“If you stick a frog in a boiling pan of water, he’ll try to jump out. But if you stick a frog in a pan of cold water and gradually heat it up, the frog will sit there until he boils to death.”
This charming bit of folks lore is used to show us that if we accept even a little wordiness into our lives that we’ll soon be boiled to death in a steaming pot of apathy. Whether or not that’s actually the case, there’s one small problem with the illustration…it’s completely bogus.
The legend is entirely incorrect! The ‘critical thermal maxima’ of many species of frogs have been determined by several investigators. In this procedure, the water in which a frog is submerged is heated gradually at about 2 degrees Fahrenheit per minute. As the temperature of the water is gradually increased, the frog will eventually become more and more active in attempts to escape the heated water. If the container size and opening allow the frog to jump out, it will do so.
Let the child realize that you are simply representing God in the execution of the punishment.
Sometimes spanking should leave stripes on the child.
During the formative years, yea, the infant years, the child should be spanked. As soon as his is old enough to walk away from his parents he should be spanked if he does not walk where they say he should walk. … Parents should not have to remove vases and delicate glass ornaments from living room tables. A house need not become disorderly and full of riots because a baby has come. Start early in disciplining the child.
The [spanking] ritual should be deliberate and last at least ten or fifteen minutes. It should be a ritual dreaded by the child. He should not only dread the pain but the time consumed in the ordeal.
The punishment should always be far in excess of the pleasure enjoyed by doing wrong.
Never give a child that for which he cries. The baby who cries for attention and gets it will become a child who cries for a toy and gets it
The spanking should be administered firmly. It should be painful and it should last until the child’s will is broken. It should last until the child is crying not tears of anger but tears of a broken will. As long as he is stiff, grits his teeth, holds on to his own will, the spanking should continue. ¦
After the spanking tell him why you did it. While he is still crying have him sit down.
Happy is the child who feels the security of such punishment.
” Jack Hyles How to Rear Children (1972)
Not only do fundamentalists have strict standards for a person’s body while they are alive, they also have a rather strict view of what should happen after they die as well. Mention cremation to some fundamentalists and one might very well receive the kind of reaction that would normally only be observed after suggestions for something like ritual cannibalism.
It would seem that early Christians buried their dead rather than immolating them. Whether this was because they disliked the Greek and Roman customs or because they were living in catacombs anyway making burial there a lot more convenient is unclear. Of course if the “paganism” of a practice is the main concern then embalming should definitely be forbidden lest they they be like unto the heathen Egyptians. (ed. the previous is satire and should not be taken seriously no matter how strict a fundamentalist you are. If I hear of someone preaching against embalming based on the its history in Egypt, I will devote an entire post to your silliness. You have been warned.)
Man came from dust and to dust he shall return. Apparently it’s the speed at which he gets there that has fundamentalists in such a tizzy.
Someone once said that most heresy is started by one man sitting alone in a room with a Bible. That person was not a fundamentalist. In fact, a staple of many fundamentalist sermons is this line: “I was reading this passage this week and I found something there that I’d never seen before…” What’s even more striking is that nobody else in orthodox Christianity has ever seen it there before either.
What follows next could be just about anything from facts about Jesus not having belly button to suggestions that anti-depression medications may cause a mild case of demon possession. Whatever the case it will be highly entertaining and elicit a lot of amens from the preacher boys who will then and there determine that they too will someday uncover such scintillating jewels of truth.
It is important to note that not everybody gets these same discovery privileges. If a woman should happen to discover from the Scripture something as strange as the office of a deaconess she will be informed that only people with an extra helping of the Holy Spirit get to find new things in the Bible and that she’d be better off quietly re-reading Proverbs 31 a few more times.
“You won’t hear this preached anywhere else!” That’s for sure.
Not only do fundamentalists have strict standards for a person’s body while they are alive, they also have a rather strict view of what should happen after they die as well. Mention cremation to some fundamentalists and one might very well receive the kind of reaction that would normally only be observed after suggestions for something like ritual cannibalism.
Someone once said that most heresy is started by one man sitting alone in a room with a Bible. That person was not a fundamentalist. In fact, a staple of many fundamentalist sermons is this line: “I was reading this passage this week and I found something there that I’d never seen before…” What’s even more striking is that nobody else in orthodox Christianity has ever seen it there before either.