(June 17, 2017 at 11:55 pm)Whateverist Wrote:If I may, 'necessary' since God cannot have an explanation outside of himself.(June 17, 2017 at 6:36 pm)thereverent1 Wrote: I sympathize with your situation. I think it is best to be honest with your children - tell them what you believe, and why, and let them make up their own minds. I am an atheist -- that is, someone who believes that God does not exist -- but who nonetheless believes that God is logically necessary. (Not psychologically, socially, or politically necessary - logically necessary.) My book "The Reverent Atheist" (available on Amazon) explains my thinking on this point.
There are many inspiring passages in the Bible, but the fact is that Jesus could not possibly have been the Messiah, that he could not possibly have been the Son of God, and that the Bible could not possibly be the word of God. Take those 3 claims away from Christianity and there really isn't much left. That's not to say that Islam or Mormonism or Hinduism or Judaism are any better - they're not. I deny the reality of all of the prophets - Isaiah, Jesus, Mohammed, Joseph Smith, Bahaullah -- all of them. The "scriptures" of these many faiths do have their moments of inspiration, but they were all written by people, not by God. And the primary claim of fundamentalists of whatever faith is that their scriptures are the word of God and are therefore necessarily true. If you take that main assumption away they have to defend their moral stance on the basis of reason and experience, just like everyone else.
I don't disagree with anything you've written here but I'm curious about your religious views regarding the necessity of gods. Would like to know more about what you have in mind. Any chance you'd like to make a thread in which to introduce yourself? Welcome in advance.
Atheist Credo: A universe by chance that also just happened to admit the observer by chance.