This thread is the greatest disappointment I have ever been subjected to. I mean I read on page by page post by post anger boiling away, formulating in my mind a compelling, intelligent argument to complete destroy the ignorance... and then I get hit with the revelation of joke accounts. Negative stars :P
If I raise my kids Christian, but physically and emotionally abuse them, I am as good a parent as a non-(physically/emotionally) abusive Jewish/Muslim/Atheist parent.
I'm too lazy to look through the rest of the religious jeering and so on and whatever. But, has anyone said that people like Richard Dawkins actually consider raising a child by teaching him religion intellectual abuse, because the child is imbibed with beliefs of the parents before the child has the ability to reason or think for him/herself?
But the same happens with not believing in god if you're raised by atheists, so it's a double-edged sword. Parents pass on many of their beliefs in every area to their children. That's just how it is. Sometimes children change their views away from those of their parents as they get older, usually they don't. To say that raising your children religious is child abuse and raising them atheist isn't is equivalent to saying that atheism is somehow better than religion. While I personally agree on that point, I don't think you can define child abuse by the beliefs parents pass on to their children, because people can't really control their own beliefs.
In this case you can because believing in God is irrational and thus immoral. However, you don't teach your child that god doesn't exist. You just teach and instill in them the values of rational thought, the scientific method, etc. You teach them to look at and understand the world through reason and they will come to the correct conclusions. Children should come to their own conclusions about the world through their own thought process not through being told "because I said so" by parents or teachers.
I read the entire Bible and never found the words "immortal soul" in it. On the other hand, it is written in the Bible that the soul is indeed mortal.
I see that. I just don't see the connection between the two. Sure, you've explained it to me a thousand times, but it still seems like a not very good standard for morality.
The correct conclusion being that God doesn't exist? That still seems to me like a form of ideological conditioning. I would just say raise a child with the beliefs you hold dear and the understanding that you will always love them regardless of what they say or do. I think the real 'abuse' element comes in when you dictate your beliefs to your children without flexibility or understanding. They will eventually become adults and will be able to decide for themselves, provided you equipped them with the right education and perspective. As someone pointed out, you can't control your own beliefs. I think this idea of abusing kids with ideologies is ludicrous and symptomatic of the ridiculously over-precautious culture in which we live. I also think the irrational=immoral definition is freaking hilarious.
To the first part: Yes. To the last part: That's what I said. Teach them to use their minds and think rationally. False. You can easily control your own beliefs. Beliefs are the result of the process of the human mind, which is dynamic. They are not static or instinctual, nor are they hardwired into your brain. Actions stem from beliefs. If it were true that people couldn't control their own beliefs, we would have no basis for a legal system. We would have no basis to say any action was ever right or wrong. There can be no right or wrong if people have no control over their beliefs (and thus actions). A person's philosophical outlook on life (their "beliefs") is extremely important (as I pointed out above). Sabotaging a child's mind might as well be a capital offense. From the little bit of interaction we've had, I can't say that I'm surprised. Man's only means of survival is through his faculty of reason and rational thought. Any reasonable morality must necessarily use man's life/survival as its basic standard of value. Therefore, for an action to be moral, it must be rational.
Not quite true. Murderers and thieves are an obvious impediment to a functioning society and thus should be incarcerated for practical reasons whether they can control themselves or not. After all, we remove criminally insane people (who afaik can't control their beliefs/actions) from society to prevent them from becoming a menace.
Since religion likely came about because it helped people survive at least originally... you can't blanketly call it irrational. I do agree though that at this point it is fairly irrational. Not immoral, though. Your argument doesn't hold.
Your argument goes in a circle. 1. Man's only survival means is his reason (a claim which I dispute, but will accept here for the sake of argument). 2. In order for a morality to be reasonable, it must use man's survival means as a standard. 3. The survival means is reason. 4. So: any reasonable morality must use reason as its standard. Well, of course. You've defined it that way.
You can't say that. He's wrong, but just because he's immoral doesn't mean he can't disucss morality. Show me a great ethicist in history who lived a perfectly straight life, and I'll show you a fish that can talk.
You're sabotaging a child's mind, but that doesn't mean they can't recover from it. Children are extremely impressionable and it's vital that they are given a proper outlook on life. If children get the idea that things are as they are for arbitrary reasons (mysticism, absurdism, etc.) they could be fighting a long uphill battle in their life. There certainly are some heroic children who overcome this childhood mutilation, but the adults who perpetrate the abuse are some of the worst people in the world. It's similar to a situation where you have two (or more) choices of doors to go through. Someone else goes completely out of their way to block one or more of the doors, putting traps, blockades, etc. You still can overcome those things and make it through the door, but for most they simply go through the easier door.
Religion is irrational because it is based entirely on the idea of something that cannot be proven. It is the complete antithesis of the scientific (rational) method. I would argue that religion was never helpful for survival. Organized religion was helpful to despots, tyrants, and kings looking to hold their power over uneducated masses. From an individual's standpoint of survival there is no benefit of religion. Using it as a psychological crutch is simply covering up other problems and not actually fixing them.
It's not a circle, it's just fairly obvious. I'm not defining man's only survival means as reason, I'm able to prove it. I'm not defining morality as needing survival as a basic standard of value, I'm proving it. Man's only tool for survival is rational thought and his ability to reason (and everything that stems from this, namely technology). This is what separates man from other animals. We do not have sharp claws, sharp teeth, we are not incredibly fast, we are not incredibly strong. We do not rely on hardwired instincts. Man must learn everything (including things as basic as how to focus our eyes). We survive solely by our ability to reason. What would be the point of a morality that doesn't aim to ensure survival? I could go on with this particular point for a while, but I'm not going to here. Perhaps I will later.
You haven't proven anything. You have made an analytic, tautological statement: For a morality to be reasonable, it must rely on reason. That's all you've done. Here's what you need to show to make your argument stand up: 1. That man's sole means of surivival is through reason. You've stated that we don't have claws but have a big brain and that's the only way to get us through. That isn't proof that reason is the only or sole means of surivival. 2. That moraity must be related to survival. You've stated that it would be pointless. How? Why? In the first point, you're trying to distance us from animals categorically. In the second point, you're trying to say that what our morality tries to ensure is the exact same thing that animal instincts try to ensure. Reason separates us from animals, but it aims at the same goal as their instincts? You might think that your moral scheme is really interesting, novel, and watertight, but it's based on a few assertions and a tautology. Your conclusion might be right but it certainly does not follow from the premises you've laid out so far.
This. Although, it's hard to say where you draw the line as to what is good for them to have hardwired into their brain from an early age (say, look both ways before crossing the street) and what might not be good (worship this god or it will put you in a place of smoke and fire and burning forever and ever until the end of time where mommy and daddy won't be there to save you from the things that go bump in the night, etc. etc.)
I suppose the question then becomes, how does religion impede man's survival? You can mention war and strife, but everybody knows conflicts arise regardless of the secularity of the beliefs involved. Take away religion and people would just believe in something else and choose to fight over that, it's human nature. Which brings me to my real (and admittedly, quite unacademic) objection to the notion that ration=moral. I don't believe humans are rational beings. I don't dispute rational thought plays a significant role in our survival as a species, but I think fundamentally, humans are strange, illogical and irrational beings. I'm of the mind humanity is defined by the irrational If the rational/moral relationship exists, it can then be posited that we are hardwired to destroy ourselves. I actually believe that we are, but I'm guessing that given your argument's focus on survival that you believe otherwise, so why would we be programmed to destroy ourselves? I know that line of thinking is dependent on the notion that humans aren't rational, but I don't see how you can say that they are. How many people are actually rational, behave rationally, decide, think and process rationally? I have the vanity to consider myself a person of above average intelligence and a morally upstanding individual but I don't think I behave, decide or think rationally. I know I can and do on occasion, but by and large, I consider myself an irrational being and I view morality as an irrational phenomenon. I mean, I'm not going to argue with you here, because this is such a core belief of mine that nothing is ever likely to change it (<= irrational), but I'm just curious because this notion is so completely and utterly against what I understand regarding humanity.
This was actually a pretty lackluster troll job. I can't believe you guys fell for it when the opening post was completely obvious and did nothing to hide its inclinations.
Fuck Jesus. OP makes me sick. As old as this thread may be, I actually want to kick the shit out of that Timothy kid. People like that make me so angry
