How it looks: Miracles, theism and children

An examination of rational thought, and a look at how religious ideas can circumvent our normal skeptical defenses.

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• theism
• religion
• god
• atheism
• baby
• skeptical
• default
• rationality
• evidence
• bias

[squitmaa]

Great video. I apreciate your honest aproach. You are absolutely correct about the notion of religion and children. However I see a problem with your conclusion that people are born atheists. We are born with a lack of knowledge. Someone who does not know would be considered an agnostic. Knowledge is gained by experience. With experience we ask the question is this benifitial to me or society or existance. A person becomes an atheist when they see no benifit in a God belief.

[bitbutter]

hi squitmaa thanks for the comment.

There is a sense of the word atheist in which a baby fits this descriptor. Here i'm taking about implicit atheism--a lack of god belief before the question of the existence of god has even been encountered (i think i messed up in the vid and called it weak atheism which is a slightly diff thing).

[HumbleOrthodox]

Thanks for the clarification, BitButter, but I'm sorry, it appears you still make a lot of unjustified claims yourself. In the process of claiming some sort of circularity with religious belief or acceptance, you also don't seem to think it can be applied equally to a "rationally independant person", which I assume here you mean an agnostic.

I'll be making a response soon; this one will be far more detailed in explanation. Thanks for the video.

[bitbutter]

Hi, looking forward to the vid. By intellectually independent person i mean someone with a belief set mature enough to no longer trust everything they are told by their guardians. Most of the time in this vid i talk about an intellectually independent person who does not have a pre-existing theistic belief (a weak atheist). It's my thesis that a person in this situation cannot rationally accept a biblical miracle claim.

[bitbutter]

The existence of atheists and people of other religions is enough to demonstrate that not everyone is lukcy enough to 'see the light of christianity'. Indoctrination is a way of making sure that their own kids end up among the damned.

[PopeJohnEdgarIV]

Anyone who genuinely believes that something is so obviously right should have full confidence in their child making the 'right' decision and chosing to agree with the parents belief. After all, if they are indisputably right then there is no real risk of the religion becoming non-existant!

[bitbutter]

I agree. And I think this perspective recognises the naturalistic fallacy: the mistaken idea that what is natural is therefore good.

[bitbutter]

Thanks. Absolutely. The difficulty of course is that someone who genuinely believes in a religious fairytale will not want to run the risk of their child ending up in hell, from this perspective indoctrination is the morally correct thing to do. (Any religion who's doctrines emphasised the idea that kids shouldn't be indoctrinated wouldn't be around today).

[bitbutter]

Yes, thats exactly how I see it too; and it's why i think that attempts to draw attention to the irrationality of religious belief often get it slightly wrong (as i've done in the past too).

[PopeJohnEdgarIV]

Well explained, good video.

One of the most important things to teach a child is to think for themselves and question.