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Theism is literally childish
#1
Theism is literally childish
Religious belief conditions people to literally think and act like children.

As a child your parents look after your needs, explain how the world works, make decisions about your future and take responsibility for those decisions.

Growing up and maturing isn't just a physical development, but a mental one as well. The child learns to ask questions, not to believe everything they are told, to make their own decisions and moral judgments and to take responsibility for their actions. They slowly become more independent by being safely exposed to a world of danger until they can look after themselves.

Religious conditioning from birth essentially stops the maturation process. Children are taught that the consequence to their actions are irrelevant because only a non-existent god ca truly judge them. They are not taught to think through the morality of their actions but to accept the morality without question that some person wearing a pointy hat gives them. They are conditioned to obey authority and to have faith rather than to ask why. This means that they do not have to accept the responsibility of their actions because they were only following orders, which ultimately came from their god and are not to be questioned. The child grows up dependent upon a system that tells them how to act, think, believe and what to value or hate. Their life is not their own but is instead owned by a church that can control them like some bot in a network to be deployed to exercise power.

Not all theists are conditioned from birth. These are the ones to be pitied because they were not properly raised to begin with. The converts though do not deserve pity so much as contempt because they have essentially outsourced their morality. They realise how difficult it is to make moral judgments because life is never black and white but always grey. So they're essentially letting someone else make those moral judgments for them instead. Instead of taking responsibility for their actions, instead of suffering the doubt that is necessary to navigate a noisy and uncertain world, they're preferring to feel good about their own lives regardless of what it costs everyone else. They are being self-centered. Their own sense of self-ease has a greater priority to them than the effect that they have on the world around them. These are the types who would happily allow their government to sign away their freedom to dispel any kind of evil that they have been warned about. Over time these converts happily become more child-like as they accept the conditioning of their church to not question but to just have faith that it will all turn out well in the end.

Children play. They fantasise about all kinds of imaginative scenarios because they are not weighed down by plausibility, The hall mark of a child is when they don't think through how heir fantasies would work in practice. Yet this is what the religiously indoctrinated do all the time. Instead of wizard performing magic, or a superhero with unexplainable powers, it's a god performing holy-magic. None of it can be explained, and none of it is meant to be. And these fantasies give people the illusion of control over their lives and their reality. Prayer does not work. There is no way that it could work. Yet it is more fun and nicer to imagine that you are imbued with powerful magic and can influence the world around you than to realise that you cannot. Or that to do so actually takes effort or comes at great cost.

The problem is, how can you tell people to grow up when they literally want to continue holding onto a child-like innocence where everyone else makes the decisions for them?
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#2
RE: Theism is literally childish
(November 9, 2017 at 8:43 am)Mathilda Wrote: instead of suffering the doubt that is necessary to navigate a noisy and uncertain world

As someone who was raised in a religious environment, and then later spent many years as a Christian, I find the doubt, the searching for an answer using my own moral standards actually an exciting journey. No longer am I bound my rules and laws that often i knew deep down were themselves immoral. I also like that the world is uncertain, that it can be shaped that you can contribute.
'Those who ask a lot of questions may seem stupid, but those who don't ask questions stay stupid'
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#3
RE: Theism is literally childish
If the atheists on this site are what you consider mature adults, I'll take being a child, thanks.
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#4
RE: Theism is literally childish
(November 9, 2017 at 10:31 am)alpha male Wrote: If the atheists on this site are what you consider mature adults, I'll take being a child, thanks.

Unfortunately, it seems that for every civil, open-minded individual who is willing to engage in serious, thoughtful discussion on these forums and IRL, there is also an impolite, uncivil person who argues for the sake of arguing and is tuned out to learning anything new/different.  I'm sorry if you've encountered too many of these types of people on AF and IRL.  However, I would hope that this statement is not a generalization of all atheist members on this site.











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#5
RE: Theism is literally childish
Yeah well, the story of Eden should have been a red flag, if anything. God doesn't want them to have knowledge of good and evil, and curses the whole world when they eat the fruit and come closer to being equal to him. It doesn't get better in later stories.
Poe's Law: "Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is impossible to create a parody of Fundamentalism that SOMEONE won't mistake for the real thing."

10 Christ-like figures that predate Jesus. Link shortened to Chris ate Jesus for some reason...
http://listverse.com/2009/04/13/10-chris...ate-jesus/

Good video to watch, if you want to know how common the Jesus story really is.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88GTUXvp-50

A list of biblical contradictions from the infallible word of Yahweh.
http://infidels.org/library/modern/jim_m...tions.html

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#6
RE: Theism is literally childish
(November 9, 2017 at 10:56 am)Kernel Sohcahtoa Wrote: Unfortunately, it seems that for every civil, open-minded individual who is willing to engage in serious, thoughtful discussion on these forums and IRL, there is also an impolite, uncivil person who argues for the sake of arguing and is tuned out to learning anything new/different.  I'm sorry if you've encountered too many of these types of people on AF and IRL.  However, I would hope that this statement is not a generalization of all atheist members on this site.

All? No. Most? Yes. If you think that's not fair, just look at Minimalist's tag line and thread titles, then look at his rep points.

It's gotten bad enough that I don't even play games (mafia, fantasy football) here anymore.
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#7
RE: Theism is literally childish
(November 9, 2017 at 12:55 pm)alpha male Wrote:
(November 9, 2017 at 10:56 am)Kernel Sohcahtoa Wrote: Unfortunately, it seems that for every civil, open-minded individual who is willing to engage in serious, thoughtful discussion on these forums and IRL, there is also an impolite, uncivil person who argues for the sake of arguing and is tuned out to learning anything new/different.  I'm sorry if you've encountered too many of these types of people on AF and IRL.  However, I would hope that this statement is not a generalization of all atheist members on this site.

All? No. Most? Yes. If you think that's not fair, just look at Minimalist's tag line and thread titles, then look at his rep points.

It's gotten bad enough that I don't even play games (mafia, fantasy football) here anymore.

Then leave.  No one is forcing you to be a part of this community.
Nay_Sayer: “Nothing is impossible if you dream big enough, or in this case, nothing is impossible if you use a barrel of KY Jelly and a miniature horse.”

Wiser words were never spoken. 
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#8
RE: Theism is literally childish
(November 9, 2017 at 10:31 am)alpha male Wrote: If the atheists on this site are what you consider mature adults, I'll take being a child, thanks.

If you imply ONE MORE TIME that I'm childish, I'll hit you with my rattle. So take that, Mr Poopy Head Man. 

Boru
‘I can’t be having with this.’ - Esmeralda Weatherwax
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#9
RE: Theism is literally childish
So much for the rule against wild generalizations...
<insert profound quote here>
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#10
RE: Theism is literally childish
(November 9, 2017 at 10:31 am)alpha male Wrote: If the atheists on this site are what you consider mature adults, I'll take being a child, thanks.

And you have always been considered as such.... and a particularly stupid child, to boot.
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