How many of you would punish religious people for being religious?

[Belacqua]

The majority of people I know are people who are raised with religion and find it comforting. I’ve done team building exercises where we use words to describe ourselves and I never choose atheist as one of my words. I have a lot of things that come to mind and that’s never one of them. I just happen to not believe it has nothing to do with who I am as a person. But I was raised in a way that religion was abusive and harmful and I certainly went through a time period where atheism played a bigger role in my life. I still don’t think it was ever important enough to be a part of my self identity. Honestly, I don’t think religion or lack of religion plays any part in whether or not a child is abused. Imo people of all types of beliefs are capable of raising stable, loved, respected and well taken care of children.

Thank you, this makes a lot of sense to me. 

I'm sorry to hear that religion was harmful for you as a kid. I've never meant to deny that it can be so. 

The way I see things, a lot more about our societies is determined by economics and politics than by religion. Like if you live in a capitalist culture that doesn't value you, then it's likely that the local church will echo those values. The culture takes over the church, rather than the church standing up to the culture. And any set of values is going to produce people who think they know so much better than others that they have the right to punish "deviants," in one way or another. 

If people sincerely believe that their religion is true, then they just tell their kids what they think is true. If the kids later on hear good reasons to doubt, then they'll doubt.I don’t think it’s necessary to point out to your children that you’re capable of fallacy every single time you teach them something. It’s more of an occasional reminder that even parents can be wrong sometimes and it’s important to do your own research and form your own opinions about things. There’s also a difference between fact and belief. If what you’re teaching relies on faith over science or is typically considered an opinion that’s when it becomes useful to say “I think ….. because….., what do you think?”

Yeah, I think a few examples of "gee, I don't know" or "oops, I was wrong" go a long way to a little kid. 

My nephew learned not to trust authority the hard way in about third grade. He tried to correct the science teacher, who was wildly wrong about something, and the teacher said, "Oh don't dump your knowledge in my classroom." He sort of lost his innocence all at once.

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The intelligent ones in the middle just did their own thing and kept their opinions to themselves.

This sounds like advice I'd do well to learn....