to think DH is taking his atheism a bit too far?

[glassspider]

My son will soon be three years old and happily repeats phrases such as please, thank you, excuse me, when appropriate. When somebody sneezes, he also says "bless you," the way his relatives and most people with whom he has come into contact have said to him in the past.

My husband is an atheist and dislikes any form of religion or celebration of religious belief such as saints days, church ceremonies, anything like that, which I'm fine with. But he is telling our son it is bad to say "bless you" and we always say "gesundheit" instead. Is this not going to cause a lot of unnecessary confusion and bad feeling over a little phrase which will probably be said to him quite a lot throughout his life, and won't kill him?!

I guess if you're going to be an atheist, do it properly and according to what is right for you, just as followers of religions do. I just think small terms found in religion are such a part of life and culture that it will be impossible for DS to avoid them and to try and bar them all from his life will be more bother than it's really worth! AIBU?

I'm pleased for your unicorn. What do you feed her?

I see that "belief" can mean "assent to view x", and is an intellectual thing or can mean "live life in the light of view x", which is closer to some definitions of belief in a religious context. So it can be an ambiguous term.

So I would say that atheist belief and religious belief are sometimes the same sort of thing and sometimes not. Atheism is not a fully formed religion (although it is a constituent element of some worldviews in the way that theism is a constituent element of some religious worldviews), so if "belief" is being used in the broad sense of "way of life" then they are not equivalent. But I still feel that belief in the narrow "assent to a proposition" sense, atheistic and theistic belief have similarities. They come down to statements about the way things are.

Incidentally, I suspect that comparing God to unicorns is making a category error. I am currently working through Paul Tillich's concept of God as the "ground of being". In this view "God" is taken to mean the source of existence itself, rather than a single existent entity alongside many others. Tillich would maintain that arguments trying to prove the existence of God by comparison to invisible unicorns or spaghetti monsters are making a category error.

To express it in other terms, when we say "God exists" and "Unicorns exist" we are not comparing like with like. The statements have a grammatical similarity that make us think they are equal, but the contents are different.

A bit like the phrases "I have a key in my pocket" and "I have a pain in my foot". They appear to be the same sort of statement, but to talk about the pain in your foot with the same terms as a key in your pocket would be misleading. What does the pain look like? What is it's weight? Can you take it out and show me? Can you describe it in something other than subjective terms? So while the sentences look the same, they are not dealing with the same sort of things. And so if "God" is (as Tillich asserts) the premise of all existence, rather than one element within existence, we need to take care when arguing for "God's" existence that we do not make such a category error.

I am still weighing up how much I agree with Tillich, and the implications that this view of God would have for traditional belief systems. I like the ontological sense of God as the ground of being, underpinning the nature of all things. And it does indicate that much of the atheist/theist debate is fruitless due to the innate imprecision of language. I also like how it has implications that religion should be directed towards a celebration of existence itself. But there is much to consider in Tillich, and he has his detracters.

permanentvacation do I know you? have you namechanged?

"In this view "God" is taken to mean the source of existence itself, rather than a single existent entity alongside many others."

yes, that's all very well, but i don't think that's what 99% od people mean when they say 'god'. A 'god' that started everything going and then went away isn't a very interesting god. it makes so difference whether you believe in it or not.

Also my experience is that when I attack a God, a very common reaction is for people to say 'oh no, i don't beleive in that god, I believe in a different one who...

he's quite a slippery character, is god.

oh, and my unicorn - I feed her on chocolate teapots and away-with-the-fairy cakes.
After she has eaten I gently rub down her horn with snake oil

I'm glad your unicorn enjoys her choc teapots and cake, although I wonder if that's healthy fare for unicorns. Is she an overweight invisible unicorn? How could you tell?

Saying God is the ground of being does not commit you to a deist position (i.e. God made the world but is no longer involved with it). Rather this concept of God is one who keeps involved in existence as all continuing existence is dependent on God. I would also argue from a perspective of necessary moral objectivity that such a God remains interested in our world and the actions of people within it.

Believing in such a God does make a difference - in our being created we can assume there is some purpose, and as existence itself is dependent on such a God then we can give gratitude to such a God for our being here. Linguistically we may differ in how that is expressed - I may call it worship, you may call it just being happy to be alive. But they have the same source, whatever name we choose to apply to it.

And you are right that "God" is a slippery character, or rather a hard to define entity. God, by definition, would be infinite and "other" to our existence, and therefore nigh on impossible for us to fully comprehend. This is one factor underlying the difficulty of people discussing the existence and nature of God. The "God of the philosophers" is often different from the God of religious faith, but people apply the word "God" quite loosely in both contexts.

Acknowledging the limitations placed on us from (1) our finite nature,(2) the imprecision of language and (3) our highly varied individual experiences are among the reasons why I respect differences between people of different worldviews. If we were blessed (can I use that word on this thread?) with a single worldview that was incontravertibly provable beyond all reasonable doubt then discussions such as these would have ended some time ago.

Instead I see the debate being between good and bad worldviews, rather than between theistic or atheistic worldviews. I am using good/bad here in the context of general human wellbeing and wholeness. I would encourage anyone of altruistic intention (whether Christian, Muslim, Humanist or whatever) to see positive common ground and work together. I would also encourage anyone of malicious intention (whether Christian, Muslim, Humanist or whatever) to think again. The theist/atheist debate does little to advance the cause of human wholeness and wellbeing, the focus should be on acceptance and encouragement towards altruism.

if I mention my unicorn ofter enough, do you think people will begin to believe in her?

you should feed your unicorn on onions - cause that is what we feed our unicorn on and they love it - is your white or pink?

If you mention your unicorn enough people will begin to humour you.

I think i'm being persuaded - is there a church / temple / whatever of the Invisible Unicorn?

permanentvacation you make some excellent points and its great to see someone making such lucid points. I will attempt to be vaguely lucid too (but probably won't manage....)

my point about good and bad is that without a common point of reference its hard to work out what separates altruistic intention from malicious intention. For example, last week a woman stuck a sharp bit of metal into my child, who screamed and screamed. On the face of it, it was malicious intent, but in reality she was a nurse and it was an immunisation meant to protect him from a worse harm, an altruistic act. Many people agree that this was a "good" thing to do. But from whose point of view? Certainly not my son's. If he was a bit older I might have "enlightened" him, but isn't this just trying to persuade him to accept my belief set?

Isn't the evangelising theist doing a similar thing - possibly upsetting someone in the short term for a perceived eternal benefit?

There are many actions which are not necessarily inherently good or bad but which are perceived as such in different societies - e.g. monogomy vs polygamy, alcohol use, age of consent issues, consumption vs environmental concerns. Much of "good" and "bad" is merely local convention, IMHO.

I think the nearest church of the Invisible Unicorn is in stubbornhubby's garage.

As to ethics, it is very difficult to work out a commonly held set of ethics. There are always difficulties in sifting between different cultural practices, personal preferences, traditional views, etc. It takes a long time for different individuals and communities to genuinely engage, work out where each other are coming from, and then establish points of common ground for co-operation. In an instant world of soundbites and 24 hour rolling news this sort of deep, long-term dialogue and working out life together is not easy - it is so much easier to retreat into the ghettoes of people similar to ourselves and think the worst of everyone else. But just because something is hard, doesn't mean you shouldn't try, in fact our world depends on it.

You are also right that it becomes hard when there are dilemmas - conflicting goods or conflicting evils. Even agreeing what constitutes a good or an evil can be tricky. However, some collections of different communities and traditions have tried.

For example, there is a group called the Global Ethic Foundation, founded by the theologican Hans Kung. It worked out a declaration of a global ethic, and then had it debated and agreed by the Parliament of the World's Religions in 1993. The declaration is intended to be a common position between the major world religions. It includes sections on respect for life, non-violence, the environment, etc. It is broad brush, but good as far as it goes. You can find out more at www.weltethos.org/dat-english/index.htm.

I understand that getting a common form of words agreeable to all present in 1993 was difficult (e.g. what happens when you say do not murder, the Buddhists want no killing of animals, and some want to reserve the death penalty). But they managed something.

And I for one am happy to see how people of different worldviews can work together on such principles.

DH is being unreasonable...he will only seek to make him different from other children which is sad because at a young age all children need to be accepted by others. Children wont accept your husband's views because they are just that...his views.

Allow your child to discover his own beliefs.

spanish I agree - I have never seen the poit in baptism it is better to let the children decide, it is best not to take them to church but to wait and see if they ask if they can go to that building. Children want to be accepted and few these days go to church but for baptism and marriage and the odd funeral - best to not include them in these events as it may sway them to think that as a parent is praying - they may be influenced aswell and pray.

Thing is you can always turn this around to suit which ever view you have - so don't influence either way

As an atheist I would say all ethics are entirely human made and mutable. I don't believe that there are any universal moral codes, simply ways that societies have decided to live together. I might personally think that their rules are right or wrong, and many other people might agree with me, but that doesn't make me right. I don't think that one opinion on morals can trump another (in fact it's one of the features of organised religion I really dislike).

I don't agree that the absence of belief can be said to be "assent to a proposition". I have no belief that there is/are gods, so nothing to assent to. It is a negative, not a positive thought. In the same way those who are religious are indeed assenting to the proposition of their belief, rather than assenting to the proposition that all the other beliefs are wrong.

I like your thoughts about the difference between talking about keys and pain (although there are scales used to measure pain), and agree that there is not much point in many of the conversations between atheists and believers because trying to use rational thought to discuss faith really just doesn't work. I find them interesting none the less.

Generally when people ask me "is there a god" I'd say "no", not I don't think so, or I don't believe so, because I'm not an agnostic. Surely 'I don't believe there is a god' is a bit equivocal (ie I don't think there is a god, but I could be wrong), or it's just trying not to offend those who do believe. But then I am an atheist because I have no faith rather than anything else. I did think of defining myself as an apatheist, but I feel I'm slightly more fervent than "whatever" although probably just to the various forms of organised religion, rather than the concept itself, which I just find irrelevant. I'm happy to celebrate my existence for no other reason than I am happy to be me, that the world is beautiful and my family lovely. The god concept doesn't appear to me very relevant to that - I'm happy to make my own purpose.

please resepct my faith by not mocking my unicorn.

"there is a lot of academic evidence to suggest religious experience in very young children."

True, that.

Like, they believe in Father Christmas, fairies, Ben Ten and the Easter Bunny. Some of the poor sods have this tendency to believe in magic manipulated by their schools and church leaders to indoctrinate them when they are most vulnerable.

"bless you" is OK by me however, just not "god bless you", that's going a bit too far.

Gesundheit means good health (gesund). It's like 'salud' in Spanish.

Thanks for responding to my earlier points nooka, and for clarifying your position. I would like to follow up on your view that ethics are solely human made. Rather than derail this AIBU thread with a substantial posting on metaethics I will post my response as a new thread over in the Philosophy/Religion/Spirituality section where it probably belongs.

Cheers,

PV.

p.s. The unicorn can come over to the new thread if it wishes.