Children must be taught religions

Leopold, if you feel that way then why bring up somethign else enturely?

I mean, hour objections to God's existance are not valid as they don't take into account the full ramifications of various beelifs about God and how he relates to this world. To follow that up with a claim that Morals and Social aspects should be all we relegate God to is just a bit empty after that.

I still say your reasons for rejeting God are not really Rational. I am not saying Atheism ias always Irrational before I am misunderastood, but I just think that if you applied a little thought, you could have found valid answrs to your quandries, which really weren't that strong in terms of objections. Does that prove that God exists? No, but it does show that yoru specific objections are't themselves convincing.

 

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Um...How does accepting my mistakes/flaws with the intention for bettering myself make me an idiot/sucker?

 

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Zav's "test" argument seems to be proposing that all of experience is simply an illusion or a simulation.

That's not really a new idea, it's just ancient skepticism in yet another literary guise, in the form of yet another fanciful story. There's Descartes' demon, brains-in-a-vat, 'the Matrix', how-do-we-know-we-aren't-dreaming and Sciforums' "devil's paradox" thread. So we might as well add 'God's test' to the list too.

Nevertheless, the question remains, why should anyone believe this kind of thing? How could evidence even exist for a state of affairs that denies all evidence?

But the fact remains that no matter how fevered our imaginations get, we still have to get out of our philosophical armchairs ocasionally and go to the bathroom or get something to eat. We have to continue living the only lives that we humans know, here in this Earth where we find ourselves thrown, the inescapable context for all of our lives and all of our thinking.

If Zav has evidence of another transcendent kind of life that's more real than this one, by all means he should describe it and tell us about how he knows about it.

Until he does, I'll continue to think that the word 'suffering' refers to what we humans experience right here in this life, to the suffering that we know, to what people actually mean when they use the word.

 

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yAZ, I think you missed the point. It was only an intellectual excersise,, and one I didn't even initiate. I simply followed the lead of Leopold. I just found Leopolds objections to be baseless. I don't need evidencd e that a Transcendant reality exists to poingt out that tohose who beleive in a Transcendant Reality woudln't limit their view to just this life, and that it is an error to think that you can refute a claim that this life is just a Test by presenting this life as all there is if this is not the beelif of those who do say this.

 

AAQ-

Sorry for the misunderstanding, I meant it as a joke about the internet, as a way to lighten the mood and say "No hard feelings" or somethign of the like. I didn't actually mean you were an idiot, I was just presenting a sort of sterotyp about Internet message boards.

 

Making a fanciful suggestion that perhaps suffering might just be an illusory 'test' doesn't vitiate the traditional problem of evil or render an atheist foolish for including that problem among his reasons for having doubts about the reality of a conventionally defined God.

 

It does if the argument fails to really take into account the full extent of the belief system they are trying to refute. EG, if you are trying to convince a Theist that their belief that this life is a “Test” is wrong, and said Theist believes in a life beyond this one, then simply focusing on the injustices and problems of this Life as if they are the only Lie is not really convincing. In fact, the error rests in the Atheist taking a purely material position and only adding “God” and “Test” to it, whilst still presuming this is the only life. As a result, you aren’t arguing against the actual position held by the Theist, you are overlaying only a part of their beliefs onto your own. The beliefs must be looked at in their entirety or else the argument is not Truly a valid one.

 

While I agree that dealing with multiculturalism and religious pluralism can pose formidable problems, I do not think that those problems can be solved by learning about others, why they supposedly believe what they do, and least of all, by debating with them.


Simply focusing on the material tasks that are to be accomplished may be a much better use of one's resources.

 

Yes, but this isnt going to last. Moderates in religion or theism are going to end - people will be divinded over their belief in god - moderates may become atheists while more religious people would become fundamentalists and maybe even extremists - in a free market of belief and religion [as we have today] eventual debate, discussion and confrontation like that is unavoidable - even right now the situation escalates - with militant atheists and severe critcs of religion on one hand and fundamentalist creationists and jihadists on the other. Maybe in 20 years, maybe in 200, but in the near future, people will have to discuss and decide what to do about their diametric beliefs - and the globalisation and shrinking of the earth accelerates this.

 

Agreed. At a purely objective, non-practical, philosophical level, the situation is indeed 50-50. But practicality and logical positivism do tilt the scales...

 

In other words, you are suggesting that people ought to be deliberately mislead.

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No, indoctrination would be misleading, education would be preparation against misleading. Since indoctrination is done everywhere, all the time, I guess the children deserve the antidote so that they can decide whether or not they want to accept the beliefs they are being indoctrinated with. That's all I am asking for - an objective, historical study of world religions - not their Gods or deities or scriptures + a scientific study of philosophy/ psychology/ sociology/ memetics to understand why people believe, what they believe and how they think about their belief and how society/culture is affected by it.

 

I agree that one has to discuss and decide what to do about the diametrically opposed beliefs and practices of others, and I think one has to do that as soon as possible.

But I think one has to be very careful in choosing the parameters for such discussion and decision-making.

This is because discussion and decision-making on the topic of basic convictions has important and immediate real-life consequences for those involved, to the point that they risk social isolation, job loss, and also threats of physical harm, or having those threats carried out against oneself.

Internet forums may be allright for such discussion and decision-making.
School classrooms, open public discussions, family dinners, watercooler conversations - not at at all.

 

Agreed.

 

This assumes that a superior, neutral, objective system of critical thinking and good living is already known and potentially available to all.

It is not clear that this is indeed the case.
In fact, many things point in just the opposite direction.

Once humans are able to control the weather, volcanoes, tornadoes, once nobody is at risk of fatal diseases anymore because humans have found means to eradicate them or treat them 100%, once humans are able to produce all the food they need and of the right kind, and so on -

then maybe humans could be trusted to have found a superior, neutral, objective system of critical thinking and good living that is known and potentially available to all.

 

If they arent appropriate today, they will be much less so tomorrow. And They are exactly where the consequences of this division have their greatest effect.

 

It is - science exactly fits the discription. I refer to science 'the process' not science 'the field' or 'the knowledge'.

What? That science is not "a superior, neutral, objective system of critical thinking and good living is already known and potentially available to all"? Why do you say so? After all, it is the one field to which the greatest attention is paid by education systems the world over.

Thats like saying, once you have a car, then you can trust the claim of the invention of the wheel. And we are flying, going to space, are the fastest travellers, control the greatest amount of resources, at a level of a prosperity and success never seen before...all due to science. The potential damages are far, far lesser than the great advantages that it has given us - the other human endeavors are nowhere near this.

 

We should run an experiment where young children ( age 2 plus) are taught both religion and atheism, but without parents of either side poisoning the well. The idea would be to observe the children to see which of the two systems attracts them more. I would guess that smaller children will prefer religious stories over dry logic about evolution. Since small children are very natural, this experiment would demonstrate which is more natural and which is more man-made.

Children like stories and don't having problems with a talking rabbit or a bear that wears clothes. Children are also more natural than adults, since they are allowed to be free spirits for a few fleeting years, before their indoctrination into culture. The more indoctrinated the children become, I would guess this is where atheist will become more and more acceptable.

 

I am assuming (hoping) this is entirely a thought experiment.

You know, of course, that there is absolutely no way that a parent's opinion will not influence their children. In fact, in kind of has to, that's part of parenting.

 

I agree it would be hard to start such as experiment with open minded parents who wish to see what would happen, even if the result conflicts with their own subjective bias. Stories are natural for the child, because this is how the natural brain works. It is only after the natural animal is made cultural/artificial does programming come in and the result will becomes artificial.

The little child has no prejudice or cultural bias. This comes after programming. Before programming they are attracted to other natural things, while has no sense of prejudice. After programming unnatural becomes more possible.