Would you accept your child if they became religious?

hinault wrote: »

Which family tradition? The Communist tradition or the Catholic tradition - how strong can a tradition be where there is a family containing a Communist and a Catholic:P

God doesn't benefit one iota from the belief of people/person.
God cannot be added to, or diminished from, by one's belief or lack thereof.

The primary beneficiary of belief is the soul who believes in God and tries as best they can to adhere to God's commands.

The tradition of dogmatism, which is probably as strong for the Communist as the Catholic.

I agree with you (even though I don't believe in God) that it is the individual that benefits from their religious practice - I've met some amazingly beautiful Buddhists and Moslems, who def have a beautiful life state.

Esho wrote: »

The tradition of dogmatism, which is probably as strong for the Communist as the Catholic.

Communism begins where Atheism begins.

According to Karl Marx.
Be careful what you - and some others here - wish for.

Aubrielle Old Tarp wrote: »

Everyone is looking for proof.

Where is the proof God doesn't exist?

Well, that would depend on what you mean by God.

For example, if you mean the deist conception of God then there's very little testable claims to deal with. Deists only claim that a god exists and that said God created the universe but doesn't interact with it. Therefore, there's no mechanism to tell if the claim is true or not. Which means we ought not to believe in it.

However, if you mean the biblical God (and given your posting history I suspect you do) then yes, we can show proof that the Christian God doesn't exist. We can unpick the stories presented in the bible showing how each of them were borrowed from an earlier mythos and how the biblical god is a composite character. But this will take a while so perhaps it's best for you to pick a starting point. There's a lot to go through including the Enuma Elish, the Akkadian epic of Atrahasis, the tale of Ziusudra, the Akkadian, Ugaritic, Babylonian, Sumerian and Egyptian religions and that's before we get to the evidence from history, geography, science etc. We can demonstrate not only the earlier myths which lead to the invention of Yahwheh/Jehovah but also show how individual stories and books in the OT are fictional like the fall of Jericho or the wisdom of Solomon. And then we can move on to the NT and show that the gospels are fictional pseudohistorical novels like those written by Harry Turtledove or Neal Stephenson with stories borrowed from Greek myth and literature, Egyptian myth or even the OT itself.
So where would you like to begin?

The real problem with your argument though is trying to shift the burden of proof in the first place. As has probably been explained to you by someone before the burden of proof lies with the person making the positive claim, i.e. that a god exists. This is how the world works. This is why we don't allow drug companies to sell their new medicine until they can show that it does work. We don't or wouldn't accept a drug company saying "well show us the proof our new drug doesn't work".

This link might help explain in more detail:

Shifting the Burden of Proof

or if you're more visually inclined:

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Not so beautiful a life state for women, though, is it?

Even though,your comment reads like a blanket generalisation, from the majority Moslems I've met, no, not even remotely.

And I would be equally as unhappy if my daughter wanted to join any of the Sunni or Shia communities I've encountered here as if she wanted to to join the Scientologists.

That said, I don't know that much about how women are regarded in the group
I'm thinking of.

Esho wrote: »

Even though,your comment reads like a blanket generalisation, from the majority Moslems I've met, no, not even remotely.

If it's a blanket generalisation, it's no more one than your post was.

So, so many people are open to what they see as the positives of religion but overlook the negatives.

As far as I'm concerned, and all things considered, religion is a negative influence on the world, and that's taking into account the (often conditional) 'good' they do.

It seems to me that you are giving a free pass to certain religions for no other reason than that their ills are less familiar to you than those of western religions.

c_man wrote: »

It's an interesting topic, and I can definitely see your average atheist would be bothered by it. I know of one girl who came from an atheistic household but later found God, her parents refused to come to her wedding ceremony or later baby's baptism. A rather extreme example but she's deffo not alone in having family issues after converting/start practicing.

It'd be the shoe on the other foot for me, but in the event I wouldn't descend to the levels of pettiness that all too often surfaces in this. I'd still pray for them adn you really never know the way things work out.

thats dickish behaviour, Im off to my cousin's baptism later today catholics are good at marking social occasions,Ill give em that

hinault wrote: »

Communism begins where Atheism begins.

Oh yeah? Jim Callaghan, Nick Clegg, Alastair Campbell, Robin Cook, Roy Hattersley, Milton Friedman, Alfred Nobel, Woody Allen, Larry Adler, Richard Branson, Andrew Carnegie, John Maynard Keynes, Johan Cruyff?
What nonsense!