AIBU for not wanting my MIL to discuss Jesus and heaven with my 5 year old?

[Spearshake]

I was just having breakfast with my 5 year old son and he asked me, 'do only people who love Jesus go to heaven?; I asked him who told you that.
Unfortunately, my tone must have been a bit sharp (hey, first thing in the morning) so he said, 'I don't know'

(I know it's his grandma though (my MIL) because she has been staying with us for the last week and we haven't been in contact with anyone else who is likely to make such comments) Unless he has been on the evangelical channels again

The problem is that I am an atheist, so I have a tough time with such discussions. He asked me what God is the other day, and I asked him to wait until his father gets home and he can answer (he was brought up more religiously than me)

Any ideas from fellow mumsnetters of a similar religious (or non-) bent on how to deal with such ideas would be most welcome.

Thank you!

Country.

These threads drive me nuts.
Why people can't discuss things with their children beggars belief!
"Some people believe a, some people believe b".
How hard can it be?

From the link
Everything that exists has an explanation of its existence, either in the necessity of its own nature or in an external cause.
Is such a fucking cop-out.

The universe needs a cause, therefore that cause must be God.
What caused God?
Oh, nothing. God doesn't need a cause, because he's God and Gods don't need causes.

Such a stupid argument.

The universe needs a cause, therefore that cause must be this magical causeless amulet.
What caused the magical causeless amulet?
Nothing, it's magic and doesn't have a cause. The clue's in the name.

Tada!

What strikes me about these threads is the atheists hostility towards anyone who believes.
Their absolute belief that they are right leaving no benefit of the doubt whatsoever. Talk about closed minds.
Their twisting and distortion of what you say to make you sound stupid.
Their denial of Gods existence while at the same time raging against God for allowing bad things to happen. (You can't have it all ways, he either exists or he doesn't)
Some of the most notable atheists will not dismiss out of hand things that cant be explained, in fact some have become Christian because in their view they saw overwhelming evidence that there is a God rather than their wasn't.
People on here are obviously much cleverer.

"These threads drive me nuts.
Why people can't discuss things with their children beggars belief!
"Some people believe a, some people believe b".
How hard can it be?"

Well it certainly seems a bit tricky for the people who think it's absolutely fine to tell children "What you need to believe is a, or you won't go to heaven". Like the grandmother in the OP.

"What strikes me about these threads is the atheists hostility towards anyone who believes.
Their absolute belief that they are right leaving no benefit of the doubt whatsoever. Talk about closed minds."

I'm not at all hostile towards anyone who believes unless they wish to impose their beliefs on me and mine. Particularly if they do that then deny doing it.

And I, for one, have said repeatedly that I am atheist because the overwhelming balance of evidence points to there not being a god- should more evidence emerge I am happy to reconsider my position.

And if we are talking closed minded, what is more closed minded than not being able to say "This is something we don't understand- let's just wait, saying that we don't know until we work it out" but insisting on saying "This is something we don't understand- it must be God"

Noble an explanation doesn't need to have its own explanation to be valid. That kind of requirement would actually defeat science - or do you reject the theory of gravity because we haven't got an explanation for it?

Their absolute belief that they are right leaving no benefit of the doubt whatsoever. Talk about closed minds.

Because those who believe in God go around saying "of course I could be wrong" all the time?

Why should atheists not believe they are right? Why do we have to be open-minded to the possibility of your God when a lot of us have spent a lot of time, thought and discussion in deciding to dismiss him?

I don't believe in your God. I'm sure I'm right. If that offends you then you really need to woman-up.

I don't remember my religious parents ever telling me 'this is what we believe, but you are free to make up your own mind'. Nor the teachers and priests who taught me at the church schools I was sent to. No, it was all presented as fact, funnily enough.
Someone upthread mentioned catching their mother in the process of doing a DIY baptism on their own baby. My mother threatened to do the same to my kids. That's really open minded, isn't it?

But Bertrand, if you say "this is something we don't understand let's wait and see", then you aren't rejecting any deities, are you? That would make you an agnostic (which is a very reasonable position to hold to be fair).

king why have you suddenly started using the word 'explanation' for cause?

The theory of gravity is an explanation. It doesn't actually have a physical presence. You can't say that God is an explanation. It's like saying God is an equation. It makes no sense in the context of what people actually believe God to be.

"But Bertrand, if you say "this is something we don't understand let's wait and see", then you aren't rejecting any deities, are you? That would make you an agnostic (which is a very reasonable position to hold to be fair)."

I've explained earlier in the thread why I reject the theist position.

Noble it was you who turned "explanation" into "cause".

MSI AMD R9 280

king so my magical amulet is now explanationless rather than causeless?

Or rather the explanation is inherent in its magical amuletness, because that is how I have chosen to define my magical amulet.

The argument is 'here is a big hole in my understanding of the universe. To fix this hole I need something that has these properties. I will call that thing God and give him these properties. God now neatly fixes this hole in my understanding of the universe because he has exactly the properties I am looking for. Hence God exists." Applause all round.

One of the peculiarities about the way religious people argue on these threads is that they pretend there are only two world views: people who believe in God, and people who don't.

But in fact the first category isn't really a category at all, because there are dozens of religions (historically, there must be thousands), all with competing versions of the truth. Buddhists and Hindus, for example, believe in reincarnation. Are we to assume that they must be right, because we can't prove they're not?

The Mormons believe that an angel revealed divine truth to Joseph Smith on some golden tablets. Again, do we assume they're right because we can't prove they're wrong? (Even though anyone with an ounce of sense can deduce that Joseph Smith was an out-and-out fraudster.)

The Greeks and Romans believed there was a sun god, a moon god, a god who ruled the sea etc. Once more, are we to assume they were right because we can't prove they're wrong?

I could go on, but you get the idea. Why is it that religious people never even attempt to answer this fundamental point? Is it because they know they can't?

From the link
Everything that exists has an explanation of its existence, either in the necessity of its own nature or in an external cause.
Is such a fucking cop-out. etc etc

It is this kind of response that got me to write on this thread.... The irony is that my views are closer to many athiests than to many believers, but it is 'militant athiests' (not all atheists I hasten to add - many have made balanced comments) over-weaning confidence in the complete obviousness of their position that riles me. It makes most fundamentalist of Christians look positively agnostic!

The argument from the link is that either 1) the universe has literally no cause, or that 2) it has a cause that transcends it, using the term 'God' as that transcendent cause (it makes no attempt to describe who or what God is beyond being a transcendent cause). I have no problem with people arguing the former (i.e. there is no cause), rather with those who mock those as stupid who take an alternative view when this 'cosmological argument for the existence of God' has been debated and considered at length by the most emminent of philosophers and theologians throughout the ages who were anything but stupid!

There may be no God, but those that angrily and condescendingly belittle those that do believe, inventing 'straw Gods' to knock down, do their atheism no service.

Bertrand, if you reject theism from the start, then you are definitely not saying "we don't know what this is, let's wait and see". In fact, you are starting from a dogmatic position since any "evidence" that we do have, can point to both theism and atheism.

Actually BertrandRussell, we have no idea what grandma actually said to op's ds.

My ds's misquote me often and I say : " that wasn't what I actually said".

And even if op's mum had said it, op could easily say: well that's what grandma believes, but many people don't, I believe .....

Job done.

One of the peculiarities about the way religious people argue on these threads is that they pretend there are only two world views: people who believe in God, and people who don't

I agree, but in my experience, many atheists do the same....

Noble, first of all, can you describe this amulet a bit? Is it a physical entity, for example?

I hadn't heard of WLC until I'd stopped identifying as a Christian. I think he's more for bolstering Christians rather than making new ones. I'd be surprised if anyone converted because of his reasoning. The issue I have is even if I could make head or tail of his arguments and that there was a first cause how does anyone go from that to 'and its Yahweh'.

Because this 'first cause' doesn't care about children being raped so it's not an entity that gives a stuff about human suffering or humans in any way so couldn't care less if we think about it.

flash If the argument said 'Either the universe has no cause or it must have a transcendent cause" then that would be fairly straightforward. But it doesn't.

And your claim that it doesn't make any attempt to describe who or what God is begs the question "why then, call it an argument for the existence of God, and label the transcendent cause 'God' when the word 'God' is so value laden?" It's a bait and switch.

I am often puzzled by the way people of faith use expressions like militant, angry condescending and so on about atheists on threads like this when all I can see is occasional tetchiness on both sides. I wonder whether it's because theists are assuming that all atheists are like Richard Dawkins, and they are answering some of his points rather than what they are actually reading.