2nd Level German Court: Circumcision illegal

[Elok]

Of course not, it has nothing to do with stupidity. My point was simply that someone with faith cannot admit that secularism is the default state without implicitly undermining their faith. It's something we naturally have to be diametrically opposed on, due to our positions.

I don't think either is the default state. The default state, for a child, is to soak up the opinions and values of one's parents/peers/tribe and construct a worldview out of them. I have constructed a religious one, while yours is secular.

Yes, but science in general earns that 'faith'. We trust them when they talk about the complex crap we don't understand because we know from experience that the smaller more practical stuff they tell us generally turns out to be true, or at least the system of discovery has generally been true. It also provides us with constant shiny toys to reinforce our trust.

I don't want to encourage a science-vs.-faith dichotomy (which is kind of like a "reading vs. math" dichotomy to my way of thinking), but if religion didn't have its own rewards--didn't make its own kind of sense--it wouldn't survive.

Mostly just because not teaching someone something does allow them to learn it themselves later. It's much more difficult to 'unlearn' something.

But, you see, you're assuming unbelief as a null state here, or at least it sounds that way. There is no null state; a child is going to grow up with a constructed myth of 'how the world works' one way or another. Any later myth will be forced to compete with the first one, and if the child/person is not given sufficient reason to make the effort to reconcile or change beliefs s/he will reject it out of hand. Even if you don't teach your son actual unbelief, he will naturally absorb your attitude towards religion and grow up hostile towards it to some extent. If you were indifferent towards it, as I gather your parents were, he might show some interest but would likely reject it just as you did, if only because religion usually requires commitment or effort of some kind and ignoring it is the path of least resistance. I'm speaking of probable results and generalities here, of course.

Even at 6 I think you could probably get a bit of discussion going. Obviously it's not going to be anything crazy deep, but it'd be a start.

You can get a discussion going, but it's going to be obvious to the kid where the whole thing is headed, and you'll naturally dominate the discussion. A Socratic dialogue--there's basically no way he's going to fight for the racist POV, unless he's had a lot of contact with a skinhead kid on the playground or something, and you're sure as hell not going to advocate for it. If you want us to teach our kids religion that way, I'm pretty sure we'll achieve the same, or very similar, results.

I could probably say more about this, but my small person is awake and feeling somewhat high-maintenance.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

there's a big difference between that and hard atheism. With that said, I'm not going to sit here and argue over whose indoctrination is worse.

I think you'd have to admit that not taking scalpels to genitals give a certain weighting in favour of Team Dawkins.

[Elok]

I wouldn't call surgery, however pointless, "indoctrination."

[Kidlicious]

As for people not pouring guilt onto children, that would also involve them not allowing children to read the bible. It doesn't matter how you teach it, the book is full of guilt. As for the old testament, jesus christ...

You might be amazed at christians if you knew more of them. I remember being in a Bible study once and the leader asked what prayer was for. One thing that came to my mind was asking for forgiveness. People came up with about 15 answers and none of them were asking for forgiveness. Believe it or not christians, as a group, are not real concerned with their own sins (at least that's what I find). They don't really teach their children about the need for forgiveness. The preachers don't preach it as much as they should because people don't want to here it. But yeah, you need to be aware of your own sins so that you can be forgiven. That isn't the same thing as carrying around guilt. Jesus takes our burden away by forgiving us. If you carry guilt then you don't really believe that you are forgiven. It's also based in pride.

About the Bible, people pick up on what they want to pick up in the Bible generally. Not everyone is even going to read that they need to be forgiven. Not them anyway, maybe someone else. Hopefully at some point in their life they will understand more.

[Kidlicious]

So why make human lifetimes so short that communication and understanding cannot be achieved?

Because God choses not to be a college professor.

[kentonio]

Because God choses not to be a college professor.

If understanding of gods message is not the point, then what exactly is?

[Imran Siddiqui]

To live a God honoring life up to the limits of your understanding of God (though, obviously, there is a "should have known" aspect - can't claim you hadn't heard of the Golden Rule or whatnot). Understanding is not necessarily the point as much as putting into practice what you do understand. All well to have a PHD in Theology, but if you don't act out of kindness for those lesser off, then you missed the point.

[kentonio]

So if people only had access to the old testament (or their preacher was heavily OT led) then it would be fine to follow the whole 'genocide of your enemies', 'giving over your daughters to be raped', 'stoning adulterous wives stuff'?

[Kidlicious]

If understanding of gods message is not the point, then what exactly is?

Read the story of the resurection of Lazarus in John 11. Look how the disciples don't really understand. But look how they are loyal, especially Thomas. We are just not going to understand everything (well maybe one day). But like Imran said, act on what you do understan.

[Elok]

As an aside, the whole Lot-in-Sodom thing seems clear in context: IIRC, he offers his daughters as an alternative to offering his guests. The protection of one's guests was an absolutely inviolable obligation in most of the ancient world. By taking them under your roof, you were agreeing to protect them from all foes.

[Imran Siddiqui]

So if people only had access to the old testament (or their preacher was heavily OT led) then it would be fine to follow the whole 'genocide of your enemies', 'giving over your daughters to be raped', 'stoning adulterous wives stuff'?

Ancient Near East was a brutal time & place and the authors of the Pentateuch embodied that. However, within that there were passages involving taking care of your neighbors, forbidding the gathering of all your crops so that you could leave some for the poor and hungry, looking out for the less fortunate, and in Ancient Near East ways, preventing blood feuds (eye for an eye was intended to end the violence at that point) and taken care of sexually violated women (as barbaric as it seems to us, forcing the rapist to marry the woman he raped prevented the woman from being persona non grata as in the Ancient Near East and other places during the era [and in some Muslim & African tribal areas today] a woman who had sex outside of marriage was not marriage material, even if that sex was done out of rape - and if not marriage material then she was considered useless).

[Kidlicious]

So if people only had access to the old testament (or their preacher was heavily OT led) then it would be fine to follow the whole 'genocide of your enemies', 'giving over your daughters to be raped', 'stoning adulterous wives stuff'?

I'll bite. When God commanded genocide He did so against a specific enemy and the command was only given for that specific enemy. There is no general command for committing genocide. The lesson is to obey God, not to commit genocide. That goes for giving your daughters over to be raped. There is no command to give your daughters over to be raped. The Bible doesn't condone it either. As far as 'stoning adulterers' have you not heard that he who has not sinned cast the first stone?

[Jon Miller]

So if people only had access to the old testament (or their preacher was heavily OT led) then it would be fine to follow the whole 'genocide of your enemies', 'giving over your daughters to be raped', 'stoning adulterous wives stuff'?

The Jews have only had the OT for thousands of years, and don't agree with those three (and even 2 thousand years ago, only a bit on the last). If that is what you get from the OT, than you don't understand it (based on all of those who do understand it).

JM

[kentonio]

I'll bite. When God commanded genocide He did so against a specific enemy and the command was only given for that specific enemy. There is no general command for committing genocide. The lesson is to obey God, not to commit genocide. That goes for giving your daughters over to be raped. There is no command to give your daughters over to be raped. The Bible doesn't condone it either. As far as 'stoning adulterers' have you not heard that he who has not sinned cast the first stone?

Except that after the bible, people didn't have God personally directing their actions, so from then on they only had the guidance of the bible. It hardly seems unlikely that they would shape their actions based on the lessons of the book. Commiting genocide against a religious foe would then seem pretty reasonable. This isn't theoretical stuff, it's exactly what actually happened in a host of religious wars which killed millions of people.

[kentonio]

The Jews have only had the OT for thousands of years, and don't agree with those three (and even 2 thousand years ago, only a bit on the last). If that is what you get from the OT, than you don't understand it (based on all of those who do understand it).

JM

Actually we have the historical example of thousands of years of *******ry from Christians which proves exactly how negative it was. I'm not talking about you modern Christians now of course (although some even today are pretty terrifying), but go back through the history of the church and we see countless atrocities, murders, wars and tortures carried out in Gods name by people who genuinely thought they were doing Gods work. Which is why I give very little credence to the idea that Gods plan was to drip feeding information to people as they were ready for it. If that was the plan, then it was a ****ing awful one.