Posted on 11/27/2007 11:53:56 AM PST by Between the Lines
Christian kids are typically sent to Sunday school for lessons on the Bible and morals. For nonbelievers, there's atheist Sunday school.
With an estimated 14 percent of Americans professing to have no religion, according to the Institute for Humanist Studies, some are choosing to send their children to classes that teach ethics without religious belief.
Bri Kneisley sent her 10-year-old son, Damian, to Camp Quest Ohio this past summer after a neighbor had shown him the Bible.
"Damian was quite certain this guy was right and was telling him this amazing truth that I had never shared," said Kneisley, who realized her son needed to learn about secularism, according to Time magazine.
Camp Quest, also dubbed "The Secular Summer Camp," is offered for children of atheists, freethinkers, humanists and other nonbelievers who hold to a "naturalistic, not supernatural world view," the camp website states.
The summer camp, offered across North America and supported by the Institute for Humanist Studies, is designed to teach rational inquiry, critical thinking, scientific method, ethics, free speech, and the separation of religion and government.
Kneisley welcomes the sense of community the camp offers her son.
"He's a child of atheist parents, and he's not the only one in the world," she said, according to Time.
Atheist and humanist programs are expected to pop up in such cities as Phoenix, Albuquerque, N.M., and Portland, Ore., and adult nonbelievers are leaning on such secular Sunday schools to help teach their kids values and how to respond to the Christian majority in the United States.
Outspoken atheist Richard Dawkins argues that teaching faith to children can be dangerous, noting the possibility of extremism.
"The point about teaching children that faith is a virtue is that you're teaching them that you don't have to justify what you do, you can simply shelter behind the statement 'that's my faith and you're not to question that,'" he argued in a debate with Christian apologist John Lennox last month.
A recent study by Ellison Research, however, found that most Americans who attended church as a child say their past worship attendance has had a positive impact on them. The majority, including those who no longer currently attend religious services, said their attendance at church as a child gave them a good moral foundation and that they are glad they attended.
Yet today, nonbelievers want their children to participate in Sunday school the secular way.
"I'm a person that doesn't believe in myths," says Hana, 11, who attends the Humanist Community Center in Palo Alto, Calif., according to Time. "I'd rather stick to the evidence."
“Outspoken atheist Richard Dawkins argues that teaching faith to
children can be dangerous, noting the possibility of extremism.”
Too bad the writer didn’t carry-through.
And mention that Dawkins is trying to wake up America to the real
threat: religious Jews.
I guess Dawkins’ “prayer” is that Americans that wouldn’t listen to
Herr Schickelgruber (aka one A. Hitler) might listen to him.
Dawkins: Jews Control US Policy
Arutz 7 ^ | October 8, ‘07 | staff
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1908313/posts
Professor Richard Dawkins, a senior British evolutionary scientist and
outspoken atheist, drew fire on Monday for saying that
Jews “more or less monopolize American foreign policy.”
Religious Jews are a small group, Dawkins said, but are
“fantastically successful” in lobbying the US government. Dawkins,
who is currently in the US in an attempt to promote atheism and fight
religious influence, expressed hope that atheists would be similarly
successful in determining government policy.
You completely fail to understand. Feelings have nothing to do with it. I'll try to break it down.
The premise of God allows a rational argument to be made for morality.
I hardly think so. I used to think so, but changed my mind.
There are two possibilities:
I used to think 1 was the case. I found the Bible really supports 2. Consider homicide. We can give an exception for the case of self-defense, which seems reasonable (I would include execution of certain criminals under this category). But what about killing someone who has done no wrong to you or others? If we're arguing based upon God's unchanging character, God holds human life sacred and would abhor that as murder. But God ordered the Hebrews to invade Canaan and wipe out the Canaanites to the last child. They killed men, women, children, and babies. God would not order anyone to do anything that is evil, according to Christianity, so when God ordered the Hebrews to commit infanticide it must have been a good act, as blessed as feeding an orphan. This is completely at odds with the idea that morality comes from God's unchanging nature.
The other option is that what is good is what God considers good at that time. This removes much of the moral significance from sins against others because it strips from them their unchanging inherent rights--what right to life? Infanticide is no longer a sin against the person you kill and against God, it's just a sin against God because at that time it's his whim to consider infanticide wrong. Good and evil become just a checklist. The nature of God is unknowable, and possibly would be quite a surprise to his followers.
This situation is even worse than the situation of an atheist or agnostic, because at least the atheist or agnostic is free to accept as valid what they think is proper treatment of themselves. If it is wrong to murder only at some times and good and blessed to do so at others, then you cannot validly claim that there is a certain constant way that others should treat you. Humans become essentially worthless.
These two competing views of morality are in unspoken conflict in most forms of Christianity.
Why should the thief care whether the victim is better, worse, or the same as him in an athiestic framework? He wants what the other person has and so he considers stealing "rational." When you feel the call to morality, you feel the call to God. Nothing less.
Why do I care if he cares? Do you think it less wrong to punch a granny because a person doesn't care and thinks it's reasonable?
When you feel the call to morality, you feel the call to God. Nothing less.
So if God changes his idea of morality (Infanticide is bad/Kill those Canaanite babies!) periodically, does he have to flash our moral BIOS so we know what to feel?
I do not want others to hurt me.
I am not more valuable than any other Homo sapiens.
Therefore rationally I should treat others just as well as I treat myself.
____________________
It doesn’t hold together. What does your desire not to be hurt have to do with the value of other people? And what does your desire not to be hurt, and your view that people are equally valuable (who sets that standard? God?) has nothing to do with how you treat them. Why shouldn’t you steal from someone equally valuable to you if it doesn’t hurt you? If you are just as good as they are, why shouldn’t you have the nice things they have?
Your argument regarding murder is also weak. It breaks down in the word murder. God does not command us not to kill. He commands us not to murder.
Heh...that really makes this story smack of something from The Onion, eh?
Since when have supporters of Christianity been labeled as "apologists"? WTF.
You are trying to make a rational argument for altruism without God and now you claim not to care if you can make an argument to the thief regarding why he should not steal. You don’t care how he feels. Some athiest Sunday school teacher you would make!
God does not change. He has changed the duties of men to him many times; from one rule in the Garden of Eden, to many rules before Christ, to a few simple rules again.
(Infanticide is bad/Kill those Canaanite babies!)'
Is infanticide ever a just act? If your answer is no, then what of the doctor in the emergency room that sacrifices the child the mother carries to save the mother's life? Since God is perfectly just, perfect justice here applied. Do you know that God didn't take those chidren immediately into Heaven?
periodically, does he have to flash our moral BIOS so we know what to feel?
Absolutely, it is called the Holy Spirit, an aspect of God.
John 16:7-14 But I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. {8} When he comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment: {9} in regard to sin, because men do not believe in me; {10} in regard to righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; {11} and in regard to judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned. {12} "I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. {13} But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. {14} He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you.
John 14
Jesus Comforts His Disciples
1"Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. 2In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. 3And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. 4You know the way to the place where I am going."
Jesus the Way to the Father
5Thomas said to him, "Lord, we don't know where you are going, so how can we know the way?" 6Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him."
8Philip said, "Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us."
9Jesus answered: "Don't you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father'? 10Don't you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. 11Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves. 12I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. 13And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. 14You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.
Well, if you are lucky, there will be moment when God reaches out to you. That is what happened with me; no seeking required. Many others have to seek in order to find. Have you tried reading the Bible, or services, or prayer?
*8naturalistic, not supernatural world view**
Stopped reading right there.
A truly ignorant statement concerning the history of mankind. Most all civilizations not based on Christianity have failed to hold up the Golden Rule as a virtue, let alone practice it. It took 1900 years for Christianity to completely reshape Western Civilization to the point that treating others as you would be treated became so accepted that silly atheists could claim that its "just natural".
I'm flattered that atheists have chosen to borrow the tenants of Christianity and call them their own, but it doesn't change the facts. Without a divine moral code that rests on there being something greater than oneself, there is absolutely nothing beneficial about being ethical when no one is looking.
I'll never knowingly trust an atheist with my welfare or the welfare of anyone else. They ultimately have no underlying principle greater than their own welfare. Assertions to the contrary can logically be explained as subterfuge to gain false trust.
Again your logic is totally flawed. Person A's decision to follow the law provides zero protection to person A from person B. Or are you arguing that all rape victims had it coming?
For someone who's only belief system is logic and reason, you appear to lack a firm understanding of either. You will find little natural empathy in any of the greatly successful ancient civilizations. In point of fact, empathy was more often than not considered to be a failing to be avoided.
Had you been an atheist among the Tartars or Spartans you would have just as quickly called their values your own and explained them as evolutionarily natural, just as you now explain away Christian values.
"Survival of the fittest" has nothing to do with individuals, it is an evolutionary concept concerning species and sub-groups and their fitness in the environment they live in.
Also, if I'm a born-again Christian, forgetting conscience, there is nothing to stop you from killing or stealing either since you are already guaranteed your place in heaven.
Anyway, most people can't afford the protection needed to prevent friends and relatives of the victims of their crimes from coming after them and exacting revenge. Forgetting conscience, there are still plenty of reasons obey society's laws. Anyone with half a brain knows it's beneficial to them to live in a stable, law-abiding society rather than a place where anarchy reigns supreme.
Whoops. There goes the Christian's argument against abortion. If aborted children go to Heaven, then why is abortion bad? Consider how many of those souls would be lost if they were allowed to grow up. Probably near 100% of them in places like China, and at least 50% or more here in the USA. Your argument turns abortionists into heroes of the faith.
I would be wary of discharging accusations of ignorance to others when you respond with an answer like that. First of all, our society, as imperfect as it still is, has borrowed influences from all sorts of society. Indeed, it's very core, democracy (utterly alien to Biblical nations) was taken from the pagan Greeks, along with our jury system via the equally pagan Vikings. I don't doubt for one moment that the Judeo-Christian influence is important and widespread, but it wasn't all good, as a thousand years of support for slavery will testify. Much of the reshaping has been done in direct opposition to the Christian orthodoxy of the time.
In any case, do you think that the great non-Christian civilizations were able to flourish absent the Golden Rule? Perhaps the ancient civilizations do not stand up to scrutiny by today's standards, but they would not have achieved all they did without some level of altruism between people and without groups of people working together for the common good.
As I said, it's been a long history of trial and error, with emphasis on the error.
Hmm. Well, we've already covered empathy, guilt, and the threat of revenge (no crime is ever completely foolproof). Add to that the undoubted pleasure people get when they do the right thing or are altruistic towards others.
And since when has belief in a divine moral code stopped anyone from doing bad things? Need I repeat the list I gave you earlier?
I'll never knowingly trust an atheist with my welfare or the welfare of anyone else. They ultimately have no underlying principle greater than their own welfare. Assertions to the contrary can logically be explained as subterfuge to gain false trust.
Well that is load of nonsense. Given the choice of a so-so Christian surgeon and an top-notch surgeon who just happened to be an atheist to perform delicate brain surgery on your child, you would choose the atheist surgeon every time (or would you really put your own faith before the welfare of your child?)
Someone's professed religious belief (or lack thereof) is no measure of their competence or honesty. How many cheating and embezzling pastors do you need to convince you of that? Because the list is a long one.
Another thing. I think we all need to pray for these atheists. The mere fact that they want there children to learn about some higher power is reason enough to keep evangelizing and inviting them to your (our) church. Whichever applies. LOL!
Prayers, prayers!
My prediction?
From this generation of atheists will come a very reverent generation of true believers, probably to the far right churches.
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