Age of Innocence or Age of Accountability?

Today I am thinking about how long I am going to be a hermit. It makes sense to affiliate myself with no one for at least a year. Now I am thinking that maybe two years would make sense for affiliations with major organizations. No affiliations for one year. No affiliations with major groups for two years, including religious organizations.

Now the question of how long I will do Walden needs to be asked. It seems that I will not like being a total hermit for a whole year. I think I need some forced aloneness though.

I have decided that I will be a "Walden" hermit for seven months. This will buy me plenty of reading and thinking time and plenty of time to enjoy not being annoyed by persons who want me to give up my integrity. I can deal with those persons online, I think, but I can't deal with them in person at present.

I am also thinking that in August of 2008, I am going to slowly expose myself back into society. I will know my own mind better. When I don't know my own mind I waste energy defending myself for no good reason. And people like to take advantage of those who don't know their own minds.

I would now like to address more religious topics.

Last night, I did a Google search on "age of accountability." This is an important topic because the LDS Church says that eight-years-old is the age of accountability. I have grown up with this all my life, so it doesn't seem extremely strange. But it is starting to sound more and more wrong.

First of all, in my search, I found that the lowest non-LDS number was twelve. And the highest non-LDS number was twenty. Both of these numbers are higher than eight.

Basically, age of accountability is the age that a young person is responsible for his/her own decisions and managing his/her own temptations.

In the LDS Church, the age of accountability is the age that Satan is allowed to start tempting a person. It is also the age that members are supposed to be baptized.

I was baptized at the age of eight. It was not an unpleasant experience. But I had no idea what it meant. I just knew that I was now a church member. And that was a good thing. It meant I was growing up. I liked the respect of being a baptized member of the LDS Church.

And yet, I still find it wrong.

First of all, I find it strange that Joseph Smith would have decided that the age of eight is the age that a child would first be tempted of the devil. I don't even know, at this point, why he picked the age of eight. Second, I think that it is a way for the LDS Church to have more members who are loyal for life. Children are not known to withstand or oppose brainwashing. Also, they tend to do anything their parents and other respected authority figures tell them to do. Though a child may be sincere about wanting to be baptized, they could also be sincere about wanting to please their parents and wanting to be just like their friends who have also been baptized.

I really do not think that the age of eight is the age of accountability. Also, how does anyone think that someone would begin to be tempted by the devil at the same age as someone else? And how does anyone know when someone else's age of accountability for their own decisions begins? It may be different for each individual.

I think the fact that I had to get baptized at the age of eight made me more loyal to the Church. It also left me not understanding how seriously the LDS Church takes baptism. For them, baptism is a serious covenant. It is a promise to bear one another's burdens and stand for Christ. I find this serious type of covenant inappropriate for a child to take. It is a serious covenent for an adult to take.

Also, I do not think that I was responsible for all of my own behavior yet, due to the fact that I was still innocent and immature enough to figure out what I was and wasn't responsible for.

And here's the kicker, because I was baptized, I took it rather seriously. I thought of myself as an adult in my own child mind. I actually stopped playing with my toys and told everyone else that I was tired of them. It nearly took away my childhood. It should be noted however, that I did plenty of childish things, like playing pretend, coloring in coloring books, and playing with a sewing kit designed for children. I was still sort of playing with toys.

I want to know what is so wrong with being young and carefree. It seems that the LDS Church seeks to kill every spark of freshness and youth so that we will be afraid of sinning, so we will fear a temptation from the devil, so we will run to the temple and run to the Church for more instructions.

I just realized that there is a passage in the Book of Mormon that is violated by baptizing people so young into the LDS Church:

"Listen to the word of Christ, your Redeemer, your Lord and your God. Behold, I came into the world not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance; the whole need no physician, but they that are sick; wherefore, little children are whole, for they are not capable of committing sin; wherefore the curse of Adam is taken from them in me, that it hath no power over them; and the law of circumcision is done away in me.
"And after this manner did the Holy Ghost manifest the word of God unto me; wherefore, my beloved son, I know that it is solemn mockery before God, that ye should baptize little children.
"Behold I say unto you that this thing shall ye teach--repentance and baptism unto those who are accountable and capable of committing sin; yea, teach parents that they must repent and be baptized, and humble themselves as their little children, and they shall all be saved with their little children.
"And their little children need no repentance, neither baptism. Behold, baptism is unto repentance to the fulfilling the commandments unto the remission of sins.
"But little children are alive in Christ, even from the foundation of the world; if not so, God is a partial God, and also a changeable God, and a respecter to persons; for how many little children have died without baptism!" (Moroni 8:8-12)

It seems that this passage makes it clear that "little children" do not need baptism at all. It depends on what your interpretation of "little children" means. It could mean any kid too young to get it together. If you are of the age that you can barely give up your toys, you don't know about sex, and you have no clue how the real world works, and your only desire is to have fun and obey your parents, you are innocent. I was innocent at the age of eight. And I was completely too young to adhere to my baptismal covenants.

I think that many parents would see this in their offspring. I think that it takes a long time for someone who is eight years old to yet grow up.

I am surprised at the barracuda-like techniques that the LDS Church uses to maintain high church membership numbers and scare young people so that they will obey LDS authorities when they are older. I think that perhaps this is one sign that the LDS Church may be the wrong church, not the true church at all.