Request from a Christian.

[Astonished]

My question to the OP, with all due respect and sincerity is, are you seriously ignorant of the realities of what you're asking?

Forcing children to sit through long, boring, sometimes horrifying church sessions.

Telling children they're wicked, dirty, evil, etc.

Hearing them tell you 'You can't change my mind'. The arrogance!

Teaching them that love is conditional. Way to warp their mentality for life.

Managing to be seemingly deluded about how awful people can treat others in the name of their faith. Sickening ignorance.



Seriously, read a book like God is Not Great. Hitchens is much more eloquent than most.

Just wanna point out that this has not been my experience at all, growing up in the faith. Im sorry for/to anyone who has had horrible experiences in the faith as a child. But it is important to point out that there are many who's experiences has been very positive, and it isnt right to group us all into the worst possible scenario. I plan on raising my future children up in the faith as I was, if im lucky enough to have any. and I dont plan on anything that is on that list.

That's spiffy for you. The point is, when you base life around a book that's akin to rolling the dice to make the decision rather than basing it on a rational consideration of the facts, you're bound to get people like the aforementioned who do such things. While it obviously isn't going to fix every problem, people dropping their faith and getting real will make it impossible for them to get away with this stuff anymore by saying 'it's my belief'. Forcing everyone to have rational justifications for their actions is the only way to make progress, which is why science, not religion, is responsible for every significant positive advancement EVER.

You saying you plan to raise your future children in the faith is such a minefield. While it sounds all fine and dandy to you, to a non-believer you shouldn't be surprised that it sounds like you're planning on lying to them, giving them no choice whatsoever in what they are taught to believe, at a minimum. That's why it's impossible to be comfortable even with this seemingly benign form of irrationality.

A lot of what I'm hearing in these last few replies is not altogether different from saying, "Oh, well, yeah, we all smoke but it's not like ALL of us get cancer or some other debilitating consequence of it." Or like treating the symptoms of some chronic disease instead of curing the disease itself. None of that reveals an understanding of the actual problem or the actual way to solve it.