Aetheists know more about religion

@Cyracuz,

Cyracuz wrote:

I still think that a two year old needs absolute rights and wrongs. Or perhaps it is just the only practical way to raise a child so you don't have to guard it every waking minute.

If you think two year old children understand a concept such as absolutes of right and wrong, you are either seriously deluded or know absolutely nothing about children.

I'm gonna vote for both.

1 Reply

@Setanta,

Quote:

If you think two year old children understand a concept such as absolutes of right and wrong....

This made me laugh.
No! Obviously not. But if you say to a two year old "you are not allowed to steal other kid's toys", he is not capable of understanding that in terms of the social contract or enlightened self-interest. To the child it is an absolute rule, and to obey it is absolute right, and to disobey is absolute wrong.

1 Reply

@Cyracuz,

Cyracuz wrote:

No! Obviously not. But if you say to a two year old "you are not allowed to steal other kid's toys", he is not capable of understanding that in terms of the social contract or enlightened self-interest.

No, the child complies so they won't suffer punishment, which is self-interest, and they quickly understand that these rules are enforced outside the home as well as within it--so they understand the functioning of the social contract even if the concept is meaningless to them.

Quote:

To the child it is an absolute rule, and to obey it is absolute right, and to disobey is absolute wrong.

As i said, you appear to know nothing about children. A two-year-old isn't thinking in terms of right or wrong, and certainly not of absolutes. They are thinking in terms of gratification and of suffering. They automatically seek gratification, and they wish to avoid suffering. In any situation in which they believe they can get away with it, they'll break the rules.

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@Setanta,

But just as the toe-bone is connected to the foot bone and the foot bone connected to the ankle bone and the ankle bone is connected to the leg bone etc etc the female genital is connected to the brain genital. It is not a discrete part of a woman. And it can be "mutilated" at both ends.

Setanta is trying to take advantage of an audience not familiar with such things.

One might assume that Muslims in Africa practice female circumcision for reasons they felt necessary just as we might for cultural adjustments to the circuitry of females suitable for us and as a step outside the equivalent in animals. Speculating on those reasons is not considered polite but that has no bearing on the reasons or whether it is a good bargain. Jews practice male genital mutilation. Many men have had vasectomies. And infibulations. Some have completely emasculated themselves.

Setanta thinks, by drawing attention to such matters and currying the favour of Christian ladies horrified at the thought of female circumcision, as is right and proper for them, for his own reasons puts him beyond the charge of misogyny but the manner in which he does so finds him guilty of it. Has anyone thought of the lady on the bar-stool having a female genital?

He's nearly as bad with his social contract bullshit. There are as many social contracts as there are relationships. An agreed one in a community or society needs to be generalised and to have some force behind it. It can be a headman, a headwoman which we tried once, a dictator, a legal system or a religion. All have their problems but societies around the world and in the past, with no serious exceptions, communism being transient, have chosen religions.

One assumes they are more fun. Festivals, holydays, booze ups, drugs, dressing up, singing, dancing, music, orgies, dating agencies, joys of self-abnegation, real-estate deals, gerrymandering and satire.

Whatever they are in that regard, to denigrate the idea of religions, and especially those evolved with a long period of trial and error, scientifically and empirically tested and approved, is to denigrate human nature. And on the basis of a fond, vain and easy-to-do felicity of thinking one knows what one is talking about when what Setanta does know about such things could be tattooed on a midge's dick with a knitting needle.

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@parados,

parados wrote:

Does blind faith require you turn off your brain or is there something else at work here?

I belive it's due to 2 factors.

1) people are lazy and only wants to have teir inner selfish desires satisfied, and will only go so far. "God Loves All And Forgives All" that slogan is enough for most of our christians in Denmark, and doesn't really have a clue about the bible, heart aching stupidity.

2) most who are born into a religious society and home, will consider themselves religious and does not have an inherent feel to study as their religion is all over, it would be the same as every atheist would study geology (or any other random subject), which would have no inherent purpose or benefit.

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Astrid Lindgren said:
"I don´t believe in God. This gives me a bad conscience, so I pray to him every night"

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@saab,

That's the kind of thing you can get away with saying if you are an author of children's books. Wink

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@Cyracuz,

I would say it is more of a doubter or agnostic who would say that.
Astrid Lindgren was a member of the Swedish Lutheran Church and still a sceptical and critical person when it came to the church.

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@saab,

Sartre has a character somewhere, a city dandy, on his knees at the altar rails praying to be given faith. Roads to Freedom I think.

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@spendius,

Sartre spent his life indoors contemplating stuff. He really needed to get outdoors more often.

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@dyslexia,

No, no, no dys. I was responding to Cyr's children books idea. I have no idea what Sartre should have done or needed to do. I wouldn't do some of the things he is supposed to have done.

Is it an all purpose argument clincher in your neck of the woods to say someone needs to get out more? I've had it said to me a few times. Only on here though. People in the pub saying it would be daft seeing as how being in the pub is out.

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@dyslexia,

Oh, he sat drinking coffee at Deux Maggots.

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@plainoldme,

Little POM knows about Jean Paul's personal foibles.

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@parados,

parados wrote:

Does blind faith require you turn off your brain or is there something else at work here?

I think the main thing at work here is inertia. The vast majority of Americans are born into Christian families. Independently of that, most people never bother to think much about the specifics of theology.

Consequently, most American Christians are Christians because they were brought up in that faith and never cared enough to reconsider. By contrast, most American atheists and agnostics were brought up in a Christian faith too, did care enough to reconsider, and changed their opinion for one reason or another. American atheists had reason to know what they were rejecting when they rejected it, whereas American Christians had no reason to know what they were sticking with.

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@JPB,

JPB wrote:

Most of the religious peeps I know who have an understanding of other theologies have a difficult time not painting all other faiths as somehow inferior to theirs.

joefromchicago wrote:

Why shouldn't they?

JPB wrote:

That's fine so long as they're honest about it. Acknowledging that one is incapable of being neutral in presenting other points of view is probably pretty difficult, but not doing so is a disservice to the audience when they're looking for knowledge.

Maybe they're not incapable of being neutral, but they have reason to believe their theological views are more accurate? Certainly, I'm not neutral about the merits of atheism versus the Lutheran faith my mother brought me up in. But that's not because I'm incapable of neutrality. Rather, I researched the alternatives available, and opted for the one that was most coherent internally, and best fit the existing evidence. Evidence and logic led me to a non-neutral result.

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@Thomas,

Quote:

Evidence and logic led me to a non-neutral result.

and I applaud you for that, however I do believe that vast majority of anti-believers are knee-jerk reactionaries without a hint of understanding of the theologies they reject, if effect, they are as ignorant as those they accuse of being ignorant.

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@dyslexia,

That's very true dys.

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@dyslexia,

Quote:

I do believe that vast majority of anti-believers are knee-jerk reactionaries without a hint of understanding of the theologies they reject, if effect, they are as ignorant as those they accuse of being ignorant.

Quote:

"Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them."
Mathew 7:20

One does not have to understand religious theology and reject it if one can see its affects on its adherents.

The difference is that you don't see many anti-believers trying to force their opinions onto others about their imaginary "Friend" in the sky, nor would I agree that most religious followers have even a hint of comprehension of the theologies they accept as dogma. While I abhore ignorance in all its forms, it is one thing not to understand something you don't like, it is a greater magnitude of error to be ignorant about something in which one believes.

My own little brother, a recent "reborn Christian" told me that he did not want to hear "God damn" because it was "against" the Third Commandment. Yet that is entirely incorrect based on historical analysis, being that the commandment was not a prohibition against cursing, but that one should not swear to God or invoke God in an oath and break it, and frankly the biblical admonition against "swearing" rests on Matthew 5:33-37.

Nor could he list the Ten Commandments, not even out of order. I did, off the top of my head, but that doesn't mean that makes me a "better" Christian, but it does mean that my brother has a limited understanding of the theologies of his "faith," as do the overwhelming majority of religious followers of any religion.

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@kuvasz,

Born again Christians should not really know about the Bible. Often what they call the Bible is only the NT. They are supposed to listen to the preacher and not come up with their own ideas. Not ask questions and not doubt what they are told.
In constrats to that it is ok in other denominations to be critical and read and learn about your religion and its theology.

I would say just as you can be a happy citizen of your country without knowing all about its history you can be content in your religion without knowing all the details about its theology.

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@saab,

Quote:

I would say just as you can be a happy citizen of your country without knowing all about its history you can be content in your religion without knowing all the details about its theology.

While your remark is quite true, the parable of the talents Matthew 25:14-30 tells of a master who was leaving his home to travel, and before going entrusted his property to his servants (property worth 8 talents, where a talent was a large unit of money, as discussed below). One servant receives five talents, the second two talents, and the third one talent, according to their respective abilities.

Returning after a long absence, the master asks his servants for an accounting. The first two servants explain that they have each put their money to work and doubled the value of the property they were entrusted with, and so they are each rewarded:

Quote:

His lord said to him, "Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a few things, I will set you over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord."– Matthew 25:23

The third servant, however, has merely hidden his talent in a hole in the ground, and is punished for laziness:

Quote:

He also who had recieved the one talent came and said, "Lord, I knew you that you a hard working man. reaping where you sow, and gathering where you did not scatter. Iwas afraid and went away and hid your talent in the earth. Behold what is yours."

But his lord answered him, "You wicked and slothful servent. You knew that I reaped where I didn't sow, and gather where I did not scatter. You ought therefore to have deposited my money with the bankers and at my coming I should have recieved back my own with interest. Tke away therefore the talent from him, and give it to him who has ten talents. For to everyone who has will be given, and he will have abundance, but from him who doesn't have, even that will be taken away. Throw out the unprofotable servent into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth."- Matthew 25:24-30.

The moral lesson of the parable taught to me by the Jesuits who taught me Christianity was to see it as an exhortation to Jesus' disciples to use their God-given gifts in the service of God, and to take risks for the sake of the Kingdom of God. These gifts have been seen to include personal abilities ("talents" in the everyday sense), as well as personal wealth. Failure to use one's gifts, the parable suggests, will result in judgement. It also meant to the priest that I had a personal responsiblity to Christ to use all my powers to understand His message. Which dovetails with the Catholic concept that grace comes not simply by belief, as the Protestants believe, but also require doing goods works on Earth.

Likely, I understand the message of Jesus as well as my fundie brother, but I accept that I will never obtain the same emotional succor that his albeit ignorant faith provides, because unlike him, I do not believe Jesus underwent physical resurrection.... and that is what makes one a Christian.

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