Teach children about Jesus at a young age,

[emjay]

I just hate this. (as if I didn't already know the answer) what do religious people fear in letting their children reach an age of critical thought before teaching them about their religion? And not seven like I think the Catholic Church suggests, but an age of real critical thought... adulthood. I wonder what the world would be like if religious education was not allowed until say 18... a very different and much better place. Any earlier than that and it's not a real choice to believe but just the natural trusting and impressionable nature of children. And it makes my blood boil to hear stories, like Judi's, of young kids being told they're going to hell... seeming to forget that children naturally have very vivid imaginations, much more vivid perhaps than any adult.

[brewer]

Indoctrination? please, Since when is teaching a child to love their fellow man indoctrination?

Matthew 22:36-40
36 Master, which is the great commandment in the law?
37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
38 This is the first and great commandment.
39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

The second commandment is like the first because in loving your neighbor, you love God.

Matthew 25:40
And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

If everyone loved their neighbor as themselves we'd all be living in an utopia.

[edit]

Sorry, a little late to the party.

I'm no bible scholar but seems you kind of cherry picked Matthew. What about the bad stuff for indoctrination.



3:10-12 Those who bear bad fruit will be cut down and burned "with unquenchable fire." 

5:17 Jesus strongly approves of the law and the prophets. He hasn't the slightest objection to the cruelties of the Old Testament.

5:29-30 Jesus recommends that to avoid sin we cut off our hands and pluck out our eyes

7:13-14 Jesus says that most people will go to hell.

 






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[url=http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/mt/5.html#17]

[Expired]

UK. And that's a red herring.

And is my analogy bad just because you say so, or are you going to tell the class why, like I did with yours?

I did say why.

Analogy time.

As most of you know, I'm taking driving lessons. The philosophy behind them is learning how and why things happen. This means that I should end up able to evaluate situations autonomously and know how to think for myself. If the lessons consisted merely of learning the rules of the road and which control does what, how does that make me a driver as opposed to simply being able to move a car around, however safely? What happens when I come across something that wasn't covered in the lessons?

*emphasis mine*

Your analogy implies that everyone needs to take driving lessons in order to be a safe driver, this is not the case, here you are given a learners permit and you learned (with the help of a licensed adult) by doing it yourself.

If your analogy of driving lessons = life lessons, then one cannot be taught life lessons, one must experience life and learn for themselves.

My father tried to explain things to me, but guess what it just went in one ear and out the other, now that I'm an adult, I get what he was trying to tell me.

The same with church, I went to church as a child, that too went in one ear and out the other for the most part. I stopped going to church for a long time, not because I stopped believing in God, but because I was too busy acting a fool; Now I get what I was being told all that time.

No one finds God... God finds you.

Huggy you are full of shit

[Fidel_Castronaut]

There are no rules to follow.... except you must repent and be baptized.

Yeah so there aren't any rules apart from the rules. 

Fuck me. Fuck everything.

[Huggy Bear]

There are no rules to follow.... except you must repent and be baptized.

Yeah so there aren't any rules apart from the rules. 

Fuck me. Fuck everything.

Those are the exceptions, hence the word "except"

which only has to be completed once btw.

[Fidel_Castronaut]

So when you said there were no rules 'except' the rules, you had temporarily gone insane?

Right. Fuck everything.

[Ravenshire]

[Ravenshire]

So go fuck yourself and your absurd 'god."

Hey....why don't you pray for him to strike me dead?  Let's see how good a prayer you are.

Asshole.

What are you like 75?

what would be the point, It will just be chalked up to "coincidence"...

You seem to lack any courage in your convictions.

[Minimalist]

[Huggy Bear]

So when you said there were no rules 'except' the rules, you had temporarily gone insane?

Right. Fuck everything.

Life must be very hard for you if you cant understand a simple statement...

read slowly

"There are no rules to follow.... except you must repent and be baptized."

meaning there aren't any rules to follow as a christian, except you must FIRST repent and be baptized. You must do THOSE before you can even call yourself a christian in the first place... Got it?