sparks
01-16-2008, 03:07 PM
There really doesn't seem to be any consensus to what the "age of reason' is for a child. The Church calls the "age of reason" at about 8 years of age when they consider it old enough to make the decision of whether or not a child wants to accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior...thus that's the age a lot of kids go through their first communion.
The government wants to pass laws limiting parents from being able to smoke in their cars if children under the age of 16 are present...so apparently according to the government a child of the age of 16 is able to make a choice of whether or not to get in the car with a smoking parent, even though they're still legally under the age of 18 and a dependent of the parent.
And then there is the magical age of 18, where one can choose to serve in the military but they're still too young to enjoy a beer on their own. Nope, ya gotta be 21 for that little adventure!
Pregnancy seems to take care of the issue by the biological functioning of the body, instead of a mandate by society. When a girl starts menstruating, technically she's of an age to have a child, although she may not be mentally or financially prepared for the task. Her body doesn't necessarily need to be married to do so either, although society has expectations on the matter there is no legal precedence.
And then of course there's the issue of marriage. How old does one have to be to engage in that endeavor? Well, let's see...some states say 14...others say 16 and yet others say you've got to be 18 before one can consider marriage, even though if they do get married at the age of 18, they still can't have that beer! :roll
So...there doesn't really seem to be any consensus as to what the "age of reason" really is in our society. As a matter of fact it seems to be all over the place! Thoughts?
The government wants to pass laws limiting parents from being able to smoke in their cars if children under the age of 16 are present...so apparently according to the government a child of the age of 16 is able to make a choice of whether or not to get in the car with a smoking parent, even though they're still legally under the age of 18 and a dependent of the parent.
And then there is the magical age of 18, where one can choose to serve in the military but they're still too young to enjoy a beer on their own. Nope, ya gotta be 21 for that little adventure!
Pregnancy seems to take care of the issue by the biological functioning of the body, instead of a mandate by society. When a girl starts menstruating, technically she's of an age to have a child, although she may not be mentally or financially prepared for the task. Her body doesn't necessarily need to be married to do so either, although society has expectations on the matter there is no legal precedence.
And then of course there's the issue of marriage. How old does one have to be to engage in that endeavor? Well, let's see...some states say 14...others say 16 and yet others say you've got to be 18 before one can consider marriage, even though if they do get married at the age of 18, they still can't have that beer! :roll
So...there doesn't really seem to be any consensus as to what the "age of reason" really is in our society. As a matter of fact it seems to be all over the place! Thoughts?