Joel Hilliker, the epitome of true first century masculinity, has this to say in Men: Report for Duty:
Here is a specific example of masculine leadership that arises multiple times a day in a family: telling your children what to do. An engaged Christian father issues quite a number of instructions—not for his own benefit or vanity, but because he is actively directing his children to do things that will benefit them and others. But it only starts there.
Once you tell your child to do something, you must then pay attention to the child’s attitude toward that instruction, and then to his performance. You cannot simply give an instruction, return to what you were doing and forget what you said. Children, particularly if untrained, will often test the limits of your authority. If you give some direction and then return your full attention to your conversation with your guest, you are training your child not to be too concerned about your commands. The child you just told to stop racing his car on the coffee table will go right back to it.
Once you give a command, remain on duty. Ensure the child follows through. This must be the case at home, at Sabbath services, in public, everywhere.
“In order to teach your child any of these constructive habits, you will need to apply constant diligence and never-failing attention to duty,” The Plain Truth About Child-Rearing says. “You simply cannot expect to have decent results if you just give your child instructions, and then forget all about the lesson—letting the child get down from the chair when he decides, put up his toys when he gets around to it, or begin to talk when you have told him to be quiet.”
Be Aware
The booklet devotes an important section to “Be Aware of What’s Happening”: “Another way parents encourage foolishness in their children is by not knowing what’s going on. In many cases everyone knows but the parents.” The example that follows is of a boy who went so far as to take up smoking cigarettes, and everyone knew it—except his parents!
Do not be afraid to ask your child direct questions. Do not be too timid to intervene. When you never ask your child why she disobeyed, or why he didn’t come directly home, or why her tone seems stressed, your children begin to assume you do not care. Then they begin to think that what they do is none of your business. “Since their parents do not care to know, they feel that the parents have no right to know” (ibid).
In The Missing Dimension in Sex, Herbert W. Armstrong specifically mentions the possibility of young people developing the habit of masturbation. “This would never be if parents realized their responsibility and were vigilant, ever watchful imperceptibly, and took proper means to protect their children from this curse!” he wrote.
Exercising authority in your children’s lives is not easy—it is labor. It is not a power trip. It is a service. It is for their benefit. And it is your duty.We were taught by an evangelist in the Principles of Living class in Pasadena while the college was still "God's College" one afternoon on the topic of masturbation. This well liked evangelist said, "95% of you in this room have masturbated. The other 5% lie about it."
Parents can tell when a child has gone through the pube scene, and has begun to masturbate. All the lotions and creams around the house suddenly begin to accelerate in their usage and disappearance, and fawcet knobs in the sink and bathtub become slippery, as well as the bathroom doorknobs.
ReplyDeleteIn a way, though, there’s a feeling of relief that a parent experiences along with that realization. The probablility of teenage pregnancy goes way down. Unfortunately, fundamentalist parents probably worry that their child has gone gay or is going to get a demon.
BB
Masturbation is common, but is still a weakness. It encourages self-centeredness, objectification of others through fantasy, and lack of self-control. It also warps a person's perception of the twofold purpose of the sexual act - - for bonding and babies, love and life. Many are addicted to masturbation, often accompanied by the use of pornography, preferring or even to regular relations with one's spouse, because there are no demands. It's all about pleasing oneself. Not exactly what I'd call healthy behavior.
ReplyDeletePedophiles are obsessed with child/youth sexuality! People teach and set examples for their children, but it's God himself who directs their paths.
ReplyDeleteSince the creator made us sexual beings and knew masturbation would be common, why is there not one scripture in the Bible addressing this issue?
ReplyDelete6.44 AM
ReplyDeleteActually, every person including children chooses their own path. As in 'choose life or choose death.'
The church portrays God as a puppet master to justify their own tyranny, but in fact God is a freedom loving, rights respecting God. The Gestapo ministers have Satan rather than God on their side.
Here all this time , I thought that the 1970s era WCG "STP" project actually stood for STOP TEENAGE PREGNANCIES!
ReplyDeleteHere all this time , I thought that the 1970s era WCG "STP" project actually stood for STOP TEENAGE PREGNANCIES!
ReplyDeleteSliding Toward Protestantism?
Stifle The Pastors?
Send Ted Porn?
The text quoted sounds like a recipe for neurotically obsessed parents who are ALWAYS looking for behavior they have to stomp on and stomp out. The writer, somewhere, probably claims it is all done "in love." What are his children like?
ReplyDeleteThere are, everywhere, tales of WCG-raised (and now PCG-raised)children and how messed up everyone was -- is -- by this authoritarian policing that masqueraded as "child rearing," and the destruction it caused to family relationships that were supposed to be "precious."
People telling you how to do things they really know nothing about, in excruciatingly unnecessary detail, because you can't think or decide for yourself.
Hmmm. Did I just briefly describe Armstrong Slavery in general?
ReplyDeleteThe PCG is just trying to distract everyone's attention from all the old sex maniacs, sex perverts, and predators in it who are just there to prey on younger single members. The local leaders try to match up other people's children with old perverts two or three times their age who cannot keep their hands off them and want to pass it off as “helping” them. The local leaders are often just there to get their own filthy old hands on other people's young children. The PCG is where filthy old men and women go to do evil to a captive group in the name of God. Those who try to simply shun all the evil get slandered all over the place and kicked out to make an example out of them. The PCG really is a satanic filth cult.
ReplyDeleteThe problem in the PCG is not with the young boys and girls touching themselves.
The problem in the PCG is with all the old men and women who want to touch the young boys and girls.
First of all I agree that masturbation can be addictive, secondly to say masturbation is selfish which it often is forgets the fact that someone can have sex with the other sex and be selfish as well, someone can have sex and leave the other person unsatisfied, saying that it is about pleasing yourself ignores the fact that many times people have sex they are thinking of their needs. Point is selfishness can come in many forms.
ReplyDeleteThis is so on topic: A friend showed me a cartoon today. A man is lying in a hospital bed, his doctor standing next to him. The man angrily shouts: “You cut my penis off!”
ReplyDeleteThe doctor replies, “Ma’am, you are going to have to calm down!
BB
Selfishness while engaging in sex with one's own spouse is wrong too. It's just that masturbation is inherently selfish, without exception.
ReplyDeleteThe sin of Onan in Genesis is clear enough,that when he engaged in a sexual act but intentionally did not complete it (he pulled out), he was punished.
Selfishness has nothing to do with it, unless you are doing it to deprive your wife. The man’s organs which manufacture and store the liquids need to be purged and replenished regularly. Otherwise toxins build up which over time can cause illnesses or cancer. Prostatitis, a tense mental state, and bladder infections might be the least of your problems unless you follow a good healthy regime.
DeleteHerbie spoke with a forked tongue on this. He publically advocated sleeping on your back so that wet dreams would occur. But what triggers the wetness of the dream is just as sinful as what one would imagine in one’s waking hours, and dreams reflect what is naturally in the mind. It’s not terribly shocking that we would learn years later about the inamous HWA “flog log”, or view film footage of GTA masturbating as he chases a masseuse around her table.
In Armstrongism, our leaders were always good at talking the talk, but they never personally walked their own talk. Someone had posted several years ago that the later WCG teaching on this was that it was no big deal for a married guy to masturbate, so long as he didn’t do it excessively, and as long as he only thought of his wife while seeking relief. I guess singles were still out of luck.
By selfishness I mean the use of our sexual faculties strictly for the sake of our own pleasure, though clearly that's not what they're for.
DeleteAnd by no means do our "liquids need to be purged and replenished regularly" through masturbation. And neither is sin required for a nocturnal emission.
Is your opinion in paragraph 2 based on your religious training, or on actual medical journals? Based on the medical science, you’re wrong, dude! Might want to do a bit more research. And, this information applies not only to men, but also to women.
DeleteAnonymous 7:42 AM said: "...The sin of Onan in Genesis is clear enough,that when he engaged in a sexual act but intentionally did not complete it (he pulled out), he was punished."
ReplyDeleteAre you equating the sin of Onan with solo masturbation?
Personally I don't equate the sin of Onan with solo masturbation even though in historic Christianity "Onanism" has been analogous with such for centuries. The Biblical record of Onan withdrawing himself and failing to consummate the sex act within Tamar was his sin i.e. coitus interruptus. He failed in his duty of the Levirate. If God condemned solo masturbation then He surely would've been clear in prohibiting such in the Law. However, He does not forbid it anywhere. He refers to nocturnal emissions or "wet dreams" in Dt 23:10-11 and in Lv 15:16-18 He doesn't even specify the manner by which a man has had an "emission of semen." It might have been through masturbation, nocturnal emission or sexual intercourse, which has led to him (and the woman as well if via sex) becoming "unclean." There is no sacrifice necessary in such a case. He (and the woman if both have had sex) are simply to bathe and at sunset they are "clean." Note such instructions are only provided in relation to who was granted entry into the Temple (e.g. Lv 22:4).
In "Judaism's Strange Gods" Michael Hoffman clarifies the issue thus: "In the Word of God, Onan, the yabam (brother-in-law) of Tamar, had the right to decline the obligation to serve as a levir, but he would be subject to ritual public humiliation (the widow would remove his shoe and spit in his face). Onan committed several transgressions: 1. He attempted to deceive God by appearing to accept the levirate duty and then faked it. 2. His means of faking was coitus interruptus, taking his pleasure of Tamar in the sex act and then practicing contraception by spilling his seed on the ground rather than consummating the act within her. 3. He compounded the latter sin by committing it repeatedly ("whenever he went into his brother's wife he spilled his seed upon the ground;" 38:9). The syntax shows this happened more than once. 4. All of these offences were committed out of lust, obviously, but also from jealousy and greed, so that Onan will inherit his deceased brother's estate rather than the male or female offspring that would inherit, were he to cause Tamar to conceive. God kills Onan for these sins. (pp. 285-6).
And a final note, I recall in HWA's book "The Missing Dimension in Sex" he condemned solo masturbation, but permitted mutual masturbation. I thought this was a double standard myself and later when I learned that HWA was guilty of solo masturbation and worse, besides his son GTA as well, I studied the Scriptures myself and came to the conclusion that solo masturbation is nowhere condemned in Holy Writ and thus I shall no longer judge anyone guilty of sin if they masturbate. Besides that I reasoned what's worse: fornication (i.e. premarital sex); adultery (i.e. sex with a married or divorced person); incest (i.e. sex with a family member); or solo masturbation?! Clearly the Bible condemns the former 3 sins as sins and says nothing in condemnation of the latter. Interestingly I recall coming across an article several years ago in my study (e.g. http://www.jmm.org.au/articles/5114.htm) that gave a possible and alternative meaning to some Biblical euphemisms, which the author believed referred to masturbation. Later looking through the ISBE article on "Sex, Sexuality" It opened my eyes to the many Biblical euphemisms for sex and the reproductive organs. I definitely didn't learn any of that in Sunday or Sabbath School!