RE: Religion and evidence

From: Price, Ilfryn (I.Price@shu.ac.uk)
Date: Thu 19 Jan 2006 - 08:38:26 GMT

  • Next message: Kate Distin: "Re: Santa in all his Coca Cola regalia"

    Kate

    >I have a cousin who has never eaten meat in her life, as her parents
    were vegetarians long before she was born. My children eat meat and always have done, because we're omnivores. Ethically, either my husband and I, or my aunt and uncle, have got something wrong. Two of us are imposing a false set of values on our offspring. C'est la vie.>
      Why is one or the other false?

    >BUT what we can do is let them know that there are alternatives out
    there; people who believe different things. If your Elvisian secluded his children and pretended, somehow, that everyone else believed in him too, then we'd have moved into a different realm I feel.>
      Absolutely

    >Here's one far more ubiquitous, and in its modern form nothing to do
    with religion: Father Christmas. (He may have been Saint Nicholas once upon a time but now he's just the big guy with the goodies.) Also, though less perniciously: the tooth fairy. I could rant about this at some length, but will take a deep breath and not. All I'll say is that this is the most bizarre cultural practice that I can think of. It's not like adults themselves believe in Santa. They know they're lying. But "my parents did it for us", so they do it for their children.>
      But I imagine they expect their children to grow out of it, unlike a lot of religions or believers which or who tell equivalent stories without the same expectation.

    >Ok. Enough. The point is that children's minds are sticky, yes; but
    they grow up into less-sticky adult minds; and the things that stick to them most tenaciously are not all religious.>

    No but religions have a tendency to be stickier than much else, especially when pushed on young mindsa without questions.
      If

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