(November 13, 2017 at 2:39 pm)SteveII Wrote:(November 9, 2017 at 8:43 am)Mathilda Wrote: Children are taught that the consequence to their actions are irrelevant because only a non-existent god can truly judge them [1.1].
1.1 - This sentence makes no sense. The second half does not follow from the first. God's judgement would be a significant consequence and very relevant. However, you made up what children are taught to make your point (classic definition of a strawman argument). See 1.2
To explain, I am saying that that your god does not exist, not that children are taught that your god is non-existent.
Isn't it the typical Christian belief that only God can truly pass judgment?
If so then a consequence of this is that everyone else's judgment is less important.
(November 13, 2017 at 2:39 pm)SteveII Wrote:(November 9, 2017 at 8:43 am)Mathilda Wrote: 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. [1.2]
1.2 - Who teaches their 2 year old to share or not not to hit because the Bible says so? Who teaches an 8 year old not to cheat on their test because the Church says so? Who teaches a 13 year old not to drink and do drugs because Jesus says so? Your assertion has no basis in reality because 99% of childhood moral guidelines are exactly the same as a non-religious family. Do you imagine that religious parent somehow become incapable to teaching morality without answering "because the 10 commandments forbid it and we don't ask questions"? You are erecting a strawman.
You are conflating religious indoctrination with how you raise children. I am specifically referring to religious indoctrination. Most christians do not raise their children solely through religious indoctrination. Although we do see horrendous cases when parents actually do. Your very argument is that "99% of childhood moral guidelines are exactly the same as a non-religious family", which means that your objection is irrelevant because I specifically referred to religious conditioning.
Maybe you should actually try countering the point I actually made though that if you are taught to accept a morality without question rather than taught to think through the morality of your actions then you are being conditioned to obey authority and have faith rather than ask why. Your argument is that a religious parent is still capable of teaching morality, but if you believe that morality is absolute and has been described in the Bible then it cannot be adequately justified. This teaches the child to use a get-out clause for any of its moral decisions later on in life. i.e. Because the bible says so.
(November 13, 2017 at 2:39 pm)SteveII Wrote:(November 9, 2017 at 8:43 am)Mathilda Wrote: 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. [1.3]
1.3 - Here is where your reasoning goes off the rails. Where in the Bible does it even suggest that we are not responsible for our actions? In fact, personal responsibility is on nearly every page of the Bible. You conclude that following a written moral code leads to not being personally responsible. Your support for this seems to be that morality must be reasoned to rather than be instructed on. That is false and is not how morality is taught to children.
In that case it's even worse. Religious indoctrination saddles children with a personal moral code that they have responsibility for, but no power to decide by themselves. Power and responsibility must always be evenly matched. What religious indoctrination does is burden a child with a moral code developed from ancient times that they then must seek to make work in the modern world. And if the religious indoctrination sticks, the child will have no power to do so without believing that they are going against the bible and risk eternal damnation.
At least with secular moral teachings you can properly explain why the moral code you are instilling in the child is worthwhile. And as the child matures you can accept that they have the power and responsibility to make their own decisions rather than be bound by some ancient book.
(November 13, 2017 at 2:39 pm)SteveII Wrote:(November 9, 2017 at 8:43 am)Mathilda Wrote: The child grows up dependent upon a system that tells them how to act, think, believe and what to value or hate. [1.4]
1.4 - You have simply described every experience of every child ever.
You really think so? You don't think that part of growing up means independently deciding these things for yourself? I take it then that you still have the exact same values as your parents, and your grandparents, and their parents etc ...
(November 13, 2017 at 2:39 pm)SteveII Wrote:(November 9, 2017 at 8:43 am)Mathilda Wrote: 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. [1.5]
1.5 - Again, you make things up to support your silly conclusion. Show us where the Bible teaches anything other than personal responsibility.
Because in politics numbers count. And when mobilised, as a church can do, this equates to real political power.
I shall counter paragraph 2 later to avoid an impenetrable wall of text. But for now ...
(November 13, 2017 at 2:39 pm)SteveII Wrote: Having utterly failed to link religious belief with childish thinking or maturity, you end with a series of assertions that center around one main assertion: God does not exist. Now, it is traditional for atheists here to hide behind the "I simply lack belief" nonsense. You, however are not. You are making a clear claim that God does not exists. Please support your assertion with proof.
I am not going to derail the thread like Alpha Male tried to do. This is just a typical theist deflection tactic. Yes, I do state that god does not exist rather than that I lack a belief in a god like the majority of atheists. I can't prove this any more than you can prove that thunder is not caused by Thor. But if you accept that scientific explanations suffice to explain thunder, then it is also acceptable for me to draw on the scientific literature to explain that were a god to exist, the gap for it to fill would be so small because of what we now know that it would be utterly irrelevant to our every day lives and certainly nothing like the kind of god that christians believe in. That is assuming that you could even define what a god is, which no one has yet managed,