Atheists Who Go to Church: Doing It for the Children

M

Mind Over Matter

Registered Senior Member
He probably won't get down on his knees, but that fellow sitting near you during the Sunday church service just may be an atheist. And a scientist.

A new study out of Rice University has found that 17 percent -- about one out of five scientists who describe themselves as either atheists or agnostics -- actually go to church, although not too often, and not because they feel a spiritual yearning to join the faithful.

More likely, it's because of the kids.

What? Why would somebody who doesn't believe there's a god want his own offspring wasting their time in an enterprise he believes has no foundation in fact? Especially a scientist.

The study, by sociologists Elaine Howard Ecklund of Rice and Kristen Schultz Lee of the University at Buffalo, found that many atheists want their children exposed to religion so that they can make up their own minds on what to believe. In addition, church may provide a better understanding of morality and ethics, and occasionally attending services may ease the conflict between spouses who disagree over the value of religion to their children, the study contends.

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Morality and ethics can be studied in public schools , the society you live in and through the media. No one has to learn ethics in a relogious setting and sometimes that really isn't helpful because religions show only what they want you to learn about their viewpoints on every subject.
 
I did that as well, because I believe in fair choice, and also because in some ways if you have an incorrect start to life it is quite useful. I have believed in 'The Big Bang' and 'God', and those errors led me on the right path to my own theory. It's a bit like rebellion, it is useful at times. Your brain is so reluctant to go back in that direction, that you are forced to go in the right direction.
 
cosmictraveler said:
Morality and ethics can be studied in public schools , the society you live in and through the media. No one has to learn ethics in a relogious setting and sometimes that really isn't helpful because religions show only what they want you to learn about their viewpoints on every subject.
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And what kind of ethics does one learn there is public schools and via the media?
The kind of ethics that brought this world into a complete crisis.
 
wynn said:
And what kind of ethics does one learn there is public schools and via the media?
The kind of ethics that brought this world into a complete crisis.
Click to expand...

You're right, let's go back to the good old days when we were demanded to stone gay people, women and blacks were lesser beings and we kicked the crap out of anybody who was different.....
 
Mind Over Matter said:
A new study out of Rice University has found that 17 percent -- about one out of five scientists who describe themselves as either atheists or agnostics -- actually go to church, although not too often, and not because they feel a spiritual yearning to join the faithful.

More likely, it's because of the kids.
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So is that roughly the percentage of atheists married to religious people who are likely to insist the kids be taken to church? :shrug:
 
im my child ever decided he or she wanted to go to church i would take em. im agnostic myself. but i wouldn't force my beliefs or lack of onto a child. religion is and always should be a very personal thing. if some 1 wants to believe in an all powerful being they call god then who am i to say dont... i would much rather they make there own decision and i would support them while they do it.
 
wynn said:
And what kind of ethics does one learn there is public schools and via the media?
The kind of ethics that brought this world into a complete crisis.
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So we should look at the ethics that were used throughout history. Let us look at the Native Americans who were almost all killed off because they were "savages" and wouldn't become good Christians and do what they were told. The WW2 was brought on by Hitler and his Christian belief that only they were the race to rule everyone else because they were "better " than all others. The Catholic religion was torturing, molesting and killing people who would not believe in their way of thinking. So where does your religious ethical and moral values help with just those few examples I've brought up?Seems that ethics and morals that were taught by the various religions didn't do very well through time.
 
cosmictraveler said:
So we should look at the ethics that were used throughout history. Let us look at the Native Americans who were almost all killed off because they were "savages" and wouldn't become good Christians and do what they were told. The WW2 was brought on by Hitler and his Christian belief that only they were the race to rule everyone else because they were "better " than all others. The Catholic religion was torturing, molesting and killing people who would not believe in their way of thinking. So where does your religious ethical and moral values help with just those few examples I've brought up?Seems that ethics and morals that were taught by the various religions didn't do very well through time.
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Normally the church is a humble person . The powerful uses religion for his purpose to control the masses and normally the wealthy and powerful is a secular person. You have your experience with Eddy V11
 
I agree that children should be exposed to the various beliefs of the world, so they can make an individual and informed decision of their own beliefs. I see how taking them to one type of church, especially on a regular basis, is effective in doing that. Depending on the family, it could help drive them towards that religion subconsciously if they feel they need to rebel against their parents, something children tend to do. Whereas if they had a whole variety of religions, it wouldn't be used as a tool for revenge against the parents.
 
Anti-Flag said:
You're right, let's go back to the good old days when we were demanded to stone gay people, women and blacks were lesser beings and we kicked the crap out of anybody who was different.....
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With thousands of people losing their jobs by the hour, are we any better off?
 
cosmictraveler said:
So we should look at the ethics that were used throughout history. Let us look at the Native Americans who were almost all killed off because they were "savages" and wouldn't become good Christians and do what they were told. The WW2 was brought on by Hitler and his Christian belief that only they were the race to rule everyone else because they were "better " than all others. The Catholic religion was torturing, molesting and killing people who would not believe in their way of thinking. So where does your religious ethical and moral values help with just those few examples I've brought up?Seems that ethics and morals that were taught by the various religions didn't do very well through time.
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I don't know where you learned history, but it wasn't on this planet.

:shrug:
 
wynn said:
for starters:



Hitler a christian, eh?
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yes!!!!!!

although hitler did not practice religion in a churchly sense, he certainly believed in the bible's god. Raised as catholic he went to a monastery school and, interestingly, walked everyday past a stone arch which was carved the monastery's coat of arms which included a swastika. As a young boy, hitler's most ardent goal was to become a priest. Much of his philosophy came from the bible, and more influentially, from the christian social movement. (the german christian social movement, remarkably, resembles the christian right movement in america today.) many have questioned hitler's stand on christianity. Although he fought against certain catholic priests who opposed him for political reasons, his belief in god and country never left him.
...

...
"My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice... And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people.

-Adolf Hitler, in a speech on 12 April 1922 (Norman H. Baynes, ed. The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, April 1922-August 1939, Vol. 1 of 2, pp. 19-20, Oxford University Press, 1942)...
http://nobeliefs.com/hitler.htm
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