Skip to main content

In My Father's House

 It is not the responsibility of the child to teach its parent who they are.

It is the responsibility of the parent to create an environment in which the child feels safe enough to become who they are.

To a child, only in such an environment can true freedom be experienced and real "free will" be exercised.

The parent who creates an environment in which the child feels unsafe to become who they are, where they must pretend to be something they are not in order to avoid being rejected and win the parents acceptance and approval, creates an emotional Skinner box of expectation in which the child's true self is conditioned to perform like a circus animal. 

Based on the behavioral psychologist B. F. Skinner, a Skinner box is an apparatus for studying instrumental conditioning in animals (typically rats or pigeons) in which the animal is isolated and provided with a lever or switch which it learns to use to obtain a reward, such as a food pellet, or to avoid a punishment, such as an electric shock.

The second environment is the one cultivated by religion, with the food pellet being approval and the electric shock being rejection, both of which you receive for whether you "believe" in Catholicism or not. 

The first environment is the one cultivated by love, where no one judges you based on whether you believe in the right "brands" of beliefs.

In my family, home was a Skinner box.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why Christianity is More Unnatural Than Homosexuality

I grew up in a family that is about as homophobic as Phil Robertson and the Westboro Baptists, only they're not quite as boisterous about it; at least not in public anyway. They have also conveniently convinced themselves  that their homophobia is really just their unique Christian ability to "hate the sin, but love the sinner" (even though these very same Christians adamantly refuse to accept that people can "hate Christianity, but love the Christian").  The sexual superiority complex necessarily relied on by such Christians is, of course, blanketed beneath the lambs wool of the Christian humility of serving "God." They interpret their fear of those who are different, in other words, as simply proof of their intimate knowledge and love of God. And the only thing such Christians are more sure about than that their own personal version of "God" exists, is that such a "God" would never want people to be homosexual - no matter how ma...
Post a Comment
Read more
  The world changes according to the way people see it, and if you alter even by a millimeter the way people look at reality, then you can change it.” James Baldwin   
Post a Comment
Read more

Why Are Republicans Pro Life?

Most people don't realize that the Supreme Court has been in the hands of the Republican party since at least 1970! In fact, even in the landmark case of Roe v Wade that legalized abortion, SCOTUS was inhabited by 6 Republicans and 3 Democrats, and the vote was 7 to 2. One of the reasons is that the Republican Party has absolutely ZERO desire to win on the abortion issue. And that's because abortion gives the GOP a clear focal point with potentially unlimited organizing power. And it's an even simpler message to sell than religion, since we are "pro-life." (if that was true, however, they wouldn't be actively trying to repeal healthcare for up to 30 million Americans, nor would they be so pro-gun, pro-war, pro-death penalty, pro welfare cuts, pro- social security cuts, pro- drone strikes, etc). The Republican party officially became "pro-life" in 1976, thanks to Jesse Helms (R-NC). The only reason no serious challenge was brought within the pa...
Post a Comment
Read more