Thoughts and questions from God Delusion

[The Grand Nudger]

Hello fellow thinkers,

I'm new; I posted an intro in that section, read that if you want to know my deal. Hi and thanks again for the welcome messages.

So, I'm a Christian reading The God Delusion with an open mind and considering the rational merit of atheism. My experience with "out" atheists is limited, and Dawkins is a refreshing surprise. I'm sure there are more like him out there, I just haven't met you yet. (I hope to).

Most atheists I've met are either over-compensating intellectuals with attitudes like, "I'm smarter than you, just look at my dynamic vocabulary. Look at it!"; or sci-fi/fantasy fans who actually believe in elves (or klingons or whatever).

Yeah, it's a big tent, atheism doesn't have much to do with elves or klingons. While I suspect that this is a large amount of hyperbole ( I appreciate good hyperbole btw), it isn't really relevant to atheism. Atheists just don't believe in gods, that's all there is to it.

Not that this is a bad thing necessarily; to each his own has been my approach. And of course my sample is very small; as a Christian most of my friends and family are either theists or agnostics.

We have some agnostic atheists here.

And I know that some would say that believing in elves is much more sane than believing in Yahweh or Jesus Christ

LOL, some might, but not this atheist.,

and frankly I wouldn't argue that point. I would ask though, what experience one has had with elves, not as a way to prove or disprove anything, but to understand the basis for such a belief. And as such I don't think that all beliefs are equally reasonable to hold. For example, if one's experience of elves is limited to reading Tolkien and imagining them - which I love to do - I would posit that this is a less reasonable basis for believing they exist in our universe than say, praying to God for healing from uterine cancer and having an apple-sized tumor "spontaneously disappear" overnight, confirmed by medical imaging by a non-religious physician (which happened to my mother, FWIW) is a basis for believing in God.

Sorry, gonna have to call bullshit on that. Don't take it personally.

Of course this is all subjective and will not necessarily convince anyone, but that's my point. In the end we all have to decide this question for ourselves, no?

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Yup.

So here's something from Dawkins: He says raising children in a religion is tantamount to child abuse and possibly worse than sexual abuse. This is shocking to fathom, but he is also surprisingly civil and even charitable, which effectively diffuses the affective sparks that would otherwise fly at such extreme statements. Furthermore, I understand his passion, and if he is right that there is no God, then indeed religious parents like myself are arguably evil - at the very least we are really dissing our kids!

Meh, depends on your definition of evil doesn't it? I agree with Dawkins in this regard (sans sexual abuse tagline) others may not.

But of course that is the question in the first place (does God exist)

Not yours, no.

, and without settling it with certainty (not just some vague probability - how is the probability of God's existence calculated, exactly?), forcing children to be raised by an atheist state is no different than the (apparently powerful and poised to take over the country) American Christian fundamentalists forcing their religion on the kids of atheist parents.

Except in that tiny little detail of peddling superstition as fact capable of influencing public policy....no...no different.

And though this is really a side issue, it elicits the further question of who is going to decide what is best for children, if not their parents?

A tough issue, we have many cases where parents are not deemed fit to decide in the best interests of their children. Is religion one of those? In my honest opinion, depends on the religion.

A government panel of expert scientists and psychologists?

That's how it's usually done, minus the panel.

How will these people be chosen, and by whom? And how will these thought-police enforce their edicts?

Always troubling, once we go down that road.

How will they keep Catholic parents from saying anything at all to their kids that could be construed as religious indoctrination?

I hear threats of burning at the stake have helped in the past.

Must the parents go to mass in secret and tell their kids they're going to a weekly science club instead? In practice wouldn't it really be necessary to take the kids away from the parents completely, and raise them in properly atheistic institutions (or foster homes with atheist parents)? And if so, how is this different from Dawkins' story of the Jewish boy who was taken from his parents because he was baptized by a Catholic nurse, and raised (by people other than his parents) as a Catholic?

This is quote the dystopian fantasy we've started to develop. I like it.

Dawkins' greatest and most passionate objection to this (rightly so, IMO) was that the boy was taken from his parents, which was a cause of great trauma and suffering to them all. (He of course had no sympathy for the religious freedom of the Jewish parents, who were just as stupid and superstitious as their Catholic counterparts). And, finally, if (a utopian, atheistic) society is not willing to "kidnap" (as Dawkins put it of the Jewish boy) the children of theists of all stripes in order to spare them the abuse of being raised in religious families, why even raise the point that it is an injustice in the first place?

So that said religious shit-wits might reconsider whether or not it;'s a good idea to indoctrinate their children.

My guess is that it is a rhetorical device, and not a serious proposition. As such it may have some shock value; it may cause some to think more about the nature of religion and the importance of the question of the existence of god(s). This would be good inasmuch as this is a "big question" that fundamentally shapes a society, but that many people are probably content not to consider. Not that they don't have an opinion, it's just unexamined. OTOH, it can be very bad inasmuch as people who aren't too bright start to parrot Dawkins (probably misunderstanding him) and campaign for Social Services to prosecute religious parents for child abuse and take children out of such homes.

Only in my wildest dreams....

(Not the least of the issues is where to put them, who would raise them, and who would pay for raising them; and this is before we even get into the severe cruelty of such a thing, especially in the eyes of a young child who knows nothing of philosophy or theology and just wants his or her mommy and daddy.)
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Unfortunately Mommy and Daddy aren't always good people.

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I realize that is rambly. I teach for a living; I basically get paid to ramble. Thanks for your patience. For now, I shall relent!

What do you teach?