Gee, I wonder why nobody thinks you’re capable of any type of deep thought. I wonder why people believe that nuances are beyond your ken, and thus they try to couch things in simple terms that you’ll understand. I wonder…
:rolleyes: I wonder…
I am an atheist, but I have no problem in grasping something which many of my fellow atheists clearly do not.
There is a great difference between an atheist insisting to his child that atheism is the truth and a Christian telling his offspring that Christianity is the one true way.
Many Christians believe that if the child does not follow Christ then his soul is in peril. We may scoff at such a belief, but we cannot deny the logic that if a person really thinks thus he is duty bound to ensure his family’s salvation.
No such logic applies to the atheist.
OK, apparently I took your intentions as more hostile than they were. I appologize. I just saw “magic and fairytales” and “depressingly ignorant” and it struck me that you were just taking potshots at religion in hopes of pissing someone off. But now I take it more to be just the escalating rhetoric between you and Amazon Floozy Goddess.
I never pretended to know what happens. But I do know the person who the child knew is dead. Is there a soul? A conscious after-person that would be recognizable AS the person to ANYONE on the planet? I have no reason to believe there is, but hey…I’ve been surprised before. The 2000 and 2004 elections come to mind… 
Saying there might be a heaven, when there’s no evidence such a place exists, (regardless of the possibility that it MIGHT exist), is silly. To tell a kid that some people believe it is one thing. To say that it’s possible (against all common sense) is another.
Stop being so white and oppressive, Weirddave.
Everyone’s tearing into Mr. Moto’s comments in that thread, and no one has spoken up about what Martin Hyde said as well?
Later, he said
in response to the OP. That deserves as much scorn in my mind, if not more due to the extreme intolreant ignorance of the post.
A five-year-old isn’t qualified to make that sort of decision. When she’s fifteen it’ll be different. I expect we’ll have some pretty lively discussions in ten years – she’s that sort of girl.
Little kids want clear answers, not “maybe it’s this, maybe it’s that, Daddy doesn’t really know”. Particularly in circumstances like this where the world seems a little less safe and certain. I’m just telling her the truth as best I know it.
But ultimately one of us is right and one of us is wrong. Either there is a God or there isn’t. I’m a pragmatist about this. You can’t live your life waiting for absolute proof one way or the other. I honestly believe there’s no such thing as the supernatural – no spirits, no gods, no magic. Since I think my view of the universe is correct, why wouldn’t I want to encourage my kids to believe the same?
Personally, I figured it was so obviously calculated to provoke a strident reaction that not reacting at all was the best thing to do.
I thought maybe it was sarcasm without the smilies.
You may be right. That last post he made chapped my hide though.
Thanks for reminding me Zabali. I almost responded in my original thread, but I realized it would only fan the flames over there, which I would prefer not to have happen.
Mr. Hyde, every single one of us is theoretically going to SOMEONE’S hell. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t, eh? 
Thank you for your Christian charity.
Not this bullshit again.
Atheism is NOT a religious belief. Atheism is the ABSENCE of religious belief. In fact, not only is atheism not eligious belief, it’s not even a belief.
Not this bullshit again.
If you believe that the statement “there is no god” is factually true, then your atheism is no different from another’s theism: there is no proof of god’s existence, there is no proof of his non existence. Both of you share a belief based entirely on faith, not fact, without a single shred of evidence to support that belief. There’s not a wit of difference between the two positions.
If you don’t know/don’t care/don’t believe in a specific god, etc…, that’s a different story.
I think sometimes the problems are simple semantics. For example, look at two different ways a certain question can be asked and answered:
“Do you beileve in God?”
“No, I don’t.”
vs
“Do you believe there is no god?”
“Yes, I believe there is no god.”
Both seem to ask the same thing. But do they really? I believe (ha!) that something along this line causes most of the confusion among religious folk about atheism and religious thought. And we have to be honest here, many atheists get confused here too. Perhaps not you guys here on the SDMB, but plenty in other venues.
So, a more accurate way to answer the loaded Q #2 for some might be along the lines of:
“Do you believe there is no god?”
“I do not believe in god.”
I think Mr. Moto should reconsider the “hard wiring” question in general and definitely leave it out of the discusiion in the original thread. However, his points about discussing with a confused and distraught child about the different things she is hearing from different people is a good point.
That would not be an accurate characterization of atheism. Most atheists don’t believe that.
Nope. That’s the definition of atheism.
I am refering to the belief that there is no God as atheism. What you seem to be calling atheism I would call agnosticism.
As indicated by those links, Merriam-Webster agrees with me.
And by these definitions, atheism is not only a belief but also a religious belief (where I’m using “religious belief” in the sense I indicated above, namely: a belief about a religious question, such as “Is there a God?”)
As I’ve attempted to make clear, I don’t intend this as a criticism of atheism.
I wonder if those saying that we atheists should not speak with any degree of certainty take their kids to church of Sunday School. I doubt your average minister is as wishy washy as the theists want us to be. Given the vast God propaganda out there, I don’t think giving reasons why you don’t believe in god is going overboard.
I handled it by teaching my kids to think logically, and by reading them Genesis and going over the absurdities and contradictions. It seems to have worked, since the youngest is in college, and neither have any god belief.
As for what death is like, how about dreamless sleep, like in Hamlet - being careful, of course, not to worry them that they may die when they go to sleep. I don’t think I ever believed in heaven - it was not a big thing in my shul, if anything at all.
You and Merriam-Webster would be wrong on both counts. That is not how those terms are defined in formal philosphy. Atheism simply means the absence of belief. Agnosticism is the belief that it is impossible to KNOW whether God exists. It is not a theistic position per se.
Atheism is not a belief and is not answer to the question “is there a God.” You’re also using a piss poor definition of “religion.”
That’s really here nor there. It’s simply inaccurate, and frankly, kind of insulting. It’s like saying a lack of belief in magic is a “magical belief.”
Dio, Dio, Dio. you’re so funny. Here we are with a perfect example of a self proclaimed atheist tying himself into knots to deny the obvious. Unless of course you are not claiming that you believe “there is no god” to be a factual statement (which is what you seem to be saying). If that is indeed the case, you are an agnostic, no matter how much you want to deny it. You can’t just up and change the definition of words just because you want to feel cool and look down your nose at the deluded fools who believe in god.
Atheism is not the belief that “there is no God.”
Agnosticism is an epistemological position, not a theistic one. Don’t use words if you don’t know what they mean.