Baptism banned until child can decide for themselves.

ed2hands

Galvasean wrote: »

I've seen a few posters state this recently and am genuinely curious as to what constitutes atheist attempts at conversion? I have yet to encounter any atheists (or 'new atheists' for that matter) knocking on people's doors, handing out literature on busy streets etc. So in what way are they going about it?

Sure, there isn't any door-knocking.
Plenty of books, magazines, speeches, websites, conferences, organisations, campaigns, videos and cartoons though.
But they're not attempts at conversion right?:)

Sonics2k

ed2hands wrote: »

Sure, there isn't any door-knocking.
Plenty of books, magazines, speeches, websites, conferences, organisations, campaigns, videos and cartoons though.
But they're not attempts at conversion right?:)

So, are you saying that all those thousands of religious books would also be attempts at conversion? Because I've seen people on this very forum say they're not.

ed2hands

Sonics2k wrote: »

So, are you saying that all those thousands of religious books would also be attempts at conversion? Because I've seen people on this very forum say they're not.

Have you?
Well, i don't speak for them obviously.

With respect, anyone who considers new athiesms attempts at conversion as not intrepid, much less non-existant, are for the birds as they say.;)

robindch

philologos wrote: »

[...] robindch's position that it should be illegal for any parent to provide any form of influence to their children [...]

I said no such thing.

J C wrote: »

On any objective reading, Robin is directly equating Christian Baptism to statutory rape

Also completely wrong.

Have a read again of the follow-up and go easy on the hysteria, folks.

/sheesh

robindch

J C wrote: »

[...] even Hitler would have blanched at (he never went as far as legally requiring the Jews to not teach the Jewish Faith to their children)

Have a read of Martin Luther's "On The Jews And Their Lies", where the founder of your religion explicitly calls for the execution of any rabbi who attempted to preach his religious views:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Jews_and_Their_Lies

lmaopml

It sounds a bit daft op to me to drag this through a court of law, but then it's not the only daft thing that happens when parents disagree over things and the children end up in the middle.

In the first case the woman could have baptised the child herself if she felt she was being pushed into a corner over it, and that the child was in danger of death or something..and if it meant more to her than just being accepted at school - which it should! She is one of two parents afterall.

Secondly, the father seems odd too, in that he, as an apparent atheist thinks that baptism holds some kind of power that he doesn't as a parent of the child who is growing and learning all the time.

I don't think this was about baptism, I think personally that it was about a power struggle between two people looking for notice on the back of what imo is a non-arguement.

J C

robindch wrote: »

Have a read of Martin Luther's "On The Jews And Their Lies", where the founder of your religion explicitly calls for the execution of any rabbi who attempted to preach his religious views:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Jews_and_Their_Lies

Martin Luther isn't the founder of my Faith ... Jesus Christ alone is!!!!

... and I condem anti-semetism from whatever source that it emerges from.

... now please stop squirming and making references to Medieval personalities ... and deal with the issue at hand ... your statement that Christian Baptism and the teaching of the Christian Faith to children, should be banned using similar laws to the laws currently used to deter the sexual abuse of minors.

... if this isn't what you meant then please clarify exactly what you meant to say.

J C

robindch wrote: »

Have a read again of the follow-up and go easy on the hysteria, folks.

/sheesh

Your 'follow-up' amounts to pretty much the same highly-objectionable slur on Christian Parents ... advocating that laws that are in place to deter and punish the sexual abuse of minors should now be applied to 'protecting' childrens minds ... specifically from Christian teaching and influences.

... and I'll go easy on the hysteria ... when you go easy on the inflammatory anti-Christian statements!!!

Galvasean

philologos wrote: »

More and more programming on the BBC is promoting the new-atheism I'm finding. That clip is a prominent example. Songs of Praise has seen its time steadily cut in the past few years, as welcome as it is in the BBC lineup.[

philologos wrote: »

My point was in response to Galvasean to simply point out that there are plenty of advocates of new-atheism in the media and in other areas of society.

'New atheism'? Phil, not you too

amacachi

philologos wrote: »

More and more programming on the BBC is promoting the new-atheism I'm finding. That clip is a prominent example. Songs of Praise has seen its time steadily cut in the past few years, as welcome as it is in the BBC lineup.

I assume they spend 2 episodes a year (for balance) in mosques, one night every 3 years silently observing an evening in a synagogue and split the rest up between the various Christian Faiths in the UK in perfect proportion. And that a quarter to a third of episodes are dedicated to Atheist ceremonies.

For balance obviously.

J C

Sarky wrote: »

How very intolerant of us!

If the cap fits ....
... and up to now, on this thread, its apparently a perfect fit !!!:(

... I live in hope of a liberal atheist, meeting me 'half-way' on the Faith tolerance issue ... but I have yet to hear from one on this forum!!!

J C

amacachi wrote: »

I assume they spend 2 episodes a year (for balance) in mosques, one night every 3 years silently observing an evening in a synagogue and split the rest up between the various Christian Faiths in the UK in perfect proportion. And that a quarter to a third of episodes are dedicated to Atheist ceremonies.

For balance obviously.

I'm not asking that everybody must compusorily attend the religious buildings of any religion ... merely that we all show tolerance to the daily faith expressions of different religions and none.

I see no difficulty in attending the religious services of other religions or Humanist funerals and myself and my children have attended such services respectfully, when invited, without any damage being done to either our minds or our Faith ... so why do some Atheists 'break out in a cold sweat' at the thought of their children attending religious services or being exposed to crosses or religious symbols in school???
Nobody is asking them to take part in the service or to wear the symbols.

... surely this is all part and parcel of a liberal education in any pluralist society, worthy of the name???

dmw07

Galvasean wrote: »

He said they sound like (based on the scant evidence). He never said they were.

Yeah, seems like it was an off the cuff bs remark from some idiot. No backup and some cronies left some thanks. Quite sad really.

Frowzy

Ok, so this is just a question, I'm not trying to prove a point, I'm genuinely interested....

I agree with letting a child decide for themselves when they are old enough, that makes sense! However I can't figure out what they are expected to choose from.

If you are atheist then you obviously raise your child to those beliefs, so there wouldn't be any religious upbringing for the child to experience. On the flip side if a person raises their child within a religion (as I have chosen to do) then that is all they experience, what choice can they make if they haven't experienced anything different.

I know nothing about religions other than RC, and tbh I believe as long as they believe in a God then whatever religion they choose doesn't matter. Is it not true that religion was only set up to give people rules to live within, some sort of order if you like...

Anyway back to the point.... How can someone ensure that a child has enough life experience to choose when they're old enough?

With regards to the OP, I cant understand why the child couldn't be baptised with a view to choosing no religion when it's older. God forbid anything should happen, however if it did and the child died the mother would (assuming she is a religious person) spend the rest of her life worrying about her child being eternally damned or whatever happens.

J C

Frowzy wrote: »

Ok, so this is just a question, I'm not trying to prove a point, I'm genuinely interested....

I agree with letting a child decide for themselves when they are old enough, that makes sense! However I can't figure out what they are expected to choose from.

If you are atheist then you obviously raise your child to those beliefs, so there wouldn't be any religious upbringing for the child to experience. On the flip side if a person raises their child within a religion (as I have chosen to do) then that is all they experience, what choice can they make if they haven't experienced anything different.

Your child will get plenty of exposure to Atheistic ideas ... in school and within the mass media ... the real question is whether s/he will have any exposure to the teachings of Christianity ... and if some of the posters on this forum have their way, s/he wouldn't ... as they want you (and anybody else) to be legally prohibited from discussing Christianity with children at home or in church until they are 18 years old.
Crucially, they don't propose similar restrictions on teaching your child about different aspects of Materialism ... and indeed they propose that it should actually be a legal requirement for all schools to do so.

Under the Atheist proposals, an Atheist's child would never be exposed to any ideas ... other than 'wall to wall' Materialism in school and Atheism at home and anywhere else the Atheist chooses to go. Even somebody praying within earshot of the Atheist's child, wouldn't be tolerated!!!

Frowzy wrote: »

Anyway back to the point.... How can someone ensure that a child has enough life experience to choose when they're old enough?

By a broad liberal education that presents all ideas that are current in society ... and where there is controversy ... both sides of the argument.

The Atheists on this forum want only their ideas to be taught by law in school (and this has already occurred in American Public Schools) ... they also want to now go further, with a legal ban on Christians teaching their children their Faith both at home and at school until they are 18 ... on the spurious basis that it would be a form of 'psychological child abuse' to do so.

When I first heard this I really didn't believe it ... but nobody is denying it ... and all Atheist postings are fully supporting it.

Dades

Frowzy wrote: »

I agree with letting a child decide for themselves when they are old enough, that makes sense! However I can't figure out what they are expected to choose from.

Why does a child need to be raised in a religion to choose it? This is the 21st century. If/when a child/teen/adult decide they want to educate themselves on one or many religions then there are an infinite amount or resources available to them to do so.

Frowzy wrote: »

With regards to the OP, I cant understand why the child couldn't be baptised with a view to choosing no religion when it's older.

Raising them in any one religion only puts that one religion at a huge advantage due to it's familiarity. Also, if you were going to choose a religion to raise your child in just for the sake of it, a lot of us don't believe the insidious organisation that is the catholic church has done anything to earn themselves that right.

J C wrote: »

The Atheists on this forum want only their ideas to be taught by law in school (and this has already occurred in American Public Schools) ... they also want to now go further, with a legal ban on Christians teaching their children their Faith both at home and at school until they are 18 ... on the spurious basis that it would be a form of 'psychological child abuse' to do so.

When I first heard this I really didn't believe it ... but nobody is denying it ... and all Atheist postings are fully supporting it.

Hi J C,

Any more spouting of this utter bollocks and I'll delete any more posts of yours in this thread.

philologos

Dades: One generally has to know what the choice is before one can make it though. That applies in a number of contexts rather than just faith vs no-faith.

Dades

philologos wrote: »

Dades: One generally has to know what the choice is before one can make it though. That applies in a number of contexts rather than just faith vs no-faith.

What's to stop anyone educating themselves about as many religions as they feel they need to?

The Quadratic Equation

Dades wrote: »

What's to stop anyone educating themselves about as many religions as they feel they need to?

Nothing, e.g. I continue to study all the current mainstream religions and philosophies.
Incidentally, 'New' Atheism has turned out to offer the least. Most disappointing really.

philologos

Dades wrote: »

What's to stop anyone educating themselves about as many religions as they feel they need to?

I'm not saying that there is anyone stopping anyone from doing this.

Personally, I would show my hypothetical-child the case for Christianity and allow them to make their own minds up at a later date. Parent's ultimately are going to influence their children. Attempting to deny this much would be dumb.

I would introduce them to philosophy also.

fatmammycat

There is no 'case' for Christianity, just myth.

Dades

philologos wrote: »

I'm not saying that there is anyone stopping anyone from doing this.

Then I totally fail to see the point of the last post of yours I quoted.

philologos

fatmammycat wrote: »

There is no 'case' for Christianity, just myth.

I respectfully disagree. I don't know what else there is to say really. It's not that I woke up one morning and decided that I was going to be a Christian today. It was a process with much thought.

You can deny that's true if you want, but I know what happened to me

The Quadratic Equation

fatmammycat wrote: »

There is no 'case' for Christianity, just myth.

You might believe that Jesus was not the Son of God, and that he was instead mad or lieing, but Jesus Christ, and Christainity are not a myth.

From Professor Michael Grant (an atheist, and leading classical historian)

…if we apply to the New Testament, as we should, the same sort of criteria as we should apply to other ancient writings containing historical material, we can no more reject Jesus’ existence than we can reject the existence of a mass of pagan personages whose reality as historical figures is never questioned… To sum up, modern critical methods fail to support the Christ myth theory. It has "again and again been answered and annihilated by first rank scholars." In recent years, "no serious scholar has ventured to postulate the non historicity of Jesus"

MrPudding

The Quadratic Equation wrote: »

'New' Atheism has turned out to offer the least. Most disappointing really.

Agreed. When you are looking for a crutch to help you get through life or something to tell you "don't worry, you are really really important" or something to help you with your fear of death then athiesm, new or otherwise, does not offer much.

MrP

MrPudding

The Quadratic Equation wrote: »

You might believe that Jesus was not the Son of God, and that he was instead mad or lieing, but Jesus Christ, and Christainity are not a myth.

I find this CS Lewis bollix to be quite irritating. It is not as if Jesus being mad, bad or a liar are the only options. The myth of christiantity may have been nothing to do with him or whether he was mad bad or a liar, after all it wasn’t really all made up until after he died so to Jesus being mad, bad or a liar we must add the possibilities of others exaggerating the story of Jesus, for whatever reason, and countless other potential causes. Of course, you probably believe that there being an all powerful sky wizard who got a son by getting a virgin up the duff without having sex who subsequently had a kid that worked as an chippy for 30 odd years then started doing magic tricks which included raising the dead and molecular transformation that was then nailed to a cross until be was apparently dead and then rose form the dead three days later and then levitated to heaven, which was, apparently at that time, somewhere in the clouds (though it seems to have moved since we developed the ability to go there) is a more likely scenario than someone made some stuff up or there was a bit of exaggeration that kind of got out of hand.

The Quadratic Equation wrote: »

From Professor Michael Grant (an atheist, and leading classical historian)

…if we apply to the New Testament, as we should, the same sort of criteria as we should apply to other ancient writings containing historical material, we can no more reject Jesus’ existence than we can reject the existence of a mass of pagan personages whose reality as historical figures is never questioned… To sum up, modern critical methods fail to support the Christ myth theory. It has "again and again been answered and annihilated by first rank scholars." In recent years, "no serious scholar has ventured to postulate the non historicity of Jesus"

Nice use of the strawman there. Who is denying the existence of a MAN called Jesus? I have little doubt a MAN called Jesus existed. In fact, there are currently 10s, if not 100s, of thousands of men called Jesus in the world.

Where is the evidence for him being the son of a sky wizard and him doing magic tricks?

MrP

fatmammycat

philologos wrote: »

I respectfully disagree. I don't know what else there is to say really. It's not that I woke up one morning and decided that I was going to be a Christian today. It was a process with much thought.

You can deny that's true if you want, but I know what happened to me

Whatever you need to tell yourself. I think the declaring yourself a believer in christanity is one of the most ridiculous incredulous goalpost moving flights of fancy any person can take and I find it deeply disturbing how any sane person could take it seriously. And I am being absolutely honest here. Watching intelligent people actively declare they believe in a magical being and the quite clearly fictional ramblings of an ancient book is astounding to me.

fatmammycat

The Quadratic Equation wrote: »

You might believe that Jesus was not the Son of God, and that he was instead mad or lieing, but Jesus Christ, and Christainity are not a myth.

From Professor Michael Grant (an atheist, and leading classical historian)

…if we apply to the New Testament, as we should, the same sort of criteria as we should apply to other ancient writings containing historical material, we can no more reject Jesus’ existence than we can reject the existence of a mass of pagan personages whose reality as historical figures is never questioned… To sum up, modern critical methods fail to support the Christ myth theory. It has "again and again been answered and annihilated by first rank scholars." In recent years, "no serious scholar has ventured to postulate the non historicity of Jesus"

I couldn't care less about Jesus, he lived, he died, he was a mortal historical figure. It's when people declare he was the son of a god that I start to wonder about the power of cognitive dissonance.

philologos

fatmammycat wrote: »

Whatever you need to tell yourself. I think the declaring yourself a believer in christanity is one of the most ridiculous incredulous goalpost moving flights of fancy any person can take and I find it deeply disturbing how any sane person could take it seriously. And I am being absolutely honest here. Watching intelligent people actively declare they believe in a magical being and the quite clearly fictional ramblings of an ancient book is astounding to me.

There's very little magical about the idea that the universe has a Creator, and that that Creator can work in it. If the first clause is true, then the second clause is logical.

Then again, perhaps I'm not intelligent :pac:

fatmammycat

philologos wrote: »

There's very little magical about the idea that the universe has a Creator, and that that Creator can work in it. If the first clause is true, then the second clause is logical.

Then again, perhaps I'm not intelligent :pac:

Since there is no evidence for a creator I see no real reason to believe in one.