My parents "raised" me to be a conservative, athletic, church-going, obedience machine. Yet here I am, liberal (I'm so far left Kucinich thinks I'm a hippy) sedentary, buddhist, who will disagree with people just for the sake of starting an arguement.
I often wonder if, had my parents tried to raise me as a liberal, would I be a conservative? Is my ingrown need to piss off my parents that powerful? Where do they get off trying to mold me into something they like?I have a few questions branching off of.... these questions.

1. Is pushing back against your parents' morals and beliefs part of normal teenage rebellion?
2. Is it wrong to try and influence your children toward particular biases?
3. Are politics just a horrible poison designed to tear people apart?
4. Are opinons held to spite others less legitimate than those not held for spite?
5. Is conforming to what your parents want you to be part of respecting them?
6. Is the act of holding a particular bias wrong when there is a potential(LARGE) inheritance involved.
7. Were any of your morals or opinions formed in spite or in contrast to those of your parents?

I always want to think that I would form out to be the same person had my parents raised me differently, but the whole nature v nurture debate is tricky ground. It's impossible to really know after it's happened, and it may vary from person to person, which is why I'm posting it here.

eww, I would have stayed with conservatice...

1. By normal do you mean statistically probable, like the "normal distribution" or socially acceptable, like "not abnormal"? Either way, do you really care and if so why?

2. Wrong by who's definition and where do those definitions come from: (your parents, your church, your society)? Either way, do you really care and if so is it due to a bias?

3. Designed? By who?

4. Legitimacy (by common definition) means that which is in accordance with something (traditionally law). We have to know in accordance with WHAT before we can answer that question: Possible basis are (law, a specific religion, individual preference, social norms, human reason, circuit logic, etc.) For example, it would be more legitimate to hold opinions to spite others if the basis we are referring to is your indirect sense of fun, ego, or control, it may be less legitimate with respect to your initial reaction or what others want you to hold (all of this or vice-versa). You may need to elaborate. You seem to be looking for some universal standard.

5. In an of itself, conforming to your parents wishes seems to be respecting them. If they also told you to think for yourself or do what you need to do to makes yourself happy, you may also be SIMULTANEOUSLY not respecting them as you are also not conforming with their conflicting wishes. Now were they respecting you when they raised you (probably not as much as you'd think as you were a kid and how much feedback could you give) so they were likely respecting their parents and society (and their biological motivations) which motivated them to raise you the way they did as an ideal object, not as a real object.

6. I maintain that the concept of ‘wrong’ is relative to a bias. It is negative or detrimental activity in a system with respect to what is MAINTAINED to be normal or positive. Everyone is biased. Even the most unbiased individual is still biased somehow OR they are not functioning at all (they still be biased as physical matter occupying space and minutely being affected and having an affect on their surrounding environment).

If you inherited other people’s bias, I would say that you are normal by all ‘normal’ definitions of the word. They question I would ask is are you happy with what has been uploaded into your system, is it useful, compatible with your hardware, and do you find other programming or training more appealing?

7. I would definitely believe so.

It appears that no one can ever no for certain (absent the ability to transcend time and space) what someone would be like under different nature vs. nurture circumstances.

I speculate and maintain that you are limited by your biological hardware (nature) and your cultural software (nurture) but all of these limitations are present day functions of your personal history which means that it is really the combination of nature and nurture working together and against each other in counterpoint to make you’re the INDIVIDUAL you are today.

Some of your individual desires to conform or rebel are fundamentally due to biological motivations (evolutionary pressures to successfully be social and survive) and cultural motivations (evolutionary pressure to maintain or not significantly question function independent from more immediate levels of training or programming).

EDIT: In other words, rebellion is a strong biological theme, so like all other actions, you are probably rebelling by listening to your nature primarily, but rebellion has also be output as a romantic result, and thus, you have probably been condition to think of rebellion as a good thing too by religion, literature, Star Wars, are you American (?), then even history.

Blegh! I guess I have to clarify some things.

1. When I say "normal" I mean "not abnormal" by the reader's standards. I don't "care", but I'm interested in what you guys think.
2. When I say "wrong", I mean wrong by your own (the reader's) standards. Again, whether or not I "care" is irrelevent, I'm just interested in what you guys/girls think.
3. Lemme rephrase that entirely. "Do you (the reader) think the political process does more to bring people together (i.e. not hating each other) than to tear them apart (i.e. hating each other)?
4. Legitimate was a bad word to use there. Apologies. I think a better word would be valid, but I'm probably wrong. I misspelled opinion.
5. I am completely dumbouded that Bo didn't argue the meaning/perception of "respect".
6. This one should have had a question mark. When I said inheritance, I meant a monetary inheritance, to be collected upon a parent's death. Basically, would you consider it "wrong" (again by your, the reader's, moral standards) to hold an opinion for the sake of being included in a Will?

7. I guess this one was pretty clear.

Honestly, I wanted to elaborate more on the meaning/perception of 'respect', but I thought that unless you were looking for something more theoretical, my point might get lost that even when you are 'respecting' part of what your parents say you may be disrespecting other things your parents say no matter how you define it because your parents need not be consistent.

If you are looking for my overall opinion now that you have clarified more, I would say there is no such thing as right or wrong universally. It depends on what you are basing it and what you base it on depends on what is meaningful to you.

I am pro-individual. Having said that, I hope that part of what makes the individual happy is a successful relationship with society, but if not, then that doesn't change that I think the individual acting for themselves is the most important thing to make me happy.

I need not live for others and others need not live for me.

You didn't ask to be born and your parents didn't know you before they decided to have you.

But that doesn't prevent you from being thankful or feeling the need to fulfill responsibility necessarily. The manner and amount though is your decision.

I was born into a Christian family. I spent my childhood and adolescent years being raised in Christian dogma. I went to church with my family because dad would raise hell if I said a word about not going.

When I hit 20, I decided to stop going to church. I also had a girlfriend who was not a Christian. I moved out of the house and started living on my own, learning about how life works and stuff. I went through a phase during which I shunned my Christian roots and followed my own path. That lasted a year or so. Eventually, I made up my own damned mind (to coin a phrase from "The Matrix"). I developed my own identity. I decided to come back to God bceause that was what I wanted to do, and for no other reason. My relationship with God is more "real" now because it's a genuine choice that I have made. Perhaps that's not the best way of saying it. A better way of saying it might be "I feel closer to God now than I did before".

My parents allowed me to become my own person, find an identity of my own, and make my own mistakes. But they always stood by me and supported me, regardless of whether or not my beliefs and other stuff matched up with theirs. Of course, God knows everything that's going to happen, so he knew that I would come to him on my own. He was there, watching over me during that time when I was going it alone and following my own path.

The point I'd like to make, SSD, is that I made up my own damned mind and took responsibility for my life. Whatever I believe, whatever my ideology, whatever I do with my life, it's all on me. I am responsibile for it, and I wouldn't have it any other way. Taking responsibility for oneself brings great freedom. It feels great to know that I am my own person and not who anyone else wants me to be. I have made my own decisions, for better or worse.

It sounds to me like you need to "make up your own damned mind" and be true to yourself. Whatever ideology you believe in, believe in it for you and for no other reason.