Decapitation at SFoG

LOL! Wanna go for a coffee some time? LOL! ;)

I was directing my comments more towards Gonch and Matt. If you cant identify the changes, then pity would be my next word for you.

No no, I'm right. You're wrong. No, really I'm right. :)

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matt. said:

Because

a.) Myspace does not equal reality
b.) The notion that one can judge someone's Christian-ness via Myspace is laughable (and, as a side note, completely un-Christian, no?)
c.) His personal religious convictions are irrelevant to this conversation unless someone can connect the dots and show otherwise and
d.) His Myspace is completely typical and yet his actions are obviously not.

Judge not lest ye be judged? Anyone familiar with this one? Is that not considered a Christian value?

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I happen to agree with Matt on all four (five if you include the bonus point) points here. As someone who works with underprivileged kids in a church as a vocation and has taken them to Six Flags (OT and GADv. when I lived in Jersey) on a regular basis, I can tell you that what kids put on their Myspace pages does not reflect their true character, faith, integrity, or intelligence or their ability to follow rules in an amusement park. I still don't see where people are drawing any connection...I could make a myspace page to look "hard" (as most the kids I work with do) and that wouldn't change any of the important things about who I am. I know and work with tons of kids who submit to peer pressuse and create myspace pages bragging about things they've never done and things they have no interest in doing - like the three things on this young man's page. It's a stupid decision, but to assume that you can know anything substantial about a person based on their myspace page is absurd.

If you really want to start talking about "wholesome American Christianity" (which, in too many instances is really another form of consumerism in disguise), let's talk about this kid's character, not his page.

How do you know whether he went to church regularly? How do you know whether he served at the soup kitchen every chance he got? How do you know whether he gave his college fund away to a homeless shelter? How do you know he wasn't a spiritual leader in his congregation? How do you know how often he prayed? How do you know what he did, what he believed, and what he felt? How do you know what other mistakes he's made and how he has or hasn't paid for them? How do you know how often he follows rules and how often he breaks them?

By his Myspace page?????

*** Edited 7/7/2008 6:17:47 AM UTC by ApolloAndy***

A few things I've learned in life:

1) My actions are based on the situations and circumstances I find myself in;
2) Your actions are based on the kind of person you are; ;)
3) "Christian" means many different things to many different people, and anyone who would judge your worth by what "check-box" you fill in under the religion topic heading....scares me.
4) Judging other people's religious beliefs treads on some VERY dangerous ground (and most major religions agree on that!);
5) Teenagers often portray themselves as being "tough" in order to seem cool.

I'm sure I've learned some other things too....these just seemed on-point to the discussion at hand.

edit: Just realized I forgot to add a "winky" after points 1&2, collectively the FAE or Fundamental Attribution Error. :)
*** Edited 7/7/2008 2:19:30 PM UTC by rollergator***

I love it, Gator!

People who read my blog seem to think they know everything about me, so obviously the kid's MySpace page is an accurate and complete reflection of the kid.

Yeah, because when we were teenagers, we never tried to come off as being something we weren't. Nah, teens don't do that.

Why is the assumption that he ISN'T the person he appears to be? The only clues we have to his personality are now being seen as the only thing he must not be/do?

What would a Big Pimpin', weed smokin', ho chasin', rule breaker (or a poser thereof) do when he's at Six Flags with a friend? Apparently something illegal and dangerous.

For one, most "big pimpin', weed smokin', ho chasin', rule breakers" would still have the common sense to stay away from a roller coaster in operation.

For two, there are undoubtedly millions of kids who list things like money, sex, and drugs on their myspace page who are not "big pimpin', weed smokin', ho chasin', rule breakers" as you call it, but insecure teens trying to fit in.

I still don't see the connection.

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rollergator said:
A few things I've learned in life:

3) "Christian" means many different things to many different people, and anyone who would judge your worth by what "check-box" you fill in under the religion topic heading....scares me.
4) Judging other people's religious beliefs treads on some VERY dangerous ground (and most major religions agree on that!);

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I would add that judging a person in general (as noted in scripture) is just plain wrong. To claim anyone is more or less Christian or good or worthy or faithful or wholesome than anyone else *completely* misses the point of grace. To imply that we are fundamentally different from this young man and we'd never make a similar mistakes that could have similar consequences is flat out arrogant and hypocritical (which happen to be the things that Jesus criticized the most).

Judging an action or a decision while still loving the person...I think that's reasonable. *** Edited 7/7/2008 4:04:46 PM UTC by ApolloAndy***

You can't assume he's insecure! That's a judgement on your part! Now you are projecting your opinions based on assumptions!

I don't see the connection.

I never post here...I usually just like to watch, and have done for for many years now. But this topic sort of interests me, so here is my two cents. I think there are a lot of intersecting topics here that people are trying to make in good faith that may be getting unnecessarily mixed up with each other:

Separate Point 1: The stereotype or "expectation" of most rational people is that a truly "Christian" person would in general act in certain ways, and those ways do not include jumping fences or trespassing.

Separate Point 2: Media articles about this incident have cited, factually, that the person in question here was with a Christian group. By including that fact in early reports, the media is implying that this person was "Christian", and due to the "expectations" the average person has about "Christians", would not have been expected to do something like this. That leads to the media implication (for sensationalistic reasons or just carelessness) that the park is at fault, because no "Christian" would do something like this. This is all very subconscious, but in my opinion, it happens all the time in the media.

Separate Point 3: The person in question here has a MySpace page that does not project values consistent with the "expectations" of a "Christian" person, I think we can all agree on that. Whether or not that actually means the person acts like a Christian cannot be determined from said page, but it is not unreasonable to assume that this person does not always act in a Christian manner or at least does not want to be seen by peers as a "Christian" - which could lead them to also take un-Christian actions (jump fences) to further that image (there's your MySpace relevance/connection, in my opinion).

So us armchair psychoanalysts are left with a standard teenager, who is still tied to the world of his parents and willingly participates in that world out of either actual desire to or grudging need but in the usual search for individual identity comes across less wholesome, more rebellious identities to be associated with and possibly act upon. But what the hell do we know? None of us knew this person from Adam, so none of us can speak with certainty about anything. We just have opinions based on the information we see.

^^Unless it's your insecurity that's leading you to judge that he's making a judgment about making assumptions that are projected as opinions . . . ;) *** Edited 7/7/2008 6:02:37 PM UTC by Ensign Smith***

Bingo! Now feel free to judge me.

My assumption is based on the fact that I work with minority kids in a lower class neighborhood who all have myspace pages and I take them on church trips to Six Flags. Most of them have pages that don't reflect their character.

Do I know for sure that this kid wasn't a sex addict, dope fiend, or greed monger? No. But I've seen enough of my kids' myspace pages to know that it's not a safe assumptoin.

OK, so if this is their PROJECTED image, this is how they WISH to be preceived, right? You're the authority figure, so they aren't trying to impress you, they are trying to impress their own peer group. If there is an opportunity presented to them among the peer group where there is a choice to be made (break a rule and be cool, follow the rules and be not cool) then this is where we disagree what will happen.

You can't base your assumption on kids that you know because they are not him. People are different, and just because your kids have dissimilar MySpace pages to their actual personalities doesn't mean he did too.

I say he goes with the projected toughter image based on the fact that he DID berak rules by hopping fences which matches the Myspace answer to "Have you done anything illegal?" Answer = yes. And apparently he thought it was funny, cool or OK to get near enough to the coaster to lose his head over it. Another bad desision that could relate to a Mysapce answer.

Don't sit on a high horse and say stuff like "Just because someone does something illegal in the past doesn't mean they will do something illegal in the future." That is a fallacy by looking at our "revolving door" prison system. The majority of inmates are repeat offenders. Some leave the life behind, the majority do not.

All I'm doing is going with the numbers. Sure, a 1% chance comes through sometimes, but not many.