children can make their own mind up about religion when they grow up...

[AliGrylls]

Okay I have just read this on another thread but this is a statement I hear quite a lot and want to ask the question.

If all you teach your child is atheism how will they make their mind up about religion when they grow up because they have no religion other than atheism?

They will know nothing other than what you have taught them so they have nothing to make their mind up about - they will be atheist, by default. If people genuinely want their children to make their own mind up they have to provide them with a reasonable alternative (ie, Judaism / Christianity / Islam).

I don't actually know any adults who have been brought up atheist who have thought all of a sudden "I believe in God, I am going to go to Church".

onagar, I think your post is really interesting. There are a few things about what you say that I am not sure Christians believe (I have only recently started going to church so don't have the same understanding as some more mature Christians).

Firstly, I do believe that most Christians believe that the old testamant is fundamentally important and I don't know anyone that disavows it. There are continuous references in the OT as to the fact that Jesus is coming.

Is it really the problem that religious people can't distinguish between teaching and compulsory worship, or is it the fact atheists just don't agree with the idea of organised religion in any shape or form? I will send my children to Sunday school not because I see it as compulsory worship but because the people at Church are better at teaching it than I am. I can liken it to teaching myself a musical instrument. I could try to teach myself but I would only get so far and would probably not get very much enjoyment from it because it would be a solitary activity that would be going nowhere, and I would probably only be able to play to two pieces. If I have lessons and join a band, I will make exponential progress and even if I don't keep up with it I will probably make friends in the process.

Certainly from my point of view it has nothing to do with moral obligation it is because the people that teach at Sunday Schools are better at it than I am and make it far more interesting.

I see you have chosen the passage that the 10 commandments comes from. You have forgotten the most important of the commandments. I believe that Jesus said in the new testament that the greatest of the commandments was love.

Well most athiests are technically agnostics - even Richard Dawkins describes himself as such in The God Delusion (IIRC). But if you believe that the possibility of a 'god' (whatever you define that to mean) is extremely remote and doesn't impact on your life and other beliefs in any way, if you live your life on the assumption that no such thing exists, then you are functionally athiest and might as well describe yourself that way. I would guess that's what most people mean by saying they are atheist, rather than believing that they have some absolute proof that no such 'god' exists.

Totally agree BetchByGolly.

Of course, there is bound to be some element of doubt but for an atheist - I would imagine (I am one but I cannot speak for all!) the doubt is so small it is insignificant and the 'theory' can be adopted as fact until proved otherwise. When a number of theories fit the current data they multiple theories develop until more evidence is collected and it becomes clearer which one to adopt. There has never been any evidence for God - any of them. It would be chaos if we had to teach 4200+ (or even 17) scientific theories that didn't match current scienfitic data at all for each topic in Science, even if there was a slim chance that one of them was correct. Why should this be any different?

Agnoticism is in one sense the only logical position because, as you say, it's impossible to disprove the existence of god(s). You can't prove a negative and all that.

But then it's also impossible to disprove that I have an invisible purple dragon called Brian Thunderpuff living in my chimney. Does that make you agnostic on the Brian Thunderpuff question?

And are you equally agnostic about the existence of an Abrahamic God as you are about the ancient Greek Gods, the Norse Gods and the Egyptian Gods? Do you regard Scientology as equally potentially valid as Hinduism or Christianity?

No, Dawkins describes himself as an atheist. He does say that if someone comes up with irrefutable evidence of God's existence then he'll change his mind. He is a scientist, after all, and he'd be a poor scientist if he ignored good evidence in order to maintain a dogmatic belief as that's the preserve of the religious. But he doesn't believe that such evidence will ever be produced.

Such a position is not the same as agnosticism.

Both my parents believe in God, but they do not practice. They always believed that my sister and I should decide for ourselves when we are older. There was no talk of religion in the house. But we did have religious education at school and we were taught about different religions etc. I have to say that it was one of my favourite classes at school.

The result is that now my sister believes and practices and I am an atheist. I have been an atheist since I was 8 years old. My parents have no problems with me being an atheist and I respect my sisters choice.

I have a dd now. I will do the same as my parents did, I will allow her and my future children to decide for themselves. I am not going to tell them that God exists or does not exist. My house will be neutral.

NO SCRIPTURE.

There is no point arguing about what it says in the books as it makes no difference to those who don't believe the books have any authority, and it makes not difference to those who DO believe the books have authority as they just decide that what it really means is whatever they want it to.

Ephiny,

Why would people describe themselves as atheists when they are agnostics just because the difference does not impact their lives. I think that is a very strange perspective. I am agnostic on string theory. Personally, I am dubious it is a good model for the universe or anything else. On the other hand, I know that my intelligence cannot grasp all the pros and cons of a 13 or 22 dimensional system. Does that mean I am functionally against string theory and might as well say that it is absolutely wrong? In any event, the people who describe themselves as atheist rather than agnostic do seem to have one thing in common: they are very happy to rubbish others' religious beliefs. True agnostics are tolerant of others who believe differently. I would count myself among them.

Snorbs,

It would be perfectly provable under any reasonable logical system that you had no invisible dragon up your chimney. On the case of some form or higher intelligence in the universe (not a wise old man looking down from the sky) I would say that the case is a lot more open.

larrygrylls - Much as I am loathe so say 'It's just semantics' and am prone to respned to it with 'yes, semanatics is important', your argument is just semantics.

You are defining agostic and athiest to suit yourself so as to allow you to create two sets of non-releigious people and put yourself in the set of the ones you think has better conduct.

I am an athiest because I don't believe in God or Gods - I am not a Theist.

I am agnostic because I don't disbeleive in God or Gods as an article of faith.

But these are not the only definitions of these words anymore than 'Christian' tells you anything about what someone believes.

In this formal sense of the meaning of the words atheist and agnostic, they are not points along a spectrum of belief/disbelief but are orthogonal axis on a graph.

"Some people dont want a God at all."

Every child is born without God.
If they develop an awareness of god from a youg age then it's generally down to their parents.
Many children do not have this awareness that such a thing exists in some people's minds because it plays no part in their upbringing. Therefore it is then realy annoying that it is forced into their lives at school.

This discussion has seriously made me think about removing my son from school assemblies when he goes to school.

"Atheism is a religion" no it's not.

Let's not argue about what is or isn't a religion eh? That would require a proper definition of 'a religion' which can end up being a bit uncomfortable for the Theists....

The religious get accused of giving their child one view of the world only.

Its panifully obvious it's the other way around from some of the atheists.

Roseflower - Yes, that's why we need a secular school system.

Thats why we need a choice.

Thecoalition,

I am describing agnostic and atheist as they are defined in the OED (pretty much), not to suit myself. I would argue the other way around. An atheist is defined as someone who DOES NOT believe in a god or gods. It is hard to turn that around to make it equal to agnosticism (the belief that the existence beyond material phenomena is unknown or unknowable).

The problem with true atheism is that is hard to believe in a moral framework. If this really is "it", absolutely and incontrovertibly, one might as well steal, cheat and even kill, if one could get away with it. It is hard to argue (although I know some will) against the fact that a lot of today's morality comes down from Christianity. We may not like the belief system itself but I think that we (mostly) like a lot of its teachings. So, to argue that a concept of something beyond the material has no impact on anyone's life (other than those who would now be decribed as having narcissitic personality disorder) would be hard. You have to ask yourself why your parents brought you up with certain moral beliefs and go back through the generations. At some point you will find God fearing people who attended a church and were taught the 10 commandments. Maybe, as Dawkins argues, it is just convenient genetically (although I am not entirely convinced my genes would not propagate far more efficiently if I were totally immoral) to have religious belief. On the other hand, I think a lot of people look up to Dawkins because of who he his and not his arguments. Einstein was a big believer in God as was Richard Hawkins (until his recent conversion to agnosticism).

The above is the BIG difference between true atheism and agnosticism. An agnostic still has a reason to lead a moral life. An atheist does not. The humanist arguments are almost as disingenuous as the creationist ones. To argue why one should lead a moral life in the absence of anything greater than our 70 years on earth requires some leaps of logic that even the most ardent religious scholar would be proud of.

If you teach your DC is that there is no God, you teach them the truth and prepare them for the modern world.

It is perfectly straightforward to be moral and to believe in justice without any kind of religious framework.

Yes - If we had a secular school system everyone would have a choice. No one would be forced to go to a school of a different faith or non faith, no faith or non-faith would be promoted or denigrated.

School would of course discuss and teach about faith/faiths/absence of faith but without taking a position on the truth of any one.

Issues of faith or non-faith would be addressed outside school, as the parents choose.

How is that possibly letting a child make up its mind if you teach no God is truth?

Proves my point.

TheCoalition,

Orthogonal axes? Eh?! Now you are just confusing yourself. If you prefer a more mathematical definition, you have to use probability theory. An atheist has a probability distribution function which consists of a single point, at zero. Agnostics have all sorts of probability distribution functions, depending on how likely they consider a God to be.

When I was at school, we had one hour a week for religious instruction (choice of Anglicanism, Catholicism or Judaism) or non-religious moral instruction. Each family chose for its own children.

If parents want to send their kids to a faith school what right have you to take away their choice?

Roseflower - as we all know, we teach children all sorts of truths in childhood and then they grow up and choose to believe all sorts of rubbish (largely influenced by the media) so I don't think insistence on telling the truth is at all infallible

You don't know the truth. No one can claim that.