Last night KuraFire and I got into an interesting debate that started here.
His claim: Every baby is born an atheist who loves all people equally regardless of skin color, sexual preference etc. Enter: religion.
If you follow us both on twitter you may have seen some of the debate, but that’s neither here nor there. I wanted to touch a bit more into a few points of this claim.
1. It is not genetic to be atheist, so the claim that all babies are atheist is false. Atheism is a choice. As is the choice to be religious.
2. With the current technology we have it is impossible to know what knowledge babies are born with. So even if I take this claim as his best guess I am left questioning how he came to this theory. How did you come to the theory that babies have some certain set of knowledge about atheism?
My best guess tells me that babies are born with the knowledge of how to survive. Their instincts are to survive. This is why they give cues (nuzzling a breast, crying, opening their mouths to be fed).
3. As the conversation continued, the claim was made that “nobody” ever chooses a religion. Which I also believe to be false.
People come to religion for a wide variety of reasons. A belief in God. A sense of community (and churches can be a good resource for finding people with common goals). Morality. And traditions.
I do not personally believe in a God but I can look at the traditions of religions and appreciate aspects of them. As a parent I would also introduce these traditions to my children. As well as teaching them about morality (which I do claim is very important).
Yes, people raise their children with these ideals.
I think it is a very slippery slope to claim that these ideals are flawed however. I could claim that bribing a child with candy to get them to behave a certain way is flawed idea but I try not to because most parents are going with their current best theories. And telling them they are wrong-headed does nothing to grow better knowledge. Add on that most parents at one point or another have made a bad choice, who are we to judge?
I also believe it is a slippery slope to claim that because someone is religious they are somehow harming themselves or anyone else. Which led to my tweet here.
Hitler did make the judgement that his ideal of how people should look/act/believe led to the massacre of millions of people.
So I would like to think that instead of dismissing anyone else’s beliefs, find out more information. Talk to them. And if you still disagree, continue to have discussions and debates without judgement.
As a father and Jew by choice I say, here fucking here!
