Exactly what will happen upon my demise

[DoctorTwo]

You will have noticed the title is a statement not a question. What is certain to happen is you lot and all this will cease to exist.

I'm not trying to be mean, but that's just the way it is.

Yes I certainly don't agree with all my parents views.

no, religion is different and harder to shake than your parents views on politics or race. it indoctrinates in a far more extensive way and intrudes right into the interior world of a child. to grow up believing your every thought and action and desire is watched and monitored for example is a very different psychological landscape than one of a sense of privacy and autonomy in one's mind for example. to believe you are judged, that how you live, what you think, what you intrinsically are is up for judgement and is right or wrong through the lens of a dogma is pretty huge. it is not comparable to the other ways we are socialised, nothing is as.... intrusive.

it also causes children to need to 'believe' or have 'faith' in things their rational minds may object to and to cast doubt upon their rational capacities when they contradict their parents religious assertions. those who've been through dis-indoctrinating themselves will tell you how 'core' that conflict can be and how difficult to liberate oneself from and come back to trusting one's rationality and not feeling guilty or afraid of it.

Maybe for you Numpty, but not for everyone. I knew what I was taught, I realised I didn't believe it. No existential crisis involved.

when i teach my child theories i offer them as theories. when you teach your child that god exists, god is real, god is watching, pray to god, god listens, god whatever you are not offering a theory you are imposing a theory as truth upon them.

that doesn't compare to anything else i can think of and i think it is foolish really to say that it does. religion, raising a child in religion, is indoctrination. give me a child till their seven and all that.

it certainly is for some dione. children are all different. i watch my neice and nephews - two out of three would probably shake it off quite easily. one though is deeply effected and i can see it already really troubles him. he will have a harder time of working it out.

Backonlybriefly This really made me emotional resonated with me...

She said something like this:

"When I die I want to wake in a big chair in an immense room full of shelves like a library. I want a kindly old man to be lifting a helmet off my head and saying "Well that was a sample of life on the planet earth. Would you like to try another or perhaps something different entirely"

Numpty Videos would be great so it is a yes please from me!

Numpty, you have no idea what or how I teach my child. I say this not in an angry way, but as a statement of fact. To presume that you know what others think/feel/teach and then ridicule it is an unpleasant trait in believers and atheists alike.

i wasn't ridiculing anything. i do presume that you tell your child there is a god?

that's actually a really bizarre response.

I used to be a Christian. Then I read the bible from cover to cover and realised the god of the old testament was a sociopath and the god of the new testament showed narcissistic traits. Namely, the god of the old testament gave his subjects free will then destroyed them for it: twice. The god of the new testament insisted we put him ahead of everybody, including family, or we wouldn't get to heaven. It fair put me off.

DD1 was xtian too until she studied theology and decided all religions were, in her words, made up.

Upthread I put childish. Perhaps instead I should've typed delusional.

The ridicule I was referring to was the OPs. I tell my child that I believe in god. He knows that other people (including his father and other family members) don't.

Literal interpretation of the Bible is not a characteristic of all Christian denominations...

Doctor, you say that you don't mock people for their belief. Do you not consider calling them childish or delusional mocking?

nessus yeah it did me and so it stuck in my mind. I can't remember the book now, but I remember that bit.

religion is different and harder to shake than your parents views on politics or race. it indoctrinates in a far more extensive way and intrudes right into the interior world of a child

Exactly!

And it intends to. Remember the Jesuit claim "Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man".

It doesn't always work, but not for want of trying. It's the basis for so much effort going into teaching religion in schools, because you need to catch them while they are still vulnerable. Just like grooming really.

On the subject of respect. Do those who speak of respecting beliefs respect all of them?

Would that include Voodoo to pick an example? and the beliefs in the Norse gods such as Thor? What about the one that made some parents recently torture their child to death to remove the demons? How about Satanism and the religions which required human sacrifice?

Because I can't help noticing that the respect usually stops at the edge of the Abrahamic religions and frequently only covers the particular denomination.

But if it did extend to the others then where would that leave you in defending religion? Many condone practices which will get you a prison sentence in the UK.

Doctor, you say that you don't mock people for their belief. Do you not consider calling them childish or delusional mocking?

I'm not mocking individuals, I'm mocking religion. If we're not allowed to do that we might as well become Saudi Arabia, Iran, Qatar, Yemen, or indeed anywhere you can be executed for either being an atheist or for mocking religion.

You have the right to believe what you wish, as do I. You have the right to tell me I'm going to hell and I have the right to laugh at the notion. Easy really innit?

Doctor so you don't think that individuals who believe in an afterlife are childish and delusional?

Our afterlife is guaranteed, that's for sure. The trillions of atoms that we have ever comprised have existed, and will exist, forever. So in that sense we have always lived and will always live. We are, after all, made of stars. ™Carl Sagan.

So you do believe in an afterlife after all Doctor. For a moment I was worried that whenever you died I'd cease to exist.

yes i quoted the jesuits upthread. my mother was raised by them in a boarding school - the results are not pretty.

I think that a belief in an afterlife is wishful and in that sense is childlike. I think so because it is a belief that has nothing to substantiate it. There are many other ways adults can be childlike and wishful and I'm not innocent of many of them. But I'm not guilty of this one.

If you are lucky enough to have children you will live on in their DNA. This will pass down the generations and will be our legacy. Even if you don't have children we all have a legacy to hand down through our interactions with others, lets hope it's a good one.

I am really struck by some of the similarities between one of my daughters and my late beloved Gran, I feel she is near me every day. Look back further at old photos and the like and it is often very striking what has been left of those who have gone before.

my son sometimes seems to have a lot of my beloved grandad in him. it is nice to see.

I feel so much sadness for my niece who has tried to free herself of the shackles of a religious upbringing. She, like her sister were brought up in the Baptist faith but when she reached her 20s she started to doubt her religion and explored athiesm.
She read widely ( she is a clever young women and doing her PhD atm) and came to the conclusion that god was a fallacy, a man made construct and left the church.
Coming to terms with her athiesm emotionally has not been so easy.
Growing up she was taught to fear satan, believing that he lurked around every corner, feeling that god was judging her every action and every thought.
She is still struggling with the "hard wiring" of faith that she believes has left a profound legacy on her thought patterns- and she despises her mother for interfereing with her mind.

She has told her mother she feels abused and violated.

My sister's response it to tell her to ask god for forgiveness at doubting him.
Religion has caused a huge rift in my family.
My other niece has continued with her faith, even sending her own son to the same baptist school that she and my athiest niece attended.

My athiest niece is not allowed to babysit as the family are concered she may pollute the children with her athiest ways.
She feels very apart from her family now, even get togethers are difficult, but my sister continues to pray that she will see sense.

Childhood religious indoctrination can have a very profound and long lasting effect and is not easy to shrug off.