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Only 30% of children raised atheist stay atheist.

Manc Skipper said:
That's merely religious self-justification. Men can be good or bad. It takes religion to make good men do bad things.
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You're obviously not a parent.
 
Manc Skipper said:
You expect your children to be bad?
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From what I've seen with other toddlers, I'd be a moron to expect otherwise. Toddlers are selfish and completely self-centered by nature.
 
You set out expecting a child to behave well, and he/she tends to do that. Expect him/her to behave badly, they'll tend to do that too. Better to expect the best. Your moronicity is not for me to judge.
 
Manc Skipper said:
You set out expecting a child to behave well, and he/she tends to do that. Expect him/her to behave badly, they'll tend to do that too. Better to expect the best. Your moronicity is not for me to judge.
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Your expectations have nothing to do with it. You obviously have little experience with children.
 
jmotivator said:
Your atheism isn't going to keep your kids from believing in God - Vox

It is an interesting study, if not a particularly intellectual article.

It would be interesting to see this same study in 5 years time. Most of those who left religion appear to have come from Catholicism, but I am sensing the new Pope is drawing a lot of people to Catholicism again.

I think the final paragraph is a bit odd and seems to draw the opposite conclusion of the study.
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I just wonder how many ultimately walk away from religion again once the newness wears off, and the politics and the demands, both within and without the immediate church/religion, begin to overpower the "teachings" of the religion?
 
phattonez said:
From what I've seen with other toddlers, I'd be a moron to expect otherwise. Toddlers are selfish and completely self-centered by nature.
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Being self-centered and selfish at an age where learning about yourself is paramount, doesn't strike me as "bad" but as normal. I'm mean even Christ-like, because, let's be honest Jesus was pretty self-obsessed.

Seems to me if you were/are a parent, you were/are a foolish one to demonize normal learning behavior. Granted it is up to parents to teach children to outgrow that if they've not done it naturally by kindergarten or so, but you don't need a religion or a god to teach that.
 
Robbie Loucks said:
Can we please differentiate between raising a child in a secular home and raising a kid to explicitly be an atheist?
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I'd think that secular parents would have to explain why Yom Kippur or Lent or Ramadan is observed by others but not by them. They would have to explain what they believe/don't believe. I don't really see much difference between secularism and atheism, but I do know that no matter how you're rearing your kids, they're going to have questions about others who are rearing their children differently.
 
Summerwind said:
Being self-centered and selfish at an age where learning about yourself is paramount, doesn't strike me as "bad" but as normal. I'm mean even Christ-like, because, let's be honest Jesus was pretty self-obsessed.

Seems to me if you were/are a parent, you were/are a foolish one to demonize normal learning behavior. Granted it is up to parents to teach children to outgrow that if they've not done it naturally by kindergarten or so, but you don't need a religion or a god to teach that.
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It is normal, but it has to be corrected.

And Jesus was self-obsessed? Riiiiiiight.
 
Good. It would be horribly depressing if 100% of kids believed 100% of their parents belief.

I imagine there's a hell of lot more disappointment on the religious parent side compared to the atheist parent side with a "wayward child". Like a reverse Pascals.
 
jmotivator said:
Your atheism isn't going to keep your kids from believing in God - Vox

It is an interesting study, if not a particularly intellectual article.

It would be interesting to see this same study in 5 years time. Most of those who left religion appear to have come from Catholicism, but I am sensing the new Pope is drawing a lot of people to Catholicism again.

I think the final paragraph is a bit odd and seems to draw the opposite conclusion of the study.
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"Your atheism isn't going ti prevent your kids from believing in God"

I'm not trying to prevent them from believing in anything. I want them to choose what they believe with intelligent thought and solid reasoning based on things that they deem important and significant in their life.

That's the reason why I oppose religious upbringing such as the way I was raised: it's indoctrination or brainwashing, it's not a matter of forming true, solid belief. Parents like mine seem to bank on it. "I tried my best to raise you right." - They see young minds as being impressionable and easily swayed by religious 'arguments'. If it doesn't 'stick' by a certain point in your life they think they've 'failed' to raise you properly.

All of this 'get 'em while they're young' is highly disturbing to me. The extent that people will go to in order to 'hammer home' their beliefs in others is what's disturbing to me.

The belief in god or gods is not disturbing to me. What people do with that belief and how they conduct their selves can be problematic.
 
Fiddytree said:
Maybe we need religion precisely so as to control people. Men aren't inherently good.
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Men aren't inherently good under religion either. In many ways I would say mankind is worse off.
 
phattonez said:
From what I've seen with other toddlers, I'd be a moron to expect otherwise. Toddlers are selfish and completely self-centered by nature.
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You can teach toddler's to be good without religion.
 
TheNextEra said:
People don't always get what they want in the beginning.
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Those in the early Church then never got what they wanted, only their great great great grandkids did.

Do you still seriously consider this?
 
TheNextEra said:
You can teach toddler's to be good without religion.
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That's not the point that I was trying to make. Nice way to try to change the topic, though.
 
phattonez said:
Those in the early Church then never got what they wanted, only their great great great grandkids did.

Do you still seriously consider this?
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Yes, because it is true.
 
phattonez said:
That's not the point that I was trying to make. Nice way to try to change the topic, though.
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I didn't change anything, I commented on what YOU wrote about toddlers. If anything YOU changed the topic. Epic fail on your part.
 
TheNextEra said:
I didn't change anything, I commented on what YOU wrote about toddlers. If anything YOU changed the topic. Epic fail on your part.
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What are you 12, blatantly lying and trying to claim victory? The subject was whether people are naturally good. I used the example of children to show that no, people are not naturally good.
 
phattonez said:
What are you 12, blatantly lying and trying to claim victory? The subject was whether people are naturally good. I used the example of children to show that no, people are not naturally good.
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Actually the subject is "Only 30% of children raised atheist stay atheist", not what you were writing. Before you go spouting off that someone is off topic, maybe you should even see what the topic is genius. Epic fail again on your part son. You're out of your league.
 
I saw a piece on Al Jazeera that addressed Christianity's enormous appeal to so many middle class people in China. In fact, China may soon boast more Christians than North America. Talk about people who were raised atheist. China's communists have never had much tolerance for religion of any stripe, and they've never minded suppressing it with murderous energy. But today, in our time, China boasts a middle class in excess of 100 million people. The have security, good jobs, good income (and disposable income for luxuries...like a Buick), but they're starting to feel empty, like something big is missing from their lives, something bigger than themselves. So they're turning to Christianity in droves. All these people who not that long ago were atheists by government mandate. They don't want to be atheists. They want to welcome God into their lives. So they are.
 
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