Faith as a child

**Needcatscan** · 12-10-2007 09:20 PM

This phrase bother anyone?

I remember it being in the NT quite a bit. I wonder why. . . (not really)

Children will believe anything. My dad could have told me an evil monster with the head of a goat and arms made out of celery was in my basement and would eat me if I farted in the house and I would have believed him. Kind of like how most of us believed in Santa Claus when we were kids. Now here's a question, would we still believe in Santa Claus right now if 90% of America's parents never told their kids he wasn't real and kept acting as if he was? I honestly don't know the answer to that, I just thought it would be an interesting question.

There are two reasons why people are a certain religion:
1) They were brought up that way, also known as indoctrination
2) They converted

Why is it that well over the majority of adults are the religion of their parents? Because faith as a child is a hard thing to break away from. Maybe it's some Freudian daddy or mommy issues, but religion is given the free pass to completely undermine science and rationality by 90% of America (and most of the world), because our parents taught us it like it was fact. It doesn't matter that evolution, a heavily supported scientific theory on par with the theory of gravity (edited for clarification), gives us a much better explanation of how humanity got here. And so does The Big Bang, and hopefully sometime soon, a good abiogenesis theory.

Why is it that Christians still believe in talking bushes, talking snakes, people rising from the dead, the earth being less than 10000 years old, world-wide floods, seas splitting in the middle, miracles, demons, angels, and an all-knowing, loving, benevolent, omnipotent god who created you, gave you NO REAL (I stress real) evidence for him, but will send you to an eternity of torture if you don't believe in him?

Because you have the faith of a child. I know I did until I turned 17. I look back on it and see I was even proud of having such a strong faith. One of my favorite bands was Jars Of Clay, with their song "Faith as a Child". Christians have such pride for believing without any form of proof. Yet most scoff at Hinduism, Islam, Ra the Sun God, Poseidon, and the other gods the New Atheists love to use. Why? Probably because that wasn't the god they were brought up in believing.

I ask without any lace of sarcasm or disparage: Why do you have this faith and why only in this one thing?

Many say personal experience, "I feel god's presence". And that's common, but people need to realize that anyone can get the exact same feeling from other spiritual experiences such as meditating to obtain the Bodhi-mind, or looking at the beauty of the world, or, my personal fave, lucid dreaming. In my 17 years of dogmatic, and sometimes on fire, Christianity I never felt the feelings I have felt while having a vivid lucid dream. My strongest feeling of being in god's presence doesn't even scratch the surface of the blissful happiness I have felt while traversing my own mind's universe.

Now looking back, I was never in god's presence. When I was singing praise songs with my eyes closed and my hands in the air, the emotion wasn't the presence of the holy spirit. It was my effort to verify my beliefs through emotion. And it worked, just like I think it works for so many people out there.

Point being, people still believe in religion because they were taught to, and that one aspect of their lives they will not let go of their child-like belief in what they know is not real. Faith as a child is what religion requires to function.

This is the conclusion I have come to after finally broaching the subject of Christianity with my extremely strong Christian father, 5 years after I parted ways with his religion.

**grasshoppa** · 12-11-2007 01:52 AM

Originally Posted by Needcatscan

It doesn't matter that evolution, a proven scientific theory

I stopped reading there. Evolution is not proven... This is quite hilarious considering what you are trying to get at in this thread.

**thegnome54** · 12-11-2007 02:07 AM

Originally Posted by grasshoppa

I stopped reading there. Evolution is not proven... This is quite hilarious considering what you are trying to get at in this thread.

Always willing to learn, eh?

This is an issue of semantics. Nothing is ever 'proven'. Nothing. Evolution, however, is one of the most strongly supported and successful theories in all of science. It has made a huge amount of correct predictions about the fossil record, the human genome, and even current trends in the spread of disease. To outright deny that evolution is the best explanation currently available is simply ignorant.

**grasshoppa** · 12-11-2007 03:55 AM

Originally Posted by thegnome54

Always willing to learn, eh?

This is an issue of semantics. Nothing is ever 'proven'. Nothing. Evolution, however, is one of the most strongly supported and successful theories in all of science. It has made a huge amount of correct predictions about the fossil record, the human genome, and even current trends in the spread of disease. To outright deny that evolution is the best explanation currently available is simply ignorant.

I'm not denying that it is the best way to explain things. He said it was proven which it simply is not. He goes on to criticize Christians for the very thing he did himself, believe the imposed dogmas to be true. Christians have evidence (not proof) for their beliefs (although, what you consider to be evidence can be very subjective, for example NDE's where Jesus is present). We have evidence of evolution, and he accepts it to be true. Just trying to point out the irony in all this.

**ExoByte** · 12-11-2007 04:39 AM

Theres a strong difference between what could more than possibly be a hallucination and what has been supported by strong tangible material evindence.

However, it matters not as clearly if you're not willing to read the OPs entire discussion topic your opinion is worth nothing in this discussion. If you're that offended by someone saying Evolution is proven, that you're willing to block out every other word they say, then its not worth anyone's time to try and have this discussion with you if you're not going to observe the points of the discussion.

**RedfishBluefish** · 12-11-2007 04:44 AM

ZOMG! I HAD A DREAM WHERE VISHNU WAS THERE, HE MUST BE REAL!!!1
My understanding of evidence is subjective.

PS. Yes, I know this is childish, but it gets the point across.

**Needcatscan** · 12-11-2007 05:07 AM

Originally Posted by grasshoppa

I'm not denying that it is the best way to explain things. He said it was proven which it simply is not. He goes on to criticize Christians for the very thing he did himself, believe the imposed dogmas to be true. Christians have evidence (not proof) for their beliefs (although, what you consider to be evidence can be very subjective, for example NDE's where Jesus is present). We have evidence of evolution, and he accepts it to be true. Just trying to point out the irony in all this.

Thanks for the back up guys

And gnome is absolutely right; when I said it was a proven theory, I meant exactly what thegnome said: it is the best explanation for the diversity of life and has been supported by every science involved, including the mapping of the human genome, Francis Collins-a very devout Christian-in his book "The Language of God" said that every aspect of the human genome supported the scientific theory of evolution. So I merely wrote "proven" to say that it is heavily supported. I will try to be more concise next time. And as far as believing the imposed dogmas. . . I think everyone here would agree that believing 99.9% of the smartest people alive (IE scientists) when they say that evolution is as close to a fact as the theory of gravity and germ theory and reading their papers and articles about the surmounting evidence for it, is a LITTLE different than believing Jesus rose from the dead and is going to come back with super powers to save all the Christians from the evil antichrist, as well as believing that god created the world in 6 days and loves us so much to give no substantial evidence of his existence, giving us dozens of religions to choose from, and then sending us to eternal torture and damnation for picking wrong.

And it's actually really funny that you should mention NDEs because my research on them was exactly what prompted this post. This one in particular: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Po4mSxo9CEE.
Because everything the man describes about his NDE I've felt, to the letter, in some of my many LDs. I think many people here would say the same.

**grasshoppa** · 12-11-2007 05:45 AM

"Theres a strong difference between what could more than possibly be a hallucination and what has been supported by strong tangible material evindence."

Yep. I'm just giving an example.

"ZOMG! I HAD A DREAM WHERE VISHNU WAS THERE, HE MUST BE REAL!!!1
My understanding of evidence is subjective.

PS. Yes, I know this is childish, but it gets the point across."

again, it's just an example I used. Maybe I should note that I'm not Christian so that way you don't think I'm conveying my personal beliefs.

"So I merely wrote "proven" to say that it is heavily supported"

That's called misusing your words. Don't say proven if you mean heavily supported, that's just not something you should do with anyword. And by anyword I mean bananas and airplanes.

**Needcatscan** · 12-11-2007 06:18 AM

Originally Posted by grasshoppa

"Theres a strong difference between what could more than possibly be a hallucination and what has been supported by strong tangible material evindence."

Yep. I'm just giving an example.

"ZOMG! I HAD A DREAM WHERE VISHNU WAS THERE, HE MUST BE REAL!!!1
My understanding of evidence is subjective.

PS. Yes, I know this is childish, but it gets the point across."

again, it's just an example I used. Maybe I should note that I'm not Christian so that way you don't think I'm conveying my personal beliefs.

"So I merely wrote "proven" to say that it is heavily supported"

That's called misusing your words. Don't say proven if you mean heavily supported, that's just not something you should do with anyword. And by anyword I mean bananas and airplanes.

My bad, after the 500th time of reading "it's only a theory" my eyes start to bleed.
And don't talk to atheists about bananas, they're our worst nightmare you know.

**Rakjavik** · 12-11-2007 02:47 PM

Well let me be the first person to actually add to the OP's original discussion. I agree 100%. Even the fact that "faith as a child" is celebrated so much in the bible, and by christians is sickening. They are basically celebrating ignorance. It seems to me that christianity never wants you to question, never wants you to doubt, and never wants you to search for truth. Instead, have faith like a child..... Science H. Logic, I hate indoctrination.

**ClouD** · 12-11-2007 04:14 PM

Originally Posted by RedfishBluefish

ZOMG! I HAD A DREAM WHERE VISHNU WAS THERE, HE MUST BE REAL!!!1
My understanding of evidence is subjective.

PS. Yes, I know this is childish, but it gets the point across.

Yet if Vishnu were standing in front of you now...

Would Vishnu be real to you then?

See your reality without tint.

**Carôusoul** · 12-11-2007 05:17 PM

Originally Posted by ClouD

Yet if Vishnu were standing in front of you now...

Would Vishnu be real to you then?

Well you'd conduct controlled investigations to see.

Originally Posted by ClouD

See your reality without tint.

Shut upp clouudd.

**ClouD** · 12-11-2007 06:08 PM

Originally Posted by Carôusoul

Shut upp clouudd.

Call me flux.
I pivot on your mother.

**Bearsy** · 12-11-2007 07:47 PM

The whole concept of Faith as a Child is one of the things that have turned me off of Christianity.

It's basically saying "Question nothing, accept everything the way the people in charge want things to be. Don't think for yourself"

Which essentially, is 100% opposite of normal human behavior.

We have been trained and indoctrinated into believing that thinking against the so-called "norm" is wrong and those who do should be outcasted. With religious propaganda being spoon fed from birth, it makes it seem even more unnatural, because this "God" wouldn't like that. Well if he doesn't like it, why did he give us the ability to do so?