We all know that we can't prove God exists or doesn't exist, but can you at least acknowledge the possibility for just a bit to answer this question? Many of you say you let your kids make up their own minds what to believe,but your influences are very strong in the lives of your children. You would never intentionally do anything to harm your child.You would give your lives for them. So,how is it that you could take such a gamble on their souls? If hell is a real place of eternal torment,do you really want them to go there?
I know you don't believe in Heaven or hell,but please try for a minute to hypothesize that hell is a real place.Would you really want your children to go there? Is it really worth the gamble just because you can't see God and He isn't scientifically proven? Keep an open mind about this just for this question.What if you are wrong about God's existence? Could you really take that chance with your precious children?
2006-10-12 18:21:17 · 31 answers · asked by ? 6 in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
Come on,guys.I'm not trying to change your beliefs or anything of the sort.It is your choice to believe what you want.I simply asked for you to consider that you could possibly be wrong.I am trying to see your point of view,and I'd just like for you to afford the same consideration to me.
2006-10-12 18:39:33 · update #1
Most of you have taken the context of this question all wrong.It's a hypothetical,what if question.If oe of you were to ask me to hypothetically believe that there is no God,I would think about that,and give an honest answer as to how I would live my life,etc.It would be a what if question and I would answer it as such.And you say Christians are narrow and closed-minded.
2006-10-12 18:52:39 · update #2
First, there is no doubt in my mind that God doesn't exist and until there is proof otherwise I see no reason to subject my child to the horrors of a Christian upbringing.
As a child, I was repeatedly told that I was a bad, evil person who could never be good or do anything good without God's help. In fact, I was so bad that God had to kill his own son to save me (insert graphic, lurid nightmare inducing details here). I believed all of this utterly. My self esteem was so low that I couldn't bring myself to speak to anyone outside my family for fear they would see how bad and evil I was. As a result, when my Christian pastor father began sexually abusing family members and friends, I couldn't tell anyone. Who would believe someone as awful as me? And maybe we all deserved what was happening to us, because everyone knows that God lets bad things happen to people who sin. So maybe He was just punishing us for all the bad things we had done--we couldn't complain about that, could we? After 4 years, when I was 10 years old, I finally told my mother, who, as I suspected, didn't believe me. The shame and fear of that followed me for a very long time, as did the realization of just how horrible I must be if my own mother wouldn't help me.
As a result, I would NEVER subject my daughter to such a life. I very reluctantly allowed my mother to take my daughter to Sunday School on the grounds that she should be allowed to choose--and she came home spouting the very same garbage that I had been taught. She also began having nightmares about the people she loved being tortured to death to save her because she was so bad. At 6 years old I had to consider getting therapy for her because I was afraid she was going to hurt herself or run away to protect the people around her from her badness. Would you allow your child to undergo this kind of brainwashing?
The things you learn as a child stay with you for life. I immediately withdrew my child from church and began trying to repair the damage her Christian experiences left her with. I can only hope I stopped it in time and that she will not spend years hating herself like I did.
2006-10-12 18:38:08 · answer #1 · answered by Jensenfan 5 · 2⤊ 1⤋
I'll ask you to submit to the same kind of hypothesis. Imagine there is NO god. Would you risk wasting your precious children's only lives (the one on earth, the one they're living now) going after a lie? Would you like them to waste away the only 80-100 years they're going to live, living them to worship an inexistent being, and having their minds manipulated in the name of that inexistent being?
Besides, even the pope (this one or the one before) said that hell is not a place full of fire, where you'll be working forever. The only real punishment of hell is that you're going to be away from god. Well, ever since I heard that, I've decided I do NOT want to be by God (that is, if he existed, of course). So I'm living my life in a way that if there is a hell and a heaven, I'm surely going to go to hell. No gamble, here. I'm luckily 100% damned.
2006-10-12 19:36:02 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 1⤋
properly even as i'm no longer an Atheist my fiance is. we've stated this topic about when we've babies. i'm a pagan and we had to go back to a call how we were going to advance our babies. We incredibly settled on elevating them to have non secular tolerance in the route of each and every faith. to comprehend that faith is amazingly own and does no longer unavoidably contain any particular call or team. we've determined that once our babies are sufficiently old to we can confirm that they have got get authentic of entry to to any non secular e book they need and they may also ask both people any question they need on the topic of our personal beliefs. Then they can elect to be regardless of they favor to be. that's how i develop into raised and how my fiance develop into raised. and what a wonder we both grew to develop into out to be good those who do no longer discriminate hostile to absolutely everyone regardless of race, gender, faith, sexuality, and so on. even as Christians initiate preaching love in the route of ALL people no longer basically those that are precisely like them then possibly there'll now no longer be arguments between Christians and all and assorted else.
2016-10-16 04:44:20 · answer #3 · answered by ? 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Pascal's Wager: refuted more then 150 years ago.
How do you know you choose the correct god to worship?
You don't.
FEAR is never a reason to believe something. And don't you think that god would be able to tell if someone is believing only to cover their own eternal @ss?
How about all you can loose when you believe? While on this board for the last 6 months, I have heard hundreds of testimonys to all the sacrifices people make for an imaginary being.
2006-10-12 18:42:21 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 2⤋
I would tell them nothing about religeon or atheism, then when they ask me about it i would tell them both sides of the argument and let them decide and conter argue what ever they picked. And for all you people who are saying gods not real why would i teach my kids about god, god may not be real but releigion is and if u want to stop people believeing you need to learn more about god then they do becuse a christions not gona listen to a guy screaming "gods fake" are they, just like you would ingnore "your going to hell" from a christian
2014-08-03 07:00:38 · answer #5 · answered by Lord 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I refuse to teach my precious daughter that there is something so powerful that it created the entire universe, yet is so sadistic that it would damn her to hell for eternity if she didn't dot all her i's and cross all her t's. I will do everything I can to prevent her from growing up believing in such a fractured fairy tale.
Perhaps there is a God. If there is, she will judge us by how we treat each other and the rest of her creation, and not by whether we believe a 2500 year old book that is no more believable than other 2500 year old stories that were once believed but are now considered myths.
2006-10-12 18:30:45 · answer #6 · answered by Jim L 5 · 5⤊ 2⤋
My wife is an Agnostic and I'm Deist. We discussed our beliefs and our thoughts on child rearing prior to marriage. We both believe that it is right to educate our children as to our beliefs and why we feel the way we do. We also explain what other faith systems are and why they think they are right. When the children mature to the point that they can make their own decisions they will be able to do so with the confidence of knowledge.
2006-10-12 20:23:30 · answer #7 · answered by Cain 3 · 2⤊ 1⤋
Not believing in a set religion does not make you a bad person and it definetally does not make you a bad parent. Every mother and father wants what is best for there children, they want to teach them good morals, how to be a good person. Most parents also want there children to be open minded which will make them open to other things. Other religions, other ways of life. They may decide one day that they do believe in a certin religion, weather it be Judaism, Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, etc. Or they may decide that that is not for them and that they actually think evolution makes more sense to them. We all have our own minds, we do not chose what we do or do not believe, and espically, no one can make us believe somthing that is not felt in our hearts.
2006-10-12 18:31:49 · answer #8 · answered by ME 2 · 3⤊ 1⤋
I don't have any children, but my parents are atheists. Never when I was growing up did they tell me there was no God. They always acknowledged that no one knew for certain and allowed me to make up my own mind.
Compare this to Christian parents who teach songs like "Jesus Loves Me" to their three year old children.
If you have kids, have you considered the possibility that one of the other thousands of religions may be the right one? Your question is nothing more than a sentimental version of Pascal's Wager.
2006-10-12 18:30:34 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 4⤊ 2⤋
Ah the lovely and merciful "turn or burn" argument extended to my children. Nice.
I will encourage my child to study all religions when he is old enough to understand them. Understanding religion is critical to understanding culture, and therefore humanity in general. I won't deny him that. But I won't give christianity a special place just because you believe your god will condem us to eternal torture if we don't worship him.
Essentially you are threatening my children with eternal torture unless I teach them to believe as you do. No good or just god would demand that. We consider the possiblity that we are wrong all the time. But its not atheism or christianity. There are thousands of other belief systems out there. Do YOU ever consider the possiblity that YOU are wrong? If you do, do you just frighten yourself back into being a christian because of hell? Is it so bad for me to say that I don't want my child to live that kind of life, dreading eternal punishment?
Yes you asked a hypothetical question. No we didn't take it wrong. You have revealed yourself with this question, and we are merely recoiling in horror from what we see.
2006-10-12 18:25:53 · answer #10 · answered by Skippy 6 · 8⤊ 3⤋