Atheists. Its time to turn the spotlight on you.

[Soxafloppin]

Do Atheist parents have the right to force Atheism on their children? well my parents made me go to church and i dont believe in god, so i dont think it matters

How many of you will raise your child not to belive in a god? I probley will.

How many of you will raise your child with knowledge of God? (Without making fun of it while you teach it.) His/her school teacher can do that part!

How many of you will take your children to church? Not I.

How many of you will raise your children to make their own decission, like you had? Me!

How many think that your child will be Atheist? Most likely, i dont know many christian children.

Let's be honest. No matter what you do, your child will almost certainly be Athist. Because thats the house hold they grew up in. So did you think you forced it on them? i wont force anything, religeon just wont be part of there lives!

 

[Sgt. Dante]

Do Atheist parents have the right to force Atheism on their children?

A: No more than Christian/Catholic/Muslim/Jewish/whatever parents have the right to force their religion on their child.

How many of you will raise your child not to belive in a god?

A: I will raise my child to be open to ideas, and allow it to make it's own desicion in it's own time.

How many of you will raise your child with knowledge of God? (Without making fun of it while you teach it.)

A: I will, I fully believe that to make an informed choice you have to have as much information as possible. My child will have knowledge of several religions and gods.

How many of you will take your children to church?

A: If they ask me to take them, I will.

How many of you will raise your children to make their own decission, like you had?

A: Definately, I was rasied in a home that didn't really discuss religion so I came to alot of my own conclusions, I will talk things over with my child, but i will allow them to make up their own minds.

How many think that your child will be Atheist?

A: In all likelyhood they will end up Atheist, as it is quickly gaining steam as a thought process, the numbers of people who are openly atheists has risen DRASTICALLY in the last hundred years where 99% of people went to church every week.

Let's be honest. No matter what you do, your child will almost certainly be Athist. Because thats the house hold they grew up in. So did you think you forced it on them?

A: I would hate it if my child didn't believe in their beliefs. But being a non-believer my child will likely end up with similar beliefs. But they will always be free to question my ideas and beliefs and i like to think i'd always answer in an honest and (mostly) unbiased manner.

 

[Duke Flipside]

>Do Atheist parents have the right to force Atheism on their children?
>>Much in the same way as religious parents don't have the right to force their religion on their children, atheist parents don't have the right to force their lack of belief upon their children.

>How many of you will raise your child not to believe in a god?
>>I'm a scientist, and as such I'll raise my kids to look at the evidence all around us and come to their own conclusions. This is what led me to doubt that there are any supernatural forces. I would simply hope that my kids reach the same conclusion.

>How many of you will raise your child with knowledge of God? (Without making fun of it while you teach it.)
>>I'll raise my kids with knowledge of religion, if that's what you mean. I'll teach them that there are many different types of belief system.

>How many of you will take your children to church?
>>Not regularly; I might take them once or twice to show them what it's like. Or if we're on holiday and there's a pretty cathedral to look at.

>How many of you will raise your children to make their own decision, like you had?
>>I wasn't raised to make my own decision, I actually went to a religious school; gotta love kids though, even at seven I realised what I was being taught didn't make sense But like I said above, I'll teach my kids that there are many types of religion, and many people who don't believe in any sort of god as well, and I'll let them decide what seems to make the most sense to them.

>How many think that your child will be Atheist?
>>Probably.

>Let's be honest. No matter what you do, your child will almost certainly be Athist. Because that's the house hold they grew up in. So did you think you forced it on them?
>>I agree, but there's a difference in raising them having presented the facts and letting them make their own decision, rather than having my kid come home saying "Daddy, I wanna be a Christian!" and me scalding them and giving a long lecture on how Christians are wrong and atheists are right. In the latter case I could be said to be forcing it on them; atheism is a bit harder to "force" upon people though, given it's simply the lack of belief, and there are no little rituals to do perform like going to church, prayer, etc.

 

[muffincakes]

I like it. This is like a Hypocrite store with the shelves stocked for massive sales. Reading over the responses, the one used the most goes along the lines of 'I won't force anything on my children and I'll let them make their own decisions.' And that's just dandy. However, assuming these are the same people who posted on the other religious threads(sorry, I didn't take the time to check), the same people who were stating that religion is only believed by stupid people, or people who are ignorant, etc...and they vehemently expressed their negative opinions on religion.

However, now they are saying that they would never force their beliefs on others, like their children. I mean, they will probably go with a 'that's not EXACTLY how I said it' defense, but that's just BS and everyone knows it. Basically though, what they are saying, is that they won't force their ideas on their children, they will just call them stupid idiots, and wonder how they raised a child with no common sense, and how can you believe this shit when there is obviously no God, I mean what has God ever done for our family, so forth and so on. I don't know, to me, that seems a lot like forcing it on them. You can say it's their choice, but if I say do this or suffer a life of ridicule and humiliation from those who are supposed to care about you, that doesn't allow for much of a choice.

Oh well, I'm just calling you all out, you lying hypocrites who hide behind your inability to listen to others because you know everything, after all, you created the world didn't you so of course things could not have gone any other way than the way you believe it did. All of you, deserve bad things to happen to you for being so two-faced and then having the audacity to say 'who me?'

OT, I will raise my children to believe the same thing that I believe, because, unlike the hypocrites, if I believe something is true, then I will teach my children the same thing, because they deserve to know the truth as well. No, that doesn't mean I will force it on them, but I will teach them, not just go 'whatever you learn on your own son, that's what you should believe.'

 

[Palindromemordnilap_v1legacy]

Do Atheist parents have the right to force Atheism on their children?

How many of you will raise your child not to belive in a god?

How many of you will raise your child with knowledge of God? (Without making fun of it while you teach it.)

How many of you will take your children to church?

How many of you will raise your children to make their own decission, like you had?

How many think that your child will be Atheist?

Let's be honest. No matter what you do, your child will almost certainly be Athist. Because thats the house hold they grew up in. So did you think you forced it on them?

1. No, just as religious groups do not have the right to force their beliefs on children. It works both ways like that, I'm not a hypocrite who doesn't see that

2. I will tell my child that I personally do not believe in God, but not that there isn't one

3. Schools will undoubtedly do that for me, for the most part, but I would answer any question asked to the best of my ability

4. If they want to go to church, I would take them, but I would not join the service myself

5. Of course I would let them make their own choice

6. Probably

7. Not really. Of course, I don't have kids so this is hypothetical, but I believe they'll have made the choice themselves

 

[Spacelord]

"Inspired" by the Right of parents to force their religion on their children thread. I feel its time to turn the tables.

Try answering the questionS.

Well, I guess I can give a crack at it!

Atheists

Who, me?

Do Atheist parents have the right to force Atheism on their children?

Huh? I suppose so. They also have the right to force children to eat with cutlery, and to make 'em sit in a corner when they've been bad. I believe it's called parenting.

How many of you will raise your child not to belive in a god?

what, me? I'll answer any and all questions to the best of my ability. By then my son/daughter will probably be more capable of using whatever new media we'll have by then, so he/she will probably answer most questions themselves using hyperpedia (that's like wikipedia only you download all the information right into your brain with a jackplug, yeah we'll have it by the time I have children). I already own a Bible, might consider getting a Torah and a Quran as well I guess. Or maybe like a children's encyclopedia on theology or something. I myself will be as neutral as I can possibly be in my explanations. I have no interest in forbidding any type of belief system my hypothetical children may have an interest in, since it goes against my principles. I don't believe in censorship.

How many of you will raise your child with knowledge of God? (Without making fun of it while you teach it.)

I don't know how many.

I don't really understand the question. Knowledge of God? What does that mean? It sounds like a contradiction. Wasn't belief in God exactly that: a belief? Faith, rather than actual knowledge?
Perhaps you mean whether I'll tell my children that there are a lot of people that believe in God. Sure, if they ask. I don't really think I can keep a fact like that hidden from them too long anyway (especially since I expect to father some exceptionally precocious children). Not that I'd have any interest at all in doing so in any case.

How many of you will take your children to church?

23,7% of 'us'.

If they asked, I'd take 'em to the local church, I guess. I'm actually rather curious myself. And if they don't I'll be damned if I'm not going to drag them to 'boring' cathedrals and ancient churches while on holiday even if they don't want to. I love those places.

How many of you will raise your children to make their own decission, like you had?

I think I answered this question already. Yes. Yes, I'll encourage them to make up their own minds. That's not to say I won't teach them the difference between a good point and a bad point. I do believe that everyone needs to be taught critical thinking. So I guess that, yeah, I'll indoctrinate them a little, by teaching them about logical fallacies and the like.

How many think that your child will be Atheist?

I expect that they will eventually hold a fairly secular outlook on life.

Let's be honest. No matter what you do, your child will almost certainly be Athist. Because thats the house hold they grew up in. So did you think you forced it on them?

Not really. I probably won't yell at my kid when he/she tells me they're gay, jewish, protestant, or a scientologist. No wait I think I will yell at them when they tell me they've joined the church of scientology. In fact I'll have to open up a can o' whoopass.


So, um... happy?

 

[Ossum]

I'll let them believe what they want... Are we going to do this thread one religion at a time?

Atheism is not a religion.

I'm actually getting quite sick of this. Atheism is not an organised religion. Religion is just choosing what to believe and what not to believe. Atheism is a religion, and it's a damn hypocritical one at that.

I'm gonna let my kids choose, but I'm going to introduce them to the cold, hard realities of logic and fact last, because I want my kids to be kids, and cold cynic isn't that.

Atheism is not a religion just as a hole in the ground is not a lake. Lack of belief in a deity = no religion. Lack of water in a hole = no lake.

If you believe otherwise then my bike is a motorcycle even though it lacks an engine, my paycheck is sizeable even though it lacks a decent wage, and my sex life is wild even though it lacks frequent partners.

EDIT: Ninja'd. Damn you, Cakes! I thought you were a lie.

No, no, no! Atheism is not a religion. It is the belief that there is no god. Did you ever consider the atheist religions, like Buddhism? And please don't say that Buddha is a god, he is not a god. There are other religions that have no overarching supreme being that can still be considered religions.

Um, I was actually agreeing that atheism isn't a religion. However, it's not the belief there is no god, since that implies a belief of some kind. Atheism is simply the lack of belief, just like I don't believe in a magical space teapot because there's no evidence for it.

 

[ben---neb]

Snip

So what you're saying is that god got pissed off with his 'creation' which he didn't make perfect? (and if god is infact perfect then he would know they would do this) THEN he continues to punish 'his creations' that didn't even know of the original 2 or probably have no care for them in the first place?

Does anyone else see the huge flaw in this?

It basically boils down to this:

Assuming there is indeed a god, he is either,
(a) Perfect, in which he created his humans to have flaws, to be able to be gay, or even going back to what ben said, corruptable (adam and eve) and knew that it would happen this way (to be perfect you would have to always know the outcome.) In which case being gay isn't a 'sin' (unless he is actually a vindictive entity who likes to cause us to suffer.)

or

(b) He is not perfect, in which case he is an entity which may have started the ball rolling or created us, to which we should be thankful, but not worth devoting our very existance to.

Either way, if you look back to when the bible and the 10 commandments came out, IF followed, would create a peaceful place to live without fear. Reguardless of where it came from. (Tho some of its alittle odd)

You are laying the blame at God's door for what is essentially Man's fault. Look at it this way. When God created Adam and Eve he gave them free will to decide what to do themselves. They choose to disobey the only command God had ever given them at that point in time.

God created mankind with the ability to disobey him but we didn't have to. Why he did so when he knew what would happen is a mystery that I'll admit I can't explain. But that doesn't absolve you or any or us from our responsibilities to our Creator. He made us, he created this universe for us and as such deserves at the very least our respect, even our complete obediance.

To put it another way: who are you to question God? The being that created the entire universe by his word, in hte space of six days and it was all very good. What gives you hte right to question a God of such greatness, or such wisdom and power?

 

[Swaki]

religion have always interested me event thou i don't believe in a god or any thing supernatural, and if i get a kid i will teach him/her something that many religions are against such as same sex marriage, tell him sex before marriage is perfectly fine as long as they use protection (if i get a daughter i will teach her that if she has sex before 5 years into marriage its evil and will hurt me deeply) and i will tell them that im not religious but i will support them if they choose a religion.

 

[PartyMonkey]

I lack Religion...I do believe that it is made up of liars/liers (I have actually been thinking about how to spell the word.). I was raised in a strong Christian family where I didn't have a choice of Religion so had it forced on me for all my life without fully understanding or fully believing. I will give my child the choice whether or not they wanna believe in the bull crap or not. It is their choice...like I don't walk up to Christians in the street and go join the Atheist believe system and be a complete arse.

 

[xXGeckoXx]

I will raise the child as a scientist. I will not teach him that there is a god. If he tells me that he has heard of religions and wants to know what they are all about i will tell him but I will tell him why it is scientiffically7 implausible. then once he has been told he can choose.

 

[aruki]

Snip

So what you're saying is that god got pissed off with his 'creation' which he didn't make perfect? (and if god is infact perfect then he would know they would do this) THEN he continues to punish 'his creations' that didn't even know of the original 2 or probably have no care for them in the first place?

Does anyone else see the huge flaw in this?

It basically boils down to this:

Assuming there is indeed a god, he is either,
(a) Perfect, in which he created his humans to have flaws, to be able to be gay, or even going back to what ben said, corruptable (adam and eve) and knew that it would happen this way (to be perfect you would have to always know the outcome.) In which case being gay isn't a 'sin' (unless he is actually a vindictive entity who likes to cause us to suffer.)

or

(b) He is not perfect, in which case he is an entity which may have started the ball rolling or created us, to which we should be thankful, but not worth devoting our very existance to.

Either way, if you look back to when the bible and the 10 commandments came out, IF followed, would create a peaceful place to live without fear. Reguardless of where it came from. (Tho some of its alittle odd)

You are laying the blame at God's door for what is essentially Man's fault. Look at it this way. When God created Adam and Eve he gave them free will to decide what to do themselves. They choose to disobey the only command God had ever given them at that point in time.

God created mankind with the ability to disobey him but we didn't have to. Why he did so when he knew what would happen is a mystery that I'll admit I can't explain. But that doesn't absolve you or any or us from our responsibilities to our Creator. He made us, he created this universe for us and as such deserves at the very least our respect, even our complete obediance.

To put it another way: who are you to question God? The being that created the entire universe by his word, in hte space of six days and it was all very good. What gives you hte right to question a God of such greatness, or such wisdom and power?

What gives me the right? Well how about 'he' gave me the right to choose? How about the fact that he does not show himself yet apparently demands our obediance? How about the fact that the ONLY information available is provided by man, the very creation which has 'sinned ' against him? Should you really believe a book written by man if we are so flawed?

The being that created us in 6 days isn't worth mentioning, because time is relavent, his 6 days could be 60 billion years to us (hence in 6 days making us didn't include the timeline for the dinosaurs). You see I look at it for what is possible, what has been proven and what makes logical sense.

There are tons of questions that get answered as 'its a mystery' or 'its gods will' which for 90% of the time are answers to questions that no matter how you think, make absolutely no sense for a 'god' to do.

Morals and common sense tells you, putting someone into trial for something someone else did is wrong. So punishing everyone for what adam and eve supposedly did is just as wrong. Thats not what a 'loving' god would/should do, thats what a 5 year old throwing his toys out his pram would do.

 

[Merteg]

I am an Atheist.

Did my parents force it on me? I don't think so. They never talked about religion once.

Will I teach it to my children? Maybe, it depends on many things, such as the religious stance of my wife.

 

[Admiral Stukov]

My child can choose their religion, or lack of. I have no right to force anything on them.

this is exactly what i would do, I couldn't care less for other peoples beliefs.
While many atheists say that world wide atheism would be the solution to world peace, keep in mind that Hitler was an atheist.

 

[aruki]

My child can choose their religion, or lack of. I have no right to force anything on them.

this is exactly what i would do, I couldn't care less for other peoples beliefs.
While many atheists say that world wide atheism would be the solution to world peace, keep in mind that Hitler was an atheist.

Wasn't Bush christian right? People of varying stupidity and greed are religious and non religious. If no one believed in any higher unseen being, then all that would happen is that people couldn't use religion or their 'faith' as a scape goat for why they should kill X race or X religion based people.

 

[Skeleon]

While many atheists say that world wide atheism would be the solution to world peace, keep in mind that Hitler was an atheist.

Keep in mind that Hitler's motivation wasn't atheism, though.
His goal was not to propagate atheism throughout the world but his racial and political ideology.
And he was quite fond of the occult.

Anyway, I don't believe atheism would result in world peace. That's pretty short-sighted.
There are plenty of political ideologies to fight over, as well as material gains, land and border disputes... and much, much more.
If you took religion out of the equation, some wars and conflicts would end, true, but humanity has plenty of other stuff to fight about.

 

[Nurb]

oh geez give it a REST.

Athiests have gotten to the point of being as loud and obnoxious as those lippy evangelicals:
-both act outraged at the littlest thing
-both scream at you for being an idiot because you don't think like them
-both think the other shouldn't be allowed in government
-both make regular people embarrassed to call themselves either because of bad press the extremes of either side have gotten.
-both try to drag the rest of us into some shouting match

"I have repeatedly said that in my opinion the idea of a personal God is a childlike one. You may call me an agnostic, but I do not share the crusading spirit of the professional atheist whose fervor is mostly due to a painful act of liberation from the fetters of religious indoctrination received in youth. I prefer an attitude of humility "
-Albert Einstein

 

[Dhell]

the biggest problem this planet has is beliving in a invisble man personally if "god" showed himself i bet hes a cripple in a wheelchair (i dont care what you think of that) if he created man in his image then why are so many of us unpleasent looking. George Carlin has various views on religion itself. humans need to decide for themselves whether to follow some book written years ago by some nut job or just live as is without a care in the world.. all im gonna say bout that

 

[Sevre]

Alright it's time for me to step into these damn religion threads.


Do Atheist parents have the right to force Atheism on their children?
No they can choose.


How many of you will raise your child not to belive in a god?
I will raise my child to be a good person and teach them the difference between right and wrong, if they pick up a religion on the way I'll nourish their choice assuming it isn't absolutely mad.


How many of you will raise your child with knowledge of God? (Without making fun of it while you teach it.)
I won't acknowledge God.


How many of you will take your children to church?
I won't.

How many of you will raise your children to make their own decission, like you had?
Depends if they want to make their own decision, I can't force them to be an atheist but if they don't believe in God then there's nothing to decide. Same applies for Theism.

How many think that your child will be Atheist?
I can't answer that.