Comments: 10 Score: [-] 505 [+].
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Posted: 3 months ago by stinkobinko:
Thanks for posting this. I only hope my own kids will be as grounded in their opinions as this girl. It reminded me of a quote from one of your previous posts. I had to scrounge around for it because it stuck with me. I couldn't remember the exact quote or the article, but I knew it must've been one of your submissions! LOL.
"...belief must not be a reason not to engage in relationship." Further, it seems to me, it should be the impetus.
Score: [-] 131 [+].
Posted: 3 months ago by maven:
I never believed in God. If you don't go to church and get the training, why would you?
Kids are not idiots, they just aren't always given the chance to show what they can learn.
Score: [-] 134 [+].
Posted: 3 months ago by gammerus:
« maven : I never believed in God. If you don't go to church and get the training, why would you?
Kids are not idiots, they just aren't always given the chance to show what they can learn. Church does not equal god, it equals religion. I never went to church as a child, but I believe there is something bigger than us in that sense, I don't know what it is, and I'm not basing my life off of it since I know nothing of it, but I believe that we are not alone.
Score: [-] 43 [+].
Posted: 3 months ago by conguera:
There's really no difference in this little girl and the children of parents who indoctrinate them with their own religious beliefs. She's too young to have a deep understanding of atheism or agnoticism. She's just learned to believe what her parents believe. What she says sounds more like a rejection of religion than a rejection of the existence of a spiritual aspect in the Universe.
She sounds like a lovely, bright child, and I'm sure her views will evolve over time. She's just fine where she is now. It's unfortunate that others cause problems for her because of it.
Score: [-] 28 [+].
Posted: 3 months ago by ahutty:
It just seems bizarre to me that a child should be discriminated against for being an atheist. I certainly never experienced that as a child, a teenager, or as an adult. In high school I had a good friend whom I often debated about religion. We each tried to "convert" one another to our own view, without success.
One day I had another pupil approach me in the library, he was on a "mission" to convert me to Christianity, I guess he was just coming to the age where he had to confidence to start asserting his opinion on others. I looked to a couple of my friends for backup, expecting them to join me in mocking this guy for his religious zeal - they just shrugged and left me to defend my view, it was only then that I started to realise that they came from Christian families and were moderately religious themselves. I thought church was mainly for old people who were stuck in the past. Heaps of the young people I now work with are quite strongly Christian.
I think New Zealand has a reletively high proportion of atheists and agnostics, so being discriminated against for being an atheist just seems odd to me. It just seems weird to me that any nation that has separation of church and state should have a descrimination issue against atheists, but from what I read online it seems to be quite common in the U.S.
Weird.
Score: [-] 60 [+].
Posted: 3 months ago by Doggylives:
« conguera : There's really no difference in this little girl and the children of parents who indoctrinate them with their own religious beliefs. Try saying this again, out loud, and see if it makes sense.
Everyone is born by default as Atheists. No one is born having an innate knowledge of any deities, which is why people take on the god and religion of their parents or the locality in which they live.
If you had kids would you "indoctrinate" them with no belief in the millions of gods that people have and do believe in?
Score: [-] 30 [+].
Posted: 3 months ago by conguera:
« Doggylives : Try saying this again, out loud, and see if it makes sense.
Everyone is born by default as Atheists. No one is born having an innate knowledge of any deities, which is why people take on the god and religion of their parents or the locality in which they live.
If you had kids would you "indoctrinate" them with no belief in the millions of gods that people have and do believe in? But at some point, the child becomes aware that the belief in God and the practice of religion exist in the world. At that point, the child has questions about it and wonders if there's any validity to the concept. The parents give a few simple answers, which seem logical to the child at the time, and the child adopts that thinking. I didn't say (and I don't believe) that the parents "indoctrinated" the child with atheism. I do believe that forcing religion upon a child is indoctrination and, in some cases, brainwashing. I was comparing the two because, in both cases, the child's view's about the existence or non-existence of a deity is shaped by the parents.
I'm sorry that you weren't able to make sense of what I wrote, but couldn't you have considered asking for clarification, rather than using sarcasm?
Score: [-] 25 [+].
Posted: 3 months ago by Doggylives:
« conguera :I didn't say (and I don't believe) that the parents "indoctrinated" the child with atheism. You said, and I quote
There's really no difference in this little girl and the children of parents who indoctrinate them with their own religious beliefs
I was comparing the two because, in both cases, the child's view's about the existence or non-existence of a deity is shaped by the parents.
You can't indoctrinate a child with a non-belief. That's like saying that because my kids know I don't beleive in fairies that I've indoctrinated them.
but couldn't you have considered asking for clarification, rather than using sarcasm?
Sorry, I must have totally missed where I used sarcasm
Score: [-] 0 [+].
Posted: 3 months ago by conguera:
« Doggylives : You said, and I quote
You can't indoctrinate a child with a non-belief. That's like saying that because my kids know I don't beleive in fairies that I've indoctrinated them.
Sorry, I must have totally missed where I used sarcasm I also wrote, in #8:
I didn't say (and I don't believe) that the parents "indoctrinated" the child with atheism.
Score: [-] 0 [+].
Posted: 3 months ago by chilehead:
The world will be a much better place when most children believe as this young girl does.
Score: [-] 0 [+].
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