Yes, when they grow up. Only then. But using the parent-child analogy, we shall never “grow up”. But even with the limited usefulness of the analogy, we can say that a loving parent will interfere with a fatal choice of the child, even when the child is a grown up.
Hogwash. The instructions are not clear. But even if they were clear, they are not enough. The parent cannot “hide” behind: “but I told him not to pull the trigger” type of defense.
I should add that promiscuity is based on broken promises - and on the priority of pleasure as opposed to unselfish love.
No, not hogwash. The instructions are abundantly clear but, as I said, you have to seek them out and choose to follow them. For whatever reason, you have chosen not to do so.
The fact of such terrible matches should tell you something.
Love is a choice.
Yep, a parent will indeed wrestle with one of their adult children to prevent their suicide. What makes you think God doesn’t do just that? We all have a conscience, and the conscience is truly the voice of God; if we follow the conscience, we will have salvation. The human parent may be physically thrown off of their child, and the suicide happens. Similarly, the human may throw God out of their heart, and He has to leave, otherwise the human becomes a robot, and robots cannot experience the happiness of Heaven. Ultimately, the only question of relevance is whether it is better to be a robot, or in hell.
Fact is that not all Christians, and not even all Catholics can agree what the “instructions” are. The sad thing is that you did not answer the important part: “The parent cannot “hide” behind: “but I told him not to pull the trigger” type of defense.” If the warning is sufficient, everything is fine. If the warning is not enough, then the forceful intervention is the road to take - if the parent actually cares whether the child will make a fatal mistake or not.
The abundance of the posts which say: “God does not interfere with our free will”. It is frustrating that the apologists try to have their cake and eat it, too, blowing both hot and cold from their collective mouths. When asked why does God allow all the atrocites to happen, the answer is always “because God respects our free will”. When I ask why does God interfere with natural disasters, the response is always: “how do you know that God does not interfere?”. You can’t have it both ways. The hypocrisy is very frustrating.
Apples and oranges.
Isn’t this an example of the ad populum fallacy?
Actually, I’ve touched upon this numerous times and answered it a few posts back. I’ll state again…as a parent, would you lock up your children forever in an effort to prevent them from doing anything to their detriment? Why have children then? Love means letting them make their own choices, it is not hiding behind anything, Spock, it is loving them enough to let them live their life. And…again…God’s love for us is such that we could not possibly comprehend its immensity.
Sadly, I am beginning to believe this is so.
God does not interfere with our free will. I addressed that in my post when I said that if a person kicks God out of their hearts, He goes. But before that happens, God certainly does battle.
Read my reply below.
No, it is not. An example of the ad populum fallacy is: “most people during the millenia believed in some sort of deity, therefore theism is right”.
Yes, you said this. And I remember. The point is that a good parent only allows a limited freedom to the child, only allows the freedom which will teach the child, but will not allow the freedom to make a choice which is fatal for the child.
Okay, in the past week, I’ve spoken to a few people in open relationships, and they didn’t see it as the ideal but rather a way to try to maintain a relationship that was functional in some ways but partially or completely disfunctional in others. Given the divorce rates (3.6 divorces/1000 people vs 7.3 marriages/100 people), and that only 42% of married men say they’re happy in their marriage…
Yup. That us humans are no good at it.
Or perhaps people are not taking the decision as seriously as they should be.Yup. That us humans are no good at it.
How do you mean? Most couples I’ve seen get married–excluding the drunk in Las Vegas types–have been together for over a year and have their reasons. They may not exercise as much judgement as an older, wiser person would… but that comes with youth. I have personally attended dozens of weddings, and only a few seemed like obviously poor choices from the start.
Just because not all Christians or Catholics agree on what the rules are, it does not make them unclear. Actually the Church is explicitly clear on artificial birth control. And just because many Catholics choose to ignore the Churches’ teaching on ABC, or anything else for that matter, it does not mean that those teachings are unclear. It means that some people have chosen not to follow them because they interfere with their plans. You do see this, don’t you?