How religion can harm young minds...

[Ned]

I agree - guardedly.

There is a variety of religions and a range of harms. And, of course, a huge spectrum of how religion is passed on to the young. I would rather say that there is a danger; a potential to harm.

In early childhood, much depends on how religion is presented. You get to celebrate Baby Jesus on his birthday and get party favours? Sure, okay. Pray the Lord take my soul if I die in my sleep? Pretty scary. Burn in hell for eternity if I swear at my sister? W.T.F ?! Then there are the dunkings and epileptic fits, flagellations and exorcisms and other dark, weird, ugly goings-on. Those can't be good for anybody; for a child, they can be both physically and emotionally crippling. Even with that kind of trauma, the simple, unavoidable contradiction between the evidence of their senses and what they are told to believe, can cause mental illness.

Introducing religion to adolescents caries a different sort of risk. At 14, 15, 16, they have just discovered the psyche. They're intensely interested in dreams, visions, esoteric perception, profound experience, intense emotion. Adolescents self-dramatize and posture and try out various roles in their own personal narrative/movie. The great danger of this phase is falling prey to "spiritual" influences. They're looking for their inner reality, their secret identity - their 'soul'. They also long for a deep connection to the world; a meaning; they search for a destiny and purpose. And so they experiment with the occult, magic, power; with religious zeal and all kinds of ideology - and they're nothing if not passionate. Way too easy for manipulators to harvest. Way easy for cults and armies to recruit. Many never come back.

On the whole, I would rather have no religion taught to anyone before the age of majority, but that's sort of like asking that they be raised in a Bell jar, sequestered from their culture. Can't be done. Religion is already here. The only way we can make it go away is to stop taking it seriously; neglect to death. So the best thing we can do is teach comparative religion, mythology and folklore in school, so that at least they become aware of the entire smorgasbord, rather than have to eat just the meatloaf and broccoli on their plate.

And, for everyone's sake, keep it the hell out of science class!!

This thread, as usual, got hijacked by the evaders and obfuscaters.

Back to the original questions, how many (other than the obvious deniers) would agree with Skip's answer. Anything to add/change/delete?

Come on people, intelligent question and thoughtful answer.

A real gem of a thread to participate in.

[ReliStuPhD]

Wow! So many pages! Ned, I'll try to answer your question later this evening. I think the starting point will be to go the classical definitions of your terms (which I'll try to do later).

As to other comments, my apologies if I don't catch up first and end up repeating things.

[thedoc]

Over and out, doc, over and out.

Let's not waste each others time any more.

Do you seriously think you are going to tell me when to stop? Don't respond if you choose, but I will continue as I like.

[thedoc]

Wow! So many pages! Ned, I'll try to answer your question later this evening. I think the starting point will be to go the classical definitions of your terms (which I'll try to do later).

As to other comments, my apologies if I don't catch up first and end up repeating things.

At times repeating things is good, because some don't get them the first time.

[ReliStuPhD]

Ned, the short answer is that God's omnipotence does not extend to logically impossible acts, and his omniscience does not extend to logically impossible propositions. Since God's omniscience is knowledge of all propositional truths, changing "his" mind would mean to believe as true what is actually false. Since this would entail God holding "he" was not God (A = not A), it constitutes a logically impossible proposition, God would not know it. This isn't really a problem, since omniscience has never meant believing false things to be true, nor has omnipotence (classically) entailed being able to perform logically impossible tasks (square circles, married bachelors, etc).

[ReliStuPhD]

At times repeating things is good, because some don't get them the first time.

Very true!

[Skip]

Skip, you sound like someone who is blessed by God´s wisdom.

Applauso d´incoraggiamento !

Perché d'incoraggiamento? Piuttosto direi una standing ovation.

Q'trikio nino pokore?

But anyway, about that poor kid. Every time he asks a difficult question, he's given the answer to a different question. What makes the sky blue? Well, Jimmy, blue is a very nice colour and God likes it and we should be grateful. Yes, but how does God make the sky blue? You are very lucky to have vision and should be grateful that you can see blue.
He thinks he's in the losing dais on Jeopardy. They have all the answers and he keeps asking all the wrong questions.
So he grows up and bombs a school.

No, he probably doesn't. He probably just stops asking. Or anyway, stops asking those people. He gets a library card and asks a lot of dead people who can't evade, deflect, change the subject and tsk-tsk at him. And he gets a shitload of information that he will have then to organize in some kind of system. And you better hope he doesn't meet a guru, just then, who offers to guide him through the labyrinth....

or he might bomb a school

[Ned]

Ned, the short answer is that God's omnipotence does not extend to logically impossible acts, ......

You are giving me a headache.

If omnipotent, then he could do anything he wanted, including changing his mind about the future. TRUE or FALSE?

(Don't give me a long and convoluted argument, just say TRUE or FALSE -- it can not be both and it cannot be neither, it MUST be one or the other. If you disagree with this, we can not talk further).

[Ned]

But anyway, about that poor kid. Every time he asks a difficult question, he's given the answer to a different question. What makes the sky blue? Well, Jimmy, blue is a very nice colour and God likes it and we should be grateful. Yes, but how does God make the sky blue? You are very lucky to have vision and should be grateful that you can see blue. He thinks he's in the losing dais on Jeopardy. They have all the answers and he keeps asking all the wrong questions. So he grows up and bombs a school.

No, he probably doesn't. He probably just stops asking. Or anyway, stops asking those people. He gets a library card and asks a lot of dead people who can't evade, deflect, change the subject and tsk-tsk at him. And he gets a shitload of information that he will have then to organize in some kind of system. And you better hope he doesn't meet a guru, just then, who offers to guide him through the labyrinth....or he might bomb a school

Now THIS makes perfect sense.

And it is funny!

A ray of sunshine in the dark labyrinth of delusional minds.

[attofishpi]

If omnipotent, then he could do anything he wanted, including changing his mind about the future. TRUE or FALSE?

What part of MY answer - that God\'God' doesn't know all of the future did you not understand. Again, why would it bother issuing 10 commandments?

[Ned]

changing "his" mind would mean to believe as true what is actually false.

WHY????

When I said "change his mind" I meant (and you know it very well) I meant changed his plan for the future of the universe. Maybe satan did something unexpected and god decided to counter it in a different way than he originally planned, so he changed his plans.

If he had not anticipated satan's move, and he could change his plan, then he was not omniscient to start with.

If he couldn't, then he is not omnipotent.

What can be more blindingly obvious? (to a sane mind)?

[Skip]

The two (2) things that stand out in all this Omni business: it's a recent innovation and hardly anyone is affected by it.

I don't recall it from the bible. Sure, the god in there separated the water from the land, the day from the night, terraformed a planet and seeded it with livestock. He sponsored one little tribe of nomadic herdsmen, showed off to them with parlour tricks, like turning a woman to salt, feeding a guy to a whale, smiting down bystanders, chucking frogs at Egyptians; his biggest feats were in local water-control.
A child can get his head around those stories, just as he can handle Santa Claus or Jack and the Beanstalk.

There was nothing in there about eternity and galaxies. As our knowledge of "the world" expanded, poor old Jehovah grew bigger and bigger, was pushed farther and farther away from his people, until he makes no human kind of sense and must resort to hiring a huge PR staff, specially trained in logic-splicing and word-dicing.

This is relevant only to people with nothing better to do than sit at their computers in their pajamas.
The children still appreciate Androcles and the lion, and still get grossed out by Jesus wearing his heart on the outside.

[ReliStuPhD]

changing "his" mind would mean to believe as true what is actually false.

WHY????

When I said "change his mind" I meant (and you know it very well) I meant changed his plan for the future of the universe. Maybe satan did something unexpected and god decided to counter it in a different way than he originally planned, so he changed his plans.

Certainly I knew what you meant, and I responded with that in mind (well, maybe not the specific example, but the general spirit of your objection). Satan cannot do anything unexpected if God already knows all true propositions. The only way Satan could one-up God would be if God believed a true proposition to be false (or visa versa). If that was the case, God would not be omniscient. But since God's omniscient (or so many theists maintain), there's no fact that God doesn't know. And if Satan pulling a fast one isn't a fact, it means it never happens, so there's no reason for God to ever change "his" mind. What can be more blindingly obvious? (to a sane mind)?

But seriously, omniscience means there's nothing that comes to pass that God doesn't already know. As such, there is nothing unexpected for God. Satan's unexpected move was expected by God because, by virtue of Satan making that move, it was a true proposition. Something like "The proposition that 'In 1,000 years, Satan will do X' is true, therefore God knows it as God knows all true propositions." So, since there's nothing that can come about that God doesn't already know, there's nothing about which God could change "his" mind, even if "he" wanted. Indeed, we can almost imagine God sitting there going "This omniscience thing is really a bummer. Nothing ever surprises me. Those poor angels. They never get to throw me a surprise birthday party."

[ReliStuPhD]

The two (2) things that stand out in all this Omni business: it's a recent innovation...

Hardly. Cicero was writing on this question before Jesus was born (and was writing in a manner that makes it clear he was not the first to think of it).

I don't recall it from the bible.

It's not formally stated, but it is clear from the bible that God can do anything and knows all things (and it's also sometimes clear he can't, so... yay Bible! )

[Ned]

'god' must be bored out of his mind.

What the hell is 'he' doing there, if nothing requires 'his' intervention?

'He' set everything in motion at the moment of 'creation' and then everything is rolling along on the rails 'he' laid out.

So nobody can test 'his' omnipotence or omniscience, because the whole theory is unfalsifiable.

So how do you know that 'he' is either of those things?

Oh, yes, I remember, you guys made up the whole story for forum members to have something to argue and/or laugh about.

Well, I am done with this topic for the time being.

There are a LOT more interesting topics to think about.

I spent so much time in this sub-forum to make sure that I said everything I needed to say, to give undecided people something to think about.

Now that I have done it -- it's all yours!