Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Religion and HG

But...we have an enormous amount of hard, demonstrable evidence for the existence of electrons, including tracks in emulsions and a zillion other things. To take your argument a step further, I've never seen my brain, but I believe it's there. But if I really doubt its existence, I can prove that it's there with a simple MRI or CAT scan.

Science is a process that never claimed to be infallible (though religions and religious leaders make this claim). It requires that your ideas be proven right in order for them be accepted. All responsible scientists accept this idea: if you can prove that I was wrong, then I have to reconsider my ideas.

As for the sun going around the earth, the guy who discovered that this wasn't true was forced by religious leaders to take it all back or die, was nearly labeled a heretic, and spent the rest of his life under house arrest. The church didn't fully remove his works from their list of prohibited books until ~250 years later. So, not the best example.

Billions of people believe that their children must follow their religion to go to heaven and avoid going elsewhere.

I'm an atheist myself but keep quiet around the children, mainly because my wife want to raise them as X. Religion provides a sense of belonging to a group (with the side-effect that people of other religions are NOT part of the group). People tend to marry other people of the same religion, and I mildly prefer that my children marry people of the same religion/ethnic group as our family's. That's another benefit of my children being at least nominally (like their dad) of religion X. Since I cannot honestly proselytize for any religion, I will let my wife take the lead.

I don't think there is a "why," except for the ones we come up with for ourselves.

As for electrons... whether or not you've seen them, you've certainly had an opportunity to see them manipulated in ways that confirm their existence. The fact that you can see these words I've typed from thousands of miles away is one confirmation.

It was never a scientific fact that the sun revolved around the earth.

I don't have children, and I'm not going to have children. But I have often thought that if I did, I might raise them in a somewhat different faith from my own, under the assumption that they'll probably convert to whatever they feel like when they get older.

Some of us more ecumenical-minded Christians find it easier to get along with people of other faiths than we find it to get along with other Christians. I heard a similar thought expressed by Chief Rabbi (of the UK) Lord Sacks on the radio program and podcast "On Being" (formerly "Speaking of Faith"). BTW, I highly recommend that program to more mature children, teenagers, and adults who want to learn more about different religious traditions and practices in an intellectual, if not a scientific way.

I also find that some atheists and/or scientists can be every bit as dogmatic as fundamentalists.

My 4 yr old asked me what we are, I said we're people, we're human people. �He said we've got to be more than that. �What else are we? �I said you, your dad, and Esperanza and Wella are hispanic, but I'm not, but all of us are Americans. �He said, we must be scientists, because scientists take notes and investigate. �(PBS Sid the Science kid et. al). �
If we were religious I would probably have interpreted this question as deep and mystical and thought that sharing my beliefs was answering his question. �As it is, I realized later, I think this was from the ongoing conversation about the catchy jingle, "We are farmers. Bump ba dum da dump dump dump."�

I answered culturally because I heard him saying, "we're not just people what else are we?" and thought he meant what groups are we part of? �(military heritage on my side, hispanic heritage from his dad and our town) �really I think he meant we are not farmers. �Farmers kill the cows for us to eat so we don't have to. �What are we? �but I wasn't thinking about that commercial at that time

Science is an interesting thing. �We did Supercharged Science robots lab over the summer. �I just bought him a chemistry set, minus any chemistry, to practice pouring water around ---(like Waldorf preschool and Piaget's volume conservation, lol, kinda). �

Well, he's been asking all summer to "do pouring science". �I thought, well, let's practice the pouring part first, lol.

Oh my and oh golly, I love that.


Love that too.

You can always try Mint Mentos and Diet Coke in the driveway (the challenge is to devise a chute-like object that will deliver all the Mentos into the soda bottle at one time). Google this if you have no idea what I'm talking about. Remember to invite the neighbors. It's fun for all!

Both DH and I are atheists in an extended family of southern baptists. While my parents are not practicing and haven't for many, many years, they both have a deep rooted faith in a higher power. My grandmother is still very much practicing and tells me all the time that I'm damning DS by refusing to baptize him. Even pre-atheism, I had a very hard time stomaching the idea of a benevolent and loving God who would send small children to hell because they hadn't been dunked in a tub of water.

DS is 8 and is a very committed and practicing Greek mythologist(?). I don't really even know if we have a term for it anymore... but he very much prays and gives offerings to whatever god he needs the favor of for any particular event, ceremony etc. He had a major stage performance today and took a few minutes before we left to have words with Dionysus.

I just roll with it. I can't very well foster a believe in magic, Harry Potter, Santa and the Tooth Fairy and tell him that Dionysus isn't real. He'll find his own path soon enough.

As for religious education, we consider ourselves to be Secular Humanists and rarely identify ourselves as atheists because that's just the beginning. For some reason, atheism and anarchy often get lumped together- that is not our belief set. We seek out the "why", ask questions, value humanity and human life, teach the golden rule etc. We operate on the principal that this is the only life you're going to get, so you'd better do it right the first time!

We encourage DS to seek out information about other religions and would take him to "research" if he asked. I have always felt that information is power. I've had too many friends who believed because they were told to do so and found a huge crisis of faith in their early 20s because of it.

We were doing the whole going to Mass and sunday school, though missed a few masses, not the sunday school, since she was in remedial coursework, missing last year.

And DH and I are having a harder and harder time with the going. Though, to our surprise, DD is liking it. Maybe because there are school friends, but she says she likes the ritual. Maybe being part of it. But the lessons...

And after talking with the priest on Monday, I just got the feeling of follow the rules and you are allowed in the club, kind of feeling. They like the sheep. He even acknowledged the fact that the largest growing population was ex-Catholics and said it matter of factly, not as a problem. As long as you keep the obedient ones.

I think I have to find more of a thinking church. I was thinking of Ethical Culture or something. There has to be something that has a nice ritual for DD and tolerable from a teaching perspective. DD did like doing the Christmas pageant. She was Gabriel. I do tell her that they had to keep the script simple, people were not educated, they needed statues and pictures to tell them stories. They needed to move the birth of Jesus to bring in the Pagans. Very strange that they celebrate the Immaculate conception in December but he was born 12 and half months later.

Ren

Don't want to take this thread off any farther from it's path but you might want to ask that priest about Immaculate conception. It might not be what you think it is.

Ren,

Have you looked into the Unitarian Universalists?