We were in the car tonight and somehow she mentioned to me that she doesn’t believe in God or Jesus.
My wife is Catholic. My daughter attends Catholic school, which – strangely enough – is completely funded by the province of Ontario.
So I got her to talk openly about her thoughts, and she really is quite perceptive. Her reasoning was sound. I danced around the subject before imparting my beliefs upon her: namely that I also do not believe in a God. I told her that in all probability there was a Jesus Christ, and that he was a great man, but not the son of God.
I thought she completely gasped a sigh of relief and subconsciously thanked me for confirming her mental anguish. We have always been close, but this was a defining moment in our relationship. We shared philosophical beliefs for the first time. I then described to her that we must always be respectful of others’ beliefs because no one knows for certain and everyone is entitled to an opinion. She completely agreed.
I love being a parent. I love my daughter. I love her for thinking for herself with zero influence from us.
Good for you, and good for her. Attacklass is also 12, so I know how great it is when you connect about something, especially something grown up like that. And it doesn’t get much more grown up than that.
I’ve tiptoed around this talk with my own 9-year-old daughter, and had it straight out with my 12-year-old son. Sighs of relief on all sides, in both cases.
Gotta say, though, that if you haven’t yet had that other talk with your 12-year-old girl, you are running way, way, WAY late. Let her get her information from you, not from the bunch of hormonally-crazed idiots she attends school with. (Or worse yet, from the people who administer her school…) Just MHO.
I don’t understand. We shouldn’t be respectful of others’ beliefs? What could possibly be worse than not respecting the esoteric beliefs of fellow humans? If you are a decent and compassionate person who happens to be a Muslim, a Jew, a Hindu, a Sikh, a Christian, an atheist, a Mormon… I don’t care. I care that you are a decent human being. What else matters?
We should not be respectful of beliefs which are wrong and misguided, and regularly used to foment and justify human misery.
I don’t know exactly when this dangerous idea originated that “beliefs” are somehow immune from moral scrutiny by virtue of merely being an opinion. It is wrong to be indifferent towards evil, and there are few evils greater than religion.
If I told you that Obama was a shapeshifting lizard-man here to weaken the US prior to his Martian invasion, you wouldn’t claim that “no one knows for certain”, would you? You’d call me out, telling me to post proof or get lost. And even if I’d be entitled to hold that opinion, you’d be equally entitled to hold the opinion that this would make me a raving nutter.
Some people were saying she should not be respectful of others beliefs. Her mother is Catholic. I was wondering how they think she should treat her mother if they think she should not be respectful of others beliefs. Hope that makes sense?
Not everybody has their customs, culture and belief up for debate at all times. Some people seem to think that evangelical atheism is appropriate behavior at all times. It is not. It is appropriate if the beliefs of others are the subject of conversation and that conversation turns to the reasonableness of the evidence of those beliefs.
I’m proud of your daughter, Leaffan - you’ve got a good kid there.
I have a bit of a problem with the respect/belief thing. I have friends who I respect a lot as human beings, but who hold beliefs that I think are superstitious magical-thinking twaddle.
I’m not going to attack my friends, because they manage to be great people despite holding ridiculous beliefs. I don’t feel the need to argue with them and to try to convert them to a reality-based worldview, because they’re already nice people. They’re not harming anyone with their superstitious mumbo-jumbo.
It’s all very well to have a problem with religions, and to point out that you don’t see any atheist suicide bombers, and so on. But harmless decent people with nonsensical beliefs? There are plenty of more important things to be concerned about.
Which is not to say that I think my fellow atheists should shut the hell up, just that it’s important to not get too evangelical about it. Because that’s exactly what we’re supposed to be against, remember?
If you treat atheism as a competing belief system, you’re playing by their rules. Atheism is not a belief system, it’s a lack of faith in faith-based belief systems. Acting all superior to those stupid believers just makes you their mirror image.
She’s a kid, she needs to treat other people with respect, especially those of her peers, who are figuring these things out for themselves as well. It doesn’t sound like you’ve limited her from discussing religion, or even explaining what she does or doesn’t believe. It seems like a reasonable approach, and you can disagree with someone, and explain why - with respect - and it’s a hell of a lot more likely to have impact than any other way of approaching it.
I have to admit that you have a point with the “snake oil salesman” bit.
I accept the fact that there is no concrete proof of anything existential.
I agree that there are those who attempt to force their beliefs on atheists and agnostics. They are selling a product. I don’t deny that.
But the fact that there is no direct evidence does not mean it cannot be true.
Once upon a time there was no direct evidence for a round earth.
I realize that proof of any higher power is not likely to ever happen.
However to ague that absence of evidence is evidence of absence is not even valid scientific principle. If you hold that because there is no evidence it MUST not be true you have crossed the line from fact into belief.
We must respect the other fellow’s religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.[INDENT][INDENT] - H. L. Mencken [/INDENT][/INDENT]
…which seems to be good advice. I have a good friend who is a deacon of a church. I’ve helped the church with their computers and piping in gas to hook up the stove for their kitchen to feed the homeless. Our reasons for doing so differ greatly, but the end result is the same.
By the way, his wife is beautiful, and his children are smart.
We don’t disregard your claims because we feel that absence of evidence is evidence of absence, we disregard your claims because the number of conflicting possibilities is infinite, and the only way you can get better than a one-in-infinity chance of being right is if you can find evidence to back up your claims.
