Henry, for example, gets punished for the sin of VANITY -- he doesn't stop in the tunnel in order to shirk work, but rather to avoid getting his nice new paint messed up.
To see the difference between the shows, just try to imagine Mr. Rogers presenting a puppet show about bricking a character up in his room as punishment for not wanting to get his new suit wet in the rain. And imagine him, in that Mr Rogers voice, saying "I think he deserved that punishment, don't you?"
For example, Romans 1 talks about how people (not a vengeful God) set up the worst consequences for themselves. God's "wrath" is unfiltered humanity. Romans 2 goes on about how there's plenty of blame to pass around (so there's no room for "good people" to blame "bad" ones). And Romans 4 holds up Abraham, an Old Testament character, as an example of how life should be lived, in faithfulness to a forgiving God. All through this passage, and in the rest of the book, a case is built from the Old Testament itself.
Anyway, I don't have strong feelings about Shining Time Station, but I think the Old Testament is more humane, sensible, and subtle than people seem to appreciate. At least the apostle Paul seemed to think so.
1. The Great Flood (Genesis),
2. Sodom (Genesis),
3. The Plagues of Egypt (Exodus),
4. The Exile of the Israelites from the Promised Land (Exodus).
Redemption, mercy, and forgiveness are primary themes in the Gospels, and further continue as major themes in the rest of the New Testament. Aside from the Lake of Fire (Hell), which is worse than being killed for being a first-born Egyptian child, references to punishment are secondary.
As for Paul's opinion of the Old Testament, that is fine, he wrote that opinion. There is no shortage of contradictory and conflicting opinions and facts in the Bible since it is a work compiled, edited, and written by humans.
That said, the mainstream Christian opinion that the Old Testament is vengeful and the New Testament is merciful is prevalent for a reason. Paul cannot retcon, try as he might, the events of the Old Testament.
Fair enough. But my point was that the analysis was the analysis of the New Testament authors. People are free to provide their own critical analysis, but they're disagreeing with Peter, Paul, and the Jesus of the Gospels even. I think people that hold this viewpoint and care to be rigorous about it would do well to review their arguments.
Regarding your first three examples, in each case the story is about God saving an imperfect group who trusts God:
1. Noah and his family
2. Lot and his family
3. Moses and the Israelites
...to back up to Romans 1, the reward for people who want to run their own show is often... their own show to run. They'll just be doing it on their own. Earth before the flood, Sodom, and recalcitrant Egyptians are all examples of this pattern. But in each of these cases, God decides not to end the story in just desserts but give people another shot to redeem themselves.
I'm refraining from commenting on example 4 mostly because I don't know exactly which even you're referring to (Israel ends up in the Promised Land). But the narrative of the Old Testament is generally Israel deciding to do its own thing over and over, asking for another chance, and getting one.
So one thing people usually have a problem with is the idea that God judges people at all. This usually stems from a belief that loving people don't judge people. This is clearly contradictory to certain tenets of the Bible, including the text of the New Testament. But I think most people, if they stop and think about it, disagree with this sentiment as well. Consider:
- A grown man kicks a toddler. The father of the toddler acts like nothing happened. Dad is a loving guy and wants peace more than judgement. No, a loving father is angry when his family is abused. He expects justice, even.
- A teacher doesn't particularly like a student so he ignores the student. The mother thinks this is messed up but understands the teacher is his own person and makes his own decisions. No, a loving mother gets angry when her kids aren't nurtured and taught properly. She expects corrective action.
In the interest of not writing a novella in an HN comment, I'll wrap it up here, so thanks for reading if you got this far. I appreciate the civil discussion.
Man, I really wish hn had a follow button so I could read more of your level headed and insightful responses :)
And he acts against the man who kicked his child. We call this normal; permitted, even recommended, by our common ideas of morality. But if he went on to commit a genocide against the man's family and every member of his tribe, young, old, and unborn, we call that "biblical". And that's why the old testament god is a genocidal maniac.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+25%3A31...
Implicit in your objection is that people are basically innocent and don't have any kind of consequences coming. That's an understandable opinion. It's just not what is stated in the Bible, either testament.
The above passage is, to apply it to my "upset parents" analogy, "Hey, you all are treating my family (humanity) like garbage. Enough is enough."
What about babies and "good people" that don't have it coming? Well, that's a theological rabbit hole I'll pass on for the moment, but the fundamental characterization of the God of the Bible is that he doesn't make mistakes, so there won't be a fair complaint when everything is said and done. His punishments fit the crimes and He doesn't punish people that don't deserve it.
Maybe you don't buy that. That's fair. But it's the ultimate question of the Bible: Do you trust God? Lots of people answer, "No." or even "Hell, no."
That's not mainstream Christian opinion. It's called Marcionism and it's universally condemned by mainstream Christianity.
It's fair to say it misses many subtleties of mainstream Christian view, but it is still more true than untrue. The theology of sanctifying grace[1] and the mercy of salvation[2] are both New Testament ideals which are the core of mainstream Christian theology.
It's called Marcionism and it's universally condemned by mainstream Christianity.
Marcionism is a whole other thing, involving two gods: Marcionists believed that the wrathful Hebrew God was a separate and lower entity than the all-forgiving God of the New Testament.
The idea of there being two, separate gods is what made it heretical.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_in_Christianity
[2] https://theconversation.com/what-is-the-true-meaning-of-merc...
No, "the theology of sanctifying grace and the mercy of salvation" are as old as the hills, and core to both the Old Testament and New Testament. You see hints of God's grace and mercy as early as Genesis 3, often referred to as the Protevangelium, i.e. the first glimpse of the Gospel in the Bible.
The themes of God's perfect justice, powerful salvation, abundant grace and mercy run right the way through the Bible.
That's at least how Moses himself understood the God of the Old Testament, see Exodus 33-34:
"Then the Lord came down in the cloud and stood there with him and proclaimed his name, the Lord. And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.” Moses bowed to the ground at once and worshiped. “Lord,” he said, “if I have found favor in your eyes, then let the Lord go with us. Although this is a stiff-necked people, forgive our wickedness and our sin, and take us as your inheritance.”"
For David's same understanding of the God of the Old Testament, see Psalm 23:
"The Lord is my shepherd... surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life"
And for Ezekiel, see Ezekiel 33:
"‘As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, people of Israel?’ “Yet your people say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ But it is their way that is not just. If a righteous person turns from their righteousness and does evil, they will die for it. And if a wicked person turns away from their wickedness and does what is just and right, they will live by doing so. Yet you Israelites say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ But I will judge each of you according to your own ways.”
Jesus of course is no different in his understanding of the Old Testament with reference to himself and his saving purpose, see Luke 24 and then read Isaiah 53 by way of comparison.
And Jesus' authorized representatives (the apostles) are no different, see 2 Timothy 3:15 where in context Paul is specifically referring to the Old Testament and the ability of the Old Testament to make people "wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus":
"...how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus."
Regarding your statement that "Marcionism is a whole other thing":
No, Marcion "rejected the Hebrew Bible and the God of Israel. Marcionists believed that the wrathful Hebrew God was a separate and lower entity than the all-forgiving God of the New Testament."
Contrary to Marcion, Jesus' (the Christ's) own view is that the Bible, from the OT to the NT, has one unified message, which is centered in himself and God's saving purpose for men and women hostile to him, which was accomplished through his sacrifice for sin (his death and resurrection), in their place, all of which was promised for centuries beforehand through the Old Testament (see Isaiah 53 again for an accessible example).
please go ahead and refute any of the following crimes against humanity which this psycho happily documented for all time.
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Examples_of_God_personally_kil...
The Old Covenant was the law written on tablets of stone, see Exodus 33-34.
The New Covenant is the law written on tablets of human hearts, see Ezekiel 36.
The place changes from "tablets of stone" to "tablets of human hearts".
It's also critical to understand that both covenants were given to those who were ALREADY God's people, saved on the basis of grace, through faith. The Old Covenant was given to those who had already been saved out of Egypt by God's powerful grace. The New Covenant is written on the hearts of those who are saved through faith in Christ's suffering, death and resurrection on their behalf. The Exodus then, rightly understood, is a foreshadowing of the need to be saved from slavery to sin (Jesus' own commentary in John 8).
Salvation in both OT and NT has always been on the basis of faith, see Abraham ("and his faith was counted to him as righteousness" - and this long before the Law was given). Salvation has never been on the basis of Law-keeping since the Law was given to fallen man after the events of Genesis 3 (Romans 5). We are not sinners because we break the Law. We break the Law because we are sinners. The Law makes people conscious of sin, and drives them to the grace of God. Once there, the Law shows people how to be godly, because the Law reflects God's own character.
So the difference is where the Law is written, not the contents of the Law itself. As Jesus said, the Law is to "love the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and to love your neighbor as yourself".
But knowing that, or trying to keep the Law externally will only lead to a knowledge of sin. It's faith in Christ alone which saves. We are not saved BY works, but FOR works and then again only once we are saved (Ephesians 2), and that by grace alone, through faith alone, in Jesus Christ alone, according to God's words alone, for God's glory alone.
Many people interpret the new covenant as God's change of heart. I don't think it is internally possible to acknowledge that the new testament and old testament gods are "different", for that would be a surface violation of monotheism, which is the common understanding of Moses' "first commandment". (this is problematic on many levels, but its the state of popular Christianity). To many Christians, Moses' first commandment is still wrapped up in "put no god before me", which they interpret to mean that Buddhists and Muslims can't "get saved" or some other similar thing. Ugh. The point being that its not safe for some fearful Christians to acknowledge that in their own belief system, "god" takes radically different characters in different contexts... That's too much cognitive dissonance and flirts with a violation of monotheism. The same cognitive dissonance hovers around trinitarian theology, which people also idolize.
Whereas in popular practice, there are myths saying God changes his basic agreement with humankind, and that it represents a change of heart. That God has a moment.
Even if theologically the idea of the old and new covenants is that human beings have come to a fresh relationship with god through some realization and change in their hearts, in evangelicalism it is too commonly is unpacked as "God used to be angry, but now he forgives us. Specifically because of Jesus sacrifice, we get a 'second chance.' Don't blow it."
I understand what your saying too, and find it compelling. I just don't wanna ignore the cultural myths attached to these theologies. Those are what make it a religion... how people unpack it.
All that said, I really do like your interpretation of the kernel of these theologies.
I'd also point out that Jesus says "I came to fill up the law". Jesus emphasized the positive character of the law, whereas Moses' was prohibitive, framed in negative terms. A lot of messianic type folks miss that one. They interpret this as a statement of pending apocalypse.
But it's really just more of a throwback to the original grace, and simple righteousness, of an integrated passion for your life and the people in it.
"What does the lord require of you but to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your god?" says Micah as he forecasts that some of the the poorest, marginalized people will realize, in a major way, that the answer to that question is "not much else".
Marcionism is nothing like what linkregister is claiming.
IDK if he needed to. Jesus declared he brought not peace, but a sword. Ananias and Sapphira were killed outright for lying about their finances. Revelations details enormous amounts of suffering for a fallen world, perhaps more than every other book combined. The New Testament is replete with examples of God's justice.
There's some horrific brutality and violence in the Old Testament. But the overall story is one of Yahweh's love and compassion for his people in a world where everything is falling apart around them. The same theme carries through into the New Testament.
If the Old Testament is really as bad as people say then Judaism really has a problem. But in my experience Jews aren't any more violent than Christians.
A group of people is not defined by a 3000-year-old folklore collection. You can’t infer anything about the text this way.
You'd be surprised. Especially Jews, which are an ethnoreligious [1] group.
Are you implying the Old Testament is not historical? Or not accurate with regards to history?
Or what do you mean by folklore?
Sure, as someone interested in history, I certainly take the Torah as accurate history. And I think that not a few ancient historians and archaeologists would do the same, irrespective of their views on Genesis 1.
For example, and I am referring to the entire Tanakh, I understand that Hezekiah was a real king in history who built a real tunnel which people really walk through today. I have no problem with that. I wouldn't consider that "folklore".
As someone interested in the historical method, I understand that the fact of an event, whether it happened or not, does not depend on the perceived likelihood I myself or others impute to it. I don't have any Naturalistic presuppositions. I don't subscribe to Naturalism as a philosophy, nor would I mistake it for science. So I won't immediately grab at revising the date for say Isaiah if he happens to mention Cyrus ahead of his birth.
Coming back to Genesis 1, you're forcing many literary and scientific issues if you want to tie Genesis 1 down (and dismiss it) as claiming a 6,000 (or 7,000) year old earth.
From a purely scientific perspective, the "age of the world" discussion needs to be wary of Hume's is-ought distinction. It would be a mistake to assume that the laws of physics have always been (and always will be) as they currently are. That would be to derive an "ought" (they must always have worked this way) from an "is" (the way things work today as we observe them).
In fact, from a literary point of view, if we read as far as Genesis 3, we see that Genesis itself suggests a seismic shift in the way things work, when death enters the world.
The point of Genesis 1-3 is that the world as we know it, is markedly different to the way God created it. I don't think we should overlook that.
So I see no contradiction between science and the Bible. In fact, I think they encourage and support each other.
Sucks to be Job's family though. I guess God winning his bet was more important than this love and compassion in that case.
But in my experience Jews aren't any more violent than Christians
I'm pretty sure any religious group can find something in their teachings to justify any possible position from complete non-violence to outright aggression.
It's not a mere bet, it's a story about life -- one of the more profound in literature, religious or not.
It has been widely and often extravagantly praised for its
literary qualities, with Alfred, Lord Tennyson calling it
"the greatest poem of ancient and modern times" [1]
"Brothers and sisters, as an example of patience in the face of suffering, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. As you know, we count as blessed those who have persevered. You have heard of Job’s perseverance and have seen what the Lord finally brought about. The Lord is full of compassion and mercy."
The book of Job itself suggests a historical context from the very outset, see Job 1:
"In the land of Uz there lived a man..."
It would be a mistake to reduce the book's message to a mere "moral tale" (although it is at least that - and much more).
Judaism has also developed a lot since antiquity. After the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 AD, it developed into Rabbinic Judaism with a number of rabbis creating authoritative interpretations of the Halacha, or Jewish law. One such famous rabbi was Maimonides who lived in the 12th century.
Melvin Tinker provides historical background on the Canaanites and the question of justice vs genocide here:
https://www.amazon.com/Mass-Destruction-Melvin-Tinker/dp/178...
As far as the Egyptian first-born, was God not patient and slow to anger? Was that the first plague or the last plague? How many years had the Egyptians oppressed another people? How many Israelite children did the Egyptians not kill? Did the punishment not fit the crime? Is God not just?
‘As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, people of Israel?’
“Therefore, son of man, say to your people, ‘If someone who is righteous disobeys, that person’s former righteousness will count for nothing. And if someone who is wicked repents, that person’s former wickedness will not bring condemnation. The righteous person who sins will not be allowed to live even though they were formerly righteous.’ If I tell a righteous person that they will surely live, but then they trust in their righteousness and do evil, none of the righteous things that person has done will be remembered; they will die for the evil they have done. And if I say to a wicked person, ‘You will surely die,’ but they then turn away from their sin and do what is just and right— if they give back what they took in pledge for a loan, return what they have stolen, follow the decrees that give life, and do no evil—that person will surely live; they will not die. None of the sins that person has committed will be remembered against them. They have done what is just and right; they will surely live.
“Yet your people say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ But it is their way that is not just. If a righteous person turns from their righteousness and does evil, they will die for it. And if a wicked person turns away from their wickedness and does what is just and right, they will live by doing so. Yet you Israelites say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ But I will judge each of you according to your own ways.”
Jesus, in John 10:
“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.
“I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life—only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.”
The Jews who heard these words were again divided. Many of them said, “He is demon-possessed and raving mad. Why listen to him?”
But others said, “These are not the sayings of a man possessed by a demon. Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?”
seems pretty fked up to me :)
I don't know anything about rationalwiki.org, it's the first site that showed up when I googled "old testament character punished"
Each statement is linked to Biblical verses though, so any objections would be to the spin they put on it rather than disputing whether those passages are actually there.
Basically, old testament Yahwe is a weird dude. Very thin skinned with a hare trigger temper. He's a sociopath who "tests" people by murdering their family among other atrocities. He does have his bro's back though. He sent 2 bears to maul 42 youths to death for mocking Elijah's bald head.
We were taught the bible every day by our splendid primary school headmaster, who had been a Spitfire pilot in WW2, and he seemed to focus on the most unpleasant bits of the Old Testament - even at at tender age this did not create a particularly positive impression of G. Years, later I did wonder if old Mr C was being just a wee bit subversive with us.
I'm sure it does. You're a product of the Enlightenment and when you read you read the Bible you interpret it as a product of the Enlightenment.
If you want to actually understand what the Bible was trying to communicate you need to remember who the Bible was written by and who it was written for. A Bronze-age Middle-Easterners is going to get a very different message from the Bible than you are.
Whoever lives his life according to the "What would Jesus do?" doctrine is likely a nice fellow, although a little extremest perhaps. Whoever lives his life according to the "What would YHWH do?" doctrine is a raging psychopath you'd be advised to stay away from.
According to Jesus, "What would Jesus do?" and "What would YHWH do?" are one and the same, see John 14:
"Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.”"
"Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?"
Only if you remove or add to the context in which both were given.
The principle of eye for an eye was to __restrict__ compensation to the value of the loss, where the wickedness of man would otherwise tend to overreach. One has only to see Lamech for an early example of judicial overreach: "If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy and sevenfold."
And if you study the Sermon on the Mount in context, you will see that Jesus was not in fact referring to the OT when he said, "you have heard that it was said, "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" but I say to you..." but rather to the Pharisees' weakening, distortion and misuse of the OT.
The historical Jesus (according to all the earliest accounts, for which there is superfluously excellent textual reliability according to textual criticism) had a very high view of the OT, and deepened the OT, see the context of the Sermon on the Mount:
"Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the __Pharisees__ and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven."
If I were predisposed to look for puerile contradictions in the Bible, I am sure I would find as many as I would give time, but Jesus himself saw none. I would encourage you to take Jesus more seriously.
No. The principle was to restrict the scope of revenge. Yes, in the OT gouging someone's eye out to "compensate" for one of your family members having their eye gouged out was "fair compensation." But the NT turns completely against that idea. That's what "turn the other cheek" means.
While the Bible is so full of contradictions that you certainly can find support in some verse for whatever theory you want to prove, the concept of mercy and forgiveness is just not emphasized as much in the OT as it is in the NT.
I think rather the principle is one of justice. Lamech is an example of revenge (not justice). Revenge is never given to men by God ("It is mine to avenge; I will repay").
"But the NT turns completely against that idea."
No, not at all, or when last did you read the Bible carefully?
Jesus taught plainly that to turn against the words of Moses at all even in the slightest is to turn against Jesus himself.
Jesus taught plainly that if you won't accept the words of Moses, you won't accept Jesus' own resurrection from the dead.
"the concept of mercy and forgiveness is just not emphasized as much in the OT as it is in the NT."
That is a gross misrepresentation of the OT. You've fallen for Marcion's error and worse.
With the merciful you show yourself merciful;
with the blameless man you show yourself blameless;
with the purified you show yourself pure;
and with the crooked you make yourself seem tortuous.
For you save a humble people,
but the haughty eyes you bring down.Why try to whitewash the bible? The old testament Jehovah was a vile sociopath. Jesus is a cool guy with a dad that has some screws loose. I grew up in a fundie family, the hoops fundies jump through to justify old testament idiot God are ridiculous and I have no time for that.
Understanding (and understanding in context) is not whitewashing. There's excellent scholarship in the bible, from religious and non-religious authors.
Knee-jerk reactions about "vile psychopaths" are not that.
For one, the "old testament Jehovah" was the person who gave life, the universe and everything to the people who died (e.g. in Sodom) anyway. So it was his to take. Psychopathy applies to people, not gods.
fuck off, that's gross. as humans if we ever create AI we'll (hopefully) do it in the context of a robust ethical framework, and yet all knowing Jehovah couldn't fucking do some due diligence? Jesus fucking Christ, how pathetic of him.
Sure, it is now. But it (probably) wasn't gross back when the bible was written.
The bible is a piece of art/propaganda written to support the sense of tribal unity and to ensure political power stays with the right people. The God, therefore, is just a character - a literary device - from a book written 3k years ago for a very specific target audience. We are not that target audience and we lack the cultural context to decipher the intended meaning - the meaning that the authors had in mind when writing. It's entirely possible that to the authors and their readers the biblical stories were about mercy (or whatever).
And it's not "whitewashing". Nobody denies that OT God is a mass killer. They just claim that - for a fictional character - being a mass killer (or a god for that matter) was very differently perceived 3000 years ago in a middle of a desert.
sigh
you've clearly never dealt with fundies. I was raised by people who taught me that literally every word was divine and that the entire bible is a historical document (there are millions of these idiots across the globe). These people will bend over backwards to explain to you how the wholesale murder of babies was totally justified. They'll even do it with a straight face.
You and I both agree that the Bible is no different than Harry Potter, and God happens to be a bad guy in the first half.
There are millions of people who live their lives believing that the entire bible is a 100% historical document. Having unshackled myself from these morons, this topic can be a bit of a sore point for me ;)
Then I read a comment saying that there is no morality without god and saw my previous comment above downvoted... I initially tought that you overreacted (not that I don't understand your reasons for it 100%!), but now I'm not so sure... :)
There are no grounds (rational or otherwise) for objective morality outside of God.
See Hume's "is-ought" dilemma.
And if you're into Atheism see also Sam Harris' debate with William Lane Craig.
hopefully we can do better than OT god, otherwise we're in for rough ride.
That's the Devil's oldest lie, and his favorite.
"otherwise we're in for rough ride."
That's what we've been witnessing ever since.
Rogers might have been a seminarian, but he taught the dharma.
Vanity is a sin in the New Testament too.
And, religion or not, is a silly sentiment that ticks other people off, leads to bad decisions, makes people unhappy, and life itself punishes in several ways anyway.
Seemingly only in the US ("the Fat Controller is always referred to by his real name, "Sir Topham Hatt" in the US"[0]). I was born in 1990 (UK), and as I recall he was almost always refered to as "The Fat Controller".
(Posted from the comfort of an HST on the rural Cotswold Line, slated for part closure 40 years ago and now thriving.)
I enjoy my commute by train into Edinburgh from Fife - not least because it means I get to go over the Forth Bridge.
The network is alright, although still shamefully behind most of Europe (very little electrification, still no high speed, etc etc).
Lived in the US, seen Thomas shows + books (not originals) for decades, and only now hear anything but Sir Topham Hatt.
"We shall take away your rails," he said. "And leave you here for always and always and always."
They definitely wanted the viewer to believe it was permanent for purposes of that episode.
And if you watch the scene (linked to elsewhere in the thread), the dominant emotional themes are stubbornness, arguing, physical confrontation, the giving & revoking of permissions and punishment. That's haunting, not wholesome.
Just had a good friend’s nephew drown in a pool. He had snuck in a backyard pool, skirting past or under the fence. As a parent the whole thing was a nightmare for me to imagine, but I did think about how or if to communicate to my kids that there are things they can do that will have permanent consequences or effects. I do my absolute best to shield and protect them, but I also hope and pray they make the right choice if (when) I fail in that.
I’m not saying that the punishment in that episode was appropriate, but simply that the concept of permanent consequences is a life lesson we all must learn at some point. And it’s incredibly difficult to teach kids.
But at the same time, I like to think there's a reasonable amount of breathing space between noting the show's excessively haunting atmosphere and indulging in a fantasy of a world completely free from consequences, and that with sufficient good faith I can do the former without having to disavow the latter.
But I definitely share your observation about the show's tone, and it's interesting to note that different people can see value in the show for opposite reasons. Some see it as wholesome, others as delivering needed lessons on the severity of life.
https://youtu.be/dWtNGzGZTCo?t=2m28s
I agree they left it kinda weird, especially if you only ever watch that one episode. And that's why it was later edited.
0: https://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Tank-Engine-Story-Collection/d...
I'm reminded of Roger Ebert's brilliant review of Fight Club, where he pointed out that, given the visual medium, the images and themes you choose to put in front of a viewer (again, a child audience!) speak for themselves, and whatever the writer "thinks the message is, that's not what most audience members will get."
What does that mean though? Generally kids who are old enough to follow the story know that the universe is reset in each episode.
Spongebob is a far better show in all respects (I hated it until I had kids). Aside from being hilarious on several levels, it is remarkably socially conscious without being preachy. Oh and it even has some recurring non-pathetic female characters.
really? I always found it to be quite creepy. The constant obsession with being a "really useful" engine. The shaming of engines who don't toe the line. Victimisation of engines who misbehave. The show makes me strangely uncomfortable for some reason.
Obedience, diligence, and selflessness are admirable qualities. All kids and adults should strive to be really useful, in the best sense of the phrase. There's far too much narcissism in the world.
Consider that the US military simultaneously teaches the importance of following orders and every soldier/sailor/airman/marines obligation to refuse illegal orders.
And even there, people who run away from soviet union broke the law. It was ok to do so in my opinion. People who were dissenters, owned printers and spread ... ehm ... evil capitalist propaganda broke the law too. It was heroic from them to do so. Likewise with breaking nazi laws.
Likewise with marrying/dating between blacks and whites where it was illegal or helping slaves escape. I am ok with Snowden too.
If you think that the rule of law is about obedience, I think you are completely missing the point. The whole point of the rule of law is to avoid arbitrariness in how the state treats people. You could maybe say that it is about obedience of sorts on the part of those people who work for the government, to only use their special powers in line with what the law says. But even then you have the option to resign from the job rather than to obey if you object to what the law says.
While sometimes following rules while at the same time disagreeing with them is appropriate (and that also should be taught to kids), civil disobedience is also a very important factor in fighting injustice, in particular the kind of injustice that the state produces when it rules by unjust law.
Given how much injustice in the world has happened essentially because of obedience to laws, I find it hard to believe anyone would consider obedience a virtue. Laws in general should be followed, but not because it's a virtue to follow laws, but because enlightened self-interest should inform you that a society that has clear rules that everyone is bound by has tons of benefits, because by respecting the rules in favour of others, you gain that others respect the rules in your favour. But whenever that balance is clearly violated, it should be everyone's first priority to disobey.
(And the military itself knows this; scroll further down on the same page to read about "Command intent"—which is sort of, 1. the planned incentivization that commanders and law-makers do, giving orders that will be misinterpreted and misapplied by people with conflicting preferences to give results they ultimately want, rather than giving orders that are "right" at first but which go wrong after a fifteen-layer game of hierarchical telephone; and 2. the knowledge that the orders you've been given are of this "robust under misinterpretation" type, and so knowing to not read too much about the original "Commander's intent" into them.)
Teaching a child that following orders is good, but that disobeying "bad" orders is also good, is virtue ethics, and has all the same problems as virtue ethics: there's no clear test for which virtue wins when two virtues come into conflict.
Common intent sets a much clearer standard: just understand the intent of the person giving the order—the "spirit of the law"—and then obey that, disobeying the letter of the law if-and-only-if it conflicts with the spirit of the law. This shakes out to obedience to good orders (or orders given by trusted commanders) but disobedience to bad orders (or orders given by untrusted commanders) ...except where a good law/trusted commander applies a meta-order to the effect of "please do me the favor of following the bad orders; it advances the spirit of the law in a hard-to-follow consequentialist way that you'll be able to see in retrospect."
Which is pretty much what humans who we consider to have "character" already do intuitively, so it's (hopefully) a good thing to systematize.
That's fine, but in Thomas it's presented as : be really useful or else...
I find it mildly sinister, I have a visceral dislike for the show. The moralising does not sit well with me at all.
But to what? These qualities mean nothing in themselves. They are traits, not virtues. A virtue is surely a trait aligned to some kind of positive value.
You can obediently, diligently and selflessly slaughter people all day.
Children, developmentally challenged ones excluded, inherently trust parents who have given them adequate nurturing. Emotional outbursts, challenges to authority, and disrespectful behavior will happen as they become able to move around. The parent should be patient with, but not reward, uncontrollable emotional outbursts.
Challenges to authority or dangerous activities (e.g., running into traffic) should be met with firm, kind correction (move the child away from danger, say "no" to hitting and hold the hands, etc.). To influence children to perform an action, leverage and bargaining is effective.
It is through this slow, persistent grinding of wills that teach children how to behave. Meanwhile, allowing as much autonomy from the child as is possible / practical allows the child to blossom, while reading and sharing in activities inspires the child and builds trust and affection.
I firmly believe that obedience is earned in some way or another: through fear of retribution, or through the trust and desire to please / aversion to disappoint.
It is apparent later in life which children were raised in the latter manner: they, in general, have good relationships with their parents; authoritarian parents have a harder time developing relationships and getting much-needed support from their adult children.
I didn't mention neglectful parenting, which will often produce worse outcomes than authoritarian parenting: crime, emotional instability, etc.
Nobility, top hats, steam engines.
Valuing people for their utility is incredibly dangerous, because it logically invites us to devalue people for their lack of utility. My community is full of broad-shouldered, hard-working men who became economically useless when the coal mine closed. They're not worse than me, they were just born a few decades too late. They deserve every comfort that society affords me, but the fallacy of meritocracy has provided society with a plausible excuse to neglect them.
My understanding of technology bridges many islands - I know I'd be useful in the 19th or even 18th century because of my other characteristics.
You could be really useful to a really shitty employer and yet be a net negative on society.
My kids are a bit too old for Thomas now, but we still say people are "causing confusion and delay" when they derail the rest of the family.
When they watch a train crash episode, for example, they don't run into walls afterward, they pick up their trains and crash them together.
Oh, mine do both.
Crash into the couch.
"Bust my buffers!"
It's not too unusual to hear a young boy talking about Thomas while waiting for or in a train. It's often been the only real conversation I can understand elsewhere in Europe. ("Which one is this?" "It's red mummy, this is James!")
I think we all know.
And that's the underlying justification for a lot of the episodes: Thomas has an obligation to be grateful for his work and to do as he's told. Even when he doesn't like the job. Even if there are better things for him to do. Even if his friends are sad or in danger.
It's a pretty vile lesson.
Now, is the message of the series that Man enslaves machines, or that Man Enslaved becomes a machine?
And should you aspire to become master of the machines, or slave to the Man?
My 2yo nephew recently started watching Thomas. It was my first real exposure to it.
After watching a few episodes I remarked that the central messages of Thomas are:
- Authority always knows best.
- Never think for yourself.
- You have no value until you are 'useful'.
Independent thinking is lauded ( Toad suggesting how to save the whale ), but unilateral action is not.
> You have no value until you are 'useful'.
In the wider context of society that's entirely accurate. Community doesn't exist unless people contribute to the group.
So it's a mistaken ideology from the start. Usefulness is valuable -- that's practically the definition of the term. But life requires finding a way to be valuable in predictable ways just as readily as it does finding a way to be valuable in unpredictable, circumstantial, and unforeseen ways.
So it's not entirely accurate. It's partially accurate; it is as much a lie by omission.
When they come into contact with team activities ( sports etc ), the world of work or even just small social groups they will be graded implicitly and explicitly by the value they contribute. Should we not prepare them for that?
Even here on HN those who are lauded as heroic engineers are those seen as Really Useful ( started a space company, have a lot of github contributions, maintain an OS kernel etc ), not the quiet cogs who churn-out CRUD apps in Fortune 100s.
It's always great to have a space or a time in which you can slob-out and be not-useful but Western society considers that exceptional and calls it 'vacation'.
The question is: Prepare them to be graded, or prepare them to grade? Both of those are a result of their education.
> Even here on HN those who are lauded as heroic engineers are those seen as Really Useful ( started a space company, have a lot of github contributions, maintain an OS kernel etc ), not the quiet cogs who churn-out CRUD apps in Fortune 100s.
Do you think those "Really Useful" people got where they are now by following what was "now-usefulness" at the time? I would argue they got there precisely because they challenged the status quo, and made a bet on what would be valued down the line, a risky bet at that (you just don't hear about those who made bets that didn't work out).
Those quiet cogs are actually precisely the ones who are "useful" in the authoritarian sense: They contribute to what the powers that be want to use them for.
Objectively, we went to the moon. That's measurable, and that's us. We are entirely physical beings.
I'm too young to have watched this show. Just googled it and it really does look like a lovely, wholesome show.
Personally my gold standard is the original Looney Toons (Mel Blanc era). I could watch that irreverent, slapstick all day. I'd rather my kid take a leaf from Bugs Bunny's F-you style than Thomas' meek, obey, do what you're told and stay on the rails message.
It's not really on the air anymore. The modern animated spinoff "Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood" is still on, and is quite good. But I'm not sure when you'd find the original still on.
I watched a couple recently. I've gotten way too used to HD :)
I find Looney Toons extremely racist and stereotypical. Though I grew up on it, I wouldn’t expose kids to it.
We told our son that Christmas was coming up.
"Oh no. I have to find a present!"
He thinks that Christmas is about giving, not receiving :P
EDIT: I skimmed the Wikipedia article, and discovered it had a pretty wide distribution. I'm impressed!
Looks like PBS Kids (the most likely syndication for Americans) ran it to some degree from 1993 to 2002.
"Go complain about it on the internet."
I remember one episode where the Fat Controller hires new engines to break a strike. There's obvious political overtones there that reflect the times it was written in perhaps. But in the context of the kids watching and learning, it's about not throwing tantrums to get your way, and the new engines being polite and humble in their work.
Conversely, a lot of the modern cartoons around are about breaking rules, getting away with stuff because the protagonist is 'special' and fighting.
Would you really cast that as a positive lesson? I have never watched this series as a kid, but it seems really awful and confirms the argument of the article.
In the moral system I was raised in (EU), people have a legal right to strike and helping break it is highly immoral.
To me it seems abusive, and ignoring historical lessons, to teach this kids the other way around.
Do you think there is ever a legitimate reason to challenge authority? I mean, what determines whether going on strike is "throwing a tantrum"? Is it the mere act of disobeying authority?
The show is dignified and wholesome. It is always about respect, diligence, and humility.
It isn't there for stupid antics and wacky laughs. It doesn't blast color explosions and ADHD-fueled off-the-charts mind-numbing exuburance to capture kids attention. And it's been doing that for decades (pretty much eternity, as far as kids TV goes).
Not since Mr. Rogers has there been a better kids TV show.
> Fat Controller
Better known as Sir Topham Hatt since the 1950s.
> Henry must be punished—for life
Even in the old non-US version (modern one makes it explicit), it was still evident that he wasn't left in their forever, as he showed up again next time.
Blue Mountain Mystery [1] A little green engine hides in the blue hills. Thomas learns that long ago, the engine accidentally caused another engine to roll overboard into the sea. He has been hiding ever since, in guilt and fear and shame. Thomas convinces him to return, and the story shows how silly the little engine's worries were. It's a moral of forgiveness and redemption. (Also, there's a great surprise about who that overboard engine actually is.)
This crap makes me mad. I have to stop reading stuff on the internet. Go back to watching Sponge Bob or Family Guy or whatever crap you watch with your kids.
[1] http://ttte.wikia.com/wiki/Blue_Mountain_Mystery