stories while we got the original.
But the fact remains the same. There are a lot of stories out there that are gruesome for children and are in fact as gruesome as the Bible Stories. It is good to point out how bad that book is. But to act like it is worse than everything else out there for kids is also wrong. That just isn't true. And my own personal experience is that the bible stories aren't even that bad for kids.
Harry Potter is a great example. That book is also full of scary and heavy subject matter.
http://www.poppyfields.net/poppy/songs/oldwoman.html
http://list25.com/25-dark-and-disturbing-original-versions-of-childrens-fairy-tales/
http://www.parents.com/fun/entertainment/books/should-kids-read-scary-stories/
I think there is a reality here that we tend to forget. I loved those bible stories. I never knew half of what was wrong with them until after I left and started analysing them. It wasn't the Book of Bible Stories that ever scared me. It was the Revelation book. I never met a kid who was traumatized from reading the Book of Bible Stories. Maybe there are some, but there are a lot more kids who just read them as stories. Kids can actually handle a lot more than we give them credit for. And I personally, don't believe that kids should be sheltered from the realities of the world and life. All those Grimm stories and Bible stories told me that the bigger world was a lot like my world. It was scary but at least there were a lot of people going through it.
Of all the books that we had to read when we were JWs, I found the Book of Bible Stories to be the least of my worries.