(Genuine question) Is teaching children about hell abuse?

[Tis_Bearself]

In addition to AINg not presenting a Catholic perspective, this thread is about teaching children. The stuff in AINg’s post is relevant to adults, and somewhat to teens from maybe about age 13-14 on.

One is highly unlikely to be bringing up subjects like adultery, men lusting after women, and artificial birth control around young children, much less “eternal damnation”.

I fail to see how the entire post has much of anything to do with the topic of the thread.

 

[AlNg]

your comment is made from a non-Catholic perspective?

Can you kindly let us know how the Catholic teaching differs from what I have posted?
One unrepented mortal sin will send a person to eternal damnation in hell, no?
A sin is mortal if it is grave matter and performed with deliberate consent and full knowledge, no?
Artificial birth control, adultery, and missing Mass on Sunday without an excuse constitute grave matter, no?
If a man lusts after a woman, he has already committed adultery, no?
Hell is a scary place, no?

 

[MNathaniel]

Can you kindly let us know how the Catholic teaching differs from what I have posted?

No, I will kindly not engage with your bad-faith interjection into this thread.

 

[Beryllos]

Perhaps I should stop while I’m ahead, but I remembered this cartoon which illustrates the idea that hell is a deprivation. We choose temporary goods (wealth, pleasure, power) rather than lasting freedom and love.

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

But the rewards are not only in the afterlife. The freedom, joy, and peace begin here on earth for those who live in righteousness.

 

[AlNg]

No, I will kindly not engage

It is understandable that many do not want to face up to the reality of what the Church teaches about hell.
It is a scary subject. Many people deny that there is a hell even though their church may teach it. Or if they do not deny that there is a hell, they will try to avoid talking too much about it. Hopefully, God will have mercy, but is it wrong to be overly presumptuous?

 

[Tis_Bearself]

I’m reminded of Corrie Ten Boom’s story about how when she was a little girl she asked her father what was “sex sin” , a term she’d heard or read somewhere, and her father responded by asking her to carry their big heavy suitcase off the train. She told him she couldn’t do that because the suitcase was too big and heavy for her, a little girl, to lift and carry. He then told her that if he were to explain to her what “sex sin” was at her age, he would be giving her a similar heavy burden that she wasn’t yet equipped to carry, and that she should wait to learn about those things at an older age.

Same goes for concepts of Hell.

BTW, Corrie wasn’t Catholic, but she grew up in a devout Christian home with loving and wise parents.

 

[MNathaniel]

MNathaniel:

No, I will kindly not engage

It is understandable that many do not want to face up to the reality of what the Church teaches about hell.
It is a scary subject.

It is condescending to speak as you are speaking.

I will continue to not engage with it.

The OP has already indicated that the answers she received from Catholics here have been helpful for her. If she would like to now delve into your explicitly non-Catholic (name removed by moderator)ut, that’s up to her. (Though given your blatantly skewed approach to the topic, I’d personally advise her to go water the plants, or take out the garbage, or do anything actually constructive with her time instead.)

 

[AlNg]

I will continue to not engage with it.

That’s OK. No one really wants to talk about the possibility of eternal damnation. JW deny it entirely.
But what do people think is the Church teaching on hell? It is somewhat frightening, no? Children used to be taught about hell from the Baltimore Catechism .

 

[Freddy]

AlNg:

Can you kindly let us know how the Catholic teaching differs from what I have posted?

No, I will kindly not engage with your bad-faith interjection into this thread.

Why not have an example? A young child asks you what will send you to hell and what is hell like. Whatever you tell her, she is convinced her late grandmother is there.

What do you tell the child?

 

[Tis_Bearself]

Whatever you tell her, she is convinced her late grandmother is there.

Why in heaven’s name would a child be convinced her late grandmother is in Hell?
That to me sounds like the child needs some serious heart-to-heart discussion and maybe some professional counseling, or alternatively that there is some dysfunctional family situation (like grandma had abused the child) in play.

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

Whatever you tell her, she is convinced her late grandmother is there.

Why in heaven’s name would a child be convinced her late grandmother is in Hell?
That to me sounds like the child needs some serious heart-to-heart discussion and maybe some professional counseling, or alternatively that there is some dysfunctional family situation (like grandma had abused the child) in play.

It’s not difficult to propose a scenario. Maybe she’s been told that those who reject God go to hell and her grandmother told her she didn’t believe in God - it was all nonsense. And in any case, however you describe hell, it has to be explained that people end up there. So the kid thinks her grandma is there.

How does one explain it to a young child?

 

[Tis_Bearself]

I’d start by explaining to her that we don’t know who’s in Hell and that we pray and trust in God that our loved ones are not there, and that this is called “Hope”, as in “Pray, Hope, and Don’t Worry”.

I’d keep explaining that ad nauseam until she understood it, before ever moving on to anything else.

If my husband, the Presbyterian, happened to overhear any of this, he would probably just make a face and say don’t be ridiculous, your grandma’s not in Hell. And I would let him do that because a father’s pronouncement can carry a lot of weight and relieve a lot of worry, and it’s more important that little children don’t worry than that we get into these (rather pointless IMHO) theological debates with them.

Good night.

 

[Freddy]

I’d start by explaining to her that we don’t know who’s in Hell and that we pray and trust in God that our loved ones are not there, and that this is called “Hope”, as in “Pray, Hope, and Don’t Worry”.

I’d keep explaining that ad nauseam until she understood it, before ever moving on to anything else.

If my husband, the Presbyterian, happened to overhear any of this, he would probably just make a face and say don’t be ridiculous, your grandma’s not in Hell. And I would let him do that because a father’s pronouncement can carry a lot of weight and relieve a lot of worry, and it’s more important that little children don’t worry than that we get into these (rather pointless IMHO) theological debates with them.

Good night.

But what would you tell her about hell itself? Surely something to be avoided…a punishment.

 

[MNathaniel]

And welcome everybody to a CAF thread devolving into anti-Catholic nonsense, as the non-Catholics try to take over answering questions on behalf of Catholics, and argue with the Catholics actually present.

 

[Beryllos]

Well, Catholics know that Jesus spoke of hell in pretty stark terms: unquenchable fire, wailing and gnashing of teeth, and so on. It’s not anti-Catholic to ask about that, and I think we can allow some differences of opinion here.

 

[stpurl]

When my children were young, in the 1980s and 1990s, there were a lot of highly publicized stranger abductions and child abuse reports (think the preschool case where the kids had ‘repressed memories’ and people wound up in jail for events that actually had never happened). There were all sorts of school activities about ‘good touch’ and ‘bad touch’ and there were quite a few incidences in the various schools where the children went home and were frantic because they thought ANY touch was evil and were convinced either that their parents were monsters, or that they had been ‘abused’.

But the fact is, stranger abductions happen and child abuse happens.

Do we then decide, that because some individual children will, for myriad reasons, have difficulty or misunderstand, that children should NOT be taught about a possible danger?

Hell is a possible danger. Therefore people need to be taught about it so they can avoid it.

And yep, the old Baltimore Catechism was very good instruction. It is of course possible that in my class (there were after all 70 of us in the one classroom!) there may have been some students were did not understand. But there were a large majority who did understand quite well.

If you, Freddy and others, can give me any guaranteed examples, and you can make them as secular as you please, of children taught of a possible danger where no child ever misunderstands or becomes worried or confused then do enlighten the rest of humanity so we can follow that oh-so-wise method.

But if the simple situation of having to inform a person, especially a child, of a possible danger can, has, and does lead to any child, for whatever reason becoming confused or upset as in the ‘child and grandma in hell’ case, then it is quite clear that it is not ‘hell’ and speaking of it which is the problem, but rather that in the case of any situation regarding learning about possible danger, children can become confused.

 

[Freddy]

And welcome everybody to a CAF thread devolving into anti-Catholic nonsense, as the non-Catholics try to take over answering questions on behalf of Catholics, and argue with the Catholics actually present.

Who’s arguing? I’m asking questions as to how one would explain it to a child. It was explained to me at a young age (I can’t recall exactly how) but it didn’t scare me in any way. So in my case I couldn’t call it abuse.

I’m interested in how people think it should be done.

 

[Freddy]

When my children were young, in the 1980s and 1990s…

I agree with most of what you say. But there is a difference between warning what might happen to you personally and worrying uneccesarily about it and being concerned for people you love who might already be in hell. Which is why I brought gran up.

Even if you skip over the details and say that hell is just a place that bad people go ‘and I’m sure grandma is in heaven’ you are sowing the seeds of doubt. I can imagine children lying awake at night and thinking the worst.

 

[MNathaniel]

Well, Catholics know that Jesus spoke of hell in pretty stark terms: unquenchable fire, wailing and gnashing of teeth, and so on. It’s not anti-Catholic to ask about that, and I think we can allow some differences of opinion here.

I’d agree in general. I think it’s important to talk honestly about hell (in an age appropriate and audience appropriate way), because Jesus did.

Within the particulars of this thread though, I think both individuals who have chimed in to buoy this anonymous anxious-atheist-YouTuber from a distance, seem self-evidently to have done so in bad faith, asking not out of desire to learn but as intended rhetorical questions to make non-Catholic jabby ‘points’ of their own.

You’re free to stay and engage if you think that’s worth something.

It doesn’t seem to me that either person is likely to have their mind or attitude changed about this, though, and in these final few days of CAF existing it’ll hardly help hypothetical future readers. So I’m not going to waste my time repeating commentary both users have already spent hours arguing with Catholics over in other threads.

 

[graciew]

Not before one has become friends with Jesus. The daily prayers, the flower for Mary, the Guardian Ángel, our friends in Heaven the Saints… It is love that moves us . That has to be the stronghold first
Won’t understand darkness without the light.
That is how I see it at least.