Couples with differing views on religion

[Milo]

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Why would you care if your future wife wants your children to go to church? Religious beliefs aside, how could having your children be church-goers for the early part of their lives and then allowing them to make a choice when they're capable of doing so have any detrimental effects on them? Maybe this is me projecting my experiences on the general population, but I do not know of one person raised in a strong family who was told to go to church growing up ended up being a bad person because of it.

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This issue is essentially this: "Mommy goes to church with us, why doesn't daddy?"

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Children are capable of understanding that not everyone is the same, and that people believe different things.

[Milo]

There are many good responses in this thread, some not so good. Religion is responsible for great good and great evil. It is the source of comfort and guidance for many, and the source of intolerance and hatred for many.

People are at their best when being tolerant of other's religion and religious beliefs, be they theistic, or atheistic.

Without faith, many great acts could not have been done, but without faith there would have been no 9/11.

Teach your children to be moral, tolerant and responsible citizens. Whether this learning occurs in church or at home is between you and your wife.

[dragonystic]

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and now thinks that anyone who questions it is a moron.

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anybody who questions it IS a moron, and is in desperate need of a college education. evolution is a theory...in the same way gravitation and electromagnetism are theories. that is to say, they are scientific theories.

not to be confused with the way someone might use the word if they were piecing together a murder investigation and were 'guessing' at possible explanations. evolution is not THAT kind of theory.

[Pudge714]

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Without faith, many great acts could not have been done, but without faith there would have been no 9/11.

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Stuff like this really bothers me. I obviously don't know what would have happened, but in addition to religion there were tons of social, cultural and economic factors, which led to 9/11.

[Jay Riall]

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jay riall didnt say that?

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Yeah he did imo

[manbearpig]

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I just want to point out that you listed Copernicus first, who was a man of great intelligence that was stifled by the church holding him back. I don't want to go through the other guys, but I am sure a lot of them felt the pressure of the church on their back when they were trying to maximize their potential. That's what happens when you make yourself subservient to at. man made church.

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agreed, i'm not trying to argue the value of "the church" or anything like that. I'm not even saying they are right to believe in god. What I am saying is that those people were most likely smarter than everyone in this thread and they believed in god , which refutes the *uppity* atheist argument that anyone who believes in god is just a brainwashed idiot who worships an invisible man in the sky.



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Ummm...time period. We have slightly more evidence today than we did back then. Science has progressed to the point where we can explain a lot more of what was unexplainable to people even 200 years ago, let alone 2000.

Smarter is a relative term anyway. Were they better thinkers? Probably. Did they know more than the average smart person today? I doubt it.

[manbearpig]

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how is there no belief in atheism?

edit: let me clarify, how can you say atheism lacks a belief? isn't it based on the belief that god does not exist?

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I dont think the flying spaghetti monster exists. Does that mean I believe in aspaghettimonsterism?

[manbearpig]

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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."

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The thing is, these people that you are talking about are not "Christians" or "Muslims". I have no issue with people who are of the belief that this world is all too complicated to be random chance and think their is some kind of higher power that has something to do with this. The issue is people who strictly define this "God" and claim they know His thoughts and what He wants and that they are special. And all of these beliefs are built on irrational happenings and a semi fictitious book that these "fundamentalists" hold onto even in the face of logic and reason that clearly identifies the fallacies of their thoughts.

I do have issues with people who drag their kids to church every weekend for play time and cookies to brainwash them into believing in a Santa Claus who will send you to Hell if you think for yourself.

The damndest thing of it all is that most people who identify themselves as religious cant even hold a conversation on evolution or the logical fallacies that they "believe" in. They never stop to think about the concepts behind what they believe.

Religious people in general are intellectually dishonest, and that is what drives most atheist types crazy.