Dawkins and childish assumptions

My response is to go back to my mention of the way religion is taught: a good, understanding teacher who is the living example of the good teaching. If we have such teachers, isn't it more likely that the student will follow these good examples?

There is nothing more important than the quality of the teacher, no matter the venue, no matter the subject.

The question seem to me to be: how do we get more of these good examples, and fewer of these bad examples?

And I do not think this is limited to religion. We find the same trends in secular morality.

Why the discrepancy between personal and societal? Societies are built of people, after all, built of the personal.

Of course there are examples in every tradition of prejudice and non-thinking. But there are also examples of the opposite, of exactly what we're looking for - of open-mindedness, of a harmonious existence of differences.

The question seem to me to be: how do we get more of these good examples, and fewer of these bad examples?

And I do not think this is limited to religion. We find the same trends in secular morality.

I think we can, in public debate, freely discuss and update a "secular standard" that will be applied in our laws and in our schools. This won't be perfect of course, but it is adaptable. How can we do the same with religion? There is more red tape, so to speak, and we have separation of church and state.

The idea of blind faith has never been a very good one. But according to many, all faith is blind, and consists always of the willingness, and the gullibility, required to cling to 'a proposition' for which there is no ground or evidence. IN fact a lot of people do understand religion as 'clinging to beliefs for which there is no evidence', and a lot of believers validate that, because that is exactly what they do.

I think his point was to say that if one person gets food poisoning from food x does that mean that food x is a bad thing? Of course not

and my next point is that teaching a child about morality without teaching him where that morality comes from is like teaching a kid the Pythagorean theorem without showing him how it's derived.

Sure he'll be able to use it but if he really wants to have a true understanding of it he's going to need to see the proof for the theorem

Your telling me I could not have taught my children morality from a secular perspective? You are telling me my children are amoral. How you can be so abusive and not even recognise you are,it amazes me.

? wow. Wow. WOW. this is getting pretty far out there . I think perhaps you should take a nice rest, xris.

I think your intentions are clear, you have nothing of value to add, ever, so you play the village idiot. I must say you do it well.:sarcastic:

I think his point was to say that if one person gets food poisoning from food x does that mean that food x is a bad thing? Of course not

and my next point is that teaching a child about morality without teaching him where that morality comes from is like teaching a kid the Pythagorean theorem without showing him how it's derived.

Sure he'll be able to use it but if he really wants to have a true understanding of it he's going to need to see the proof for the theorem

your claims are ridiculous, xris. you are claiming Amperage is abusing . Get a grip. calm down. it's not so. You claim that "abuse" , from this:


so you really need to calm down, xris.
Personally, I'm not convinced that piercing an infant's ears is not abuse.

Your telling me I could not have taught my children morality from a secular perspective? You are telling me my children are amoral. How you can be so abusive and not even recognise you are,it amazes me. This is the type of certainty the faithful display that gives me these concerns about religious indoctrination. You cant imagine an atheist with a moral view on life that encourages family and community values.

And I think if you want to play the abusive clown you should practice in the play ground first. Silly bullish fools do so much better there.

well that is by no means how I meant it, what I was implying, or even what I said, but if you took offense, then I apologize. Allow me to clarify. Yes, you can teach your children morality from a secular perspective.
No, I am not telling you that your children are amoral.
Yes, I can imagine an atheist with a moral view on life that encourages family and community values, and, in fact, I know there atheists who have a firmer grip on morality than some Christians I've met.

My point was this: you can teach morality anyway you want, but if you believe in objective morals, meaning that morality is not just subjective but that some things are really wrong...really(not just subjectively but objectively) and some thing are really right, then there must exist an anchor for those objective morals. For me, God is that anchor. This is why I stated that one can teach morality in the same way that one can teach the pythagorean theorem. In either case (morality or the pythagorean theorem), one will obtain enough information to use them for their designed purpose, however, if one wishes to have a deeper understanding of where these things come from and why these things work the way they do, then one needs to go deeper into either the proof or the anchor of objective morals.

you are only identifying yourself as the most abusive person on this thread. see how nice amperage is ? calm down, xris.

thank you for the extra "personal" commentary...once again, xris.


most animals that are sentient know it is better to hit than be hit.

you offered your kids something they would have some dissonance over, depending on amount of knowledge about society's workings, that they possessed.

and if they did not treat others in the manner you had prescribed, then what ?

and so the smart ones quickly learn to obey. the ones not able to assimilate get punished for not accepting your artifical version, your counterintuitive account of which choice is the better one, of "to be hit or to hit".

I did not need a black book with scary scriptures to make my point. I had my problems like all parents but teaching them empathy by reason, gave me success. If you want to use the bible as guide to your kids, so be it, but dont expect me to clap when you teach them scriptures as a certainty.