- New York: How Not to Talk to Your Kids
Po Bronson summarizes research on self-esteem, praise, and children. Kids who are praised for their intelligence freeze when faced with tasks beyond their intelligence. But kids who are praised for their effort quickly learn to relish challenges, and their learning improves accordingly. I was definitely in the latter group, as a kid—years of having teachers praise me for being smart (for which I deserved zero credit) left me with no idea of how to handle assignments that I couldn't just breeze through. I'll take persistence over smarts any day. - Public Policy Polling: Electoral Consequences of the Rapture
PPP took a presidential poll to determine what the result of the 2012 presidential election would be if all of the people who believe that they're going to be raptured were raptured last week. In short, Barack Obama does very, very well. - Physorg: Electron is surprisingly round, say scientists following 10 year study
If an electron were blown up as wide as the solar system, it would be spherical to the width of a hair. That's very, very round.
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So the rapture poll says that Obama does well with the godless? That’s no suprise but my money would be on the anti-christ, unless of course he’s already… ;)
The cross tab isn’t for people who believe in God, it’s people who believe in God and also believe that God will eminently return to whisk them away to heaven because they’re so much better than everyone else.
So it’s not so much that Barack Obama does well with the Godless as much as he doesn’t do quite as well with the insufferably self-righteous.
So Waldo, you’re advocating the Pete Rose theory of education (Rose being perhaps the least talented great player ever, but he always tried hard and got the most out of what he had)?
Re: kids & praise…. You mean you were in the former group?
BTW, that rapture poll is interesting.
Put another way, it essentially says that if every Christian were taken to heaven next week, Obama would do very, very well in 2012.
If every dim, ignorant, uninformed, fear-based, and bigoted American was taken to their reward next week Obama would surely do very, very well in 2012. You can interpolate that with the “Christians” taking the make-believe lift to Heavenland. There may be a connection.
Well, Bub, all Christians (by definition) believe that they will one day be in heaven with their Creator. You can interpolate that with “dim, ignorant, uninformed, fear-based, and bigoted” if that floats your boat.
A growing number of liberals, ummm, I mean progressives have been defining Christians in such a manner for quite some time. Most of them just don’t do it openly… yet.
“Well, Bub, all Christians (by definition) believe that they will one day be in heaven with their Creator.”
coughcoughCalvinism.
Calvinism indeed Sam! I.Publius, I wonder why “christians” are so often defined as ignorant?
Post-modern, politically correct christianism runs deep, apparently. Wow.
Calvinism is post-modern? It dates back to the 16th century.
In a religion with as many sects as Christianity, it would be surprising indeed if you couldn’t find one sect that didn’t believe in any particular teaching. The whole “Rapture” thing is much more prominent in Protestant churches over the last 30 years or so. I grew up Southern Baptist (back when you could still have a beer at the church picnic) and don’t remember hearing the term “The Rapture” until many years later.
No one ever concerned themselves with the idea of Rapture at any of the churches I’ve attended (all Episcopalian). While one of the central tenets of the religion adopted by the First Ecumenical Council and enshrined in the Nicene Creed asserts that “He will come again to judge the quick and the dead,” no where does it say that you’re required to believe that Paul was 100% accurate in either his understanding or his description of the process when writing to the people of Thessaloniki.
Particularly since it’s not actually supported by Revelation.
Years ago I had a conversation with a Baptist minister about this Rapture thing. He was old school, with an actual education from their version of a seminary. He left the ministry over the Rapture nonsense, his congregation didn’t like being told their belief was based on ignorance. He found no support from the larger denomination.
In all seriousness, and setting the dogma of various denominations of Christianity aside, I’d be interested in knowing what the intersect is between those who profess to having accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, those who believed that man is judged at death (and if worthy, “go to a better place”), and those who really truly believe in End of Days/Rapture. I wouldn’t be surprised if the last group were less than 50% of the first.
No,Sam… it’s the liberal fluff theology prevalent today that is post-modern. The same theology that has led you to believe that Calvinism disavows any Rapture of any sort whatsoever. That’s simply ignorant.
I wasn’t saying that it disavows rapture, silly goose. I was saying that the Calvinist constellation of theology presupposes that because all human beings are by their nature incapable of loving God with their whole hearts, and because God has unconditionally decided from eternity who shall be saved and who won’t, and because He has already enacted that salvation through Jesus Christ’s limited atonement, it’s entirely possible and indeed likely that not all Christians will go to Heaven, regardless of the method by which they’ll arrive. So an honest Calvinist may say they hope they’ll be counted among the elect, but he can’t honestly assert that it will happen with any certitude.
caugh-samwins-caugh
Did you actually type — intentionally?!?! — that a Calvinist believes that not all Christians will go to heaven? I weep for your theological upbringing.
Son, you’re correct that Calvinism teaches that God has already chosen the elect. We mere children can do nothing to effect our salvation. Only God can do that. He chooses; we go (or not).
That necessarily means that God has chosen who will (and will not) become a Christian. To be a Christian *necessarily* means that one will be saved. If you don’t learn anything else from our encounter, please take that much to heart.
By the way, I love how someone who writes “caugh” (twice, no less) declares a winner.
Relishing the irony.
typographical spelling or grammatical errors don’t exactly rise to the level of content analysis – my apologies for the atrocious spelling
Perhaps, Chris. But typos of the sort that a 5th grader would be ashamed of are sufficient to cast doubt on someone’s ability to analyze content. In other words, anyone who can’t spell 5th grade words isn’t qualified to pass normative evaluations on something like Calvinist theology.
wow – we’re quite worked up about a snarky comment on a blog, aren’t we?
“anyone who can’t spell 5th grade words isn’t qualified to pass normative evaluations on something like Calvinist theology.”
I expect that going forward we will see this standard consistently applied to anyone espousing principles and positions that I.Pub agrees with as well as those he/she’s arguing with.