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Philosophy/religion

Join our Philosophy forum to discuss religion and spirituality.

How do you resolve conflicting religious parenting

332 replies

Contemplates · 23/03/2014 14:32

My husband doesn't want our children to be allowed access to both of our (differing) religious views, only his.

He is atheistic and I wanted to introduce our preschooler to Sunday school if he wanted to try it.

He loves preschool and wanted to see what this was all about too, and I had always been open about the fact I intended to encourage exploring God as an alternative to atheism, without forcing anything.

Obviously his Dad's alternative viewpoint is also and equally well known in our household. However I don't silence my husband the way I feel he is trying to silence me and I'm trying to remain balanced and fair.

This morning he was saying how he didn't want our son to attend Sunday school as he doesn't like it; which led to our son saying he didn't want to go anymore. So this morning we went to the park instead Hmm

Has anyone experienced this parental conflict before and how did you deal with it? There must be some balanced compromise that we can reach, while still enabling our children freedom to make their own choices.

OP posts:
capsium · 27/03/2014 11:28

^ Sorry it was atthestroke who mentioned talking carrots but I am interested to know people's views on this in relation to beliefs and credulity.

capsium · 27/03/2014 11:36

niminy I/m possibly getting a bit confused here, I think. However there is a belief that spirit is in everything living (subject to physical limits/laws) and can act outside of living things as an agent (not subject to physical limits/laws), so I see the connection but also distinction, I think...it all is a bit metaphysical.

headinhands · 27/03/2014 13:12

What is the spirit made of? What elements?

capsium · 27/03/2014 13:15

headinhands ?

Not made of elements as it is non-physical. It is like asking 'What elements is an idea made out of?' I presume you believe ideas exist...

headinhands · 27/03/2014 13:33

A spirit can only exist inside a working physical brain then and is made of electrical impulses? We can observe thought on a brain scan so ideas aren't invisible.

headinhands · 27/03/2014 13:36

And besides I have experience of thinking and ideas. I see other people have ideas. I have no reason to think they don't exist somehow. I've never seen a spirit. I have no reason to think such a thing exists. Why would I want to fabricate things that I have no evidence for?

capsium · 27/03/2014 13:37

Not what I think head, did you read the stuff I posted about plants?
I find the idea quite exciting. Don't forget ideas can be written down, or recorded too, be even communicated through art and music...So not all about electrical impulses.

capsium · 27/03/2014 13:37

head Think of it as a thought experiment...Grin

headinhands · 27/03/2014 14:41

It's always about electrical impulses when it's in your head.

capsium · 27/03/2014 14:53

head What about the transmission and storage (sometimes for hundreds of years) of those thoughts? That does not have to involve (additional) electrical energy. Thoughts can be stored and transmitted in written form on a page or in art. They are communicated by language. The Bible stresses the importance of the 'word'. It describes Jesus' words as 'spirit'.

CoteDAzur · 27/03/2014 14:55

"Cote, perhaps you would like to say how scientific method might be good for finding out about something outside the universe?"

Why, do you have a place in mind? Confused

"The Christian doctrine of panentheism says that the cosmos..."

Christian doctrine says lots of things, including proper howlers (imho) like God impregnated a virgin woman with Himself (since the son was also then God), then arranged for Himself to be brutally murdered so He can forgive human beings. Hmm

It doesn't mean any of it is real. It means some people believe that stuff.

The difference between you and me is that I expect things I believe to be real. I want them to be proven, I want to witness them, or at the very least, theoretically understand them and find that they are consistent with everything else I know.

Which means that I don't believe in astrology, homeopathy, reiki, crystal healing, and your stories about an omniscient creator God who demands obedience from all humans and will punish those who don't obey.

"It would be as impossible to use the scientific method to prove God's existence as it would be to prove the existence of other universes"

It may surprise you to hear that recent 'discoveries' (of the last couple of decades) about our universe have initially been 'found' mathematically. For example, antimatter was first 'discovered' in the mathematical equations of Paul Dirac, a very long time before it was possible to observe or test for any.

In a similar fashion, we are on the way to proving the existence of other universes. The current high-ranking theory about explaining the universe is String Theory and its higher-dimensional cousin M-Theory, both of which require 10-11 space/time dimensions.

Maybe it will turn out that our universe does indeed have a creator, and He is a scientist in another universe, testing to see what happens when you create a universe. Wouldn't that be ironic? Grin

CoteDAzur · 27/03/2014 14:57

" It is like asking 'What elements is an idea made out of?' I presume you believe ideas exist..."

Sure, but ideas are not conscious.

capsium · 27/03/2014 14:59

Core I am surprised you believe in the sub-conscious... Grin

capsium · 27/03/2014 15:00

^I meant Cote. Typo.

capsium · 27/03/2014 15:04

Cote And surely thoughts / ideas are conscious? Unless you behave entirely according to instinct and are non-sentient....interesting...

CoteDAzur · 27/03/2014 15:07

"Bible describes God as a spirit.... a non -physical entity, it does not exist in the physical sense. So cannot be proved to exist."

Erm... Rather, it does not exist in the physical sense > it does not exist (except maybe in your mind).

It is like Carl Sagan's 'dragon in my garage' parable in his book Demon-Haunted World: He say there is a dragon in his garage that can't be proven to exist in any way. It can't be seen, doesn't give off any heat, makes no noise, can't be spray-painted, doesn't give off electromagnetic waves to be detected, doesn't move, etc.

And this is how he ends it:

Now, what's the difference between an invisible, incorporeal, floating dragon who spits heatless fire and no dragon at all? If there's no way to disprove my contention, no conceivable experiment that would count against it, what does it mean to say that my dragon exists? Your inability to invalidate my hypothesis is not at all the same thing as proving it true. Claims that cannot be tested, assertions immune to disproof are veridically worthless, whatever value they may have in inspiring us or in exciting our sense of wonder.

"A spirit is believed to act as an agent affecting physical matter."

Believed by whom? Not me, I can assure you.

"However people can recognize spirit in other ways. Books can be described as containing spirit... People are often described to be in low or high spirits"

Oh come on Smile Who has ever said "My book contains spirit"?!?

Those are not the same thing, at all, and it is not significant that you use the same word for those concepts in the English language. If you have really studied linguistics, you should know that many other languages don't confuse those different concepts.

CoteDAzur · 27/03/2014 15:08

capsium - I don't remember talking about "the subconscious".

CoteDAzur · 27/03/2014 15:09

"Cote And surely thoughts / ideas are conscious?"

Are we speaking the same language?

capsium · 27/03/2014 15:12

You've not studied much literary theory then Cote. Books are described as 'living' in formalist approaches.

www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/spirit?show=0&t=1395933039

This fits within the definition of no11 see link above.

capsium · 27/03/2014 15:13

Cote Are we speaking the same language?

Possibly not...

capsium · 27/03/2014 15:16

www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/conscious

Recognises thought as being conscious.

capsium · 27/03/2014 15:17

Cote No sorry you said not conscious as in ideas are not conscious. Confused

CoteDAzur · 27/03/2014 15:18

Concious = Awake & responding to one's surroundings.

Something has to be alive to be conscious.

ideas are not alive.

Can we go back to talking about reality rather than your fantasies and the quirks of the English language?

CoteDAzur · 27/03/2014 15:19

I'm going to go pick the kids up from school now and hope that you make more sense when I check back tonight Hmm

capsium · 27/03/2014 15:19

www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/idea

Ideas are synonymous with thoughts...