Teach children about Jesus at a young age,

[Bob Kelso]

You're being willfully dense, aren't you? 

Really?

If the ideology a person is being "indoctrinated" into results in that person being as Stimbo puts it, "good and kind and loving"... I don't have a problem with that, no matter what religion they belonged to.

If Nazi indoctrination resulted in "good and kind and loving" Nazi's, no one would've had a problem with them.

The fact that you guys turn being a "loving" person into a bad thing is what's telling about the atheist "doctrine".

Yes, really, and I'm more than happy to get into why I think -and snarkily told you- that. 

Indoctrination? please, Since when is teaching a child to love their fellow man indoctrination?

Your incredulous starting point skips over what indoctrination is. I'll supply you with the definition:

• Indoctrination: teach (a person or group) to accept a set of beliefs uncritically
  

Notice the highlighted bits, read it twice if you need to. Teaching a small child to love through the Christian belief system, whether you think it's good or otherwise, is still indoctrination. You're still inundating a small, largely indefensible, mind with your religious hogwash and forcing them to process the world through the lens of Christianity.

That aside, let's cut the shit while we're at it; the Christian belief system cannot simply be boiled down to the golden rule -as if it isn't a staple in most belief systems religious or otherwise- and you are assuredly aware of that as a Christian yourself. I'm not speaking for you, but I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt.

Can you get to heaven through love for your neighbor, or do you have to wholeheartedly believe in woo while you're at it? 

Twit.

[robvalue]

I just hate this. (as if I didn't already know the answer) what do religious people fear in letting their children reach an age of critical thought before teaching them about their religion? And not seven like I think the Catholic Church suggests, but an age of real critical thought... adulthood. I wonder what the world would be like if religious education was not allowed until say 18... a very different and much better place. Any earlier than that and it's not a real choice to believe but just the natural trusting and impressionable nature of children. And it makes my blood boil to hear stories, like Judi's, of young kids being told they're going to hell... seeming to forget that children naturally have very vivid imaginations, much more vivid perhaps than any adult.

18? That would be it. Done and dusted. No one is going to be able to convert an 18 year old who hasn't had any one lean on them about religious dogma. Well, it would be very rare anyway.

They would still have the advantage that society is saturated with mythology though. That's the good thing about England, we've reached the tipping point where this is no longer the case. Jesus isn't everywhere. He's hardly anywhere, in fact. So unless you get indoctrinated, it is generally viewed as a dumb story.

I totally agree. Telling a young child about hell is one of the most vile, disgusting things I could imagine. Talk about a parenting short cut.

[Fidel_Castronaut]

Yeah Huggy, I get it. You said there were no rules and then said there were some rules.

If you need to post a few more times to clarify to everyone how that works be my guest. We don't mind.

If you need any help please let us all know. You can look up how to spell contradiction on Google.

[Wyrd of Gawd]

Indoctrination? please, Since when is teaching a child to love their fellow man indoctrination?

Matthew 22:36-40
36 Master, which is the great commandment in the law?
37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
38 This is the first and great commandment.
39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

---

The second commandment is like the first because in loving your neighbor, you love God.

Matthew 25:40
And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

If everyone loved their neighbor as themselves we'd all be living in an utopia.

If "indoctrination" makes a child a good human being, how is that a bad thing?

---

As far as not eating unclean meats are concerned:

1 Timothy 4
1 Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils;
2 Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron;
3 Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth.
4 For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving:
5 For it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.

---

You do realize that Matthew 22:36-40 is not an original Jesus statement but a plagarized one?

[robvalue]

I've found Christians, on the whole, know jack shit about the historicity of the bible.

You should really steer clear of Matthew. He is plain bonkers, even amongst the already high standard of his peers.

I can understand why they don't know. Asking questions like, "Who wrote this? When? Why? What were their sources? How was this compiled? How reliable is it?" is rather like asking "How does Santa get to every child in one night?". To keep the magic alive, you need as little reliable information as possible.

[Fidel_Castronaut]

Ignorance is bliss, Rob.

When you've cocooned yourself in a bubble of denial, it must be hard to realise that the only person you're deceiving is yourself.

[robvalue]

Yeah, very true.

I've been in bubbles as well, of various kinds. Living with a semi-delusion. For example, really bad relationships I've been in. Everyone around me was telling me the plain and obvious facts, but I wouldn't listen. I knew best. Until we broke up, and I looked back on how my mind had been clouded with much embarressment.

So I do have a tiny idea what it might be like. But with something so fundamental, I can't really imagine the extreme pressure the mind puts on itself to maintain the status quo of beliefs. One more (possibly subconscious) lie to the self is far easier than considering you might actually have been very wrong, for a very long time.

[Huggy Bear]

Yeah Huggy, I get it. You said there were no rules and then said there were some rules.

If you need to post a few more times to clarify to everyone how that works be my guest. We don't mind.

If you need any help please let us all know. You can look up how to spell contradiction on Google.

No I like to responding to you; you have a habit of making a fool out of yourself and you genuinely don't realize it.

"There are no rules to follow.... except you must repent and be baptized."

That statement is NOT a contradiction because I explicitly made an exception.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/except
With the exception (that); used to introduce a clause, phrase or adverb forming an exception or qualification to something previously stated.

ex·cept


1. used before a statement that forms an exception to one just made.
"I didn't tell him anything, except that I needed the money"



I guess that's a contradiction also because this person "didn't tell him anything" except that he told him something?

LOL

Like I said You'll keep on believing you're right despite being proven otherwise.

What was that Esquilax saying about theists again?

The problem with christians- which is fully present in Kitan's OP- is that they never identify that error, which in this case is the root beliefs of their religion. Instead, they ignore the basics of logic in favor of making arguments to get to a preconceived conclusion, rather than using logic to reach whatever conclusion is best. The problem is the exclusive lack of logic that theism demands, were one to attempt to argue for theism.

*emphasis mine*
Pandæmonium seems to exhibit that very same behavior.  

Let's see if Panda will ever get around to admitting his mistake...

[Fidel_Castronaut]

Yeah, very true.

I've been in bubbles as well, of various kinds. Living with a semi-delusion. For example, really bad relationships I've been in. Everyone around me was telling me the plain and obvious facts, but I wouldn't listen. I knew best. Until we broke up, and I looked back on how my mind had been clouded with much embarressment.

So I do have a tiny idea what it might be like. But with something so fundamental, I can't really imagine the extreme pressure the mind puts on itself to maintain the status quo of beliefs. One more (possibly subconscious) lie to the self is far easier than considering you might actually have been very wrong, for a very long time.

I think it's probably more due to the sheer length of indoctrination and the level of pressure, combined with, as you say, the consequences (imagined) of not believing.

The sheer number of qualifiers, dogmas and rules either imposed by others or self imposed eventually just takes its toll I guess. The freedom to believe what you want is taken away from you, and even when you begin to break through those restrictions, the consequential aspect of the belief eventually weigh you down.

I'm lucky enough to have never been indoctrinated, so in those terms I can't really empathize.

[robvalue]

Yes, me too.

I feel so sorry for people who have. They have been failed.