BaylorPRSer Posted April 14, 2014 Posted April 14, 2014 It seems to be understood among FDR folk that telling children there is a god is lying. Google gave me two definitions for the noun, lie. an intentionally false statement. "Mungo felt a pang of shame at telling Alice a lie" synonyms: untruth, falsehood, fib, fabrication, deception, invention, fiction, piece of fiction, falsification; More antonyms: truth and used with reference to a situation involving deception or founded on a mistaken impression. "all their married life she had been living a lie" Can I assume that here, people use the second one? People telling children there is a god are only lying, if lying includes saying something founded on a mistaken impression. If the definition is limited to intentionally false, then a large chunk of these people would not be lying as they genuinely believe there is a god.
Wesley Posted April 14, 2014 Posted April 14, 2014 It seems to be understood among FDR folk that telling children there is a god is lying. Google gave me two definitions for the noun, lie. an intentionally false statement. "Mungo felt a pang of shame at telling Alice a lie" synonyms: untruth, falsehood, fib, fabrication, deception, invention, fiction, piece of fiction, falsification; More antonyms: truth and used with reference to a situation involving deception or founded on a mistaken impression. "all their married life she had been living a lie" Can I assume that here, people use the second one? People telling children there is a god are only lying, if lying includes saying something founded on a mistaken impression. If the definition is limited to intentionally false, then a large chunk of these people would not be lying as they genuinely believe there is a god. Why is this distinction important to you?
Quadrewple Posted April 14, 2014 Posted April 14, 2014 If you're not sure of the truth and claim to know it, that's lying. No one tells their kids "God might exist" in an attempt to change their behavior.
BaylorPRSer Posted April 14, 2014 Author Posted April 14, 2014 Why is this distinction important to you? It came up in conversation recently. Someone made the case that it Is not lying if the person thinks what they're saying is true, but is incorrect. Quadrewple, ah that helps quite a bit.
dsayers Posted April 14, 2014 Posted April 14, 2014 a large chunk of these people would not be lying as they genuinely believe there is a god. Can a belief be genuine if no effort is made to substantiate it? Belief is a very VERY brief term. I believe X, so I test/research it to either assimilate it as proven fact or discard it as not being true. When belief is used on a more permanent scale, it's an admission of ignorance. To pass off an uncertainty as fact is lying.
BaylorPRSer Posted April 14, 2014 Author Posted April 14, 2014 Can a belief be genuine if no effort is made to substantiate it? Belief is a very VERY brief term. I believe X, so I test/research it to either assimilate it as proven fact or discard it as not being true. When belief is used on a more permanent scale, it's an admission of ignorance. To pass off an uncertainty as fact is lying. You're spot on. I'm just saying that if you went with a certain definition ("an intentionally false statement"), it is slightly more difficult to make the case that someone is lying in certain scenarios. What you and quad said helps a lot and will be useful if this comes up in conversation again.
Daniel Unplugged Posted April 15, 2014 Posted April 15, 2014 I accept the premise if the original post. To be lying, a person must know that what they are saying is not true. Is there a word that describes an inaccurate statement that is believed to be true. Perhaps we need one to avoid confusion.
fractional slacker Posted April 15, 2014 Posted April 15, 2014 Conclusions, whether false or true, without methodology are useless. If your conclusion is intended to strike fear in children and you have no methodology for establing your claim other than "faith," you are simply a bully perpetuating llies and superstition at the expense of innocence.
JamesP Posted April 15, 2014 Posted April 15, 2014 We do not live in a world where it can be credibly claimed that religious folk have no exposure to the concept of the non-existence of gods. Indeed, I'm not sure there ever was such a world as belief in different gods or no gods is usually proscribed against. Modern people in developed countries know about atheism. They have exposure to alternatives. Hence they have choice.
cynicist Posted April 15, 2014 Posted April 15, 2014 It's irrelevant in the case of religion because most people don't really believe in god anyway. If they did you would see them doing things like refusing medical treatment in favor of prayer. (as a consequence, people who are truly that irrational don't last long)
Pepin Posted April 15, 2014 Posted April 15, 2014 The vast majority of people who claim they believe in a god don't. The small minority that actually believe we can consider partially insane. I do think there is a difference in telling a child about a religious god and a deity which only created the universe and has no other affect on it. I would guess that most people who say they believe is deism do believe in it. I would also claim that teaching a child deism, not that one should as the child is too young to comprehend, will likely do no damage if made clear that the deity will never interact with you or the universe ever.
cynicist Posted April 15, 2014 Posted April 15, 2014 Ah the classic 'watchmaker' theory, which if true has no relevance anyway! The only thing funnier than the idea itself is arguing it with another person.
Think Free Posted April 16, 2014 Posted April 16, 2014 To be fair, it seems to me that most people believe in God in the same way that most people believe in most things that they're not personally an expert in or have personally experienced: They have no direct experience of it, but they've been told by the "experts" that it's true. They're vaguely aware of some of the evidence for it, some of which is bad, distorted, or even outright falsified. They also are almost completely unaware of the arguments from the other side--and those that they are aware of tend to be straw men or at least poorly constructed versions of the argument. They would never be able to hold their own against an experienced debater from the opposing view point. In fact, in my observation, the average person's belief in evolution fits neatly into this description. For this reason, I concur with the OP's original point.
shirgall Posted April 16, 2014 Posted April 16, 2014 That's what it boils down to, going beyond pretending to know something you don't know to demand that a child share this shaky certainty and forever damning a child to distrust or delusion as a result.
Prairie Posted April 16, 2014 Posted April 16, 2014 Like a few have mentioned, I also see it as an issue of what the intended effect is on the child. If it's to inform the child what the parent believes and then stop telling the child about it so that he can make up his own mind, then it's informative. If it's anything more, where the child is subtly threatened if he doesn't believe it, if the parent withholds other things from he child, then it's a lie. A lie is something told not for its informational value, but for its manipulative value.
Daniel Unplugged Posted April 16, 2014 Posted April 16, 2014 For thousands of years, saying 'God did it', has meant 'I have no idea what did it, but I like to pretend that I do.' Some things never change. Curious, has anyone noticed that 'God' and 'Good' are almost identical words. Is it just a coincidence?
JamesP Posted April 16, 2014 Posted April 16, 2014 Knowledge imputes responsibility. There is no religious person out there, at least in the west, that can credibly claim that they have not had significant exposure to the idea of atheism. Once you've had exposure to an idea, you have responsibility if you reject that idea. And even for those who have not had the degree of exposure that we do in the modern west, doubt of the existence of one god or another is rampant throughout history. It's so prevalent that hell awaits the doubters. You have to threaten people with eternal torment to get them to shut up about their question marks. I would say that caveman Gog is not all that responsible for not questioning his belief in a thunder god. His access to information was extremely limited and the threat of immediate death in the here and now was very real. And that responsibility ebbs and flows over time. The line may be fuzzy, but I think we are well on the other side of it now.
Pepin Posted April 17, 2014 Posted April 17, 2014 As stated previously, I am in complete agreement with the general conclusion here, but I would like to say that less intellectually minded people can be mislead through sophism. A skill I have worked to achieve is the ability to provide a strong case for the opposing side, with the goal of being more convincing than the advocates. Unfortunately what I've found is that I can start to convince people of that belief in doing so. I have a good friend that I talk about philosophy a lot to and I've gone through many arguments against god, and he is usually in full agreement. The other week I decided to make the case for the other side and what I found was that we felt convinced by it, which he didn't like. The red flags in my arguments didn't seem to pop up at all for him, and he was somewhat distraught that this was making him doubt his atheism. I imagine it like an onslaught of reasoning that instinctively makes sense, and combining this with the tactic of piling on many layers, these arguments creates a pull that is hard to push back against. He is quite intelligent, but doesn't seem to have the ability to spot fallacies on the spot. I of course went back through and pointed out all the errors in what I was saying. I'm sure we've all experienced this. I know I felt it when Stefan made the case for statism in one of his books. I hated listening to it because I was like "I know this is wrong, but I feel like it is right". When Stefan deconstructed every argument after, I felt quite relieved. I am not providing any sort of excuse, rather I just want to point out that philosophy isn't easy when there are so many good sophists. I would claim like James that the line is no longer fuzzy, yet we have to understand the level of indoctrination which is exploited by sophists, and just be that much better.
cynicist Posted April 17, 2014 Posted April 17, 2014 I'm sure we've all experienced this. I know I felt it when Stefan made the case for statism in one of his books. I hated listening to it because I was like "I know this is wrong, but I feel like it is right". When Stefan deconstructed every argument after, I felt quite relieved. Excellent point (would have upvoted but I'm out of points ). I was very susceptible to this myself until two things happened for me: I internalized the principles required to establish truth, and I practiced using them. Once I accepted correction as a good thing, I was less prone to panic following the realization that I was wrong about something. I keep my standards for accepting new facts high, but when I can't find a flaw in the argumentation or evidence for an idea I accept it until the day it is proven to be incorrect. The only things I will never concede are the fundamentals of self-ownership, evidence of the senses, and logic, since without those things knowledge is impossible. Ever since I found those principles I've felt anchored and safe in exploring new ideas even when they are vastly different, since I'm no longer emotionally chained to any specific one. On the other side of that line the experience is pretty terrifying, I remember contradictory ideas used to make me feel like I was out in a dark ocean, about to have my identity sucked into some nightmarish abyss.
Daniel Unplugged Posted April 17, 2014 Posted April 17, 2014 God is good, devil is evilThanks, how'd I miss that. Without doubt purposeful.
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