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taking children to church is child abuse

$0.02

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QFT

When you say atheists are as close minded as religious zealots, I'm inclined to point out the following, common, argument:


If I am someone you care about. Someone in your family. And I tell you there is a Golden Monkey in my backyard. Every night this Golden Monkey digs out, has a cup of tea with me, talks about what I should do to save the world, then goes back and buries himself by day. What would you say to me?

Assuming I was stable in all other regards you would want me to dig up this gold monkey and show you no?

If we dig up the whole back yard with nothing, yet I still persist, would you not question my sanity?

This is why atheists seem close minded. Essentially people of faith are daily saying there is an invisible entity in the sky in control of the entire universe, with no further backing than the statement “I believe.”


Raising children with religion (taking most western faiths) teaches them at the most impressionable time in their lives, that they should be adhering to a moral code printed in an endlessly translated and interpreted book, thousands of years old.

Detach and look at it; a freshly born child does not ascribe to any religion. They have to be taught faith. It is a social modification.

Just seems more sensible to teach children that the reality they have is theirs to enjoy and influence.

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The problem here is that you are automatically equating those who have some belief in religion with fundamentalist Christians who base everything on a literal interpretation of some book. There's a huge realm in between where most people who believe in religion fit in. Trust me, my beliefs have no impact on my complete faith in evolution, the scientific method and any other thing that you would call "rational." A strict athiest who equates religion with mental retardation (OP) is just as rigid in their "non-belief" as a fundamentalist Christian who believes that the world was created in 6 days.

As for the douchiness - you haven't seen anyone defend religion in this thread by suggesting that non-believers are morons, but there have been plenty of suggestions that those who have a religion are necessarily of lesser stock. Introducing children to the world that you grew up in (and seem to like enough to want to pass on) is in no way child abuse.

Aside, this whole debate proves my initial point which was that religious differences are a major (possibly insurmountable) obstacle, especially when children are involved.

As for my personal beliefs, I am a somewhat practicing Jew. I don't keep kosher, I don't keep the sabbath. My family gets together to go to synogogue to celebrate the major holidays and that has been a positive part of my life. I'm excited and proud to be raising my son in a similar environment to the one I grew up in. Other than that one part of me, I have more in common with the atheists/agnostics than I do with the religious fundamentalists. But the athiest/agnostic camp is all to happy to lump me in with the bible-beaters because it fits better with their simplistic black/white, I'm superior view of the world.

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I agree with most of the comments you made regarding the posters in this thread. If you don’t remember, my previously stated opinion was that making your child go to church wouldn’t have any negative consequences if you also raised that child in a strong family upbringing. The initial response I received from a few atheists, particularly nath, did come off as very condescending for no apparent reason. I quickly pointed out why his argument was somewhat flawed (he was treating a personal religious belief as if it was a fact that his children would automatically agree with) and the negative ton within his latter posts did fade a little. I decided to stop arguing, though, because it seemed like this thread was turning into a religion debate, which obviously is not what OP was looking for.

From what I’ve seen, it does seem like most of the atheists on this site come off as condescending and arrogant resulting from their strong stance. I’m not really sure why this is. Personally, I’m at a stage in my life where I don’t know what to believe religious-wise. I was raised Catholic and always had a hard time believing. While I know that I’ll never accept everything stated in the Bible, I’m having a tough time deciding on just whether or not there is any god out there. There are people who have devoted their entire lives to the search of God and were not able to find an answer. Similarly, there were people far smarter than anyone in this thread who did decide there was some sort of a god. To hear some of the posters in this thread state their religious beliefs without the slightest hint of humility, then, does come off as somewhat arrogant.