After the Kinkul has lived in its Kinkul Motel (Remember, Mommies and Daddies don’t know Kinkul Motel is the name for baby), for about two years, baby starts to act differently than before. It happens when Mommy or Daddy, or someone standing near, shouts “No” to baby and sometimes slaps baby’s hands or bottom, when the Kinkul is driving baby to something Kinkul wants and which is something Mommy and Daddy don’t want baby to have. The Kinkul doesn’t feel anything, but baby feels a lot of pain and baby doesn’t like pain one bit. When baby feels pain it lets out a caterwauling cry all by itself. You don’t like pain either do you?
Remember; Kinkul does not have a memory but now baby starts to develop one, Baby remembers when it gets smacked for reaching for one thing and not another. When Kinkul wants baby to reach for something, baby remembers getting smacked for, baby starts to act independently from the Kinkuls desire. In a way, the baby is telling the Kinkul “not now” and for some reason, Kinkul doesn’t bite baby because it didn’t get what it wanted when it wanted it.
Mommy and Daddy think they are training their baby to “behave.” Doing what your Mommy and Daddy tell you to do when they tell you to do it is behaving. What baby really learns is if you are bigger and stronger than the other person and can use force against that person, you can get what you want when you want it.
Something else start to happen to baby and proves the last point is true. Baby starts saying words and seem to understand the words Mommy and Daddyare saying. Of course, the Kinkul doesn’t understand words. Understanding words requires memory and a Kinkul doesn’t have a memory. But words are a powerful force that baby quickly learns to use to get what it and the Kinkul wants when they want it.
We notice the baby begins to want things the Kinkul never thinks about. When baby plays with other babies and it wants something the other baby has, baby uses force to take it away from the playmate. Mommy or Daddy blames baby for being selfish and shame baby for being selfish. But baby doesn’t understand selfish. Baby is just getting what it wants when it wants it. Who cares if the other kid is crying because it doesn’t get what it wants when it wants it. Besides, baby is bigger and stronger that the other kid so baby is supposed to get what baby wants.
By the time baby gets to be five or six years old, baby can’t tell the difference between what the Kinkul wants and what baby wants. Its O.K. to talk at home but not O.K. to talk in a place Mommy and Daddy call church. Or it’s O.K. to spill your drink on the grass but not on the carpet. Baby has learned it is good if baby does what Mommy and Daddy tell baby to do and bad when baby doesn’t. Baby doesn’t know what is good or what is bad, except baby gets spanked for one and praised for the other. Are you confused about what is good and what is bad?
It is hard to learn how to control the Kinkul. It is especially hard when Mommy and Daddy are not there to tell you. But I believe the Kinkul lives with you all of your life. It seems to me, the secret to a happy life is to learn when the Kinkul is controlling your acts to get what it wants when it wants it or whether you are acting in control of yourself. Now that you know about your Kinkul, it is easy to see the Kinkul acting in other kids and people of all ages. When I learned to tell the difference between my wants and the Kinkul’s wants, it became easier and easier to keep Kinkul from biting me by telling it “Not now!”
When I could tell my acts were to get something I wanted, I was able to think about it and make sure that what I wanted was good for me, helpful to others, considerate of others, and that this was the right time for me to have it. I’ve never been able to make friends with my Kinkul, but now, maybe it will be easier for you and me to be friends.
I do not present the Kinkul as a fact. Kinkul is just an allegory for the human condition that I have never heard described in any other term than Original Sin. All of the grandchildren I’ve told these stories to identified completely with IWWIWWIWI. Now when they are acting selfishly I tell them, “Looks like your Kinkul is biting you.” They stop their behavior, they look at me and smile, and then we laugh with each other and they do not return to the selfish behavior-and I like that.
My Kinkul stories are presented here because I submit for your consideration that it is not the concept of Original Sin and the concomitant sin nature of humanity that causes people to have problems with social interaction; rather it is the unchallenged, initially rewarded, and culturally reinforced approval of IWWIWWIWI and the presumption that is appropriate to use force to get it.
By eliminating the presumption that a child is evil because of the myth of Original Sin a child may be able to be raised without the parent’s righteously playing the blame and shame game.
We know the blame and shame game produces guilt and low self-esteem in a child. Maybe society could begin to help children transition from the selfish prompting force of wanting what they want when they want it which is as natural as its skin, to the controlling its compulsive body instincts in a mature manner without blame and shame.
Mr. McGrath is an author, father and grandfather. A retired marine pilot, lawyer, college professor, college president, bank president, and consultant.
Every religion has their members admit they are not what their God would have them be. An example is one segment of Christianity. It says it is the result of the Sin Nature that is the result of the original sin of Adam and Eve and transmitted to every human like DNA.
Their human reasoning, as to the cause, gives remarkable human Institutional reason for the cure. First they divided sin into Mortal and Venial sin. They must first be confessed to a priest, and if you die without making another mortal sin you go to heaven. If you die with an unconfessed mortal sin, you go to hell. If you die with an unconfessed venial sin you go to Purgatory and after that time in Purgatory you get to go to heaven.
Don’t laugh. One billion souls live every day under that curse. They live because they believe in the Institutional truth in the Sin of Adam and Eve is the reason for their “Sin Nature.” Others say it is ratified by the Atonement of Jesus Christ “who died for your sins.” If you believe in Him that will do the job of confessing. Why do you have a sin nature? Organized religions have failed in their mission because their leaders fell in love with their dogma instead of their god. Something has to change! What has to change first is our belief in why people act selfishly. Well I will give you another perspective. It is the unchallenged, initially rewarded, and culturally reinforced approval of “I Want What I Want When I Want It. (Hereinafter identified as IWWIWWIWI, The Kinkul.)
Did you know there are thousands of Kinkuls born every day. Kinkuls look like this when they are born. (Baby picture), Their mommies and daddies call them babies, but they are not…they are Kinkul motels! What makes them a Kinkul motel is the IWWIWWIWI caterpillar. Some how that ol’ Kinkul gets inside the baby and they arrive in this world together at the same time. No one knows where the Kinkul lives, but I think it lives in the baby’s brain right behind the eyes and just between the ears.
At first, the Kinkul is very helpful to the baby. When the Kinkul is hungry it bites the baby. And you know what happens then, the baby lets out a big caterwauling cry. And you know what happens then? Mommy and Daddy, and anyone standing close, comes fluttering to the Kinkul and starts feeding it with good tasting stuff. The Kinkul likes that and so does the baby. When the Kinkul feels wet, or thirsty, or cold, or hot or tired, the Kinkul bites the baby and the baby lets out a big caterwauling cry and Mommy or Daddy or anyone standing close come fluttering to the Kinkul and makes the Kinkul comfortable. The Kinkul likes that and so does baby.
The IWWIWWIWI caterpillar is as natural to the baby as its hands and toes. The Kinkul uses baby’s caterwauling cry to get what it wants when it wants, long before baby is able to use its hands or feet. The Kinkul knows, long before baby knows, that it’s hungry, or thirsty, or wet, or cold, or hot, or sick. The Kinkul is as much a part of a baby as its heart and just an invisible to Mommies and Daddies. That’s why a Kinkul that wants what it wants when it wants it isn’t being bad…it’s just being a Kinkul, which happens to live in a Kinkul motel, that Mommies and Daddies call baby.
After baby has lived with Mommy and Daddy for more than a year, neither baby nor the Kinkul has reason to think it shouldn’t get what it wants when it wants it, even when it doesn’t know what it wants. Mommy and Daddy and anyone standing near has made sure that what a Kinkul wants, a Kinkul gets, and baby likes that.
Think on it. The only tool, or weapon, a baby has to fend for its life, is crying. And it works. Why wouldn’t it think selfishly. What else does the baby know exists? It is how the institutions handle the maturational process that signifies why the institutional minds create conflicted living.
Mr. McGrath is an author, father and grandfather. A retired marine pilot, lawyer, college professor, college president, bank president, and consultant.
Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood was a television program that was on public television for 50 years. Which is a good example of leaving the world a better place. But the important thing Mr. Rogers said to the children was “This program is make believe. Make believe is fun but it is not real. It is important that you know the difference between realities and make believe.” Many people have not learned the difference. Take the message of the Christian God.
It all starts with the Bible. Read Bart Ehrman’s book Misquoting Jesus to see a razor sharp clarification of how we got the book called The Bible. There are many people who swear it is the infallible and inerrant word of God. Some add “In the original texts.” There are no original texts. And it is the infallible and inerrant word of God because they believe it is, not because it is. But it is your challenge to find out what the real truth is about God. The intensity of a person’s belief does not increase the truthfulness his argument. That is the main thing to be weary of. People who, for whatever reason, claim that God is real and alive in their lives elevate their personal experience to be a fact of life for all, are in error. He may be. But that experience is personal to the believer. It cannot be transferred. Think of a beautiful sunset or sunrise. You cannot replicate that experience in words, logic, song, or force in another human being to have that same experience and you cannot replicate a personal experience with God either.
The force and the duty to replicate the experience is strong. Parents raise their children in obedience to the dictates of their religion. And as George Orwell wrote, “One cannot appreciate the naiveté of a child to believe what an older person is telling them is the truth.” That places us in Aristotle’s plight who said, “It is easier to teach a man who is ignorant than one in error. The ignorant man can hear the truth you have spoken, but the man in error must first be convinced that what he believed to be true is in fact false, before he can accept the truth.” That is why you will have a hard time finding the truth. What you believe about everything is probably false or incomplete. But have a teachable spirit and a humble attitude and it will make your path smoother.
Now here is the question, “Is God a fact in human existence?” How do you answer that question? Do you first have to believe he is a fact in order to believe he is real? Or do you have to believe there is a God before you can make him a fact if your life. Or do you have to have a personal experience that causes you to believe God intervened miraculously in your life in order to make God a fact in your life. My study indicates all three, and probably more, have proved God is real. But it is a personal experience that does not establish God as a fact for another who has not had a personal belief experience. It follows then, for any person to say, “My belief is more accurate than your belief,” is wrong. If God is an infinite reality, human knowledge begins and ends in the senses. Infinite things cannot be sensed-only believed to exist. Therefore, human knowledge cannot have certain knowledge about God. That is why people who speak with certainty about God are not to be believed.
But the pride of man is limitless. And nearly everyone who believes speaks with authority about the reality of God. Why they are not satisfied to believe themselves and leave everybody alone I don’t know. You have to know what you know and why you know it. Be comfortable in your own skin. All of the world’s religions are directed toward Love. The issue here on earth is to learn how to love through the ages. We need, we all need, to learn the definition of love that can stand for all humankind. Forget about the dogma your religion has taught you. Forget about the rituals your dogma has taught you. The motivation to Love has a new and different definition.
Love is the deep abiding gratitude for and appreciation of the object loved. If we can all do that we will fulfill the admonitions of the world’s religions.
** Mr. McGrath is an author, father and grandfather. A retired marine pilot, lawyer, college professor, college president, bank president, and consultant.
