Do you support the Family?

WalkerJ wrote:

The Family's current principles, while not perfect, are far better than those they had 15 years ago. Perhaps you're basing your emotions in this matter on the Family's past exclusively, as opposed to their history on the whole--hence the confusion.
Just because they don't adhere to one particular flavour of Christianity is not reason enough to demand that they cease to exist.

It's not as perverted as it used to be, so its existence should be protected?

Come on, now. The group was founded as the sick, megalomaniacal vision of morally repulsive and medically antisocial man. With such a foundation, no reformation is adequate to make it superior to its full dissolution. It's foundations are still sick, blasphemous, and corrupt, and nothing can change that. It was founded on a lie. Nothing--nothing--can make it true.

Just because Berg preyed on vulnerable people so successfully that they have centered their life on his lies doesn't mean that something should be salvaged from them. A history of selfish exploitation does not justify fabricating a deception into something sustainable. That would, perhaps, be even worse, as it would continue to draw in a grow number of emotionally unstable people as the lies become less overtly revolting.

Re: parenting

ex-Sharon wrote:

I have been watching some TV shows like "Wife Swap" where parents teach their kids at home and every single show where kids are home schooled I have been greatly concerned about those home schooled children. I am largely against home schooling PERIOD except as approved when taught by well educated parents who are overseen by a state board. The reason I believe in a state board overseeing it (or a governmental board concerned with education) is because I believe children should not be deprived from socializing with others in society at large and not be limited in education so that they are unable to choose when older to go to college or be hindered from doing so. ...
Criminal behavior can occur anywhere, in public schools, private schools or home schools. But there are more safeguards in public schools, imo.

Haven't you noticed that EVERYONE on Wife Swap is more than slightly extreme? That's like using Montel or Giraldo (is he still on anymore?) to form your basis for what's normal! Homeschool families are freaky! Low-income mothers whore their daughters out for rent money!

The *average* homeschooled child is involved in 5 extracurricular activities. The average homeschooled child does better on standardized tests than his public-schooled peers. The average homeschooled child has more close, meaningful friendships (though fewer "friends" total) and scores better on psychological self-image tests. The average homeschool student is equally likely to go to college as a non-homeschooled student but is far more likely to succeed there. And highly regulated states don't have any better educational outcomes than though with low regulations.

The truth is that further restrictions would hurt LGAL homeschoolers but would have little to no effect upon illegal homeschoolers and cultists.

The idea that the public school has more safeguards is a cute idea but largely false. When my DH talked to the school counselor about the awful physical and verbal abuse he was suffering at the hands of his father, the counselor instantly TOLD his father and then explained, in a very patronizing way, that she understood that my DH's family was of a different CULTURE and so things can be MISUNDERSTOOD across CULTURES, and everything was okay with her but DH and his father needed to UNSERSTAND each other better. As if beating your child with a chair, threating him with a knife, or chaining him naked to a toilet for hours was all about CULTURE and UNDERSTANDING.

In a pretty, safe, imaginary would, public schools would actually really be a safeguard for many students. It'd be a place where students were all encouraged to excel to the extent of their abilities. But this is the real world, and neither is true. My DH was subject to physical abuse that the school did nothing about even when notified directly. I was subject to gross educational abuse specifically because of the school. It seems like a pancaea to those who have no reason to know better--but trust me. The system's broken.

curiousgeorge wrote:

Now, I understand the pain and suffering, and much more experienced by many in this group but if the government were to ostracize and blacklist every objectionable, bizarre fringe groups/cults for what they did years ago, the questions would not be asked only of the COG/FT but we'd have to revoke the Scientologists, Masons, KKK, Neo-Nazis et al. I point to the last two ne'er do-wells precisely to evoke a wince because these two groups have both positively and fundamentally changed our perceptions of the limits of what is tolerable. If the US did deny different "religions" to flourish, then we would not be half the country we are today. We have learned from them as well, I believe.

Right. Tolerance is a Good Thing, so tolerance for people who promote mind-control methods (like the Scientologists) or violence (like the KKK) "positively and fundamentally changed our perceptions of the limits of what is tolerable" when we allow them to continue to exist?

On what rational basis do you make this declaration, except a kneejerk reation that tolerance=good?

To put it another way: Blind tolerance supports orgainizations that promote terrorist bombings--of churches, synagogues, secular targets, whatever. Blind tolerance create networks like the NIMBLA, and it allows groups like The Family to prosetylize even though their foul doctrines are well known and documented.

If we were less TOLERANT, there wouldn't need to be a forum like this.

Re: parenting

Piram wrote:

think a key word here is "standards". Our childrenÂ´s education needs to meet standards set, as you say, by qualified professionals, whether in public or private schools, and IMO, this involves continuous monitoring, not simply periodical testing. IÂ´m all for parents taking an active part in their childrenÂ´s education, but it seems to me that home-schooling may well tend to be "intellectually, culturally, and ideologically incestuous", if youÂ´ll forgive the term, as it donÂ´t mean it in the usual sense, obviously. We all want to protect our children, but there is such a thing as sheltering them excessively, too, which can also have very adverse effects on their development. This is not a blanket condemnation of all home schooling, but simply a statement of my opinion.

I homeschool for mainly academic reasons, and I find the above quote painful. Standards? Whose standards? If I were following STANDARDS, then I'd be teaching my child to read in Kindergarten--nevermind that he'd been reading for two years; we have to follow the STANDARDS, you know! If I were following the STANDARDS, I'd use horrifically incorrect science textbooks that blithely lay forth theories disproven in the 1800s as fact and are riddled with mindless, inexcusable errors and misconceptions on almost every page. If I were following STANDARDS, I'd assume that my child never learned about hand-washing or bathing and would teach it in a formal heath class from a text book two hours a week. I certainly wouldn't let him work ahead three or four levels in math, and especially not in a textbook that--horror of horrors--is actually highly regarded by real mathematicians and isn't one of the Big Four's overpadded, overcolored books. Oh, and I certainly wouldn't teach foreign languages so young, or philosophy, and goodness knows not religious studies. That just isn't in the STANDARDS.

In short, I might was well have my children be bored and frusterated in school as at home. All they'd be missing at home would be the teasing.

Many, MANY families homeschool because the "standard" doesn't work for them, one way or another. Forcing them to conform to a system that failed them in the first place would be a crime.

As far as "incestuous," that's the voice of someone who's never been in a homeschooling community. Homeschoolers tend to be independent spirits and are less bound by social norms than most people. You make the entirely false assuptions that this means that they are the SAME spirits. I can assure you they're not. Very often, they're from opposite extremes, thrown in FAR closer contact than in your average public school, which draws from a singlegroup of neighborhoods with extremely limited diversity. Locally, I regularly have to duck-and-cover when the radical atheist unschoolers and the deeply religious classical/Jesuit-style Catholic homeschoolers run afoul of one another. If homeschoolers are "incestuous," it's by conscious choice and often extreme efforts. Far more typical is the "incestuousness" of the stereotypical suburban public school, where most of the people there look like you, talk like you, share your general political point of view, DRESS like you, and, all in all, are good, mindless little drones to their culturally predetermined caste. Colorless, flavorless mediocrity and blind acceptance of the status quo is not the same as stimulating diversity or discourse.

Re: parenting

Anonymous wrote:

No offense but I hope you and your wife are not teaching English to children.

Go visit the boards that cater to public school teachers. English teachers, even. If you think that casual, online communication is an accurate assessment of one's writing skills.

BTW, you missed a comma. It should read:

No offense, but I hope you and your wife are not teaching English to children.

I'm not saying my writing is perfect. I know I make plenty of typos. I'm saying that you viewpoint is distorted.

Re: parenting

Indian Joe wrote:

We do have a family on our block who home schools their children. They are completely socially retarded, and rarely venture outside the house. Their parents seem terrified to let them leave the home and play with other kids.

I just wonder how they are expected to develop the skills they will need once they do grow up? At some point they will need to enter the workforce and communicate with the great unwashed. How does homeschooling prepare them for that?

And we have a family on our block that public schools their child. He's never allowed to play outside, he doesn't have any extracurricular activities, and his parents are strange and standoffish and have made him the same. And you know he's getting a very poor education going to the local schools, of course. Being so strange and so poorly educated, how can he ever hope to succeed in the real world, where you aren't taken to school on a yellow bus every morning and told when to sit, stand, answer questions, and even pee? What will he do when he's force to interact with people other than his exact age mates and will have to rely on his own decision-making capacity instead of just doing what he's told? How on earth can the regimented, artificial, age-segregated public school prepare him for the real world?

And no, I'm not kidding. I know three families with young children well in this neighborhood. Two of them homeschool--one for social reasons, one for religious. The odd family is the third--and they are ODD, ODD, ODD.

If your questions are valid, so are mine. It provides me infinite amusement that some people insist that institutional schools are somehow the "real world" when they are the most artificial construct that we will ever spend a part of our lives in, with no resemblence whatsoever to the outside world. Just because it's the norm doesn't mean it's more "real."

ex-Sharon wrote:

Just to be clear since I have made comments about homeschooling and being largely against it; I can certainly appreciate that there are qualified people who homeschool and do make sure that their children are socializing and are being taught from a comprehensive cirriculum which is age appropriate and will prepare children for higher education.
My reservations against it are based on the ones that aren't qualified and don't prepare children for independent life and higher education and I know there are far too many of those sorts of home schools.

A kid may learn more about cultures of the world by traveling but will notice huge holes in their education and ability because they don't know how to use a credit card, a bank account, set up a retirement account for when Jesus hasn't come back yet, set up accounts to help their children with a college fund so they don't end up as burnt out baloonies or canners or whatever.

Schools don't teach how to use a credit card (or how NOT to!), about bank accounts, or how retirement funds work. They SHOULD. But they don't.

I came to homeschooling rather unwillingly after being convinced that I would NOT allow the sins of my miseducation to be visited upon my children. And in the beginning, I largely agreed with you. BUT...and here's the huge BUT...as poorly as homeschooling serves a small minority of students, public school's track record is far worse on every account and in every study, including those done by people aiming to discredit homeschooling.

A parent without a high school diploma who homeschools will have chilldren who, on average, out perform not only public-schooled children with parents with low formal education but will out perform that AVERAGE student. Homeschooling is the ONLY form of education in which the standardized test results show NO statstically significant difference based upon income, race, or parental education. These results are, frankly, staggering, since so many people have tried--and failed--to escape from socioeconomic determinism by moving to a new town with better schools, or providing more funding to schools, or adding more programs to schools, etc., etc. The inequities of race, wealth, and parental education continue to haunt public school students no matter WHAT school district they move to or HOW well their school is funded. And yet all such differences simply disappear when parents homeschool.

Depending upon the study, the average homeschooler scores in the 60th to 85th %ile on standardized tests. That should give you an idea of how miseducated *some* group of students is.

Does that mean that homeschooling should be for everyone? NO. There is a reason why homeschooling has those results--by and large, parents who homeschool care about their kids' educations. With the advantages of one-on-one tutoring and the correlation between parents' self-efficacy in their children's education and actual educational attainment, the positive results are much less surprising. Any parent who doesn't care about their child's education--intensely and personally--should not homeschool. It's also true that homeschool failures don't stay in homeschooling, while public school failures stay in public school all the time. Some parents just can't do it, will fail, and will send their kids back to "regular" school, where they become public school failure.

And yet... Several years ago, I would have stated that those who are largely uneducated themselves shouldn't homeschool. But the statistics STILL show firmly that their kids, however imperfect the education they receive, are better off with uneducated parents homeschooling them, if they can make it work, than going to a public school with the same background. Hard to deal with, but true.

In many ways, homeschooling statistics don't tell us how good homeschooling is but how bad institutional schooling is.

I still support madatory standardized testing for checking for a minimal level of educational attainment, to find and protect that small minority whose parents aren't educating them appropriately. The question is, will the students do any better in a public school? Unfortunately, the answer is, "maybe."

Re: parenting

Passerby wrote:

I know I make plenty of typos. I'm saying that you viewpoint is distorted.

Speaking of typos... *g*

I seem to be typing very gently today. A lot of last letters have been lost.

Re: parenting
Thanks for your interesting observations and ideas, really. I especially liked this:

Passerby wrote:

Colorless, flavorless mediocrity and blind acceptance of the status quo is not the same as stimulating diversity or discourse.

I wonder how many CoG/Tf kids get into higher education?

Here in UK many homeschooled kids get into University.

I would suggest that CoG/TF kids receive a substandard education!

Well, I know there is an emphasis on educating kids (no farther but no less than highschool) as of several years ago, but I agree with that statement in re. to SGA's education 100%. i know i am no isolated case, and my case is this: I can honestly say they gave me a total of 2~4 years of education combined!!!!! - a couple months in this home, and a couple months in that home, etc. but in most homes none, because since i was under the age of 7 years old (on my own or working with others in cases of larger groups) i was a Childcare worker (not by desire, but because of the need). Then, since i was a great CC worker and had a lot of success keeping the groups in control and happy, they kept me tucked away there, expecting i would be getting smarter as i was educating the kids from the CC hanbooks and read all those "helpful tips" from Sara, Dora and the other WS people, etc. When i was about 17 or 18, and started begging for the education that i felt was rightfully mine, they told me study before bed on my own if i was so desperate (but i was always too tired after a full day of CC), or the most common reaction from the shepherds was always something to this extent: "well, praise the lord, sweetie, you don't need education anymore cuz you're past legal age where you or others can get in trouble. hallelujah. isn't it exciting to have a ministry that you're good at and that you can do in the kingdom of heaven, wow." GOD!!!! Confused

evanman wrote:

I would suggest that CoG/TF kids receive a substandard education!

Yes, it's true. Though my step mom was very big on education. I think she can't understand why all her "kids" end up leaving TF. Education has a lot to do with it. You learn to think. Thinking straight gets you out of TF in most cases.

I was talking to a friend of mine about this. I realized how fortunate I am. He said that I am the 2nd ex-2ndG-member he knows that has had at least a highschool education(12th grade-not CVC 9th grade crap). He said he feels quite worried about it sometimes and it's a big deal for many of my peers.

Cookie, your tales sound so very familiar. "They" just do as little as they have to. Once you had your minimum required-by-the-lust-charter hours, you're back to the treadmill.

yeah, winter, that's the truth as i see it also.

I support their right to interpret the bible however it is they like, I actually think it's refreshing to see something different, but...

The whole 'reject the laws of man' thing is very disruptive to life, and it's obvious there are controversial issues like Age of Consent, prostitution, and rape, which are being heavily affected by their teachings. I think they should resolve this with society rather than coming to their own conclusions.

Unfortunately, in many religions, they place it before local law.

Tf/CoG don't interpret the Bible, they override the Bible with added scriptures of their own (ie Mo letters etc.)

Berg taught that the Bible was ok for 2000 years ago but now we had God's Word for today--through him!

Re: Do you support the Family?
everyone is entitled to their own beliefs, but no one has the right to hurt another person in any way.
i think it is fine if the family follow their beliefs as long as those beleifs do not include abuse of any person in any way.

tbh i am against but only based on what i have read and learnt about the family through my own personal research.

i think what has happened in the past will always taint the family and you cant rewrite history no matter how much you try. even if things are ok now (which no one knows for sure) the history is still gross and horrific in many ways and i cant think why any one would enter into a group such as this without looking into its history origins ect and if you do so after what you learn why would you ever consider being a part of it???

Re: Do you support the Family?
I think the family are sick and all of you need to burn in hell. The way children were treated in the family is just disgusting and anyone involved in it will pay for it in some way shape or form. I am a mother of two and i would never allow anyone to hurt them ever thats what a mother is for. We are here to protect our kids not cause them harm. Even if some of the parents didnt do any of the abuse they still knew what was going on and they allowed it to happen that is even worse than doing it blind fools. God is about love not pain and filth. What they did was of the devil not god.

Re: Do you support the Family?
I don't blatently 'support' or 'oppose' anyone. I oppose a great deal of things the family stands for, but I also agree with some other things they say. Mixed feelings I think. I think it's a bad idea to get in the habit of having to condemn or support everything about a person or group. It's fine to have a greyer opinion.

Re: Do you support the Family?
fucking sick.
i have a feeling david berg is being satan's bitch tonight. Twisted Evil

nothing good comes from people having sex with children, so why would anyone condone it?

<3 pray for healing for those hurt.

Re: against THE FAMILY

tyciol wrote:

I don't blatently 'support' or 'oppose' anyone. I oppose a great deal of things the family stands for, but I also agree with some other things they say. Mixed feelings I think. I think it's a bad idea to get in the habit of having to condemn or support everything about a person or group. It's fine to have a greyer opinion.

Wow, it's because of fence sitters like you that those pedophiles were able to abuse so many of us and get away with it.
Shame on the fence sitters!
There is no "Grey Area" when it comes to pedophilia!

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