Your kids in a godless world

[Sandra Craft]

Pretty much what Mr. Lions said.  Instead of teaching them crap fairy tales from the nible, why don't you introduce them to real philosiphers that actually existed?

I'd do that too, if I had kids, but I'd be cherry-picking them as well (only in what I supported, not in what I taught about it -- I don't believe white-washing has any value).

You can cherry pick the bible all you want, but 99.9% of it id still an intolerant, sexist, rascist book.   

I have to agree that 99.9% is way excessive.  For that part of it that is intolerant, sexist, rascist -- well, that's going to be true of any book from its time and place and obviously it needs to be taught in context.  But then, everything does.

And I understand that zero exposure to religion CAN breed intolerance, but it still should all be viewed as false and myths.

Yes and no.  A lot of it is on the flying monkey level, but on the other hand I don't consider feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, or at least trying to love your enemies part of a false philosophy.  That's were the cherry-picking comes in.

[DeterminedJuliet]

How exactly does christianity benefit children? o_o

In the same way that The Tooth fairy does, or Father Christmas, or... Spiderman.

For all its pernicious nastiness, there are some excellent moral messages, particularly expounded by Jesus (and we have no reason to doubt his existence as a mortal human - just somewhat embiggened and misquoted). For his demeanour and love of people and peace and morality one must recognise his values.

And I know that sounds like religious apology, but many of the moral messages are sound.

So, I will let my children soak up the same good stories that I enjoyed as a child, knowing that with some objective guidance in the future they will be able to make their own sane judgements, about the mumbo-jumbo, just as I did.

While ideologically we'd all like to see religion become obsolete let's not stoop to the depths of trying to gag free speech. I'm going to take all that is valuable in religion and discard the rest. The fact is we have to exist alongside the religious majority.

Well, I won't be raising my children to believe that Santa or the tooth fairy are real either, but to each their own, I guess. I also didn't have a horrible time growing up in the Catholic church, I found it to be a positive experience when I was a child, actually. I just don't see the value in putting a child in a situation where the majority of people are going to be telling him or her that something is true when I believe it to be patently  false.

Like I said, it's good that you're tolerant, in my day to day life, I am too, but surely you can't be surprised that, in an Atheist forum, the majority of us don't think it's a good idea.

[Too Few Lions]

But I have to defend the concept of Jesus as a man - spectacularly similar in outlook to Gandhi who describes the hypocrissy of all religions. Peaceful, thoughtful, generous, kind. They were both good men. And I am happy for my children to learn about good men - from Jesus, through Darwin, Gandhi, Carl Sagan, to Dawkins. (and I repeat - we have no reason to think that Jesus was not a real mortal man, just like the Prohet Mohammed).

Personally I think there's plenty of evidence to suggest that Jesus wasn't a real mortal man, and very little to suggest he was. To my knowledge the gospels are the only evidence for his existence and the earliest known surviving fragments are written in Greek (not Aramaic or Hebrew) and date to the second century. To put it bluntly, the gospels are neither historical documents nor eyewitness acoounts, you don't have things like people walking on water or rising from the dead in factual historical accounts! There are also mythological precedence and explanations to pretty much every element of the life of Jesus as told in the gospels, and once you take away the mythological elements I don't think there's anything left to see of a supposed real historical man.

Obviously it's personal choice whether or not we choose to believe Jesus was a mortal man (just like Moses or Odysseus or Hercules), and whether or not he was a mortal man or a mythical figure makes no difference to the validity of any teachings ascribed to him. Teachings aren't any more valuable just because they came from a real person, I've learned a lot from watching South Park  

And to address Lions comments: Why should I care if my children were Christened? No skin off their noses - in fact a benefit if they choose to enter the church by choice. And why should I care if my wifes fellow parishioners consider my children Christian? Bite me! And, for the record, my wife is open-minded enough to let our children decide for themselves - and respect their decision, just as she does mine and I hers.

First thing I said was I admire your tolerance. I was just saying that I personally wouldn't want my children baptised or christened, but that's just me. I'm not suggesting you should feel the same way.

Honestly, you're all frothing at the mouth and sounding every bit like the closed minded Christians you detest. Raging-against-the-machine isn't going to kill it. Let's work on liberal fairness before trying to topple the regime.

Like I said I admire your tolerance, good on you. I'm sure your kids will turn out good well rounded human beings. That's far more important than whether or not they believe in a god.

[Asmodean]

Zero exposure is not heathy as this leads to ignorance. We have to exist among the religious, so learning something of their world is useful as a lesson in social interaction.

Exposure to religion is one thing... Letting it take part in shaping a young person's moral bases is another.

You can derive the good moral codes from other sources - even sources some of the biblical morals come from, like the basic social contract.

[fyv0h]

Personally I think there's plenty of evidence to suggest that Jesus wasn't a real mortal man, and very little to suggest he was

+1,000,000

Just another in a long line of borrow stories.

[Siz]

Personally I think there's plenty of evidence to suggest that Jesus wasn't a real mortal man, and very little to suggest he was. To my knowledge the gospels are the only evidence for his existence and the earliest known surviving fragments are written in Greek (not Aramaic or Hebrew) and date to the second century. To put it bluntly, the gospels are neither historical documents nor eyewitness acoounts, you don't have things like people walking on water or rising from the dead in factual historical accounts! There are also mythological precedence and explanations to pretty much every element of the life of Jesus as told in the gospels, and once you take away the mythological elements I don't think there's anything left to see of a supposed real historical man.

There is NO evidence to suggest he wasn't a real, mortal man (let's not get into proving a negative here).
Why should you question this premise? I realistically assume he was a charismatic and respected man, who lead by example, just like Gandhi. The bible has systematically 'embellished' his story and turned him into a superhuman. This mode of storytelling has been used by Hollywood for decades in 'true life' propagandic dramatisations. I choose to read between the lines (at my own unapologetic discretion) and accept the credible and discard the nonsense... And FOR ME this leaves a wise and noble (mortal) man.

Obviously it's personal choice whether or not we choose to believe Jesus was a mortal man (just like Moses or Odysseus or Hercules), and whether or not he was a mortal man or a mythical figure makes no difference to the validity of any teachings ascribed to him. Teachings aren't any more valuable just because they came from a real person, I've learned a lot from watching South Park  

Even if he were completely mythical, the ethics with which he is attributed are mirrored by revered, modern-day ethical heroes. So, in effect it doesnt matter either way - wisdom is wisdom... and someone came up with it 2000 years ago. (Love South Park by the way).

Like I said I admire your tolerance, good on you. I'm sure your kids will turn out good well rounded human beings. That's far more important than whether or not they believe in a god.

Agreed, TooFewLions

Yes and no.  A lot of it is on the flying monkey level, but on the other hand I don't consider feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, or at least trying to love your enemies part of a false philosophy.  That's were the cherry-picking comes in.

Thank you Cats. Exactly.

Like I said, it's good that you're tolerant, in my day to day life, I am too, but surely you can't be surprised that, in an Atheist forum, the majority of us don't think it's a good idea.

DeterminedJuliet, not surprised at all. I'm enjoying the debate.

Exposure to religion is one thing... Letting it take part in shaping a young person's moral bases is another.

You can derive the good moral codes from other sources - even sources some of the biblical morals come from, like the basic social contract.

Asmo, I will NEVER allow religion to shape my childrens moral base. That has already been done through the joint hard work of my wife and I. I have talked about inate human morals to which the church subscribes and to which they have added. I can discard their additions.


I have no desire to labour my tolerant point any further (unless you have any specific questions). I've made my point. I am a strong Atheist that is not scared of, or particularly affected by, the religious majority (admittedly fairly benign locally). I feel sorry for you guys that are subject to religious bigotry, particularly in the US. I'm sure I would feel the same in the same situation.

I do want to repeat my earlier comment:
Raging-against-the-machine isn't going to kill it. Let's work on liberal fairness before trying to topple the regime.

...Oh, and get religion out of politics...

[Asmodean]

Asmo, I will NEVER allow religion to shape my childrens moral base. That has already been done through the joint hard work of my wife and I. I have talked about inate human morals to which the church subscribes and to which they have added. I can discard their additions.

...

...Oh, and get religion out of politics...

We are on the same page then.

[Too Few Lions]

There is NO evidence to suggest he wasn't a real, mortal man (let's not get into proving a negative here).
Why should you question this premise? I realistically assume he was a charismatic and respected man, who lead by example, just like Gandhi. The bible has systematically 'embellished' his story and turned him into a superhuman. This mode of storytelling has been used by Hollywood for decades in 'true life' propagandic dramatisations. I choose to read between the lines (at my own unapologetic discretion) and accept the credible and discard the nonsense... And FOR ME this leaves a wise and noble (mortal) man.

I don't want to derail this into a debate on whether or not there was a historical Jesus, as that's down to personal belief at the end of the day, but there is plenty of evidence to suggest Jesus was a mythological figure, and the gospels are just a passion play. Hence we are told about his miraculous birth then absolutely nothing for 30 odd years up until the main event, that all happens in a matter of weeks. Jesus pretty much quotes Plato verbatim in a lot of his teachings and parables, and the earliest known gospels are all in Greek, but a real life Jesus probably wouldn't have spoken Greek! Plus when Jesus quoted the Old Testament in the gospels, he invariably quotes the Greek version and not the Hebrew one. Add to this the similarities in the gospel story of Jesus to other Greek figures such as Socrates, Prometheus, Odysseus, Heracles, Dionysos and I personally think that you can build up a fairly strong case for Jesus being a mythological figure and a direct result of the Hellenising of Judaism in the first century CE. Many Jews of the diaspora of the period read Greek philosophy and combined Greek ideas with Judaism. Philo of Alexandria (20 BCE -50 CE) is a good example, he tried to interpret and reevaluate the Old Testament through Platonic and Pythagorean philosophy.

There are strong mythological elements to things you might see as historical elements of the Jesus story, such as the crucifixion. There's a tradition going back until at least the second century (which is as old as any Christian tradition) that Jesus was hung / crucified at exactly the same location that Adam was buried, and his blood literally washed away the sins from Adam's skeleton. All four gospels state that Jesus was crucified at Golgotha (the place of the skull), the skull in question being Adam's skull. For me that makes perfect sense mythologically, as one of the central concepts of Christianity is that Jesus' suffering redeemed the fall of Adam and Eve.

Plus, if you look at all of the gospels that Constantine decided to omit from the official Bible when it was first codified in the fourth century (and there are plenty of them), most of them portray Jesus as a mythological figure often very different from the philosopher in the four gospels, and more like the Jesus in Revelation. Personally I see things the reverse way that you see things, I think Jesus started off as a mythological saviour figure like Mithras or Dionysos or Orpheus, and the Church later created the myth of him having being a historical mortal man so they could claim their saviour (and god) were real and all the other similar but horribly heathen gods and saviours were false. But as you say, it doesn't affect the teachings ascribed to him one way or the other, good philosophy is good philosophy.

[Siz]

Doh!

I'll get my coat...

[Too Few Lions]

Doh!

I'll get my coat...

hehe, me too. Sorry if i just ranted!

[Willow]

I would not allow my children into an environment where serious adults presented traditional myths as though they were meaningful truths.
I do dispel Santa and the Tooth Fairy when it arises.  I have told my 5 year old that when he does start to loose his teeth, then we can do the "Tooth Fairy" thing, just that he will know it's really Mummy swapping his tooth for a coin while he sleeps.

Surely the neutral approach to teaching children what they should or should not believe is to question everything, and to learn that sometimes grown ups do present made up or traditional stories as if they were true.

Willow.

[Asmodean]

I do dispel Santa and the Tooth Fairy when it arises.  I have told my 5 year old that when he does start to loose his teeth, then we can do the "Tooth Fairy" thing, just that he will know it's really Mummy swapping his tooth for a coin while he sleeps.

Asmodean-the-childless-and-therefor-as-not-expert-as-can-be approves. 

[Siz]

Yay, go Grinches!

[Sweetdeath]

I would not allow my children into an environment where serious adults presented traditional myths as though they were meaningful truths.
I do dispel Santa and the Tooth Fairy when it arises.  I have told my 5 year old that when he does start to loose his teeth, then we can do the "Tooth Fairy" thing, just that he will know it's really Mummy swapping his tooth for a coin while he sleeps.

Surely the neutral approach to teaching children what they should or should not believe is to question everything, and to learn that sometimes grown ups do present made up or traditional stories as if they were true.

Willow.

I agree, Willow.  There is no reason to ever lie to a child.   Tooth fairy or worst; the obnoxious stark tale.

Just tell them the truth.  It's NOT going to ruin their childhood.

[Siz]

I would not allow my children into an environment where serious adults presented traditional myths as though they were meaningful truths.
I do dispel Santa and the Tooth Fairy when it arises.  I have told my 5 year old that when he does start to loose his teeth, then we can do the "Tooth Fairy" thing, just that he will know it's really Mummy swapping his tooth for a coin while he sleeps.

Surely the neutral approach to teaching children what they should or should not believe is to question everything, and to learn that sometimes grown ups do present made up or traditional stories as if they were true.

Willow.

I agree, Willow.  There is no reason to ever lie to a child.   Tooth fairy or worst; the obnoxious stark tale.

Just tell them the truth.  It's NOT going to ruin their childhood.

Blimey, how spectacularly miserable!

It must be huge consolation to your children that the reason Santa didn't come was that Mummy doesn't believe in him.

So, do you not allow fiction into your house either. No fairy tales. No imaginary play. No magic tricks. No Jokes. This is ALL 'lying' and a fun and natural part of learning... And sometimes (hideous though it may sound) just about having fun.

You are of course entitled to your militant anti-funism if you so choose, but I can tell this is a winless argument so I won't labour the point.

...But really...??!!