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!

"By militant atheists I'm talking of people who act in this way, not the majority on this thread."

Like who?

Good afternoon, everyone. Let me guess on the state of play. We've finally agreed to disagree and the atheists are being polite to everybody, no?

You say on your way back bongo so I assume you had backslidden rather than having been at a position where you felt the idea of the Christian God was untenable/baseless. The reason I rejected Christianity wasn't because of the lack of a first cause, it just doesn't feature and never did, it's more about here and now and the reality of life and the lack of any supernatural element to those who claim to be in touch with a deity who can answer prayer. The NT makes huge claims about miraculous answered prayer for its followers but Christians and non Christians have the same problems, get sick and well and the same rates. Why?

Alan, while I certainly don't agree with WLC on everything, i think I can safely say his arguments helped me on my way back to Christianity.

which argument? The first cause one?

It's actually quite important to be 'rude' to superstitious people by reminding them, whenever they start in about their imaginary friend, that their imaginary friend is their problem and no one else's.
Respecting people's right to believe bullshit, whether that's gods, pixies, horoscopes or homeopathy is fine - it should be just another aspect of a person, such as having rubbish taste in music or a fondness for crown green bowling or whatever.
Problems arise when people start insisting that their imaginary friend gets taken seriously in a way which will affect other people's lives eg people not being allowed to marry the lover of their choice because Pongo The Poop doesn't approve, or women being told they are the property of men and men can abuse them with impunity because they are not fully human.
So no, I'm not going to speak 'respectfully' about silly people's silly delusions. If it's someone I otherwise like or have to spend a lot of time with, I'll point out that I disagree and refuse any further discussion with them - unless they push it in which case they will just have to put up with being laughed at.

"Good afternoon, everyone. Let me guess on the state of play. We've finally agreed to disagree and the atheists are being polite to everybody, no?"

Well, atheists are certainly being polite.

Did I mention where I stand on this argument?

So I have privately messaged Mermaid apologising for my message. I have given her my reasons for why I said what I said. I never thought tbh she could be vulnerable. Sorry.

Alan, I'm not sure what I was. I had the typical juvenile atheist phase that so many teenagers go through, but I didn't really think about these things much after that. With maturity came the willingness to actually listen to the counterarguments, which is where WLC comes in.

I'm not even close to being a literalist, and I don't believe that Christianity got all of the aspects of God's nature right. On balance, however, I do find a theist universe more likely than the whole thing popping out of nothing, life getting started all by itself against all odds, leading to a species that can actually think about its own origins. The odds don't stack up.

i find the theist universe more likely but what reason do you have to think it is an interested God? Like I said, if it is a God that caused it, it sure as eggs ain't sitting about thinking about you.

Well then, according to your own beautiful theory of not imposing ones own contrary views, not even in this forum, solidgold, you'd do well to follow your own suggestion and believe in the bullshit idea of the importance of being rude, just do it more quietly.

Ok lemon, can you give us an example of something that began to exist without a cause?

Radioactive decay.

I'm presuming you're referring to quantum theory... So yes, at an atomic level things don't have a classical deterministic cause... It doesn't mean they don't have a 'cause

It doesn't mean they do, though. For Kalam to hold true the first premise must be accepted as true. We can't accept that.

Ps I have a masters in theoretical physics....

Yes, me too. Actually, I have three plus a Nobel prize.

OK Lemon you win the internet
(for today at least)

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

This is so tiresome and it really has to stop.

No one has been hostile on here, Tara except you and Dora. There have been no personal digs or attacks. Concepts have been discussed robustly.

You have unfortunately come on here trying to make a scientific case and failing - but that's because you (I'm afraid) have no idea what you're talking about, so you were put right by people who know a bit more.

You've chosen to take that as us being arrogant, nasty and dismissive.

There is nothing whatsoever "closed minded" about asking for evidence. We all do it all the time in everything we ever do. Except some people stop doing it when it comes to God.

Believing because you want to without any evidence whatsoever is not "open minded". In fact, it's the most closed minded thing I can think of.

No atheist "rages against God". This is a very silly thing to say...almost as silly as your arrogant claim that we are all secret believers.

If we rage against anything it's the fundamentally sick notions inherent within Christianity that virtually every Christian buys into wholesale without any actual thought. And I wouldn't describe it as "rage" - just a very healthy lack of respect for something intrinsically silly and childish.

Your religion is not harmless even if you are. Your religion kills people everyday on our planet. Somebody needs to be speaking up about this stuff and if you don't like hearing opinions that are different to yours then avoid threads like this. Simple.

But stop with the nasty atheists crap. It makes you sound very childish.

I'll agree to disagree' with friends because the friends I have who do go in for superstition generally go in for the good bits - kindness, helpfulness, fair dealing etc - and skip the bigotry, bullying and imposition of the more dangerous parts of their mythology on others. If they were the aggressive, bigoted types then they wouldn't be friends.

Astrology is quite a good example of mostly harmless bullshit that some people believe (you get the odd fuckwit who does damage to him/herself or others because of 'what the stars say' but most people who 'think there might be something in it' do so in a low-key way). However, if astrology had to be treated with 'respect' then you could end up with people being given, say, medical treatment according to the day they were born rather than according to their illness, or schools being allowed to exclude Capricorns from maths because Capricorns can't do maths, or whatever.

I don't know if we need a transcendental cause, noble. I don't know how something could come from nothing in another way, though

Argument from Ignorance. You don't know how something could happen, therefore it didn't, therefore God. This is why you find WLC compelling?

He's wrong...logically and scientifically. There are enough actual physicists online telling us this but no doubt you'd prefer not to listen to them. If his Kalam argument was that good the scientific community would have adopted it...anything regarding the beginnings of the universe is of interest to physicists.

His argument begins and ends with the premise "Everything that begins to exist has a cause"...this is not known to be true, and therefore fails right here.

Virtual particles on the quantum level come into existence with no discernible cause - the existence is probabilistic and random.

it might be that there is some cause that we don't yet understand, but it might equally not be the case. On the quantum level, everything we think we know intuitively about how things work falls apart, that's what makes it all so difficult to understand.

If virtual particles don't need a cause then no everything does = failed first premise.

And, by the way.....even if Craig were right (he's not) in no way can you then make the leap that cause=intelligent agent=god=my particular god. What if the "cause" was two subatomic particles in another universe bumping together randomly?

So, sorry...WLC is nowhere near as impressive as you think.

Your religion is not harmless even if you are. Your religion kills people everyday on our planet.
It's not religion which is killing people every day on this planet, it's people fighting in the name of religion. The barbaric acts which are going on across the world certainly aren't being done by my religion anyway. In actual fact I'm not a greatly religious person, I don't go to church regularly.
I stand by what I said about the hostility. I haven't been hostile to anyone where as you are basically telling me I don't know what I'm talking about.
Atheists do rage against God, they're constantly blaming him for disasters and wars. If there is no God why do they get so worked up about Him.

Well, indeed, I can't imagine how postings of thoughtless, crap, childish puppets could be thought of as being remotely hostile, lemon.

I do find a theist universe more likely than the whole thing popping out of nothing, life getting started all by itself against all odds, leading to a species that can actually think about its own origins. The odds don't stack up.

If I had one raffle ticket and was informed that my raffle ticket had won a prize, how would I calculate the odds of winning if I had no idea how many raffle tickets exist, nor how many had won the same prize? Even if the chances of winning the raffle were staggeringly remote, does it mean that there must be a supernatural being that selected me as the winner?

We know about one Universe and we know of one planet which sustains life. How do you possibly calculate the odds of the Universe popping out of nothing if you have no idea how many universes exist, or of life starting by itself if you have no idea whether life has evolved on other planets? For all we know there could be trillions of universes all full of planets which support life.

Anyone who claims to be able to able to calculate these odds is pulling numbers from the air. Would I be able to convince you that you had not won the lottery because the odds of you winning were impossibly remote?

But isn't someone coming from an advanced civilisation just as unlikely?

No...it's much, much, much more likely.

If Jesus's face (or the idealized white, Western version of it) ever appears in the sky illuminated by stars to tell us "It's true. I'm real"...I won't think God is real, I'll assume an advanced alien race yanking our chains.

*Ok lemon, can you give us an example of something that began to exist without a cause?

Radioactive decay.*

?? Radioactive decay does have a cause - i.e. the unstable energy states present within a radioactive atomic nucleus. If you are meaning the 'cause' of the decay of a particular radioactive atom at a particular moment in time. Yes, the decay may be random and unpredictable, but it doesn't follow that it doesn't have a cause, just one that the laws of quantum physics shield from us. To prempt a possible response: Does that in itself prove there's a God?.... Of course not.

Will that always be the case? Well, I can't see how the laws of quantum physics can be circumvented, but 100 (or so) years ago quantum physics didn't even exist, so who's to say how advanced our science will be in 100, 1,000 or 10,000 years?

tarashill it's not just fighting. It's denial of women's reproductive rights, non-acceptance/persecution of homosexuals, scientific research being hindered etc, etc. Just because many religious people no longer hold these beliefs, or in a less extreme form, doesn't mean they aren't still influential, and yes people do die as a result. Women die from enforced pregnancy, gay teenagers commit suicide because they feel unsupported by their religious families, and so on.

www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2014/09/15/an-atheist-turned-christian-believes-he-can-get-you-to-reconsider-gods-existence/
Somebody else who can put it into words better than i can what I feel. Very interesting. (I think so anyway, but am prepared for it to be torn to shreds as per usual)

Well, indeed, I can't imagine how postings of thoughtless, crap, childish puppets could be thought of as being remotely hostile, lemon

For the final time, I did not say that. I elucidated Zing's own argument and fed it back to her...followed by your rather desperate and silly attempts to back her up.

You're seeing what you want to see. How Christian of you.

Your bitterness is showing, Dora. Have we embarrassed you?

It's not religion which is killing people every day on this planet, it's people fighting in the name of religion. The barbaric acts which are going on across the world certainly aren't being done by my religion anyway

Er, yes...people fighting in the name of religion. That is the same thing as people fighting because of religion. Religion is an idea, not a person...it can't kill anyone. But it can provide the justification for humans to exercise extreme cruelty against each other.

But Bible verses are directly responsible for gays being hanged in Ghana, and young children being tortured for being witches all over Africa. Christianity is not harmless even if it's lost it's legs largely in this country.

I stand by what I said about the hostility. I haven't been hostile to anyone where as you are basically telling me I don't know what I'm talking about

But you don't. That's a simple matter of fact. You've had your facts corrected quite a few times. Would you prefer to go through life believing something that's not true? Wait. Don't answer that.

Atheists do rage against God, they're constantly blaming him for disasters and wars. If there is no God why do they get so worked up about Him

That is simply not true. I blame the climate and plate tectonics for most natural disasters. I might challenge those few Christians on how they can believe their god helped them pay their mortgage one month while allowing hundreds of innocent people to die horribly in a plane crash - but that's not blaming god and you know it.

And your whole "Boo hoo, be nicer to me atheists" is hostile. It's also emotionally manipulative. If you had better arguments you wouldn't be reduced to it.

Oh, just read your last sentence, Tarashill. Atheists don't get worked up about God, unless we're talking hypothetically of course. Why on earth would an atheist blame a nonexistent 'being' for a disaster. That's just ridiculous.
Some of us do get a little bit irritated by people who insist upon imposing their own beliefs on us and our children though, as per the thread.

Radioactive decay does have a cause - i.e. the unstable energy states present within a radioactive atomic nucleus. If you are meaning the 'cause' of the decay of a particular radioactive atom at a particular moment in time. Yes, the decay may be random and unpredictable, but it doesn't follow that it doesn't have a cause, just one that the laws of quantum physics shield from us. To prempt a possible response: Does that in itself prove there's a God?.... Of course not

Dear me. Masters in Theoretical physics, you say?

Yes, quite obviously I meant the cause of the decay, since that is what I said.

It is known that it is unpredictable - and can only be expressed as a probability. As per quantum mechanics. No "may" about it.

There may be some undreamed of cause, but EQUALLY there may not.

Therefore, WLC's premise is flawed. A logically sound argument cannot be launched from a flawed premise. You understand this much?

Interested in what your tutors and fellow grad students said when you shared your views on "transcending time and space". Tumbleweed or polite sniggers?