If,
as atheists tell us, people are Christians only because people grow up to
become what their parents have taught them to become, why is it that,
according to a Georgetown University study, only 30% of individuals
raised by atheists remain atheists?
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That's a very peculiar comparison. Unlike parents who indoctrinate children (which is why religious 'truths' correlate with geography), parents who do not believe in any of the gods held to be true by the current crop of some 30,000 christian sects, for example, do not indoctrinate their children. They are free to believe whatever they want. Why is is the 30% figure you quote (but don't link to) in any way equivalent? (Do you teach your children not to believe in Muk Muk? I didn't so.)
ReplyDeleteSo.
Can you not think of any reasons yourself?
Are you suggesting that atheist parents give their children a balanced picture of Christianity?
ReplyDeleteSeriously?
Do they do this by taking them to Church and Sunday School to let them hear what's being taught, and then talking about it when they get home? Is keeping the kids home from Church when their friends are going an action that is values free? It's not saying anything to the child about what the parents think of religion?
When the child listens to his atheist parents talk about the latest religious scandal in mocking and derisive tones, is that teaching the child anything about the parent's views?
When the child asks, "Daddy, why don't we believe in God," and daddy replies, "Because He isn't real," is that different than a parent who tell the child that God is real?
Do you truly believe that atheists provide a values free environment regarding religion?
Seriously?
I notice you ask a lot of questions but answer none. Is this typical?
ReplyDeleteObviously, what you consider a 'balanced' view of christianity is not going to be so for another with different preferences. But atheist parents I know tend to lump all religious belief together and tell children only what they happen to know if asked. There are many disagreements in the central tenets of belief between southern baptists and mormons, for example, between a catholic and anglican, between coptic christian and a russian orthodox. How does any parent teach a child to understand what these are and why they matter?
As an atheist parent, it's not my job to teach my child what to think. It's my job to teach a child how to think in creative, critical ways. Armed with that, any child can come to his or her own conclusions. And this is vitally important because the opinions and beliefs my child holds are personally owned. That makes the child responsible for them. An indoctrinated child has been loaded with someone else's beliefs and forced to carry them. You tell me which approach leads to the development of responsible adults.
I'm curious why you assume it is the parent's job to expose a child to various kinds of religious services. I sincerely doubt you feel obligated to take your child to sunni and shia services, to wiccan, druid, and mayan services. (Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong). At what point does the parent's role of exposing children to various religious practices end? Well, if you're like the vast majority of active religious believers, that obligation starts and ends with the one you prefer. Yet it seems difficult to get these parents to understand that the 'exposure' argument usually proffered is simply not true in any meaningful sense compared to the argument of 'indoctrination' whereby the child is inculcated with instruction, correction, and demonstration of faith (exposed, that is, to the overwhelming social affect about belonging to a special community which, as fortune would have it, just so happens to be the one believed in by the parents).
I guess it's really important to identify what the goal of parenting is. If the goal is to develop a healthy, well-adjusted, responsible, and independent adult capable of critical and creative reasoning, then practice and guidance goes a long way to achieving it. It is my experience that religious indoctrination is not the best way to go about it because so much religious instruction of faith-based values stands contrary and in opposition to this principle.
"Is this typical"
ReplyDeleteYa, pretty much. Today you'll get the exception.
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You raise some good points and I think I agree with you on most of it, but there are some subtleties that need addressing.
As I always used to tell my counselling students, “There is no such thing as a values free counselling session. The involuntary raising of the eyebrow, the withholding or giving of a supporting tone. While we should try to let the client make h/her own decisions, we cannot help but be an influence.”
It's the same with parenting. Not only can't we be values free, we should not try to be values free parents. It is our job to guide. We are the ones with the experience. To allow a 10 year old to get advice on using street drugs from other 10 year old children and NOT have our input is negligent parenting. What's more, we don't do this guiding through words. We do it through how we live. That is why it's profoundly naive for atheists to think they somehow allow their children to make up their own minds.
I agree with you that indoctrination is not effective. Nevertheless, you and I both train our children in the path we believe is best simply by how we live. Both of us are demonstrating for our children those behaviours and the way of life we deem most effective for making it through life in one piece. Our spiritual stance is just one of many examples.
By choosing these behaviours, we are rejecting those behaviours. Our children see that. For example, the best predictor of a marriage that will last is for both partners to have come from marriages that have lasted. Not because divorce hasn't taken place, but because the behaviours that lead to divorce weren't demonstrated for the children.
Finally, I have no intention of giving my children a balanced viewpoint of life. I believe that following Jesus and His teaching is the only way to have the level of quality, peace, joy, love etc. that life can offer. I've lived your way for the first thirty years of my life. It can give a good life, a decent life, but it's nothing in comparison to having an intimate, healed and forgiven relationship with my Lord and Saviour Jesus the Christ.
If my children choose something other later in life they are free to do that, but they are going to see me demonstrate what Jesus has to offer first. Your children are going to see what a secular life has to offer first. Each of us has to do what we think is best.
I agree totally with the first half of your last paragraph. I'd like some examples of what you mean by the last couple sentences.
Yeah, like you most people would agree about the goals of parenting in a philosophical kind of way, and then in daily practice undermine them to the very best of their abilities!
ReplyDeleteI'm sure you see exactly the same problem repeatedly in marriage counseling where the parties say one thing and then do the opposite... often oblivious to how the latter is antithetical to supporting and implementing the principles of the former. Once we fool ourselves into subverting the principle of what it is we say we want to achieve, we guarantee that the practice will replace it in all but name.
This behaviour is very common. In fact we come built to fool ourselves... and for many very good reasons! But we also come equipped to learn how to avoid fooling ourselves, and the very first principle we need to recognize is that credulity and gullibility are not intellectual traits worth pursuing, worth inculcating in our children (I have yet to meet a loving parent who proudly wishes to raise a gullible fool). Respect for what is true, then, must be the first principle we need to accept if we wish to raise children able and capable of knowing how not to fool themselves.
But the problem here is that many, many people who pay lip service to the principle of respecting what's true simply do not know how to recognize their own credulity, their own gullibility, their own preferences on how to fool themselves. So I recommend always asking the two most important question about any issue that we individually determine matters to us:
1. Is it true? and,
2. How do we know?
The answer to these two questions inform all claims to knowledge. I have yet to meet a loving parent who in principle thinks that what's true doesn't matter to the development from child into a healthy, responsible, independent adult capable of creative and critical thought.
I suspect you now have some appreciation of where those who accept this line of reasoning comes into direct conflict with the religious indoctrination of children (meaning the process of inculcating religious ideas, religious attitudes, religious cognitive strategies and religious methodology into their thinking about what's true)!
Again, please feel free to correct any errors you think I've made here, because without agreeing to this understanding of very real conflict between principle and practice that so often becomes apparent in behavioural dysfunction, then we have failed to understand the basis that leads me to make the statement I made at the end of the last paragraph in my previous comment (that religious indoctrination is not the best way to go about it - meaning the development of a child into an adult with the characters mentioned - because so much religious instruction of faith-based values stands contrary and in opposition to this principle.
First of all, I agree that there is much wrong with how religion (When I speak of religion I'm only speaking of following the teaching of Jesus i.e. Christianity. I would appreciate if you do the same or let me know if/when you are referring to another faith) is done - including some of the information taught as doctrine.
ReplyDelete=====
“to fool ourselves... and for many very good reasons!”
I can't think of any good reason for lying to ourselves. Would you give me a couple examples?
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I may be wrong here but it sounds as though you start with the assumption that any doctrine taught to a person is a priori false.
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"Respect for what is true, then, must be the first principle we need to accept if we wish to raise children able and capable of knowing how not to fool themselves."
And based upon points 1 and 2 should I assume you have empirical evidence supporting the above statement?
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And would I be correct that you believe you've rendered yourself immune to your own tendency )for very good reasons) toward credulity, gullibility, and an innate preference to fool yourself?
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Tell me, would you agree with this statement?
“Only science is rational. Science is the only begetter of truth.” Richard Lewontin.
Part 1 of 2
ReplyDeleteHow do you know (you say you do) which bits and parts of religion (and we really should include ALL religious current and past if we want to use the term generically) are wrong?
I assume you do not believe Isis or Baal or Patecatl are 'real' gods and I'm curious how you have arrived at this conclusion? I assume (and correct me if I'm wrong) that you have not really studied much theology outside of christian beliefs yet you seem pretty sure you have landed on just the right one. For me, this raises a red flag of caution.
Even so, to keep just to the familiar biblical scripture we assume is correct, how can we arrive at a single method outside of what is believed to be true that allows us to determine which bits and part are historical (factual) and which are merely metaphorical? For example how can we determine the story of the ark to be metaphor (knowing as we do that even by today's supertanker standards, we couldn't contain just the beetles of the world) but the resurrection to be historical? How can we square the tradition of a central religious tenet yet factually wrong historical claim (like the human race descending from a single 'fallen' couple and the understanding upon which John assures us that Jesus came to atone is, in fact mere metaphor) being long held to be true now that we know it is, at best, only metaphorical (there could not have been a single couple from what our genetic inheritance tells us is true)?
It is not nor has it ever been religion's task to justify its own claims with evidence from reality; rather, religious belief changes in only one direction: when the method of science shows us overwhelming evidence that the biblical claim is factually wrong. Why is that?
Well, because faith (at least of the christian kind) assumes a priori that the belief of historical fact is not just true in reality (independent of the mind that considers it) but inviolate (hence the crimes of blasphemy)... except when its demonstrably wrong, and then the claim magically morphs into one that the previous religious interpretation was in error and now - miraculously! - theologically corrected (ignoring how we can straighten out John's mistake by this interpretation). It's a shell game.
End of Part 1
Part 2 of 2
ReplyDelete============
We fool ourselves to protect ourselves! That rustling in the long grass? Could be all kinds of reasons for it but we will assume (incorrectly 999 times out of 1000) that it is a malevolent agent intent on killing us so our biology reacts accordingly. We have fooled ourselves every time but one, but unlike the clever fellow who correctly identifies benevolent reasons for the rustling 999 times out of that 1000, we are still alive.
There are many such examples of how we fool ourselves, and our atrocious eyes are perhaps one of the best: what we actually 'see' for example is almost entirely created not with visual input through the eyes but created by our brain filling in and making sense of what we think we are seeing. Eyewitnesses rarely assume correctly that they did not actually see what they think they saw. We allow our brains to fool us all the time. This is how magicians makes their living.
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I start with the assumption that the same two questions require answering before I assume an opinion. And I change that opinion when I have better reasons to do so than the ones that informed the previous opinion.
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If we're talking about fooling ourselves, then it only makes sense to define not fooling ourselves as 'respecting what's true'. I don't know what you're asking regarding empirical evidence for this claim.
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Of course I'm not immune to fooling myself. I am human, after all. I just do my level best to try to reduce that impulse by using the best reasoning I can to recognize and account for my biases, prejudices, and preferences. That's why a sound methodology is so vital to doing this.
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No, I wouldn't agree with that statement. Science as a method of inquiring about reality is a truly remarkable achievement of our species. Certainly, rationality that pertains to the reality we share (independent of the individual mind that considers it) must recognize its contribution into revealing it to us, but we also need to recognize that the term 'true' can also be a subjective value statement.
It might be true, for example, that you feel something is beautiful or awe-inspiring or insightful into a condition or relationship independent of making a claim about this shared reality. In this sense of the term, a myth can reveal something 'true' about the human condition that has nothing to do with an independent reality but have great value for one's dependent reality. This is where value terms like 'love' and 'meaning' and 'purpose' can be true here but not there, for this person but not that person; this kind of 'true' is mind-dependent. But when we are talking about the nature of reality we share and claims made about it, we are talking about what's true independent of the minds that inquire about it or make claims on behalf of everybody everywhere all the time.
I hope that helps.
Also, something that reveals a startling bias is the very notion of scientific endeavors untrustworthy because they are conducted by of 'atheist scientists'. There are only scientists, some of whom are theists and some who are not. If their religious beliefs or non beliefs interfere in any way with the science they are undertaking, then the science is garbage because it's polluted. The scientific method is religious-neutral. End of story. Those who smear good science in this kind of terms are intentionally trying to question the character and misrepresent the scientific results of those who practice good science. One must ask why - for what reason - such an intellectually bankrupt agenda is being forwarded? The answer lies in what is being protected by such dishonesty?
ReplyDeleteMy apologies; this comment belongs with the post of October 30th, 2012, titled Why I am Not an Atheist.
Delete"The scientific method is religious-neutral."
ReplyDeleteYes, but the conclusions are not. I can think of no reason whatsoever to conclude that the universe had a material beginning when nothing material existed until Big Bang. Nor can I think of any reason to conclude that the beginning of matter did not need a cause except for an atheist bias.
Nothing that we know from the scientific method supports either conclusion, and only an scientist who is an atheist could reach such conclusions.
Thesauros, you reveal the problem that influences and misdirects you into a very common misunderstanding about First Causes and the Big Bang: time itself began in this universe at the moment of the Big Bang. To speak of what caused it is to assume something that is not comprehensible to us, namely, that there was a before, which is a time reference... a reference to something that had yet to come into existence!
ReplyDeleteYou see the problem now with assuming First Causes?
Assuming a 'before' before time itself began is simply incoherent. This incoherence has nothing whatsoever to do with religious belief or no religious belief and everything to do with a starting assumption that is simply incoherent.
The problem clearly is that not only do you not understand that there was no 'before' to inform your assumed First Cause but no possibility of us being able to understand this 'before'. So to talk about a prior cause as if it only makes sense amounts to nothing more and nothing less than incoherent speculation (which perfectly represents what religious belief most often is).
I don't know how the Big Bang came about and you don't either. That's honest. (We do, however, have a very good idea how we can get something from 'nothing' but the understanding of the physics required is complex.) But I sincerely doubt you will attribute this honesty I exhibit to atheism as readily as you sentence any conclusions that are contrary to your belief in your god to be caused by non belief (which makes little sense considering that atheism is a term for describing what is not believed... the same, let us remember, as your non belief in every god that ever was believed in... save one.)
Please remember this fact about your own non belief - that you, too, are an atheist with but a single exception - next time you decide to heap scorn on those of us who are just as atheistic as you are... just as atheistic, that is, plus the one for which you make the exception. Atheism in your god is, in fact, the default position from which some of later move away from as we are instructed to do by people we trust. No one wakes up with christian tenets in place having never been exposed to them; these must be learned and the default non belief replaced by them. The belief you have is not owned by you but borrowed, so when you attempt to argue why these beliefs are the right ones, you really do need a rather sophisticated knowledge of why the beliefs you were taught to hold deservedly supplant other beliefs also held by others to be inviolate. The only difference is the teachings themselves, for believers are all of exactly the same stripe: those who are willing to reject all teachings save one, who are willing to assume the piousness of some specific authority over and above equivalent authorities of other beliefs. (This is a clue, by the way, about the 'virtue' of scriptural inerrancy... having evolved as it has into literally tens of thousands of 'inerrant' yet different interpretations prior to its current presentation you hold!)
"a reference to something that had yet to come into existence!"
ReplyDeleteI understand what you're saying and technically you're correct of course. However, you think that way because you begin with the assumption that ONLY the material exists. And the material only exists in time.
Nevertheless, our choices are as follows:
Either matter is eternal (we know that it can't be) OR
The immaterial Cause of matter is eternal
I've explained the rest in my post.
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"I don't know how the Big Bang came about and you don't either.”
But we certainly try don't we? Hence the dozen or more Atheist Origin of the Universe Mythologies. Each one in turn proving unworkable. Each and every one an attempt to prove that matter is eternal and that this universe is just one of zillions. Just as though moving the beginning of matter back a zillion time changes things.
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"Please remember this fact about your own non belief - that you, too, are an atheist with but a single exception”
Actually I'm not. And when you understand why I accept the reality of what other religions call their gods, you'll understand why I reject your atheism.
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Look tildeb, when your opening gambit is some cut and past razzel-dazzel about the Ontological argument, while addressing the Kalam argument no less, and then you move on to the overly simplistic pothole analogy that minimizes and trivializes the utterly fantastic and profound fine tuning of this mathematically precise, life supporting, moral universe, well, it makes it hard to take you seriously.
The beautiful part is, you don't have to agree with me. If you think you've got life all figured out, you're free to go your own way.
Nevertheless, our choices are as follows:
ReplyDeleteEither matter is eternal (we know that it can't be) OR
The immaterial Cause of matter is eternal
This false dichotomy will never cease to amaze me. How illogical does one has to be to keep repeating the same lie over and over again?
Hugo, you beat me to it. Also, I've never come across this collection Atheist Origin of the Universe Mythologies. Have you? (I suspect Thesauros is just making stuff up and presenting it as if it were fact... oh, wait... do I detect a pattern?)
DeleteOnly place I've heard of 'Atheist Origin of the Universe Mythologies' is here.
DeleteVolume 2 is 'Atheist Origin of Life on Earth Mythologies'. It will come up as soon as Rod is tired of discussing cosmology.
Volume 3 would be 'Atheist Origin of Selfish Evil Subjective Morality'.
This has ben going on for years, with a previous blog called Makarios and now here on Thesauros.
Rod is not interested in what's true. It's what feels right and make sense to him that matters.
To his defense, he also correctly portrait certain ridiculous Atheists that he finds online... but then again falls into bigotry by pointing out their stupid actions as directly related to Atheism, because what else but Atheism could make people be so bad/stupid?
But, but, but... isn't the christian religion the reason why priests abuse children and rape boys?
DeleteNow look what you've done: you've popped my worldview/bubble here, Hugo. I'm at a loss...
I've explained the rest in my post.
ReplyDeleteUmm, actually you haven't. You've grabbed the WL Craig bit in your teeth and are just running with it ignoring - like your hero - the very sound theological argument(s) against it. Ignoring the problem doesn't make it go away and it continues to render your 'explanation' useless because it doesn't address its fundamental flaws.
However, you think that way because you begin with the assumption that ONLY the material exists.
Yes, that's true; only the material (if you are describing something with material properties) exists as far as we know. But this little problem doesn't seem to slow you down proclaiming all kinds of material properties like causation to the 'immaterial' (meaning the supernatural). This is also a fundamental problem in your methodology because, as far as I can tell, you have no means with your methodology to falsify it. This means you have no way to determine if what you think is true independent of your mind. And this is the very point Aquinas hangs his criticism on (not that you seem to care in the least what this great mind has to say on the matter).
It's not up to you to accept of reject my atheism. It is up to you to carry the burden of proof to show why your beliefs accurately represent reality. By ignoring the problems that underlie your premises, you fail to carry this burden and so I remain unconvinced that you have any clue what you're talking about because it looks to me exactly like it is justified only in your mind and not from any compelling evidence in reality that we just so happen to share.
I'm sure you don't mind being a kafir and apostate deserving of death to a muslim but I do. And although you seem quite willing to pretend all religions share the same tent, reality tells us that many people take their religious beliefs seriously and even act on them as a justification. You do not share the same god believed in by many people even though I'm sure you believe you do and that all these folk willing to end your life to honour their god are just a little bit misguided on the right theology... you know, the one you believe in. But once you discard reality as the arbiter of what's true and argue that faith-based beliefs are the right way by means of revelation, you have placed the noose around your neck, so to speak. The problem, however, iks that you're willing to place around mine as well. I hope you aren't offended that I may take exception to your generosity in the name of your god.
I don't cut and paste unless I quote. And to anyone who understands probabilities, the ontological argument is very silly and debunked repeatedly (to no effect for the true believers). You don;t understand probabilities and you seem unwilling to learn why your calculations are meaningless. Richard Feynman used to start his lectures with the remarkable event that just happened... and he would tell his audience about seeing a particular license plate. He would then describe the chances (the probabilities) of this event happening with enough zeros to fill three whiteboards. I doubt you would understand the point he was making because you are already convinced that the argument works in your favour. It doesn't. And Adams perceptively tells us why. You've allowed yourself to been fooled.
Do I have life all figured out? Nope. And neither do you. But when you make claims about reality that are very poor, I am willing to help you out because it's the right thing to do. You might call it the 'christian' thing to do but, regardless, we all need help sometimes.
So tidbit, are you going to give me some answers to the questions that I've asked you. They're starting to pile up so I'll just remind you of these:
ReplyDelete. Could you give me some examples, besides rustling in the grass when its good to lie to ourselves.
. Is any and all Christian doctrine false?
. “Only science is rational. Science is the only begetter of truth.” Richard Lewontin.
Why is it that you say this statement is not true, but you live as though it is true. You even judge the quality of other people's parenting by whether THEY live as though it's true. What's up with that?
. And if, as you say, Lewontin is wrong, could you give me some examples of places where the scientific method of know may be the wrong way to discover the truth about something?