Hell and the Play Nice Christian

[FatAndFaithless]

Peer-reviewed journals, please. "Science" news media is notoriously shitty and adds conclusions and descriptions to experiments that have nothing to do with what the actual scientists actually claim.

[Thumpalumpacus]

This is why the latest international studies from Oxford Uni have concluded that children left alone to develop on a desert island with no outside interference, would come to believe in God, while they would have to be taught atheism.

Support this claim with a link to the study.

From your links:

A three-year international research project, directed by two academics at the University of Oxford, finds that humans have natural tendencies to believe in gods and an afterlife.

The £1.9 million project involved 57 researchers who conducted over 40 separate studies in 20 countries representing a diverse range of cultures. The studies (both analytical and empirical) conclude that humans are predisposed to believe in gods and an afterlife, and that both theology and atheism are reasoned responses to what is a basic impulse of the human mind.

You're clearly misrepresenting the study's results (if they are indeed being reported accurately), because nowhere does it indicate that children would come to believe in God, but rather, gods.

And according to your Bible, that dooms them to Hell -- for all eternity, says your Jesus in Matthew.

And:

In a lecture to be given at the University of Cambridge's Faraday Institute on Tuesday, Dr Barrett will cite psychological experiments carried out on children that he says show they instinctively believe that almost everything has been designed with a specific purpose.

In one study, six and seven-year-olds who were asked why the first bird existed replied "to make nice music" and "because it makes the world look nice".

Okay, that does sound simplistic enough to pass for Christian theology.

But I'd like to read the study itself. Do you have it on hand? Considering that the Dr Barrett in question is noted for his religious beliefs, I'd suspect bias on his part, especially since he leaps from "children believing that almost everything was designed for a purpose" to this is evidence for God ... a leap you foolishly follow.

[Crossless2.0]

I'd actually be willing to agree that a study like that is likely to exist (though in a much more coherent and less pulled-out-his-ass form, certainly not just 'dropping kids on a desert island'), but that just illustrates the process through which religions are started. Creating stories to explain unknown events and attributing them to higher beings is the modus operandi for fledgling religions. I don't know how YGninja thinks the Egyptian or Greek or Hindu pantheons started, but it's very much like people experiencing natural phenomena and, lacking sufficient explanation with the information we have nowadays, creating their 'best guess' usually illustrated through stories and myths.

YGninja's own points undercut his conclusions from the very start.

(Not even mentioning the tribes in South America that have no God concept at all)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion...laims.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics...study.html
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/201...103828.htm

Yeah, I came across those sites too. I'm not sure what your point is in mentioning this. Children mistakenly attribute agency to non-sentient objects, indulge in magical thinking, have poor skills in determining what are and what are not good analogies, and are likely to cling to an idea that they will live forever. You're going to hang your hat on that peg? Seriously? And then you perhaps wonder why non-believers characterize religious belief as childish?

[Mister Agenda]

I'd actually be willing to agree that a study like that is likely to exist (though in a much more coherent and less pulled-out-his-ass form, certainly not just 'dropping kids on a desert island'), but that just illustrates the process through which religions are started. Creating stories to explain unknown events and attributing them to higher beings is the modus operandi for fledgling religions. I don't know how YGninja thinks the Egyptian or Greek or Hindu pantheons started, but it's very much like people experiencing natural phenomena and, lacking sufficient explanation with the information we have nowadays, creating their 'best guess' usually illustrated through stories and myths.

YGninja's own points undercut his conclusions from the very start.

(Not even mentioning the tribes in South America that have no God concept at all)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion...laims.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics...study.html
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/201...103828.htm

The studies indicate humans are natural dualists. It's a long way from being a natural dualist to being a natural monotheist. That children would arrive at that if they survived untended on a desert island is a claim by the researcher, not a finding of the study.

[Metis]

Support this claim with a link to the study, or at least legitimate reportage about it.

Wish I had the journal to hand but I did read an article on Jstor the other day with a study done on Japanese kids in an environment who had never had contact with a religious tradition. Hard here but not too difficult in major urban centers there.

Apparently their beliefs were "suspecting the existence of a supreme, usually single being, spirit or force". I'll see if I can find it.

The study originally was directed around imaginary friends, but this developed out of it (since what puzzled the researchers was the kids all came up with a similar concept despite having no contact to share ideas).

[FatAndFaithless]

(not to mention children are 'naturally inclined' to attribute agency to completely natural, random, materialist shit like bumps in the night or spooky shadows or strange noises. Shocker, children are naturally inclined to be childish)

[SteelCurtain]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion...laims.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics...study.html
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/201...103828.htm

The first article is drawing conclusions and not explaining how he got from "children see things that were designed for a specific purpose and draw the conclusion that they were designed for a specific purpose" to "therefore this means they believe in God (notice the capital "G", which is telling).

There are a lot of conclusions that do not necessarily follow. Did this fellow publish a paper, or is he just opining?

The second two seem to be referencing the same study, which is finding what we already know, that children are likely to attribute supernatural powers to objects and people before a certain age.

Again, telling is the final sentence:

This suggests that attempts to suppress religion are likely to be short-lived as human thought seems to be rooted to religious concepts, such as the existence of supernatural agents or gods, and the possibility of an afterlife or pre-life.

This shows a remarkable bias in their understanding of the data. They are doing some pretty intense extrapolation and ignoring the influence of religious indoctrination. Children are certainly born with an untuned ability to 'create' explanations for things that they cannot comprehend. This is obvious and easily explained. What is not obvious is the leap from this to mythical sky daddy creator-god that these studies seem to make.

[Chad32]

People are superstitious by nature, and inclined to believe in supernatural forces. This could include one or more of a plethora of gods and godesses. One of many is Yahweh/Allah, or Jesus. The odds of someone coming to believe in a guy from Nazereth named Jesus, out of all the other ones, including a deity they may come up with themselves, are minuscule at best.

[Crossless2.0]

This shows a remarkable bias in their understanding of the data. They are doing some pretty intense extrapolation and ignoring the influence of religious indoctrination. Children are certainly born with an untuned ability to 'create' explanations for things that they cannot comprehend. This is obvious and easily explained. What is not obvious is the leap from this to mythical sky daddy creator-god that these studies seem to make.

Right. Further, show me a group of children who independently come up with Yahweh as the explanation for creation (without their parents indoctrinating them into this belief), and then we can talk. Otherwise, I'm pretty underwhelmed.

[The Reality Salesman01]

As an interesting aside to this discussion, it's worth pointing out that children of religious upbringing have more difficulty distinguishing fact from fiction than those of secular households.

http://m.nydailynews.com/life-style/reli...5822#bmb=1

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Not if they die before the age of accountability, that being different for each person, some never reach that age, the mentally handicapped for instance. This is why it's important to have children in church early in their lives. Please do not say some thing about indoctrination, that's a worn out subject and doesn't actually apply to this discussion, thanks.

GC

Where do you people go to get clarification on these sorts of particulars?

It's as if theres some Board of Religiousity that has been established recently to offer official interpretation of biblical nonsense. Obviously, it's all a bunch of Ad Hoc bullshit since opposite interpretations have been promoted for centuries and the fact that this stuff is neither implicitly or explicitly written in the text. The most amazing part to me is, you seem to be able to spew this jargon without the slightest sign of dissonance. It would be difficult to find better samples of delusion...

...and what you described is the epitome of indoctrination. What you've said translates to "Get them while they're young, because they're less likely to believe it when they get older"

Kinda like circumcision, if you wait to pose the idea to guys when they're 18, there's probably a good chance that less of them will go for it...