atheism and children

[Alex K]

Always take what I write as a commentary on your young online persona here. It isn't meant to attack you as a person, but to attack perceived inconsistencies in or problematic aspects of your views as you present them here. To leverage a criticism, I think you too quickly become defensive and feel that you are being attacked as a person, and as a result don't address the points others make adequately before offering a knee jerk reaction.

For example, if you reread the text you quoted above you will find that I don't even accuse you of never reflecting on church doctrine. I say that you give the impression that acting on them and rejecting a piece of dogma seems out of the question for you.

Well I just think it's a bit ridiculous when people who barely know me here start accusing me of never having asked myself why and never having contemplated the matter lol. I'm not sure on what grounds anyone here can accuse me of that. 

You already said that, to which I gave above answer

I really don't understand what you mean when you say I "give the impression that rejecting church teaching is out of the question." Why, is it because I agree with all of it? I've been asked whether I would still follow the Church if the Church came out and said rape was ok, or if they came out and changed their teaching on IVF. I've said no to both of those. So I'm not sure how I'm "giving the impression" that I'd blindly follow whatever the Church said without contemplating the matter.

But I accept your explanation that you're in the habit of stating whenever your own thoughts are in line with church teachings, and that this does not necessarily mean that you have no independent opinion. But be aware that this style creates that impression especially if no further reasons of your own are offered for those positions.

Well, it's either I do that and get accused of blindly following, or I don't do that and get accused of being a cafeteria Christian lol. Now I've had both happen.

You leave me pretty confused. I probably missed the parts where you say that you would stop following the church (or God) if it did teach certain things. It all seems really contradictory to me, at one point you say that the church represemts God's will, then again you don't always follow God, but you're not cherry picking. I'm just confused whether there is any consistent attitude behind all of this.