http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/columnists/story.html?id=7ee3f5eb-d7db-45fd-838c-75c1023077e3

All it illustrates is that children will pick up ideas from their environments and it isn’t wrong for the parent to participate. I would argue that point more strongly but anyway…

“Reason, Faith, and Revolution”…a gem…classic Eagleton – witty and erudite.

For a more in-depth historical discussion David Bentley Hart spits hot fire in “Athiest Delusions”…

Here goes anyway.

I’m struggling with the concept of there being 2 types of people – evidence-based and faith-based. Surely there is only one type of person and that is faith-based. You either have faith that God exists or you have faith that he doesn’t.

Evidence is a misnomer as no person on this planet can prove to any other person on this planet, without any shadow of a doubt, that God does or does not exist.

If you can’t prove something exists, you have to have faith that it does or does not.

God exists for a believer because they have seen evidence of him in their life just as a none believer doesn’t believe in God as they haven’t seen any evidence of him in their life.

Both believer and none believer are both working on evidence they see, it’s just the interpretation that differs and this interpretation is based on their faith.

Evidence doesn’t determine your faith, your faith determines what you’re being told by the evidence you see.

I’m not trying to preach but just trying to say that I see a massive hole in the theory that only religious people have faith in God. Everyone has faith in God, be it faith he exists or faith that he doesn’t. We’re ALL working on faith here.

And this leads nicely to the idea that Richard Dawkins is so open minded that he will change his mind if someone proves to him the existence of God. He knows full well that God only exists to you if you have faith in his existence. He’s playing a game of “which of the 3 cups is the pea under”. There are only 3 ways Gods existence an be proved to him:

1. A “Paul on the road to Damascus” moment
2. He stops trying to disprove God and just believes in God
3. He dies.

What difference would Rihard Dawkins belief that God does exist make to an atheist anyway. Would it change the belief of a single atheist?

And another thing.

It struck me when reading these blogs that at no point has anyone mentioned the Devil! It’s all about God.

If God does exist, then surely the Devil must also exist.

And if the Devil exists, then surely he will make out that God does not.

And if the Devil does make out that God does not exist then hey presto, You’re an atheist.

Seriously though, Christianity tells us that the Devil is a lier and a deceiver and if he’s any good at it, which he will be, then surely he can make any evidence disprove God.

It’s just strange to me that Everyone goes straight to disproving God, who is there for our good (whether you like it or not), rather than start with the Devil and try to disprove him first. For if you first try to disprove God before trying to prove the Devil then surely you’re allowing the Devil a sure fire way of giving you evidence to disprove Gods existence which in turn will lead you to not believe in the very thing that causes you not to believe, i.e. the Devil.

The Devil will still exist, it’s just that he has successfully allowed you to disprove his own existence without you even trying.

Surely we should be proving the existence of the Devil before attempting to disprove the existence of God for with the Devils help it’s easy to disprove God.

How does the saying go? Oh yes, “The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist”

It’s easy to disprove the existence of God but try disproving the existence of the Devil. Now that’s another story altogether.

“Johnny’s dad said that JC is BS and then he let us watch The Hills! He’s the coolest!”

This might not happen in all religions but I know it happens in many of them. This is the reason why there are things like youth groups. The idea is not to let young children strike out on their own and proselytize with their limited knowledge (lest they fail). The idea is to keep them all together to prevent them from coming up with stuff on their own.

My father was somehow able to teach me good morals and values without once invoking or denying any sort of supernatural being. He also taught me everything he knows about wood working and car repair. As an adult I can barely hammer a nail without bashing my thumb and I wouldn’t even know where to locate the spark plugs in my current car but I rarely steal from or murder other people. I guess he did something right.

My children would have no idea if I’m an atheist or otherwise. Thanks to the way schools are now they will likely never feel the need to ask. Now if someday they come to me saying that they’ve decided to become an _blankyologist or whatever that’d be super fine with me. They’ll just need to bring the big guns out because the old man likes to debate that kinda stuff.

Now indoctrination denyers answer me this. If your child comes up and asks you if it’s alright to steal what is your response? Do you carry on about how Blizblaz and Himham spoke with a magical goat on the enchanted mountain who advised them not to steal or to you stick to the facts? In my mind one answer is indoctrination one is not.

P.s. I have only read very little from the bible so I have no idea if there is a passage about magic goats, I just needed an example.

“What would make you question your faith? Question the existence of God? What could I show you?”
Even if this is meant rhetorically, it doesn’t seem like a helpful question to me. Someone who can’t think of anything that would question their faith isn’t necessarily close minded. Someone else could present a case that that would make them ask questions. I can’t think of an argument that would make me question whether 2 plus 2 is 4 and I shouldn’t be expected to come up with one. If you have an argument, by all means present it. I myself question my faith and the existence of God all the time. I’m more interested in a discussion that will help me come to terms with the questions and hopefully find some answers.

Also, the indoctrination of children question seems unsatisfying to me. The term “indoctrination” has strong negative overtones, but I think it is a parent’s duty to pass their knowledge on to their children and put more emphasis on their beliefs than others. After all should the parent’s experience be completely meaningless beyond themselves? Should a child have to learn everything from their own experience? I agree that they ultimately will have to make their own decision and being dogmatic isn’t helpful. I would be surprised to learn that Richard Dawkins wouldn’t emphasize his beliefs to his children. Would he be open to his children picking some version of theism? The venom in his videos (he seems beyond grumpy to me) makes me think that is very unlikely. Then are we saying that theists should be held to a different standard? Or is Dawkins simply a poor or non-representative evangelist?

I think this hypothesis is largely disproved by the significant growth of Christianity in non-Christian nations like India and China.

Dawkins oversimplifies the argument by focusing on the small scale of the family, instead of the larger scale of the culture, which is a mistake as many studies show that peer influences are much stronger than non-genetic parental influences on children. However, he’s obviously got a point about religion being a culturally inherited quality, as a quick glance of a map of the geographic distribution of world religions demonstrates. Europe and the areas conquered by Europeans in the Americas, Australia, and some parts of Africa and Asia are largely Christian, while the Arabian peninsula, North Africa, and large parts of Central Asia are largely Islamic, and so forth. If every person decided their own religion through reason, independent of cultural influences, then we wouldn’t see such tremendous clustering in the distribution of beliefs.

Of course, one culture can displace or influence another, as the gradual conversion the original Eastern Mediterranean and North African homelands of Christianity to Islam in the centuries after the Arab conquests shows. Economic and cultural influences can also introduce a religion into another country. Countries near the Roman Empire, like Armenia and Ethiopia, became Christian, and China’s cultural influence brought Buddhism into Japan and other neighboring countries, as adopting the knowledge and skills of more advanced cultures made one more likely to succeed in life. The current dominance of Western civilization and the realization of people in countries like China and India that they need to adopt Western habits to compete in the global economy has the same effect as ancient China or Rome’s cultural influence on their neighbors.

My point about tone is that he undoes his own intentions, or at least the intentions he claims to have. Why would his target audience – Christians he wants to become Atheists – read past the first few chapters? Ok, why have I read past the first few chapters? Atheism seemed like an interesting next thing to study and I go on 1 to 2 to 3 year cycles of study.

I’m not a student or a full-time academic; I’m just a curious guy with a day-job who enjoys trying to figure things out.

I do not see faith and reason as enemies. They coax each other. There are people who are exclusively “evidence-based” (claiming not to need faith) and those who exclusively “faith-based” (claiming not to need evidence) but most of us are a mixture of the two.

I have heard of the Templeton but I don’t know a lot about it. I am hearing a lot about it in TGD though – and none of it good obviously!

Deryck Beyleveld wrote “The Dialectical Necessity of Morality — An Analysis and Defense of Alan Gewirth’s Argument to the Principle of Generic Consistency” just for you.

It’s the best and cleanest argument I’ve been able to find. It requires no concessions to belief at all, except the belief that you exist, that language communicates, and that others think the way you do.

The basics.

Ormond

If you think Dawkins is arrogant and egotistical, try reading “The Extended Phenotype” which he bills as a book for his peers.

Like Chomsky on deep linguistic structure, you can’t really appreciate Dawkins without reading his work on genetics and evolution. I learned a little from it, so I’ll keep referring back to it.

When you have people with this kind of talent, quibbling about their tone of voice seems to miss the point about genius. Dawkins and Chomsky are way ahead of us. It must be very frustrating to have to constantly wait for us to understand.

One other point. The Templeton Prize. Have you read any of the winning work? Con jobs. Obvious pandering to the Intelligent Design segment of collapsed mentality.

Hang in there, Mike. You should carry this blog until you finally realize that the real “two types of people” are evidence-based and faith-based, and I think eventually evidence-based has to win.

Flat-earth vs nukes. No contest. Same results in intellectual argument. You do understand that this ground has been plowed before?

To tell you the truth I haven’t considered morality apart from religion and I haven’t come to that chapter in TGD yet. So your read on my worrying about my identity is not accurate I’m afraid. It might be the case when I get to it but so far it’s not.

This is an educational experience for me and conversing with all of you is a great help.

I read a column by Hitchens (on Paris Hilton no less) and it pushed me a bit more towards reading his book. “Sheer expertise of the language” is right. And I laughed out loud at his column at lunch today, and I’m sure the other people in the room found that a little odd.

I’m reading P.J. O’Rourke right now too so I’ve L(ing).O.L quite a bit lately.

You are worried that your identity will fall apart without a morality, and you are worried that without religion you can’t have morality, and therefore you just follow the well trodden path.

Teaching a kid to think well is the job of parents, but if you haven’t learned to think well, then you make excuses, because what could be worse than an unqualified parent.

If you’re worried about your kids, don’t. They’re not going to be your peer group, and more importantly, you aren’t going to be their peer group. Each generation should receive the best wisdom of their elders. Religion isn’t the best wisdom these days.

Time to catch the reason train, Mike. But another will be along in a while.

Hitchens’ book is worth reading for the quality of the arguments and rhetoric, and the sheer expertise of the language. Really. I know he’s a drunk, and I can hardly understand him, he mumbles so, but he’s a brilliant thinker, and well worth reading.

ormond@mail.com

I think one good thing to keep in mind is that Dawkins isn’t always talking about ALL Christians or ALL atheists. He doesn’t mean that every single Christian became a Christian through childhood indoctrination; it is, however, a common way to come to that set of beliefs. Similarly, when he uses derogitory names, it’s probably not addressed to people like you who are actually willing to think. I agree that he didn’t need to be such a dick (no pun intended) about it, though.

Dawkins’ grumpy manner may be best explained by the way atheists have been shunned in many spheres and religious leaders given special attention. This may be a fair comment, depending on the circumstances, but sooner or later atheists have got to get over this point if they want to have any true sharing of ideas with people of religion (and many say they don’t).

On another issue, as Michael says, parents have a duty to pass on their best wisdom and values to their children, so why would they not expose them to their religion? Dawkins is also tarring everyone with the same brush. Yes, millions of believers do essentially brainwash their children (though they wouldn’t describe it as such). But many moderate believers, especially in Western democracies, allow their offspring to openly question these beliefs, especially as they mature and many kids end up as non-believers of one degree or another.

This brings me to my biggest problem with Dawkins, which is his refusal to brook any compromise or alliance with religious moderates. Despite his specious argument about all theists carrying a virus-like “meme” that transmits the need to believe like a disease, his position has no scientific or even rational basis, and is really just a prejudice.

Like other prejudices, it hurts the “cause” of atheism but, more important, it undermines the ability of Dawkins’ followers to join ranks against the excesses of religious extremists, whether Muslim or Christian. (Other atheists proponents, like Hitchens, for example, whil spewing even more vitriol, when push comes to shove on real-world issues have litle problems making such compromises (even if it led Hitch to his controversial support of George Bush’s war on Iraq).

JE

Please find a refreshingly different way of teaching children of all ages how to Remember and Be the Divine Mystery.

1. http://www.dabase.org/happytxt.htm

Also Real God Cannot Be Proven

2. http://www.dabase.org/rgcbpobk.htm

And on understanding and transcending the mommy-daddy parental diety of exoteric religion.

3. http://www.aboutadidam.org/readings/parental_deity/index.html

Would there be a problem with calling a child ‘a non believer in fairies’ or a ‘non alcoholic’? No, because it doesn’t define a way of life.

As for your own child’s experience, I won’t comment, I feel bad enough already for bringing it up…But I’ll give you an example. I attended a public school in the UK, as with all public schools, religion and church was an important part of the educational process. But no one really paid any attention to it. But as time went by, especially for the younger kids, they started not be de-sensitized to religion and religious beliefs. That was the problem. Having faith in the absence of evidence was not seen as a bad thing. I don’t believe that any child, exposed to that kind of thinking, will not be influenced by it, no matter how mild the situation seems. Kids at that age have not developed an intellectual armor, they are unable to think about concepts rationally. That’s the worry that I have.