Yeah, he's a dumbass, but so were the people who taught an older relative of mine at a christian school that dinosaurs didn't exist. Of course his parents paid for that "education" so it's marginally less egregious.
I'd say paying for an education that teaches things that contradict scientific evidence is more egregious, not less. Regarding the inculcation of young hearts and minds with philosophy, practically every camp is waging war on that battlefield.
But none of them have been as effective or are as pervasive for grabbing those hearts and minds. Christianity has much more momentum, influence and prominence than hippy liberal school teachers have. You have to go to certain areas of our society to find particular "wars" being waged. But the indoctrination of christianity in the hearts and minds of our little ones is almost in every home, it's in our holidays, it's in our daily life. The teachings of christianity, and more importantly the teachings of the consequences of not believing in it, which are part and parcel, are much more prominent and pervasive than the ramblings of any partisan douchebag. You don't have to agree that indoctrinating children with christianity at an early age(often as soon as they're spit out of the womb) is a bad thing as I do(but why wouldn't you, being an agnostic?), but the pervasiveness and early administration of this type of indoctrination vs others should be pretty clear. I could find one example of anything to contradict a mountain of evidence for something else, or to find equivalence to make one thing seem less bad or pervasive, but if I did that I wouldn't be too honest.
Actually secularism has the most momentum of anything right now. Let me ask you this. Why should school teachers be beating any philosophical drum unless, of course, you sent your kid to a religious school? and this is bad... why? Are you saying its not a parents place to teach their kids their philosophical view on the world? Or are you one of those, "Christianity is evil" people. I guess that clears that up. You are one of those Christianity is evil people. Why would my being agnostic prompt me to think a parent teach their kids in Christianity is a bad thing? I also don't criticize Atheists for teaching their children what I consider to be an idiotic set of beliefs. How can you feel justified thinking people teaches their children a belief set that doesn't coincide with yours is a bad thing? Ego? You've clearly missed the issue. To compare public schools teaching an unadvertised and unwelcome system of beliefs to a parent teaching their children their belief system is idiotic. Its like a family of vegan's having the public school pushing consumption of red meat on your kids. Its simply not the school's place.
Do you have kids? I seriously doubt it. I am not religious in any sens of the word. As a matter of fact, when I was in the Army, my ID tags said atheist for religious preferance. However, I believe life begins when their freaking heart starts beating. But, that being said, I believe a woman has the right to make the choice. But, what I don't understand, is how we can have a law that says if you kill a pregnant mom, you can go to jail for killing the unborn baby, and the mom. But, if the pregnant mom kills the kid inside her, it's ok. . Can't wait until religion is completely ousted from this world. It will be a much better place to live without people using religion as an excuse to kill people. Without using it as an excuse to push their agendas. And you really need to get off of dumbama's stuff. People buying your messiah's crap hook line and sinker is just as dangerous as religion. Come over to the libertarian side, where we don't depend on the government to take care of us and we don't drink the koolaid.
I think it should be a mother's choice until the kid hits age 3. In reality, life and health insurance for kids is extremely expensive until age 11, at which point the insurance companies feel pretty confident they are going to make it. I suppose we can assume its all dicey until then. For the record, my five kids are paying me handsomely, though I am pro-death.
Momentum is one thing, force is another. And teachers shouldn't be beating any philosophical drum, unless it's a private school and you're retarded enough to pay them to do it. Then you should get what you pay for. I personally think it's bad, but my opinion isn't really the point. The point was that you can't really point to one corner of American life where kids are being indoctrinated with evil liberal philosophy and equate it to the level of exposure to christianity that kids unwillingly get. Not really. It's not hard to find christian haters in this forum. You could easily contrast my level of excitability or devotion on the issue to theirs. But as a real agnostic(not someone just anonymously pretending to espouse whatever or believe whatever on a discussion forum) I'm sort of appalled that people would choose to indoctrinate children with beliefs in devils and demons and eternal hellfire and torture before the children are really even capable of exercising critical thinking or any sort of independent analysis. I grew up believing this stuff and I didn't have a choice, and my story really isn't that unique in the US. As an agnostic I have to leave open the possibility that there is a god because I see no proof that there isn't. On the other hand, not only do I also have to dismiss(or at least withhold judement) the existence of a particular god if I see no real evidence for it, but I must not play favorites simply because one particular belief is more prominent in the area/region/country that I grew up in. I must not only treat every explanation of god as being equally probable, but I must also treat every conceivable explanation as being as equally probable as the others, if they all have the same amount of evidence to support them. I'm not an uber math monster, but I believe that creates a sample space approaching infinity(or at least a really big fucking number). So that means giving one particular belief favor simply because it is popular is ridiculous. If impressionable minds were being fed stories about the flying spaghetti monster I would be equally upset. It's not about ego, it's about teaching children things that are not based on fact and using the lack of cognitive maturity of children to perpetuate a set of myths that would die off sooner than later if we let the paint dry a little before pushing these beliefs on them. If you were a real agnostic and not just playing one on the internetz you would probably understand this. You're the one who brought up the public school issue in an apparent attempt to show that it's really the godless, hippy liberals that are responsible for everything that is wrong with the world. Here's my original quote: The school issue wasn't even part of the topic until you injected it in an attempt to show equivalence. Everything I argued after that against christiantiy was simply an attempt to show the fallacy of your equivalence assertion. Hippy, liberal, homosexual sympathizing, baby killing school teachers simply have much less of an impact on the impressionable minds of our young ones. They're not under every bed or in every closet as Hannity or Coulter might have you believe.
/sigh. I could skip responding to anything else in your post and point out the accusation, misrepresentation of my position, and judgment in the above quote (which was repeated elsewhere in your post) as invalidating the rest of your post which essentially does the same. My question to you was "Why would my being agnostic prompt me to think a parent teach their kids in Christianity is a bad thing". I'll take it a step further.Why should those of any belief system feel the need to beat other people not of like mind over the head with it. What you responded to me with was essentially the argument of the religious. 1) You don't really believe what you claim to believe. 2) If you did really believe what you believe, you'd realize people teaching their children beliefs that don't correspond with yours was bad. To point number 1 I'd say you don't know the first thing about me. To point number 2, that is what we call religious intolerance. It is one of the biggest reasons so many people have died at the hands of the religious over the years and continue to this day. It is the very reason freedom of religion is protected by the constitution. You have accurately reflected the viewpoint of the Agnostic, which I do share. I personally find it the logical viewpoint since none of it's premises can be assailed by science or religion. I've always considered myself an Agnostic that leans towards theism for two reasons. First, I believe the amount of order to the scientific laws we discover is evidence of something more (some call it god). Second, like Atheism, Agnosticism lacks any of the spirituality and philosophy that one gets with religion. Few who know would argue your life, your personality, and your mental well being are better off and more complete for having those things. One might feel less angst and the need to assail others for their belief systems. Ah yes, private schools, the nest of our nations leadership. Public schools are socialist in nature, since the government funds them and everyone gets an education. To say a socialist organization doesn't beat a philosophical drum is somewhat counter intuitive. It is one of the reasons Democrats will always own the largest percentage of the young folks in our nation. Kids get unwillingly get sent to school, dressed in clothes they may or may not like, fed spinach, artichokes, and green peas, forced to do household chores and cleaning without pay or health benefits, and punished by corporal and other means of punishment when they are "bad". They are children, and they are the responsibility of the parents who brought them into this world. Are you really trying to say you want the state involved in raising these children when how they are being raised conflicts with your personal belief system? All you need to do is convince 51% of the folks in your state to think that is a good idea and you should be good to go. Good luck! On the teaching of Christianity in the home, I doubt you would get anything higher than 2% support in any given state, including Mass. Nor should it be. You turned 18, you went to school and found agnosticism(surprise surprise) and have clearly embraced it. How are you the worse for wear? As I pointed out, Public School is a socialist organization in nature and I don't think there is a person on the planet that would argue that the liberals don't own Academia at all levels. By design, our kids get 8 out of 16 waking hours a day in full immersion interaction with these people. I doubt they get that type of interaction with their parents for more than 2 of the other 8. You don't have to argue with me, statistics back this up. I'm good with our kids coming out ideologically correct liberals, but I draw the line with religion.
It's because young Americans like myself are getting away from childhood brainwash of religion and are actually accepting reality.
Interestingly, a generation ago, someone your age said the same thing. Why is it every generation thinks they are uniquely enlightened?
who? Because they are. But as new generations arrive they become more uniquely enlightened than the last. There has been a downward trend in religiosity for quite some time. This can be seen over the long term (the difference between now and the 15th century) and the short term (the difference between now and ten years ago). This is probably largely due to the fact that religions don't have a hold on people anymore. In early 20th century US people were often castigated if they didn't at least claim to be a christian and in 15th century Spain people were tortured and killed for being heretics. So it's hardly surprising that in times gone by there was general veneer of religiosity covering everything. But as soon as people were able to escape it, like the youth of today are, they run.
And hopefully those youngs will not teach their children the lies their parents told them, so if next generation's children are not brainwashed at a young age, they will not have the same amount of effort to do to escape from those still talking about religion, especially since those persons will not be their own parents. America will be able to come back in the group of developped nations who don't need religion to live happy, "normal" life. But the problem is a lot of people are still living in countries where there's a state's religion and they suffer if they doubt the lies, atheists need to hide their lack of belief in fairy tales. Those are under developped countries with a low national IQ level, so it doesn't matter much in this thread since it's about America lowering its religiosity at a reasonnable level in a few generations.
Me. And many people I knew when I was under 25. There you go trying to propel the myth that education level to religiosity. Wasn't it you who put up the post that that simply isn't the case in America? That aside, I wasn't referring to either education level or religiosity. I'm talking more to the general idiocy of youth. The idea that you know it all, that you got more ass than your grandparents ever did, that you drank more, partied more, got away with more, are the first one to get away with making it from Vegas to LA in less than 2 hours in a car filled with strippers and blow. Everything is a first for the young, and it always seems they assume it is a first for mankind. I truly wish I could go back to being young when I was "uniquely enlightened" and knew it all. Lol. Yeh, and now we have people like you doing the same if you don't claim to be an atheist. The music may change, but the dance seems pretty much the same. Why is it I suspect you explain the association of older age with likelihood to be religious as being the old are backward thinking people doing backward things. God knows that as we get older we loose wisdom and the capacity to think.
probably the least convincing of all your anecdotal evidence. we can all make up shit about what "people we knew" thought, You are the only one who resorts to it though. There you go again making shit up. I never mentioned education. not at all, people can be religious if they want, they can believe in santa and goblins too if they like. But two things need to be understood. 1) when they openly admit to believing in bollocks they instantly pay a price for that and they instantly open themselves and their beliefs to criticism. 2) what they believe can not effect me at all. For instance, If muslims want to fast on Ramadan they can't insist i also join in, if christians believe easter is some kind of magical Jewish zombie man day they can't dictate what i can do on that day and if followers of judaism don't like pigs they don't get to tell everyone else what they are allowed to name diseases. If the religious could get this simple concept through their heads there wouldn't be a problem. You know your facade of "agnostic" is starting to fade. Remind me, what was it jesus said about lying? I can't remember if he was for it or against it...
Lol. And here you were criticizing Christians criticizing people who weren't professed Christians a scant two posts ago. The glaring hypocrisy. "People can believe whatever they want so long as they don't mind me calling them an idiot for doing it". You are different than them ... how? It seems the Christians have moved on to polite discussions in differences in belief. Atheism may catch up at some point. Sorry for the misunderstanding. Here I thought your use of the word "enlightened" might mean "educated". Is this an acknowledgment your generation is no more educated at its age than the last? If so how are you any more "enlightened". Should "enlightened" be interpreted pushy? Hateful? Close minded? Egotistical? Or are we to interpret it to mean "non-religious", in which case I'm wondering if your high priest gave you that definition, because I can't find that one in the Dictionary. By the way, on pondering your reasoning , I've come up with a new word that fits nicely. Shazzaam!!!!
How is criticising a demonstrably false belief different to torturing heretics? need that explained? seriously? If they don't want to be criticised they should keep it to them selves. or more precisely; "those who don't want their beliefs laughed at shouldn't have such funny beliefs" It's an acknowledgement that i never mentioned education. By the way, have you told your priest that you are masquerading as an atheist on the Internet?
You are truly the Capitain of reversal and subject shift. Your allegation of how religion is evil: "In early 20th century US people were often castigated if they didn't at least claim to be a christian" So now castigation is torture? cas⋅ti⋅gate   /ˈkæstɪˌgeɪt/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [kas-ti-geyt] Show IPA –verb (used with object), -gat⋅ed, -gat⋅ing. 1. to criticize or reprimand severely. So, to the subject, which is criticizing beliefs which do not match your own, you are right in there with the religious. Your own beliefs are every bit as unprovable as theirs are. Still haven't figured out how an Atheist is different from an Agnostic I see.
No but the Spanish inquisition was. What are we supposed to do? Congratulate christians because not all of them torture heretics? well done! No i see you haven't. a = without. theism = belief in god. "i believe in a god" - Anyone who that statement doesn't apply to is, by definition, an atheist.