Salon printed an interview with Richard Dawkins on Friday, October 13th that is linked to in the title to this posting. I enjoyed reading the interview and I hope you do to.Question: Dawkins says “to teach children that it is a fact that there is one god or that God created the world in six days, that is child abuse.”Do you agree?Peter Nuhn
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hairless,
I definitely remember you and it’s good to see you back. I’m waiting until after the upcoming elections to declare it all over. I think there is still the smallest chance of us pulling out this hole we’ve dug.
I think it depends on the age of the child whether or not I’d call it abuse. I remember getting “saved” when I was about 6 or 7. I did it becasue our church showed a movie about the tribulation and it scared the shit out of me. If I’d been a little older I probably would have thought it to be cheesy.
out “of” this hole
Sorry about that.
DVanWechel,
About looking at the dark or bright side of things I look to the center. There is no such things as good or bad because humans thought that up by themselves. Everything is nothing at all, so why worry?
Do as you will and bend life to your will.
OUT OF TOPIC
I have an idea for 10/19/06; School shootings and “moral decline”: are we being blamed?
Dear Hairless Monkey,
Glad to see you’re back – we’ve missed your cheerful optimism
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I don’t like to see the phrase “child abuse” misused. Having been a victim of childhood sexual abuse, I KNOW what real abuse is, and it ain’t telling lies to kids!
I feel the same way when people misuse words like “rape,”
“holocaust,” “tragedy,” etc. It makes a mockery of a real tragedy, rape, or whatever.
I think it’s dumb to indoctrinate children into a blind god-belief, but all of us parents indoctrinate our children in some ways.
Someone mentioned that animal-rights people will inculcate their views upon their children. We all influence our children – we tell them our views on politics, sex, money, etc., etc. So, of course, xian parents are going to try to get their offspring to accept their religion.
No, Anthony – surely you know that the gays are to blame!
(Sorry Alex!)
What I find so amazing is that xians are so quick to blame things like the Columbine school shooting on the removal of prayer from schools or the teaching of evolution (http://www.richarddawkins.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=1879&sid=615df3e969502c431ae91ac14bf76f35) but a country such as Sweden, the most atheistic in the world, has never experienced anything similar yet the USA, the most religious country, is also one of the most violent Western nations if not the most violent. God and destruction seem to go hand in hand.
DVanW
Atheistalexexandra probably has a block schedule in which she has 4 90 minute classes each semester, instead of having 7 45 minute classes year round. Many high schools are switching to this plan to allow for more classes being fit in to plan for college prep.
and to ease scheduling problems.
They can get 8 classes a year instead of 7, but spend no more actual time in each class.
pixel
I agree with you in principle about “real abuse”. This is a real touchy area for me. There are degrees of abuse. If a mother holds her child’s hand over a hot burner, but doesn’t burn the child, that’s still abuse. If she threatens him/her that she will do it again without even attempting it, that’s still abuse.
My parents indoctrinated me in the god lie as a child. I think of it as naivity or negligence or ignorance on their part, because I believe that they swallowed the story whole themselves. The gray area for me is that this god belief possibly extended my sexual abuse situation, because I was beseeching that being to help me out of it, instead of having the real tools I needed: to have permission to tell someone real and with the capability of ending it.
So in a sense, it was abetting the abuse situation, and therefore abusive in itself.
But in a general sense, I think it is not strictly abusive to pass on the god belief. I don’t think most people do it knowing it’s a lie.
It is however, -can’t think of the word I want- constricting, maybe- to a young child’s mind.
Dk,
Here is more hope for the world and you! The American people are a more fair minded and intelligent bunch than we sometimes get credit for, especially from those in Europe. Have you been to America in recent years? It isn’t as scary as you might think:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/thenation/20061018/cm_thenation/1130530;_ylt=Am42Ug.W4N_H0WMLktfdyib9wxIF;_ylu=X3oDMTA0cDJlYmhvBHNlYwM-
alex
That is heartening.
I wonder if it’s too late to call for a referendum on ballots elsewhere?
I called my local board of elections and they hadn’t heard anything about an “impeach Bush” referendum. Said it was too late to get it on the ballot for November.
Karen:
I got to choose the topic and the first one that popped into my head was abortion. (I’m pro-choice.) It was really fun and I noticed that more kids were pro-choice than I thought.
Yea, we had a small debate today.
And pro-choice won
DVan: Too young to realize that America’s screwed? Nah.
I think that’s impossible…
…Unless a child’s been brainwashed.
And to both of you, yes, all students have 4 90-minute classes, one 20 minute period, and a half hour for lunch (unless they leave for the tech center halfway through the day.) And kids can work more than 8 actual classes into that schedule, but they’re not all full high-school credits. Like health is 1/2 credit. Like, I’m taking 9 classes this year, but I only end up with 8 credits.
Oops, that last post was supposed to say
And to both of you: Yes, all students have…
My bad…
Oh well, I’m sick of grammar; I took the PSATs today, which wasn’t that hard, but not one of the easiest tests I’ve ever taken.
OH! I was going to add this in on the last post, but on my PSAT on the front we had to fill in all this stuff about our race, gender, and stuff like that and we had to fill in a code relating to our religion (they were listed on the back of the test packet.) There were tons of different types of Christian religions listed as well as Judaism, but as far as I can recall, there was no code for being a Muslim or a Buddhist or even one that said “no religious affiliation.” The only thing there that I could honestly write in was the code for “Other.” And the thing that actually made me mad was that filling in this kind of stuff was supposed to help determine whether the test was FAIR to all students.
Now I understand that it’d take pages to write in a code for all the different religions out there, but Buddhism and Islam are pretty well known religions. And even though atheism isn’t a religion, they should at least put minority religions on there if they can fit 50 types of Christianity on there…
But maybe I’m just nitpicking.
Alexandra
Glad you got to have your debate. And to hear about the prochoice numbers.
In my AP History class, we debated all the time, but usually dry stuff. Although I do recall debating the death penalty once.
Our teacher would trip us up now and then and have us choose sides, then he’d turn the tables on us and make us debate for the side we were in opposition to. A good debater should be able to do this, so it was good training, but OH, we hated him for it!
PS: Don’t worry about correcting all your typos. We all make them. Usually, we understand the gist of what’s being said.
Hah, all we do is talk about hot-button issues, nothing less.
Abortion
Legalizing Pot
Capital Punishment
Gay Marriage
Book Banning
Pretty much everything, I just can’t remember them all.
hairless you will be praising allah in 20 yrs.europe is tired old blood
only the nazis or communists can defeat the muslims.so are you with us or against us.
atheistalexandra the correct answer
to hot button issues-abortion good,pot bad,death penalty good,gay marriage bad ,book banning good.
alexatheist is a good fellow so change gay marriage to neutral.
Reason,
?
pixel,
Blame the gays? Well they don’t do any harm really, they just “do” each other. Xains are willing to blame them AND us. Maybe if the gays could become Atheists we could boast our power.
Idea! Give bibles to gays so they will stay as far away from religion as they can! The bible hates gays so in turn gays will hate the bible.
The worst thing about the bible to gays is that it labels their acts “sinful” and says they can change their ways by willing their “gayness” out of themselves.
Phft! The bible should be sold everywhere! Think of what will happen if people read it! THEY WILL RUN AWAY.
Anthony:
How ’bout putting the following disclaimer sticker outside each and every Bable:
“The words contained in this book are fictional. Events and characters portrayed herein are imaginary. Ignoring this warning may harm your mental health.”
The Jesus Freaks have already done so with science books in one county’s school system here in GA, why can’t we it to their club’s “book of the month”?
“Freethinkers dream of a world where people think for themselves”
Anthony:
How ’bout putting the following disclaimer sticker outside each and every Bable:
“The words contained in this book are fictional. Events and characters portrayed herein are imaginary. Ignoring this warning may harm your mental health.”
The Jesus Freaks have already done so with science books in one county’s school system here in GA, why can’t we it to their club’s “book of the month”?
“Freethinkers dream of a world where people think for themselves”
Isn’t it kinda adult abuse as well? Or maybe it’s more like adult-into-child abuse, for it causes grown adults to think and act like children.
reason:
Well, I’m not sure on the whole pot thing, but I’m leaning towards bad. And then change same-sex marriages to GOOD and banning books to BAD and then you’d have my opinions.
The only time I think that book banning is okay is if the book is seriously like a gory sex novel in an elementary school, all the parents of all the students don’t want their kids to read it, and the book is still at the school, but only available upon request or something like that. After all, if the kid’s brainwashed by his/her parents, all they’ll have to do is tell the kid that reading the book will send him/her to hell and they won’t check it out.
But middle school and up really shouldn’t have banned books. After all, by the time kids have 6th grade they know about sex and violence and “bad” words and they’re going to be exposed to it anyway, so why bother?
alexandra i say high school an up no banned books.alex you can do better than a ? mark.8 states have on the ballot marriage acts.there are ballot issues on property rights and illegal aliens even if you don’t like the candidates get out in vote people.it is your civic duty.my rant is over have a great weekend everyone.
Anthony,
I would bet a LARGE sum of money that most Americans (including me) own a Bible. However, I am different from most Americans because I have actually READ the Bible! I love it when xians tell me that the 10 Commandments should be put in courtrooms but then stutter when you ask them to NAME the commandments!!
And, they are surprised to find out that I actually know them – in order!
*chuckle*
Karen,
I understand what you’re saying about abuse – I know that abuse can be more than physical or sexual in nature – it can be verbal, threats, intimidation, etc.
I do understand what Dawkins and others here are saying when they say that religion is abuse – but I think it we need to be careful when we throw around words like “abuse.”
I really wish Dawkins hadn’t called it “abuse.” He is a public figure and was being quoted in an interview. I think it makes him sound a little over the top and kinda makes people think that atheists are kooks! (Well, maybe we are!)
On the blog, it’s one thing to blow off steam, but I think we should be careful of our words in public. Then again, maybe I’m wrong – and maybe we should be loud, proud, and obnoxious. Look what it did for ACT UP – helped get more attention for AIDS issues.
But me, I’m the non-confrontational type who thinks honey traps more flies . . .
P.S.
I TIVO’d Dawkins appearance on the Colbert Report and watched it last night. Really Good! Colbert is just so darn funny!
I’ve nearly finished The God Delusion now, it’s a very interesting book that I would recommend to anyone on here (Actually, more to anyone off here – here it’s just preaching to the deconverted). It’s also quite fortuitously timed since here in the UK we’re starting to see a public backlash against the government’s dogma that anything resembling criticism of Muslims is racist.
On topic, in severe cases I think that religion could reasonably be viewed as child abuse. If you instil in your child the fear that if she does not do as she is told then she will be tortured for all eternity then that must be at least as bad as a parent repeatedly threatening violence. In lesser cases “abuse” is probably too strong a term but indoctrination into a religion is still something I find very disturbing, especially when schools are brought into it.
reason: You know what? I say middle school and up because that’s around the age where sex jokes start coming up and “bad” words are being yelled in hallways. You might as well just ban all speech in hallways and cafeterias if you’re going to ban books in middle school.
Hi everyone I’m new here. Yes I do believe it is abuse to teach a child or anyone these thoughts. I feel insulted that my family had tried to tell me everything that they believe as Christians is true. They do not understand why I do not believe in a god. Maybe it is because I do not think in such unlogical ways.
When I have a child I would NOT let anyone teach them that their religion is true.
thaddeus
If you click on the link in the bottom right corner of this post, it will bring up this thread on the religion as Child abuse issue you were asking about.
Have fun reading!