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QUESTION How Should Atheism Be Taught? - The Atlantic

According to the agreement between the University of Miami and Appignani, atheism is defined for the purposes of this gift as “a philosophical approach that emphasizes the methods and techniques of science, logic, and reason, and rejects all appeals to supernatural entities in dealing with questions of science, knowledge, ethics, politics, and social policy.” The definition continues: “Atheism includes a range of theories and theoretical approaches that reject explanations in terms of God or other supernatural entities, and in that sense rejects theism.”

zblaze 7 Feb 5
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13 comments

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0

Teach proper science classes, and a respect for truth and evidence. All the rest eventually falls into place. Those that open their hearts minds to understand will do so. It's a freedom to be able to experience the world without religious dogma completely clouding your perception of reality. Not that there's such a thing as total clarity. Perfection is bs..

1

Oh, once we have taught that all gods were created by men to fit their times and fears, learning about the specifics is easy. Our capacity for learning is still unmeasured, so I don't think that teaching religious history ( or whatever you want to call it) will limit us from learning Latin or calculus or electro-optics. Our ability to learn more does not stop once we leave school, only our laziness and self-involvement does.
Peace,
spinliesel

1

Fantastic question, very simple answer. My parents hated all religions, they appeared to be the cause of all evil, all wars. But when my siblings and I came of age they said follow your own path. Oddly it turns out Buddha said Do not follow the path of tradition, but find your own. Basically same thing. So we were allowed total freedom to seek anything we wanted, I terrified my family, not cause I dated 3 Satanists, not cause I made them give me Samhain and Imbolc, not for any typical reason. Cause for a while I got mixed up in super Christ kids. And they were terrified, Christian people are annoying, the super Christ folk are destructive, I think they could handle Christian, they even let me be baptized, given prior they had their own ceremony, not a thing, just a loss of a child and the statement I can return anytime and still be loved, and did and was, and they never gave up on me, they'd love me if I was an xtian they'd love me if I wasn't. They'd love me forever, regardless of my passage in life, they'd always love me, always find me, no matter where and how far I walked away. They showed true love is not religious, it is in the hands of all, there is no shame for asking why, there is no hardship to question why we live and die. For those that didn't have that I'm sorry, the option to choose is a gift,and I made my choice, there is no God, only love.

1

I don't know if it should be taught but the history of all the religious atrocities should be studied .

1

By calling it something else. Like "how to think"

6

Atheism should not be taught. Rather, children should be taught to rationalize using a knowledge of the laws of logic. If done correctly, this will likely lead to an influx of nonbelievers without invoking the logical fallacies that religious indoctrination usually does.

2

Our Atheism is a rebellion from magical thinking and escaping from pains inflicted upon us by the believers. ....such rebels teach CRITICAL THINKING opposite of faith. ... nothing is left to belief all is scrutinized all is doubted all presented by believers to us is responded with demands for proof. ..logic reasoning ethics instead of alleged morals from alleged gotts. ...

2

Young people should be taught that they can believe--or not--whatever they want; that the contents of their minds and hearts belong to no one but themselves.

And that not believing in the supernatural is a perfectly acceptable choice they have every right to make, at any age, should they so choose.

And that X% of people in the country/world don't have such belief.

4

Atheism should not be taught. The natural world and reality should be. Lack of belief will follow.

4

I do not think it is a thing to be taught, I do not think it has tennents and principals to teach. Rather it is critcal thinking and skpetical thought which leads a person to conclude A-theism, a lack of theism.

1

Atheism should be taught with a good dose of agnosticism and scepticism thrown in. The syllabus should have oodles of science method and training on real problems that are thrown up by religion. The tone should be that of critical thinking and the whole experience will be peppered with logic and reason. A feeling for compassion for Humanity will go hand in hand with substituting religious experiences with Non religious ones OR demonstrating that religious and none religious can work in harmony . Tests for graduation should involve massive face to face discussions (No volience) with religious zealots. Options for research and professorships should be open to the graduates in this much needed academic sphere. Thanks for asking the question.

5

Atheism is simply the non-belief in the existence of gods. It's the default position of all humans. Anything else must be taught. I don't buy into anything else.

Totally agree! "Teaching" it implies it is just another religion, or philosophy, instead of science-based reality. I suppose a course of Logical Thinking might be a way to go, so people could see behind the crap dished out by religions.......

2

As Philosophy of belief systems.

I really do not think that teaching all the belief systems through philosophy is suitable. Of course we should acknowledge them all - but there are thousands of them there would be no time in the curriculum for anything else. We have to be selective but atheism and Humanism should be high up there.

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