Final phase of atheist bus campaign

[RockinSockBunnies]

So, I've just read this latest installment about the atheist bus campaign here.

Now, I'm a Christian, we go to church, DD is baptised, so obviously I'm not going to be impartial. But there point of the poster campaign seems somewhat flawed. How are children going to grow up and suddenly decide which (if any) religion they adhere to, if they've had no real exposure to any of the various religions during their upbringing?

Unless you have parents who are willing to learn the fundamental points of each and every faith, take the children to the places of worship of these faiths, whilst also discussing the concepts of atheism, then how on earth is a child going to be able to decide for themselves what they believe in once they're older?

I was an atheist for around fifteen years, but when I went back to Christianity I had the basic knowledge and understanding of the faith from attending church and Sunday School as a child. How can anyone make a real decision about religion if they're denied the opportunity to learn as a child?

I don't understand this

What does it mean? Don't teach children your religion?

Why can't they be FUNNY? Why didn't they use the 'All Aboard The Rational Express' - much better

If it's a campaign to get rid of teaching a broadly christian approach in the non-faith schools then i'm all for it.

I think it's important to teach children about religion in an impartial/unbiased way. But i also think it's not relevant to a 5 year olds education. Save it for when they can be critical of what people are telling them in an informed way.

Well, that's sort of the problem isn't it? Is it part of a campaign for that? I haven;t seen any other evidence of one. I often wonder why this hasn't become a political issue when some people are so cross about it. There is so much talk about it on here. Does anyone lobby MPs or anything like that?

There are atheist groups, but if you look in the other thread that's going at the moment you'll see that the government consults religious leaders not atheists. We don't don't get that extra say in things.

Onager, the man consulting religious group leaders is the man responsible for communities. What community leaders would you suggest he consult?!

But you could do it the old fashioned way couldn't you? Without the aid of special treatment? You could lobby your MP, set up a group on a social networking site to find other interested people, do a bit of a grass roots thing?

Forgive me for referring to atheists as "you", as it does rile me when people refer to people with a religious faith as though they were one homogenous group, but you do seem to have a strong group identity.

It might depend on how you define a community.

Wake me up when he consults the community of atheists.

wake me up with your community of atheists runs the parent groups, homeless shelters, finances women's aid and runs the late-night community policing like they do in our town

You can't complain about a community minister consulting community leaders that you disapprove of, if you aren't going to give examples of equivalent community leaders that you DO approve of

I haven't seen the detail of the consultation with religious groups - but I would suspect the underlying intention is to get leaders of different race groups rather than specifically being interested in religion. So the "community leaders" will be picked because they are the religious leaders of their community, but in fact the government is more likely trying to consult with groups from middle eastern countries, or the Indian sub-continent, or Eastern Euorpeans etc. Making it about religion is maybe less tricky then making it about race.

Morningpaper, you are clearly right that only Christians do good works. Everybody who knows anything knows that. Gosh what was I thinking!

I don't approve of any 'community leaders' since it's a job you elect yourself to.

Sometimes they tell people that god elected them. There's an example of the downside to training people to be gullible if ever I heard one.

onager: I didn't say that "only Christians do good works" at all! The government depends on faith groups for a massive amount of voluntary 'man power'. Faith groups represent the largest community groups.

Sorry, but can you explain how an MP or other elected person is going to consult with community leaders? Or do you think that they should just consult with every single person in their constituency?

You're welcome to criticise community cohesion strategies but it's a bit pointless if you don't have alternative ideas.

well I reckon there are that modern building are 10000's of times more common than ancient monuments, so I'm rather that they get an advisory group but the new builds don't

Dawkins makes his position and the difference between atheism and agnosticism very clear in the God Delusion. It's worth you taking a second, detailed look.

Science doesn't have to prove the existence of god.

And atheism is about choosing to live without belief in the supernatural. 'Without belief' is the central idea, not a belief in non-existence.

Just wanted to clarify as the argument about atheists being arrogant is always bandied about at about this time in arguments and thought it should be headed off at the pass.

"I would have thought that the only credible stance a scientist could assume would be that of the agnostic, particularly as science has neither proved nor disproved the existence of god."

why?

When you are just raised without religion like I was then being an agnostic is a bit weird. I don't have a doubt about there being a GOD etc, It just doesn't figure and has never figured as a possibility.

More children should be given this kind of un-adulterated upbringing IMO.

The atheists should consider themselves lucky to live in a country where they're free to express their opinions on the side of a bus.

That freedom is in no small part down to the benign influence of a liberal protestant society. Banging away against an judeo-christian establishment in the UK seems a bit feeble.

I can't see them being allowed to advertise on buses in a more theocratic society, eg Iran

"I would have thought that the only credible stance a scientist could assume would be that of the agnostic, particularly as science has neither proved nor disproved the existence of god."

Science can never disprove many things (it never proves anything).

I can say that there's a giant incorporeal invisible badger floating above Trafalgar Square and that one day it's going to manifest itself and using it's giant paws of doom eat all the people in the Square.

That's no way to disprove that.

So what is your response?

Do you say that you don't believe it and keep going to the square without any worry of being badgered, the atheist approach.

Or do you say that you can't disprove it, so it might be there or it might not, either way you'll avoid the square just in case and out of respect for the badger, the agnostic approach.

Being unable to disprove something doesn't mean that most people will be agnostic about it.

I don't think scientists should be expected to be agnostic - they are not also expected to be "agnostic" about the existence of miasmas, phlogiston, Lamarckian evolution, etc. None of those things have been disproved, it is simply that we now have better theories about the things they were meant to explain. If a scientist decides that atheism is a better theory than the existence of God, then they can decide to "believe" in atheism. (Sorry I know believe is not the word, but I can't remember the equivalent phrase...)

And I say that as a believer and a scientist.

Not all Atheists are the same you know.

I have no religion in my life and no belief in God or gods because it never figured in my life and so therefore it was never something for me to believe or dis-believe. It just wasn't there. Or maybe there is another word for someone for whom god and religion has just never figured in their lives apart from an abstract thing mentioned by others as if some kind of truth or battleground?

I will be doing the same for any kids I might have.