Organized Religions and "Literal" Bible Translations

Even though I am a-religious as much as I am a-political, that doesn't mean I am not well-read on the subject. I sometimes have to explain things about the religion I was taught for my first twenty years on the planet. Non-Catholics think that their doctrines and practices are better aligned with the "literal" bible. Although I don't go shooting my mouth off unless provoked, I have plenty to say to my good protestant friends.

Catholics have plenty of well-thought-out and long-debated biblical as well as traditional reasons for everything that they do, think, and believe. That said, I made the hard moral choice of deserting the Catholic church around the age of 22. I didn't do that because I thought I had all the answers; I just knew that organized religion's answers were wrong. Wrong in the sense that the Bible was written in a mystical and allegorical form, and all modern churches (unlike the original varied Christian groups) interpret the Bible like a bunch of lawyers. That's not what I call "Love". And if God is Love, then there's something extremely wrong with making legalistic claims concerning what is "biblical" or "non-biblical". 

Love is flexible, humble, tolerant, energetic, patient, creative, and kind. When apologists claim that "yes, God has perfect love, but he also has perfect justice", ... that's just an excuse for their own malice, intolerance, and laziness. When perfect justice is tempered with perfect love, you get perfect mercy. That's perfectly obvious to anyone humble enough to stop acting like a lawyer and politician. Politics is lazy and uncreative. Love is always active and on-the-ball.

The big "evil" that Protestants condemn and hate Catholics for is the Catholic acceptance of tradition as a guide to interpreting their practices and beliefs. Non Catholics also follow their own traditions in bible interpretations and practices, but they claim that they are not guided at all by tradition. Catholics are just more honest, that's all. Martin Luther dumped a few of the Roman traditions and started down a different path, but a path filled with "tradition" nonetheless. Let's call it what it is.

Protestants claim a "literal" interpretation of the Bible. That is shown to be a lie when even "experts" within the same denomination (including within the Catholic church) disagree strongly on what the "literal" words say and mean, and what the doctrine and practices ought to be. That's why Christian churches keep splitting off even to this very day. We have a church in Allegan that branched off from the CCC church about fifteen years ago. 

Our neighbor city of Holland has a rich history of splits. I read somewhere that after Van Raalte established the Reformed Church of Holland, people kept splitting away and moving inland. That's why the little inland towns of Zeeland, Drenthe, Vriesland, Hamilton, Byron Center, Borculo, Blendon, Jamestown, etc., all have off-shoots of the original Holland church. They didn't change the original Holland denomination name to "First Reformed" until all these other 2nd, 3rd, and 4th church groups split off over arguments about what the "literal" Bible meant. Maybe it means different things to different people. Duh? And maybe that's okay.

If you ever studied a language, you know that there is no such thing as "literal", especially in ancient languages. If God wanted to make his message clear with a miracle to keep the Bible pure over years of copying and translating, why couldn't God simply send his message by a single e-mail or letter to each human being on the planet? It's not any more far-fetched than the immense miracle it would take to keep the Bible books "true" and "literal". And that obviously hasn't worked well, given the historical and ongoing splits within Christianity.

Everyone else's belief is labelled "heresy". Every single thing that Protestants and Catholics believe now was once a heresy; the Redemption, Communion, Jesus as the Son of God, Jesus as the Messiah, Jesus as a physical being, the Trinity with the idea that the Father, Son and Holy Ghost are the same "substance", Hell as a place for more than just the fallen angels, ... and on and on. Hundreds of details of Bible translation have been the subject of constant hatred and killing over the years. And it continues today.

1000's of soldiers who died to keep me free!

My sister who has a soldier son wrote in an e-mail, "1000's of soldiers who died to keep me free!"

I have no wish to argue with a mom who worries about her son's safety as he does the politicians' dirty work. So, I won't reply directly. I'll put my reply here, where hardly anyone will ever see it.

I have this to say about those thousands of soldiers.

I wonder if you can explain how soldiers dying keeps you free?

It would help me to hear what you think, because I don't understand that common saying.

I know we're taught that in school, but the more I study history, the more I find out that we were lied into almost every war.

So, maybe American soldiers have died in vain repeatedly, but that thought is too terrible to bear. 

So, maybe we need to say, "they died for our freedom" to sooth our wounded consciences.

I'm not saying that I know anything. I'm just suspicious when I'm told to believe something without explanation that makes moral sense.

I'm just being curious, because I've searched and searched for a good answer to this sad question. I care about moral truth, not the lies coming from the mouths of millionaire politicians. Voting gives creeps in D.C. the "mandate" to dream up more and more battlefields where they can send our kids into harms way. And cheer-leading chants like "they died for our freedom" keep people coming back and flipping those levers in the voting booth. A never-ending cycle that feeds on young soldiers, thanks to our gullibility.

What good did the Iraq war do? For one thing, of interest to a Catholic; there was a Catholic presence in Iraq under the old regime, but now the Shia have driven out all Christian groups. What good is the Afghan war doing? And Pakistan and Syria and now we're supposed to fear and hate the Russians once again. Many US politicians would love to start a war with Iran, a country that hasn't attacked anyone else in over 200 years.

I hate seeing flags at half-staff and I'm sick of seeing that symbol of wasted young lives. I cry at the sight.

It makes me sad, angry, but most of all confused. I think that war will not end until politics ends. Just my dream.

I wonder what lies our young soldiers are being told nowadays, because there are always lies behind the scenes.

We don't find out the truth until many years later.

I'm sorry if this is a touchy question. But I don't know the answer. 

Thanks for listening,

Rick

PS - It's interesting and sad to read Major General Smedley Butler's 1930 essay "War Is A Racket".

He was the most highly decorated US soldier ever at the time of his retirement. I think he might have something valuable to say.

His suggestions included that war financiers should be conscripted to fight in the front lines, with the young boys. He also suggested that boys on the front line be included in the decision-making process for choosing battle strategy. And, he suggested that the US military never be allowed more than 200 miles from the US coastline, so that the military can only be used for defensive purposes.

Excerpt: "War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small 'inside' group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes."

Politics is a Barnacle on our Ship of Progress

After I made some anti-political statement on e-mail, I got a reply from a friend. He said, "Doogie for President, Congress and Senate!" 
I answered: 

Thanks, but no thanks. The best we can do is ignore politics and spend our energy working, studying, and playing with our close family & friends. That's what matters. That's what is the answer.
People always ask, "okay, I agree government is evil and we need to get back to the free market, but HOW?" The answer is, "it's a multi-generational project". We have to build a better tomorrow through our children.

Once a majority (or even a decent-sized minority) of humankind recognizes a mistake, whether moral or practical, it does not and can not go back.
No one will ever again believe that the world is flat (I'm speaking of sane people and the Western world that came out of the Enlightenment).
No one will ever again be able to say "it is proper that a wife obeys every command of her husband, and he should beat her if she disobeys".
No one will ever again treat children as property to be disposed of.
 No craftsman will ever again think that it's smart to beat their apprentice about the ears for getting something wrong.

We're only a couple hundred years into these kinds of ideas. The Enlightenment was horribly crushed by the World Wars. We are just now beginning to see the light again. Barely.

No teacher will ever again try to beat or "spank" knowledge into a kid. The reward / punishment model of child-rearing and education may work okay for training dogs, but we need a "love and intelligence" model for dealing with children. We're barely getting started on that idea.

No one will ever again proclaim that human beings can be bought and sold as property, like cattle. We're still working on that as well; we may not have chattel slavery any more, but taxpayers are "50% slave" because our labor and property gets syphoned off to the warfare / welfare redistributionist state. 

These things might still happen, but no one will do it openly. No one will argue for the legitimacy of these wrong-headed ideas.

Once humankind has a "big realization" and starts to discuss it and write books about it, you can figure another couple centuries before the idea spreads throughout the population. So, Laissez Faire ideas (pro-property and anti-coercion) started in 18th century Europe, and Divine Right of Kings was soon thrown in the dustbin of history. But the idea is moving forward in fits and starts. 3 steps forward, 2 steps backward - because so many people are benefitting from the idea of "we need a powerful authoritarian central hierarchy to protect us from thugs on the street and greedy bastards in business". So, we create the world's biggest mafia to protect us from the mafia.

This new idea of a society shaped not by central planners, but by free individuals trading ideas, products, and services has caught fire in some intellectual circles (see here), and is very slowly moving into the general population. (Check out this free mp3 book, "The Market For Liberty" written by a husband & wife team. Very cool.) It will be another two or three generations before the idea will take hold, and then people will look back at our governments and just shake their heads and say, "how could anyone have believed such things, couldn't they see how obviously wrong-headed this idea was"?

So, we progress very very slowly. It's not inevitable (as Marx theorized), but a few good people can move the ball forward. We have to stop sending our kids to the state schools. That's one primary step. Teach our children well. Not with carrots and sticks. We need to learn how to recognize coercion everywhere. And point it out. Even within ourself. Government is a faulty, fake, lying relationship. And we need to get all of that type of fakeness out of our everyday relationships.
We need to stop using aggression, dominance, threats, and other coercion in our own lives, especially when it comes to children. The only reason people think government is "normal life" is that they grow up immersed in a sea of coercion and dominance.

Once the world brings forth a generation where most kids are raised with love and intelligence, these kids will grow into adults who do not recognize any dominant social structures like states or gangs. They will trade ideas, goods, and services in a free and non-violent marketplace. Society's "leaders" will be those who have earned respect by being the best and the brightest. We will vote for these "leaders" by purchasing their ideas, products, and services. These leaders of art, industry, and science will write books and give lectures to spread their ideas and opinions, not club people over the head and put them in prison.

Humankind won't be perfect. The world won't be a utopia. But we will be finished with "opinions at the point of the gun". And we will never look back.

Thanks for listening,
Rick Doogie

"The place to improve the world is in one's own heart and head and hands." Robert M. Pirsig
 The Story of Your Enslavement - YouTube

Why I am a Voluntaryist

Voluntaryists see all the stupidity of politics on both right and left, but they don't feel the need to hate their neighbors and family for their political beliefs. We see the deeper roots of the problem, embedded in world-wide cultural memes. That doesn't absolve anyone of blame for supporting the blood-bath of statism, but we're not interested in assigning guilt to individuals. We're interested in finding solutions we can implement within our circle of influence (not in Lansing or D.C.) In short, "we have met the enemy, and he is us". We can't change the problems of religion and politics without realizing that those things are just effects caused by much more deeply-rooted causes within human culture itself. Culture transmits many truths and falsehoods to each successive generation. The core problem is that culture transmits big ugly lies disguised as sacred unquestionable truths. We are taught by culture that we cannot question anyone's culture. How convenient.

You can't change the memes of culture by waving signs in the street, putting bumper stickers on your car, or writing your congressman. It's much more difficult and intimate than that; you have to change yourself and your small circle of friends who have ears to hear and eyes to see. It's like turning an ocean liner; a small turn of the wheel does a lot in the long run, but yanking the wheel does nothing but cause damage and lock things up. People's opinions are not changed by throwing tons of facts at them. I'm sure you've seen that. Throwing up mountains of facts to oppose someone's political or religious belief system often polarizes and strengthens that person's resolve to hold fast to their assumptions.
Voluntaryists see a day when the social safety net will be vastly improved by getting it out of the hands of politicians who suffer almost no consequences for their stupidity and greed. Voluntaryists also work for the day when there can be no 1% hoarding wealth, because only the state allows this hoarding to go on. It is the politically well-connected who can hoard wealth because their profits are protected from the consequences of stupid and greedy decisions.

For example; Voluntaryists oppose government-enforced copyright and patent laws. Shocking, I know, ... but there are good arguments. We oppose trademark or packaging fraud, and that would surely be prevented much more effectively in non-political courts. But it's no crime to take someone's idea and improve on it. Ideas are not property. Most of the biggest advances in humankind have occurred in times and places where there were no such laws protecting amorphous "intellectual property". (As a result, you can get all kinds of great Voluntaryist literature online for free.)

Profits are neither a good thing or a bad thing. Just as greed is neither a good or bad thing. They are only bad when "corporate law" protects them from liability and loss for doing stupid and evil things. Profits and greed shielded by gov't laws are what drive the US wars which have killed 30 million people since WWII ended. Profits and greed shielded by gov't laws are what cause the bulk of environmental damage. Profits shielded by gov't laws are what cause the super rich to get richer and the middle class to get poorer. Not that there would be no rich people without gov't; it would just be a lot more challenging to be super rich in a free society. Because you would have to compete to provide actual goods and services to the public; there would be no cushy government contracts for military adventurism overseas and political pork-barrel programs at home.

The big mistake of those on the Political Left is that they think profits are evil in and of themselves, and that is proved wrong by our daily experience. It isn't profits that cause evil, what enables evil is profits tied to gov't immunity from loss or prosecution. Corporations are evil only because gov't fiat makes the owners, management, and stockholders NOT liable for damages and losses. They reap profits when all goes well, but only the corporation loses money when things go bad. No politician or corporate stockholder loses his house when he hurts people with his mistakes or greed. They are protected from losing personal assets, and that's what is wrong with politics and greed getting in bed together.

You see the most radical example of this when Lockheed Martin stockholders and management enjoy huge profits while 20-year-olds get maimed and killed overseas. And there you have the problem with those on the Political Right; they claim to be all about families and morality, but they support the military-industrial complex which rips families apart and makes morality impossible. And they complain about gay marriage "wrecking the family". They are knee-deep in the blood of innocents. Although, Obama has also overseen the death of innocent people every day since he was in office, all to support the corporations and bankers who helped put him in office.

If We Get Rid of Government, Will Something More Evil Arise? Pt 1

My son asked me this question, so I tried to answer as briefly as I could. So much for brevity.

You asked one of the ultimate questions about a stateless society. I'm impressed that you didn't go to the more mundane fears that come up when someone brings up the possibility of running society without top-down government; Who would make the roads? Who would take care of the poor? Who would force kids to go to school? What if a foreign army attacks us? Who will protect us from big rich greedy corporations? How could there ever be big cool projects like the International Space Station? What about old people who didn't save for their retirement? How would our property be protected from criminals? What about people without health insurance? Who would run the court system? What about the criminally insane or complete sociopaths?

The easy answer to all those questions is "these things are done by working and caring people, and they will be done with or without government to supposedly organize us". But, more details answers are at websites like The Anarchist Alternative and Libertarianism. My favorite come-back to those questions is, "so, you are assuming that these problems are already being solved as best they can by today's government"?

So kudos to you for asking a most intelligent question. The answer needs a bit of introduction, because you can approach the argument from various logical angles. Most break-room blather probably doesn't care much for the rules of logic, so I'd suggest avoiding that venue for asking questions or giving opinions.

Here's my introduction:
About 6 years ago, I stopped sending out e-mails every day to whoever I thought might be interested in the philosophy of freedom; how to make a better world for our kids and grandkids. I finally realized that people have their life attitude set pretty much in stone by the time they are in their early twenties. Despite all the fantasy stories in movies and books where some evil Scrooge has a life-altering event, that type of personality change is very rare. If someone is not asking skeptical questions about the state-run society already, no amount of e-mails from me are gonna get that person to become curious. People don't usually change their personality or basic attitude toward life because of what happens to them or what facts are presented to them. People only change if they already have an inner skepticism and curiosity.

Curiosity and skepticism are qualities that you are born with, but our culture does its best to trample down child-like curiosity which demands "why"? And "says who"? Parents kill children's curiosity every time they say, "because I said so" or "because God made it that way". In school, kids are taught to memorized the "correct" answers. They are taught What to think, not How to think. Memorization is rewarded, not creativity.

It is not in our culture's best interest to have lots of skeptical questions flying around, demanding proof of society's dictated moral laws; "Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society". "Honor your father and mother". "The policeman is your friend". "We can agree to disagree". "Follow the chain of command". "Politicians are servants of the people". "Voting is a duty and a privilege". "Everyone has a right to their opinion". "We all have an evil side to us". "Government is a necessary evil". "Everything happens for a reason". "There's a thin line between love and hate". "If God did not exist, we would have to invent him". "Many have died so that we can be free". "Ethics are different in different cultures and countries". "Respect your elders".

Some of our cultural dictates are wearing thin; "Children should be seen and not heard". "A woman's place is in the home". "Spare the rod, spoil the child". "Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord". "Without religion, there can be no morality". "Slaves, obey your masters".

So there is hope. We can change the world for our great-grandchildren and their families. But, it's like steering an ocean liner. You can reef on the steering wheel and it seems like you're getting nowhere. But the change will happen - very slowly. So, we do the right thing. Not for us, but for the future. We point out the made-up answers and dare to call them "ridiculous".

The biggest thing we can do to make the future world a little happier for our kids and grandkids is to teach them to question everything. The more hard-wired the "truth" seems, the more it needs to be questioned with a careful and skeptical eye. We spend too much time feeding facts to our kids, and not enough time encouraging them to say, "why is that like that?" What causes that"? "Who discovered that fact, and how did they figure that out?"

And, another good point to teach our kids (and remind ourselves and our friends) is that "emotions are important, but emotions are not arguments". Another good starting point is to keep in mind what the 9/11 Truthers, UFOlogists, and Psychic Believers never acknowledge: Evidence is not Proof. One or two strange and suspicious pieces of evidence do not prove anything. Evidence has to be rigorous, and must be high in quantity and quality. Evidence has to be examined and accumulated before it can be said to support "proof". Proof is based on evidence, but that evidence has to be "Good and Plenty".

One more thing that makes for idiotic arguments in the break room; people don't define their words. So, they end up arguing past each other. They are talking about two different things. Any talk about religion or politics is subject to this pitfall. If we talk politics or religion, let's define "god" or "spirit". Let's define "government" or "representative". Let's define "good" and "evil".

So, to sum up part one of my answer to your simple question:

1. I no longer think I can change the world by presenting people with the facts of the matter as I see them.

2. There is a tendency for cultures to resist questions about teachings that are handed down from generation to generation.

3. We are born with curiosity, and we can make the world better by sheltering our children from the social pressure to muffle their inner curiosity, and by reawakening our own curiosity. Curiosity means "no made-up answers like religion and politics gives us".

4. We can and do affect cultural change, but it is very very slow. It's a multi-generational project. The "majority" is never where creative new ideas come from. Cultural and scientific revolutions always are started by very small but dedicated minorities.

5. We can't find the truth of anything by thinking with our emotions. Very few people recognize that their thinking is blocked by emotional baggage from the years of repetitive lessons our culture slams into our brains as we grow up. (In stories and movies, we always know who the bad and good guys are; in real life it's not so easy to recognize good and evil. But it's ideas that count, not who is the villain of the week.)

Spanking Controversy Pt III - The Research Is In

Twenty years ago, there might have still been grounds for debating the pros and cons of spanking. Now the research is in, the brain scans of adults who were spanked can be compared to brain scans of those who were not spanked. You can find all of this stuff online. It's pretty amazing.

The main arguments against these findings can be found on religious forums, where people always bring up the bible quote, "spare the rod, spoil the child". I wonder why they don't use the bible quote that says, "If someone has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey his father and mother, ... then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders ... They shall say to the elders of his town, 'This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us.' Then all the men of the town shall stone him to death."

We see what the Old Testament says, now let's see what research and observation says:

"Brain scans show structural and biochemical changes that affect social behavior:

• Cell death in the anterior cingulate gyrus affects a child's ability to moderate fear and to empathise. Changes in the brain's pathways affect a child's ability to manage stress and being more prone to being impulsive, aggressive and/or anxious. Long term changes to the adrenaline systems in the brain affect the ability to think clearly. Impairment in the brain stem has been linked to ADHD, depression and impaired attention. It also leads to more aggression and irritability. 

• decrease in size of the corpus callosum causing manic shifts in mood states

• reduced amygdala and hippocampus resulting in depression, irritability and hostility; and poor memory function

• affects the GABA system making a child feel unsafe and constantly living in a state of alarm"

Spanking inflicts damage that causes precisely what spanking claims to prevent.

"I was raised with spanking, and I turned out fine". So everyone says flippantly.

But, I sometimes wonder if I might have been an even better person without that spanking and dominance.

What if I was treated in childhood as the rational, curious, and peaceful human being I've always been?

The main thing I recall about getting spanked is my bitterness about the unfairness of being spanked.

I most vividly recall the few times when I was spanked or punished unfairly. That made the biggest impression on me.

The unfairness of lashing out. The meaninglessness of it. The loss of respect it gave me for adults in general.

"Violence (abusive words, threats of violence, or even withdrawal of affection in the form of "time outs") inflicted by their closest relatives and caretakers has a long-lasting and horrifying effect. These children grow up with the idea that, when another person's behavior is displeasing to them, violent acts or words against that person are appropriate ways to deal with feelings of displeasure. In short, members of each adult generation tend to reproduce in their interpersonal relationships, the violence which they experienced in their childhood."

"Aggressive children often become aggressive adults, who often produce more aggressive children, in a cycle that endures generation after generation.

Corporal punishment always figures prominently in the roots of adolescent and adult aggressiveness, especially in those manifestations that take anti-social form, such as delinquency and criminality."

"Mistreatment of children, beginning at infancy, perpetrated by parents and other primary caregivers, is what infects children with the virus of violence.

In much the same way that it interferes with the bonding between child and parent, it stunts the child's ability to become socially integrated with the larger law-abiding community. It handicaps the child with a lifetime supply of anger. It makes every future irritation seem a mortal attack,

every delay of gratification a personal insult. It models for the child no essential problem-solving skills, but instead, selfishness, aggression, rage, tyranny. It makes escape by means of alcohol and drugs appear an option irresistible to many. The worse, and the earlier the mistreatment, the more severe the outcome."

These are all quotes from psychologists who have done work researching the roots of criminal violent behavior.

The complaint will be that these doctors are mostly talking about severely abused children, and that "light spanking" is not the same thing. 

But, "light spanking" or "heavy spanking" is only a difference in degree, not a difference in type. Like, we're not talking about full-blown cancer, it's okay to have just a little bit of cancer. A little bit of cancer doesn't really hurt that much.

My question is, "why not try love and reasoning"? 

There are all kinds of websites online that are dedicated to raising children without ANY violence or threats.

Peace & Love,

Rick

PS - There is a growing mountain of scientific evidence for avoiding all spanking, even so-called "paddling" or "swatting".

Lots of non-violent parenting groups out there.

Parent Effectiveness Training

Spanking Controversy Pt II

A pat on the butt is at least 4 things to a child;

1. Most importantly, it is a withdrawal of love or at least a threat of such withdrawal. 

That's a scary thing to a child whose life literally depends on primary care givers.

2. It is a threat of greater violence to come, if they don't blindly (obediently) follow the adult's wishes and whims.

3. It is a shutting down and discouragement of rational discussion. A lesson that frustration justifies force. A lesson that rational discourse and search for compromise is only useful up to the point when impatience calls for forceful "action".

4. It is a lesson that they don't need to learn their boundaries, because someone else will always be there to swat them when they go too far. They learn the opposite of self-control and empathy for others. By stopping wild behavior with irrational hitting, future wild behavior is reinforced. And they learn to self-attack instead of self-control. The seeds of self-hatred are sown.

Children should be taught to control their behavior using their own intelligence and judgment. Children should not be taught to "be obedient".  Obedience is a large part of what is wrong with the world.

I'd rather err on the side of being "too gentle" and "too reasonable" than making the mistake of teaching children that force and threats of force are acceptable options for settling disputes and misunderstandings.

I know the argument, "children are hard to reason with, so you have to use a bit of force for their own good and safety". Then why don't we give a little whack to a retarded person to get them to respond to our wishes or reasoning? For his own good. Why don't we use a little whack for grandma when she is acting a little crazy? For her own good. How about a little whack from your boss when you resist or hesitate to follow his confusing orders?

If it's proper and useful for you to swat a child to "get his attention", why don't we encourage kids to swat us when they want something and we won't listen? Why is it okay for us, but wrong for them? Kids get the message that we don't know we're sending: It's right for us because we're bigger, smarter, stronger, and richer than them. So, because kids get this lesson, they grow up and start to use force and manipulative bullying behavior as soon as they get bigger, smarter, stronger, and richer. 

Why, when kids are expressing frustration, anger, impatience, or disrespect - why is it okay for us to swat them instead of spending time figuring out the causes of their negative feelings? Why can't they "paddle" us when we are angry, frustrated, etc? If the argument is that we are responsible for the children and they are not responsible for us, that is so very correct. And that responsibility dictates that we act with all the intelligence, love, and respect we can muster. And when we are at our wits end we ought to blame ourselves, not the child. 

Children do not choose to have you as a parent, you are the one who chose to have a child. There is absolutely no ground to stand on when culture says, "children should honor and love their parents". Baloney. You can't command true love and respect. Like anyone else, parents have to earn love and respect. The reasonable and moral rule is the exact opposite of what is commonly taught. Parents have an obligation to love, respect, and care for their children until the age when they can take care of themselves. Because the parents chose the child, the child did not choose the parents. Parents have no excuse that they are "too tired" or "too busy" to learn how to give proper care and love to their children. Kids are busy too. They are busy learning about life. What's more important, your trip to the grocery store, your phone call conversation, ... or your child's healthy mental development? You owe your child your time and patience, not the other way around. I repeat; you chose them, they didn't choose you.

"I don't have time to use logic and love, it's easier to give a quick little swat". This is weird reasoning. If you get to have the excuse that you are too busy, too tired, too distracted, etc., to take time to carefully figure out the root of a child's bad behavior, then you have no right blaming a child for anything they do. They also are tired, busy, distracted, ... If it's a good excuse for you, then why not for them? AND it's not their fault; it's your fault if they never were given the tools and training and EXAMPLE of how to act differently. 

It's barbaric to blame children for their lack of understanding and patience. You are responsible for everything they have learned, for better or worse (even if they learned it from cartoons, movies, daycare, school, or "popular culture").

Popular Culture is the last place to go for this kind of knowledge. Popular Culture is a purveyor of mistakes, lies, and made-up crap. (The biggest lie is that we ought to revere culture and never question the "wisdom" it passes down.) You have to see what actual evidence has been found and studied.

Emotional Physical Development Of Children Who Get Paddled

The ideas that I am encouraging here are inspired by Stefan Molyneux at FreeDomainRadio.com