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".

Bonsoir,

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

No, it isn't. That is a very big statement to make so baldly. We are mostly moral because we "feel" that it is right to be so. But that feeling comes from somewhere. Being moral is absolutely not a logical position to take.

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

people without religion (or Athiests if that's what you prefer to call them) are just maintaining the status quo if they don't introduce religion into their children's lives.

LarryGrylls - The efficacy or otherwise of religion as a way to enforce moral behaviour is not an argument for or against the exitence of God or gods.

Your argument seems to be that even if God doesn't exist it is necessery to pretend that he does as we are all miserable sinners.

I repeat: it is perfectly straightforward. "Do as you would be done by" and "win-win" are my mottoes . Nothing to do with religion and everything to do with getting on in the world to mutual benefit.

larry - you still dpon't need a religiouds framework to be moral and just.

'don't need a religious', sorry for typos.

If you want to 'dress' it as mainiting status quo thats up to you.

Einstein was religious/spiritual in his own way, but I wouldn't say he was a big believer in God in the way the word is usually meant.

'The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this'

I think the concept of morality goes back way further than Christianity, if by morality you mean the idea of a society having a set of more or less mutually agreed rules and principles that help that society function and survive. Of course many non-Christian/pre-Christian societies have had some sort of belief system involving some sort of god/gods, it seems to be a fairly natural thing for humans to develop. But that could also be seen as evidence for arguing the other way round, that gods/religions are things that humans have a tendency to invent in order to explain/justify/enforce the moral codes that suit them, as well as to explain natural phenomena and make sense of the world. Most likely there is now a complex two-way relationship between morality and religion that is difficult to untangle. It's absolutely possible to be moral without religion though, and if many of our moral principles 'come from' some religion of other, that's an obvious consequence of the fact that most of our ancestors have had some religion or other (not necessarily Christianity though).

We're trying to bring our DDs up as aetheists - how could we teach them to believe in something we don't?

However, since DD1 started school, she's had a pretty religious (Christian) teacher who takes any opportunity to tell them about it so DD comes home spouting a load of claptrap opinions.

I just say, some people believe that but Dad and I don't and tell her that she can decide when she's older.

The irony on the issue with morals is some people proudly claim they "dont need religion to be moral" and go ahead an make some of the most ignorant, discrimatory, rude, ill-mannered, abusive and inflammatory posts.

Just a general observation over a period time.

LarryGrylls - Living within the social rules in a co-operative way is always more beneficial than being ostracised and not being able to access community resources. The social rules that develop are those that benefit the community. That is why we see very similar moral and ethical rules across almost all societies regardless of religion. Rules against killing, theft, incest and rules for dispute resolution and to promote community cohesion are near universal.

TheCoalition,

You are conflating a number of different arguments that I have made and ridiculously oversimplifying them. I am mainly arguing that:

1/Atheism is not a logical position, agnosticism is. And, as a lemma, trying to pretend that calling yourself agnostic rather than atheist is a BIG difference, which will influence your life, rather than mere semantics.

2/ Even those who are atheist should realise the positive influence of christianity on Western thought and morality. Glibly pretending that what we perceive as morality today is somehow "natural" is ridiculous. It is a hard argument to make through pure logic.

Bonsoir,

Why "do as you would be done by"? Justify that using pure logic.

Roseflower - Equally though, some people who proudly claim they "DO need religion to be moral" and that they themselves are religious and moral go ahead an make some of the most ignorant, discrimatory, rude, ill-mannered, abusive and inflammatory posts.

"If you want to 'dress' it as mainiting status quo thats up to you."

what do you mean?

my 16 week old son is not religious
he is totally unaware of any gods
He will remain unaware of any gods/religion for as long as he is out of school because I won't be teaching him or talking to him about any kinds of gods or religion as they don't feature in my life in any way. I don't talk about them except when debating my position as a person without religion on internet discussions like this one.

that is the status quo in my house.

I'm a bit late to this as I have only just seen it but this is something that I have been reading about in the last couple of days.

Research done on pre-schoolers (largely in Western societies) has shown that they have an inate propensity to see the world as purposefully designed, i.e. that there is a God I suppose. Where there is a design there must be a designer after all. To think anything else is beyond their comprehension because children of that age couldn't cope with the concept of randomness - it wouldn't fit in with their experience. In a sense we are predisposed to believe in something.

So in a sense the atheists have got their work cut out in the early years if they want their children to believe in nothing. However, religion is a separate issue from believing in God. Belief is a personal thing and religion is a cultural thing imo. If you want children to know about religion they can learn about that in school. I think you would be hard pushed in our society to not know anything about religion at all regardless of how you were brought up.

As for adults not becoming Christian when brought up by atheists, there are plenty. I was talking to somebody only the other day who has atheist parents and he became a Christian. His parents sadly aren't not of the live and let live variety and he has suffered a bit for his beliefs but that still doesn't stop becoming a believer in his teens.

Finally atheism is not a religion but is still a belief. Nobody can say definitely that there is no God, any more than they can say there is one.

AliGrylls you say "I do believe that most Christians believe that the old testamant is fundamentally important and I don't know anyone that disavows it"

If you read threads on MN you will often see me quote the OT and the faithful saying "don't be ridiculous. no one takes the OT seriously. Just the NT"

They say this because the OT is full of hate and contradictions and no one can justify it. Of course they do believe it's true really because next thing they are saying "There are continuous references in the OT as to the fact that Jesus is coming" and "btw queers should be treated like the shit they are as god commanded"

They do usually phrase it better than that, but it's what it amounts to. So they say the OT is just stories that no religious people take seriously and then claim it is a textbook which justifies everything they do. When people contradict their own claims there can be no doubt they are lying.

You yourself said "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."

So you just did the same thing of brushing aside the OT and saying "oh it's the NT that counts"

You still seem to have missed the point about compulsory worship if you are talking about Sunday school. In the UK all state schools must have an act of worship every day. The religious demand it even though it means it is compulsory for other people's children.

We say "look you can do all that in Sunday school. There's no need to involve our kids" and they say "we will carry on making your kids worship our god and there's nothing you can do about it because it's the law"

What kind of person would actually want to force other people's children to worship their god? No decent person obviously.

It is entirely logical to treat other people as you would wish to be treated yourself - why do you need that explaining to you?

The issue of what Einstein or Newton or Dawkins of my left big toe think about God is a total irrelevance.

Onagar - NO SCRIPTURE.

larrygrylls you right. Practically everyone regardless would agree relgion teaches excellent morals. However, there is a handful of people so determined to hate relgion at any cost the can't even see it anymore.

Roseflower - Equally though, some people who proudly claim they "DO need religion to be moral" and that they themselves are religious and moral go ahead an make some of the most ignorant, discrimatory, rude, ill-mannered, abusive and inflammatory posts.

I haven't seen any example of this at all. Perhaps you are relating to other experiences.

some parts of some religions may teach some people great morals but you don't NEED religion to be moral.

Bonsoir,

If you find that logical in a world of (relatively) finite resources, then you clearly are not a very logical person. Most of history is about competition for resource of one kind or another. And people have definitely NOT done as to others as they would have done to them. I don't think America would love people to fire a few FAF (fire and forget) cruise missiles into their heartland.

The arguments proposed to justify your position are normally either genetic or humanist. They seem to work if you pretend games theory had not been invented. Post games theory, I think they are a lot of rot. Sure, as a group, you do better if you co-operate. But, as an individual, if you are perceived as co-operating but actually do your own thing (have a few kids with different women, lie a bit to downgrade a colleague competing for a promotion), your genes have an awful lot better chance of being propagated.

I think some people do need religion and its moral framework because they aren't terribly clever/educated and cannot work out for themselves how to treat others based on their own experience and judgment.

Onagar the clue is in the name. Old testament. People dont just blindly follow what a book tells them. Im sorry if this doesnt appease the sterotypical view of what a relgious person should be.