morality is subjective and people don't have free will

[emjay]

I have no experience of Catholicism which sounds worse, given all the ritual etc that has to be learnt, but as a former Protestant, when I was about fourteen I went through weeks or months of inconsolable terror and nightmares at the prospect of hell because I thought I'd committed the unforgivable sin and blasphemed the Holy Spirit. I don't remember how I got through that but the point is it was an experience I did not need to have, and shouldn't have had, because I never truly chose Christianity in the first place... never chose it as an informed decision of adulthood.

[Aroura]

I have no experience of Catholicism which sounds worse, given all the ritual etc that has to be learnt, but as a former Protestant, when I was about fourteen I went through weeks or months of inconsolable terror and nightmares at the prospect of hell because I thought I'd committed the unforgivable sin and blasphemed the Holy Spirit. I don't remember how I got through that but the point is it was an experience I did not need to have, and shouldn't have had,  because I never truly chose Christianity in the first place... never chose it as an informed decision of adulthood.

I'm sorry emjay, that sounds truly terrible.  




The sect I was brought up in, and I sometimes forget but Catholics really vary from sect to sect (Like Franciscans, Jesuits, Dominican) was not big on talking about hell, or sin, when I was a kid.  I really feel lucky about that.  I know a lot of people are not so lucky.
Thanks for sharing.

[Angrboda]

The universe is a mixture of chaos and order.  The existence of chaos defines the existence of order, and vice versa.  You want to champion half of that equation.  You wish away the chaos because the lack of control that implies scares you.  Departing from reason into a worldview based upon the mysterious interventions of a mysterious spook isn't making an existential choice, it's abandoning existence as it is for a fairy tale.  You want reality to be simpler and cleaner than it is.  You embrace the lie that it is.   Existence and reason are messy business and that bothers you.  Well, tough shit.  Get over it.  You haven't made a positive choice, investing in the efficacy of reason.  You've plastered over the reality with your wishful thinking.   And why?  Apparently the true face of reality bothers you.  Or maybe you're just following the primrose path that your investment in outdated metaphysics has led you to.   Either way, I don't care.  You are the enemy of reason, not its friend.

I can image pulling a pan from the dishwasher. When I hand it to my wife she’ll ask me if it is clean or dirty. If I reply that part of it is clean and part of it is dirty then I’m pretty sure she’ll tell me that that it’s a dirty pan. Other than that your thoughtless, incoherent rant deserves no reply.

[Mister Agenda]

And yet the 2 Christians participating in the discussion (Steve and I) are both like "uhhh what?" 

Evangelical or not, of everyone I know (and I know a lot of conservative Christians here in the Air Force) I can't imagine any of them treating their toddlers and young children like that. It's far from what I've seen.

Funny how people think their circle of acquaintances represents a whole demographic, huh? I call it 'everyone I know voted for Bernie so how did Hillary get the nomination?' syndrome.

The thing about anecdotes is that they can be neutralized by an opposing anecdote. It's exactly what I've seen. No lie. But I was raised by Pentecostals (25% of Americans aged 45-63 identify as Pentecostal) and live in SC, so maybe that has something to do with it.

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I've heard parents teach their infants to pray from the time they can talk, pray to be forgiven for sin, even before the child can understand what they are saying.

Apparently your experience is invalidated by CL and Steve's.

[Catholic_Lady]

Confirmation doesn't happen at 7. You're probably thinking of first communion, which is what I had when I was 8. We had confirmation at 14. 

The RCC has established the age of reason as being 7. That means by then a person is old enough to understand right from wrong and can begin to have some level of accountability and can begin to feel and express remorse. 

As I said, I don't remember exactly how old I was when I first started hearing the word "sin", but I'm assuming first grade so age 6-7 like I said earlier. From what I remember, Kindergarten was mostly fun and games. By the time I did have first communion (age 8) I knew that sin = bad actions. And I knew that bad actions were contrary to God's will. But I certainly didn't understand all the nuances of sin such as venial sin, serious sin, mortal sin, original sin, and culpability until much later. 

What I'm trying to get at here is that I certainly wasn't instilled with the fear of Hell or told I was unclean or was sat down and given these heavy talks about original sin, etc, when I was a little kid. Learning about all these things was a process. It started with learning the basic meaning of the word sin, and went from there. 

It just seems like some of you are trying to push this idea that Christian parents generally scare and traumatize their toddlers and very young children with deep talks about sinfulness and Hell, which simply isn't the case.

Honestly, I wasn't actually traumatized by it (much) either.

However,and I'm completely serious here, when you do have kids, which I know you want, look out for the Good News Club and similar organizations.  They will tell you that they are just a Christian afterschool program, and they welcome kids of all backgrounds, but their actual goal is to convert children.

That one in particular is in schools all across the US.  They still view Catholics and Protestants and Baptists as a bunch of fallen away sinners, and will try to turn your kid evangelical.  They use the tools of shame, fear (and sin in those contests) to take your child away from your religion.  It's no joke.  Thousands and thousands of small children (they prefer 5 to 7 year olds) are exposed to really horrible ideas, such as that they are currently destined for hell due to original sin.  You can think that all Christians are as easy going as you, but that simply isn't the case.   These are real things, real issues.  It didn't happen to me, it didn't happen to you, doesn't mean it isn't a problem.





And their 6 colors.  Lovely stuff, really.


This is a HUGE movement right now.  Again, I'm glad that many Christians don't teach their kids this kind of thing.  But many DO.

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P.S. There is no need for you to get defensive, CL.  You said you don't even believe this kind of doctrine, were not taught it, and do not plan to teach it to your kids.  Great, wonderful, fabulous.  As I stated at the very outset of this conversation, it ISN'T CATHOLIC DOCTRINE in particular I am talking about.  It's evangelical.  I said it immediately, and it is still what I'm talking about.

You have no reason to defend every Christian.  Some of them teach some really fucked up shit, which is no reflection on you personally, or on your beliefs in particular.  You are taking this idea that we were discussing, that did not even really apply to you, as if we were criticising you.

I'm not out to say all Christian parents, or even most, do this.  No one did.  Everyone who agreed with me even specified the exact doctrine and organizations we were disgusted with. Original sin in general, yes kind of.  But specifically this way of teaching it.

So tell me, do you think this is wrong to teach kids?  The stuff linked up above?  If so, then yeah, we are in agreement, and no one is picking on your beliefs!

Fair enough, I apologize for getting defenssive. As i said to steve earlier, I don't doubt that there are christian parents out there who do this, I just think it's far from the mainstream. Sorry for assuming you were implying otherwise.

I had never heard of that club before, but thanks for the heads up. And yeah, I definitely agree that it's not healthy at all to be saying those things to children. I'd argue even for any adult it's not healthy. Too much focus on sin and fear of hell can lead to scrupulosity and take away from the greatest message - which is that God loves us and that our journey to seeking goodness and truth is one that is constant, with many expected set backs and stumbles. And that's ok.

[Mister Agenda]

The universe is a mixture of chaos and order.  The existence of chaos defines the existence of order, and vice versa.  You want to champion half of that equation.  You wish away the chaos because the lack of control that implies scares you.  Departing from reason into a worldview based upon the mysterious interventions of a mysterious spook isn't making an existential choice, it's abandoning existence as it is for a fairy tale.  You want reality to be simpler and cleaner than it is.  You embrace the lie that it is.   Existence and reason are messy business and that bothers you.  Well, tough shit.  Get over it.  You haven't made a positive choice, investing in the efficacy of reason.  You've plastered over the reality with your wishful thinking.   And why?  Apparently the true face of reality bothers you.  Or maybe you're just following the primrose path that your investment in outdated metaphysics has led you to.   Either way, I don't care.  You are the enemy of reason, not its friend.

I can image pulling a pan from the dishwasher. When I hand it to my wife she’ll ask me if it is clean or dirty. If I reply that part of it is clean and part of it is dirty then I’m pretty sure she’ll tell me that that it’s a dirty pan. Other than that your thoughtless, incoherent rant deserves no reply.

If part of the pan is actually clean and part of the pan is actually dirty, your wife is wrong. It's fine for purposes of indicating that the pan requires more cleaning to be 'all clean', but it's certainly not 'all dirty' just because your wife says so as a shorthand for 'not clean to my standards'. Unless she has a Trump-like personality defect, if pressed she ought to be capable of acknowledging the fact that part of the pan is, indeed, clean.

You're bringing casual usage of language to a philosophical discussion like it's supposed to prove something and you're calling Jormungandr thoughtless and incoherent? Wow.

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That's what we're saying though lol. We're saying that most parents don't tell their 2 year olds about sin.  

But most of the ones who do are Christians.

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It just seems like some of you are trying to push this idea that Christian parents generally scare and traumatize their toddlers and very young children with deep talks about sinfulness and Hell, which simply isn't the case.

How many should it be before we're justified in thinking that it happens too much?

[Catholic_Lady]

Well that's not fair. I never said you're not justified in thinking it happens too much. One time would be too much.

[Neo-Scholastic]

I've never heard of The Good News club. But I don't get around that much.

[Nay_Sayer]

Well that's not fair. I never said you're not justified I'm thinking it happens too much. One time would be too much.

Think that's unfair? Imagine being a child in a  3rd world country quietly crying out to a god as you die from hunger in a mosquito infested hut, Then getting to the gates only to find out you get to suffer more because oops, Your tribe didn't worship jesus, tough luck kid.

Anyway, The only morality as that correct is dictated by the infallible FSM.

[emjay]

I have no experience of Catholicism which sounds worse, given all the ritual etc that has to be learnt, but as a former Protestant, when I was about fourteen I went through weeks or months of inconsolable terror and nightmares at the prospect of hell because I thought I'd committed the unforgivable sin and blasphemed the Holy Spirit. I don't remember how I got through that but the point is it was an experience I did not need to have, and shouldn't have had,  because I never truly chose Christianity in the first place... never chose it as an informed decision of adulthood.

I'm sorry emjay, that sounds truly terrible.  




The sect I was brought up in, and I sometimes forget but Catholics really vary from sect to sect (Like Franciscans, Jesuits, Dominican) was not big on talking about hell, or sin, when I was a kid.  I really feel lucky about that.  I know a lot of people are not so lucky.
Thanks for sharing.

Thanks Aroura

Well I don't really remember there being much talk of hell per se in my upbringing... as opposed to how you guys describe Catholicism and that 'Good News Club'. Ie I think the above was my own imagination more than anything else, following on from conclusions I had reached about committing the unforgivable sin. But nonetheless, the ideas that led to that were in place and they didn't need to be. My upbringing was very anti-ritual/graven images... so the more a church had those aspects the less it was trusted and therefore most of the churches we went to were very simple places, most of which without their own building, just renting it from somewhere, where it was just a meeting of the minds but without so much as a crucifix on the wall. So in stark contrast to Catholicism, which sounds a hell of a lot worse in the sense of ideas drummed in, and that 'Good News Club' which sounds positively disgusting.

Anyway, I'm not faulting the intentions of my family or that community; it was/is a kind community that always had each other's backs. But nonetheless, the kids are dragged along for the ride, without informed consent and that's what I take issue with. If religions left kids out of it, and concentrated their efforts and teachings on converting adults only, I wouldn't mind so much. In practice there's perhaps not that much you could do to change that and reduce the exposure that kids have to its ideas... given that its where the parents interests, beliefs, and sense of community lie and thus to exclude kids from it would end up excluding them from pretty much all of family life which can't be good either. So it's a bit catch 22. But nonetheless, I think it would be a big step if theists would not consider it their responsibility to teach/convert their children to their religion... ie realise that children are dependent, impressionable, imaginative, and lack critical thinking skills so therefore any decisions they come to in that regard do not and cannot represent an informed decision.