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".

Yes, but you said that people are confused about what churches say, and that these churches (unspecified) are not peddling nonsense based on the OT.

I'd like you to admit that you really don't know much if anything about what churches other than your own teach, and admit that you shouldn't be telling people they have picked up "funny, timewarp views", when you don't know how accurate those views are.

OT doesn't talk about tsunamis, though. It talks about relatively simple, easily understandable, and shocking stories. Like God sending down two horrific bears to tear children to bloody bits because they made fun of a man's bald head. Lovely deity, makes me want to worship him

Oh and going by the same logic, the interpretation of events by someone living in 0 AD and 2011 AD will also be markedly different - so why cling to NT like it's so very true?

By that logic, you should be holding Quran in much higher regard, as it was written 600 years closer to today.

We seem to be getting a long way from my only point-DCs can make up their own mind -and the one sure thing is that they will!
If you can tell me a church that is teaching that all the animals in the world got on the ark and got off alive, and healthy enough to breed, at the other end I will believe you have a valid point! (I would love to know how Noah gathered them all, especially kangaroos etc when he didn't know Australia was there, did they swim over from Australia to find Noah. Did Noah have to gather eucalyptus or did the koalas bring it with them?!)
The best thing that you can do is get your DCs to question-something most of them do naturally from first speaking.

The NT is interpretation! I am off to do the gardening. People are so literal! Try an alpha course.

No thanks. So you refuse to admit you were wrong and that you know very little about what churches other than your own teach? No matter, its quite clear.

And no, they can't and won't make up their own minds if they have been indoctrinated as children. Thats the point.

The point is that they do. As shown on here, many DCs become Christians when they have atheist parents and vice versa. FACT.
Parents are not that important-if you are lucky they follow.
I don't know much about churches-not something that particularly interests me-it might one day and I will find out.
I just doubt whether all these people who come up with daft theories have studied the subject as as adult with an adult understanding. They seem to have picked up bits from childhood and be basing adult views on them.
I am not a theologian so I can't say-but I bet theologians could have a real laugh at the misconceptions.
Anyway-that is my final word. You kid yourself if you think you can tell your DC what to think.

So suprising then that Catholics tend to have catholic children. Muslims have muslim children too! And shocker, Jewish parents have jewish children and jehovahs witnesses children turn into... jehovahs!

Quite astounding really, I mean what are the chances? After all, nobody teaches their children anything, do they?

Seems to be that if both the OT and the NT need so much "interpretation" to be able to work out what on earth they actually mean, you might as well ignore the lot and make it up as you go along follow your own heart.

One last word.I bet that if you counted up the number of atheist DCs with Catholic parents against the Catholics with Catholic parents the first group would win hands down!! More difficult to stop being a muslim I would imagine, but doesn't account for 5,200 people in UK converting to Islam last year, white British women making up the biggest number of converts and the average age being 27yrs-a steady increase since 2001.
I would think that the more heavily indoctrinated as a DC the more likely to leave a faith.
I would bet that many Jehovah Witness DCs leave as adults otherwise there wouldn't be an association of former Jehovah Witnesses.

Showing again how little you know about it, then? Please do make it your last word, the hole you are digging for yourself is going to swallow us all.

Definitely the last-will stop reading.
I don't see what hole I am digging into -people don't have a belief or lack of belief 'because mummy tells them so'-even if mummy happens to be WinterOfOurDiscoutTents!-they will do exactly as they please when adults-regardless.

In answer to OP

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 think if you are betting, then it is more likely that a DC of an atheist will be an atheist and a DC of a Muslim will be a Muslim than a DC of a Christian will be a Christian, but it isn't a sure thing and I wouldn't put my shirt on it there are so many exceptions to the rule.
Hiding thread-wasting way too much time on it.

Yawn. Try looking a cursory glance at a census, any country. Try just applying a little logic if you have an aversion to actual facts.

And stop confusing faith with religion while you're at it.

Exoticfruits, do you understand the difference between having a daft outmoded belief in some myth system/imaginary friend or other, and having a cultural attachment to one of the main myth brands? An awful lot of white British people tick 'CofE' on forms which ask them to state their religion, when they have no belief in any gods and never set foot in a church. This is dwindling these days, but it still goes on, and the same can apply to Jews/Muslims/Sikhs/Hindus as well.