Do atheists indocrinate their children into their belief system?

[Jan Ardena]

James R,

Jan: How do you know?

That there can only be one God?

Its a matter of common sense, there can only be one supreme cause of all causes, and that is the characteristic of God in every scripture.

Jan.

 

[iceaura]

Not many atheists with children who are theists then?

That would be kind of odd - a theistic eight year old is a product of fairly serious indoctrination, even in a theistic home.

As I mentioned, I know a couple of atheistic parents who take their kids to church and Sunday School and so forth, but I don't think it's making theists out of them - the parents aren't pushing enough, maybe. When they hit their teens, maybe the effects will become more obvious.

We have a couple of theists here from atheistic parents, or parent - statistically, that's anomalous enough. Figure children rebel against their parents in that fashion only when reasonably grown, that one in twenty children of theists turns out atheistic when they grow up, and the proportion would be lower for reasonable (non-abusive) atheists in a community even reasonably free of outright coercion
(unlike, say, International Falls MN, where the child welfare board contemplated removing some children from a home because the widowed mom didn't bring them to church and didn't have a television - equivalent symptoms of the same disorder, in the eyes of the Board)
and you'd need a few hundred atheists here before you had reasonable odds of turning up an atheistic parent of a "theistic child".

I said God is described in all scriptures as the supreme cause of all causes.

Well, that isn't true.

 

[phlogistician]

Its a matter of common sense,

Clearly not. Common sense exits stage left once you introduce God. It all starts off as a question 'Where did all of this come from?', the hasty conclusion is 'I know, God did it!' , ... without questioning where God came from.

 

[Jan Ardena]

Clearly not. Common sense exits stage left once you introduce God. It all starts off as a question 'Where did all of this come from?', the hasty conclusion is 'I know, God did it!' , ... without questioning where God came from.

Your opinion is out of context here.
We are discussing a specific issue.

Jan.

 

[SnakeLord]

Your opinion is out of context here.
We are discussing a specific issue.

And I am still waiting for an answer.. Which one?

For the sake of argument we will agree that there is one god only, one supreme being, one master of the universe. Which one is it?

Furthermore, what exactly prohibits there from being multiple eternal entities? They've all always existed and are extraordinarily powerful. One of these entities got bored one day and created what we know as the universe.

 

[phlogistician]

Furthermore, what exactly prohibits there from being multiple eternal entities?

Monotheistic arrogance.

 

[phlogistician]

Your opinion is out of context here.
We are discussing a specific issue.

Jan.

Your opinion is that there is a single god. My opinion is that your 'common sense' reasoning for believing such is flawed logic.

 

[(Q)]

James R,



That there can only be one God?

Its a matter of common sense, there can only be one supreme cause of all causes, and that is the characteristic of God in every scripture.

Jan.

Because scriptures says so. If it's in the bible, it must be true.

 

[Jan Ardena]

Your opinion is that there is a single god. My opinion is that your 'common sense' reasoning for believing such is flawed logic.

Please explain.

jan

 

[phlogistician]

Please explain.

jan

Simple;

Clearly not. Common sense exits stage left once you introduce God. It all starts off as a question 'Where did all of this come from?', the hasty conclusion is 'I know, God did it!' , ... without questioning where God came from.

 

[Jan Ardena]

Simple;

As strange as it may seem to you, I am not basing my opinion on any belief.
The fact is, that God is described as the original cause, in all scriptures. That then makes God one.
If I said to you that the marvel superman character can fly, or that the characteristics of vampires is that they enjoy drinking human blood, would you agree or disagree?

Jan.

 

[greenberg]

Your opinion is that there is a single god. My opinion is that your 'common sense' reasoning for believing such is flawed logic.

If God is to be any kind of a true God, then there can be only one God.

The only question is which religion describes God correctly and which one does not.


Mind you, I am not a theist.

 

[Jan Ardena]

SnakeLord,

And I am still waiting for an answer.. Which one?

For the sake of argument we will agree that there is one god only, one supreme being, one master of the universe. Which one is it?

I see no point furthering this line of discussion with you SL. Please feel free to claim victory on this point.

Furthermore, what exactly prohibits there from being multiple eternal entities? They've all always existed and are extraordinarily powerful. One of these entities got bored one day and created what we know as the universe.

Scriptoral referance please.

Jan.

 

[SnakeLord]

I see no point furthering this line of discussion with you SL. Please feel free to claim victory on this point.

Why is that? I'm not asking for a great deal, indeed I even accepted your argument to one god, one master of the universe etc. I simply want to know which god out of the millions of different gods is the god.

Scriptoral referance please

I need a scriptoral reference to be able to ask you the question of what prohibits there being multiple gods that have always existed? Curious.

Anyway, you'll find if you read the bible that it implies various god entities, (unless of course yhwh just suffers from some slight personality issues). This can be seen with the "let us create...", "let us go down...", "mankind has become like one of us.." and so on. It is quite apparent from the bible that there are multiple god entities.

So, given the bible, what prohibits there being multiple gods and, at some stage along the line, one decided to create a universe - indeed maybe all dividing themselves little groups of people to rule over. Indeed yahweh showed without much debate that he was the lord of the jews, as opposed to say the egyptians.

Out of further interest, yahweh is referred to as 'lord' which - incase you weren't aware - denotes rank among a group of entities. The word 'lord' would be redundant unless there were many.

Furthermore we can see from the bible that yahweh cannot be the only eternal entity. Indeed Melchizedek is described as having no beginning and no end. That is at least 2 dinstinctly separate eternal entities right there. No, Melchizedek isn't described as a god, but he's certainly as old as yahweh is, (being eternal). Therefore, it stands that you have (at least) 2 eternal entities, 1 of which created the universe.

If you would like to go against that and claim that there can't be more than one, (as you have claimed), then I think it's well about time you provided something of substance.

 

[S.A.M.]

So among the atheists here, we have Medicine Woman who has two theist children from when she was a thiest and Geoff who was treated to abusive atheism.

Not many atheists with children who are theists then?

...

 

[phlogistician]

If God is to be any kind of a true God, then there can be only one God.

Why? Why couldn't two equal, but opposite Gods spring into existance at the exact same time? Why couldn't 7 equals? 27? a Million?

Jan said it's 'common sense', I don't buy into that when we are talking about abject nonsense.

 

[phlogistician]

If I said to you that the marvel superman character can fly, or that the characteristics of vampires is that they enjoy drinking human blood, would you agree or disagree?

Would I agree that is how they are depicted in a work of fiction? Of course.

Would I agree that because something is written one way in one old fusty book it supersedes all other views on the subject? No.

 

[greenberg]

Why? Why couldn't two equal, but opposite Gods spring into existance at the exact same time? Why couldn't 7 equals? 27? a Million?

It comes down to what one holds to be the definition of what God is.

I colloquially said "If God is to be any kind of a true God, then there can be only one God". By "any kind of a true God" I mean The Creator, The First Cause, The Alpha and the Omega, The Highest of the High, the Purest of the Pure: there can be only one phenomenon or entity to fit this definition, it is so by logic or common sense. There, by definition, cannot be two or more phenomena or entities to fit this definition.

 

[phlogistician]

It comes down to what one holds to be the definition of what God is.

Or rather which definition you choose to hold higher than the others.

 

[iceaura]

The fact is, that God is described as the original cause, in all scriptures.

That is false.

Not many atheists with children who are theists then?
”
...

Of course not. Answered already. Be surprising to have one, even. Not enough atheists to make it likely.