Ftk
Posts: 2239
Joined: Mar. 2007
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Okay, Kristine....your turn. I apologize for the length of this post....once I started, there was really no stopping my fingers from flying across the keyboard.
| Quote | He doesn't assert that. He asserts that teaching children that they will go to hell because of this or that, is abusive. What he objects to is saying "That is a Christian child," rather than "That is a child of Christian parents." To him it is as wrong to say "Christian/Muslim/atheist child" (yes, he thinks it's as abusive to tell a child "You are an atheist," as to insist "You are a Christian," and I agree wholeheartedly) as it is to say, "That is a capitalist/Republican/Democrat/Marxist/whatever child." Children must make that choice themselves, and they must be raised with knowledge of comparative religion.
I have this from his own lips. He has said it repeatedly. He said it in The God Delusion. But people hear and read what they want to hear and read. |
Here are his own words. We’re all familiar with them...
| Quote | It is fashionable to wax apocalyptic about the threat to humanity posed by the AIDS virus, "mad cow" disease, and many others, but I think a case can be made that faith is one of the world's great evils, comparable to the smallpox virus but harder to eradicate.
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What is not sweet and touching is that these children were all four years old. How can you possibly describe a child of four as a Muslim or a Christian or a Hindu or a Jew? Would you talk about a four-year-old economic monetarist? Would you talk about a four-year-old neo-isolationist or a four-year-old liberal Republican? There are opinions about the cosmos and the world that children, once grown, will presumably be in a position to evaluate for themselves. Religion is the one field in our culture about which it is absolutely accepted, without question — without even noticing how bizarre it is — that parents have a total and absolute say in what their children are going to be, how their children are going to be raised, what opinions their children are going to have about the cosmos, about life, about existence. Do you see what I mean about mental child abuse? |
The only way to live according to Dawkins would be to never speak to my child or lock them in a sound proof room until they are old enough to “make their own decisions” about life. Of course we influence our children...they are an extension of us. We don’t have “total and absolute say in what are children are going to be”. As they grow, they are influenced by many, many other people and they learn from their own mistakes and accomplishments in life.
Kristine, I don’t threaten my children with hell. I don’t tell them to pick up their clothes or they are going to hell, I don’t lock them in their closets and tell them that if they don’t straighten up and obey God, they’re going straight to hell. Granted, that would be child abuse, but thankfully, I don’t personally know any Christian parents who abuse their children this way (not that abusive parents don’t exist- but, abuse comes in all forms).
There is no reason to tell them they are going to “go to hell for this or that” because ultimately, no one will be going to hell unless they reject their Creator and his plan for salvation. No other religion offers this assurance, as other religions are based upon your level of goodness, which begs the question...how good is good enough? With the Christian faith, we all acknowledge our sin and realize that the best we can do is strive to be like Christ, and when we fall astray, we regroup and ask for God’s forgiveness, which He always offers those sincere in the asking.
As far as considering your child a “Christian”, “Muslim” or *nothing at all*, that is simply none of Dawkins’ business, and to assert that this is a form of abuse is asinine. How is a child to learn about anything, if they are not afforded the chance? If a parent simply ignores the subject altogether, the child is apt to do the same throughout their own life. It may be of ultimate surprise to you, but many, many churches study other religions and the differences between them. They also encourage them to do independent studies of religion on their own. I know that you believe that all Christian churches shy away from considering anything other than their own religion for fear that they may lose their faith, but that is not always true. It certainly isn’t the case at my church.
Dawkins is no different than any other parents in this respect. He has very dogmatic views on the topic of religion, foremost that religion leads to most of the evils in the world...this he also states in the preface to Juliet’s letter that I will link to later. Now from what I gather from that preface, he wasn’t comfortable discussing the important things in life, and I can understand why if he was afraid that he might influence her in any way. Unfortunately for his daughter, that is what being a parent is all about. We are to raise our children as best we can and that would include sharing our ideals about morality, the world, their studies, our hopes for their future, views about sex, etc., etc., etc..
Now, Dawkins' feeling are very strong when it comes to religion, and it is entirely impossible for me to believe that he never let on about his feelings in front of his daughter. That would really take some doing, and it would probably never allow his child to truly understand her father and his views about life. Unfortunate, IMHO. Nevertheless, even if he never uttered a word about his beliefs to Juliet, there is no doubt that she was well aware of her father’s notoriety and the books he authored, so it’s a little bit silly to assert that she wasn’t influenced by her father’s beliefs in any way.
Another thing that is interesting about his letter to Juliet is that he suggests that she only believe things in which she has “evidence” for, yet Dawkins asserts that design does not precede evolution. That is interesting since he has no evidence for that claim. His evidence is based conclusively on assumption that naturalism is true. So in essence, according to his suggestions for Juliet, she shouldn’t believe a word he says about the subject either. He’d like us to believe that the only knowledge one can rely on is that of scientific knowledge, but we cannot know whether all knowledge is identical to scientific knowledge because that is not something that can be known scientifically. He’s basing his “facts” on his own philosophy, not empirical data.
| Quote | But can you force your children to accept Jesus once they are adults? Again, that's choice that they have to make themselves.
And what do you mean, "go off and marry another woman?" He didn't abandon his daughter. She was, I believe, in her teens when he married Lalla Ward, and I have no idea who left whom; at any rate, it appears he was alone for years before marrying Ward. If you want to get self-righteous, let's get the personal details right, as much as you want to dig into the personal details. |
Of course you can’t “force your children to accept Jesus” when they become adults. You for one should certainly know that, but I also wouldn’t turn my back on my children due to their decision in this regard. Not all Christians are as intolerant as you would like to believe. Did your family abandon you when you made the choice to reject God?
As far as Dawkins’ “abandoning his daughter”,perhaps that‘s a tad harsh, but all I have to go on is what he puts out in the public square. In his book [URL=http://books.google.com/books?id=loVMMlxC1XoC&pg=PA241&lpg=PA241&dq=for,+most+of+her+childhood+i+unhappily+saw+her+only+for+short+periods+of+time+and+it+was+n
ot+easy+to+talk+about+the+important+things+of+life&source=web&ots=eAAb-ljHG-&sig=RyxcSX65XB7v0QmTOeCk0EldFjA#PPA241,M1]The Devil’s Chaplain[/URL], Dawkins prefaces his letter to Juliet with this regret:
| Quote | | "For most of her childhood, I unhappily saw her only for short periods of time, and it was not easy to talk about the important things of life." |
That seemed pretty clear to me, but perhaps he meant something altogether different and it just didn’t come across properly.
In regard to divorce, it has become almost an epidemic. People divorce their spouses for any number of insignificant reasons. I can certainly understand divorcing someone for infidelity, abandonment or abuse, but the problem is that infidelity is almost a way of life these days. It’s wrong, and it’s harmful to our children. It’s your right to think otherwise, but I don’t have to agree with you. I’m not out to condemn, I’m simply suggesting that people be sure of what they are getting into when they commit to someone. I almost made a horrific mistake myself in a past life, but by the grace of God, I got out of the relationship before we were married (although we had been engaged for a short time). If we had married, I’m pretty sure that I’d have ended up divorced myself for one of the reasons I mentioned above. The point is that divorce is going to happen, but it shouldn’t happen without very good reason, and everyone should take that kind of commitment seriously from the get go for the sake of our children.
| Quote | | So many people like to sentimentalize, and thus infantilize, girls and women. Apparently, all we want to be told is that we're beautiful, loved, etc. |
Honey, any woman who says they don’t appreciate parents, family, friends, or men (in our case) telling them they are beautiful or that they enjoy their company, or whatever.....are colder than an ice cube, or dead. You certainly don’t appear to be either, and you forget that I read your blog as well as this forum and others. I’ve never seen you appear to dislike the men fawning over you for one reason or the other. In fact, I’d go as far to say that I think you probably enjoy it...or at least it comes across that way. Truth be told, neither one of us is that comatose.
| Quote | I was a singularly unsentimental little girl. I would have loved to hear this from someone. When I first read the letter to Juliet years ago, I read it over and over, and wished sincerely that it had been said to me, instead of all the "Jesus loves you/you're so pretty/here's a dolly, be a good mother" crap. That's just not me. Tedious lectures was what I was reading at ten.
"You're nothing but a calculating machine!" There must be other girls who grew as tomboys, for pity's sake. I too was often accused in person of being cold, unemotional, hyperintellectual. I can say that it hurts to be called what Vox Day calls Dawkins, but it doesn't hurt sufficiently to change, because you can't change. If you want a girl to feel loved, don't try to force her into a "girly" mold! I understand that Juliet is an atheist, herself, despite her religious mother. HTF does Vox Day know what she wants or what I want? |
You know what, Kristine? I honestly don’t know whether you are being honest with yourself, but then all I have to go by are the posts you‘ve write over the past year. You don’t come across to me as unsentimental or a “calculating machine” *at all*. You seem very *girly* as well. You’ve gurgled on about your love for men, you appreciate it when they compliment you, etc. You write emotional posts at times, and you seem to love belly dancing, and I remember once you stated that you especially like dancing for children. You’re certainly not unemotional, and though you come across as very intelligent, I wouldn’t go so far as describing you as “hyper intellectual”. It also seems (to me) that you equate your religious upbringing with your parent’s lack of wealth and education. You’ve talked many times about feeling trapped in a no win situation unless you took the bull by the horns and left your hometown, church, family and upbringing to better yourself.
The thing is that most of us run away from what we think is a stifling situation at some point in our lives, so you’re not unique in this regard. I certainly don’t think it’s fair to equate religion with your feelings of what keeps people from bettering themselves.
| Quote | | We need cold intellects the same way that we need the type of person who can stand over a dead body and crack a joke, because those are the people who solve crimes; the same way that a nurse can look at blood and bile and not cringe. We can't have a world of people who cringe and turn away from the truth and reinforce each other's fantasies in the name of "warmth." We already pick our President based on "warmth," and hasn't that turned out bad enough? |
What a way to look at the world. Of course we need people of all makes, models and personalities, but that certainly doesn’t mean that we don’t have many things in common as well. And, at the root of all, the most important thing that we all have in common is our need for love and warmth. We all need it, and we don’t know how those feelings evolved....we can only guess. Regardless of whether you equate your feelings of warmth and love with God or cold impersonal nothing, those feelings persist all the same.
When you talk about people “cringing and turning away from the truth to reinforce each other’s fantasies”, it’s difficult to know which side is the worst at doing so. You believe religious people to be cringing from truth, but I suggest that Dawkins and the other “intellectuals” that you laud may be cringing from consideration that there may be a higher intellect than themselves. What it comes down to is that many refuse to believe that someone would design a world in a different manner than what *they* believe would be perfect according to their own standards and supposed vast intellect. So, they reject the very idea that there is a higher power, or they acknowledge that there is the possibility that a higher force of intellect is responsible for our existence but they choose to “ignore her”.
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"Evolution is a creationism and just as illogical [as] the other pantheistic creation myths" -forastero
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THEY THINK I'M GIRLY!
