The silliness I’m referring to is your instance that raising a child religion-free is akin to endorsing that they be raised by wolves. If you want to discuss, at least do it honestly.
[QUOTE=Sarahfeena]
Ha ha. Well, you know, I’m taking it as a given at this point that she will (give me a break, she’s only 2. I’m trying to deal with potty training right now, not religion!)
[quote]
Well, I was just funnin’ with ya, mostly. 
But, I am curious about the following statement:
Coupled with a similar, earlier, statement, would you apply the same reasoning with respect to (non-religious) ethnic or cultural background?
OK, I screwed up that coding but good… Let’s try that again:
Well, I was just funnin’ with ya, mostly. But, I am curious about the following statement:
Coupled with a similar, earlier, statement, would you apply the same reasoning with respect to (non-religious) ethnic or cultural background?
I never said anything of the sort. I would appreciate the same honesty from you. There is nothing wrong with raising a child religion-free. There is ALSO nothing wrong with raising a child with religion. This was my only point. My first post on the subject said the following:
I would venture to say that you have been much more negative on religion than I have been on atheism.
No, he’s equating the imputed characteristics of God with the imputed characteristics of an imaginary friend. Whether you believe in one, the other, neither, or both is irrelevant to the point.
Obviously “substitution of terms in an argument” is only valid if the terms in question still share enough characteristics to make any kind of point. Otherwise, you might as well substitute “a red Mercedes” for “imaginary friend”, “Magic Sky Pixie”, or “Invisible Pink Unicorn”.
Just as obviously, people who object to the substitution of “kleptomania” or “bestiality” for “homosexuality” in gay rights arguments are generally arguing that the attempts at substitution lack sufficient commonality with the term for which they are substituting to allow valid comparison.
So, in what way do the ascribed characteristics of God differ from those of an imaginary friend, a Magic Sky Pixie, or the Invisible Pink Unicorn that renders such a substitution meaningless?
No, I don’t. Actually, it’s interesting…I had this discussion once with a good friend of mine, who was dumped by his girlfriend because she was religious and he is not. He saw this as basic prejudice on her part, as if she broke up with him for being a different skin color from her. The thing is, ethnic and cultural backgrounds do not require belief, they just are. And it is often relatively easy to keep up cultural traditions, even if one member of a marriage is not of that culture (I know this from experience). You can teach a child about 2 cultures and have them understand and feel a part of both. There is a huge difference between this and trying to teach a child what you BELIEVE. How can you tell a child, “I believe that Jesus was God, but your father doesn’t,” and expect the child to believe either? If it doesn’t bother you either way, then that’s fine, but if it is important to you, it seems like sending contradictory messages may cause trouble in this area. I have found that generally, kids who grow up this way end up not having any religion at all (in fact, that’s what happened to my non-religious friend mentioned above). My issue with my daughter is, if religion is important to her (and I do hope it will be), she will have a better chance of religion being important to her children if she and her husband both follow the same one.
Excellent parody snipped.
My version, which I’ve posted before, has God asking the new recruit if he believes in the flood. If the recruit says yes, god answers:
God: Shmuck! do you think I’d kill a billion of my people, including children? What kind of monster do you think I am? Off to hell with you!
If there is a god, then my intelligence and logic are god-given. I’d have no problem facing such a god, and explaining, without fear, why I went through life as I did. Maybe I’d be wrong, but I’d be wrong for the right reasons. Unless god is a monster, I think those who believe in a rigid view of god might have bigger problems than atheists.
I’ve always noticed that the dickiest people are those who are totally convinced that they are right, and who see no shades of gray or alternate arguments.
This is pretty much exactly what we tell our children and we have no expectation of anything except that they’ll make up their own minds eventually. I feel that it’s more impotant to encourage them to ask questions, to learn as much as possible and to really think about those questions than it is for them to agree with either one of us.
One would hope that when she’s old enough to marry, she’s old enough to make her own decisions about who she marries.
Which is cool. But leaving it all up to the child doesn’t work for me, so I preferred to marry someone of the same faith. This doesn’t mean that I don’t want them to ask questions and think. This is one of the things I like about Catholicism…I have always been encouraged to question & explore.
Well, true, and if she comes to me at age 30 (the age when I got married), and tells me she’s marrying an atheist, I think at that point I will let it go. My general plan is to impress upon her the reasons I think it’s important to marry a Catholic, and hope that it sinks in, just like a lot of other things I plan to teach her.
You most certainly implied it here:
And yes, I am negative on theism. I believe it’s dishonest. That’s partly why I’m an atheist. That’s not to say I discard people who believe. I just completely disagree with that particular mindset.
[QUOTE=Kalhoun]
You most certainly implied it here:
You know perfectly well that this statement of mine was in direct response to this post of yours:
I was merely trying to figure out why whatever basis you have for an ethical code is OK, but mine isn’t. I used your words, in order to try to make a point. I have no problem with people who do not believe in God.
I guess that’s the difference between you and me. I am not negative on atheism. I don’t even consider it when I decide my opinion of a person…as far as I’m concerned, it’s completely irrelevant.
If Sarahfeena manages to get the message across to her daughter that being in love isn’t enough to make a marriage work when there is incompatibility on major issues (religion, money, kids, and so on), her daughter will be better off than far too many people who get married.
Since I think religion (or lack thereof) is one of the big issues in a marriage, I would equate “I wouldn’t marry someone of a different religion” to something like “I wouldn’t marry someone who has a very different approach to money than I do” or “I want kids, so I wouldn’t marry someone who doesn’t”.
That’s true, but you are *less positive * on it than your form of Christianity. If you had a level playing field, you wouldn’t actively try to raise your daughter with that faith. You’re not saying athiesm is bad, just that you prefer an alternative. Or at least that’s what i’m getting… I could be wrong.
Unless you live in a highly homogenous area, won’t this same question come up when MiniSarah comes home from school one day and says her best friend Miriam doesn’t believe Jesus was God and when is my bat mitzvah, anyway?
Thanks…I would totally agree with that, and I should have mentioned it in my earlier post about ethnic backgrounds. In my mind, a husband & wife need to agree on how they want to live their lives…philosophically and practically. When two people want or expect different things, it is often a recipe for unhappiness and divorce. IMO, the more two people can agree on these major issues, the easier it will be in the long run. To me, this means that if I was NOT religious, and in fact had a negative attitude toward religion, I would not think it was a great idea to marry someone who never misses a Sunday at church.
Good point.
But there’s also the flip side that mixed-faith couples can get along just fine. There’s more to marriage than love, but there’s also more than religious compatibility. I would never turn down a potential relationship based on religion alone. If we’re diametrically opposed, then yeah, but otherwise it might just be something that can be worked out.
Besides, if I limit myself to just atheists, my dating pool gets very small.
[QUOTE=Sarahfeena]
You missed the part where I said I don’t discard people because they believe. I’m a humanist. It’s all about people for me.
And I think you said you wouldn’t marry someone if they didn’t share your faith. It sounds like atheism IS relevant in your opinion of a person. Relevant enough that you wouldn’t marry an atheist even if you were in love with him.
I can totally understand that not everyone is going to consider religion as important as I do, and could easily get along in a mixed marriage, each holding his own POV. But for people who take it very seriously, it can get difficult. And views on religion can change, too. I have a friend who married someone of a totally different religious background (she’s Jewish, he’s Hindu). As she has gotten older and now has kids, it has become much more important to her to live & pass on her religious beliefs to her children. Of course, as Anne Neville will I’m sure attest, Judaism is particularly home-centered, and it can become pretty problematic when one party is not interested in having a kosher home…it takes a lot of motivation to keep kosher! Catholicism maybe doesn’t require quite so much dilligence, but it is pretty involved…you have to go to Church every week, and holy days, and the kids have to be educated to receive the various sacraments. It takes dedication from both parties to really do it right.
My main interest in marrying someone of the same faith is to avoid conflict in the home. If the subject isn’t likely to cause conflict, then it isn’t a problem.