THERE ARE NO ATHEIST BABIES

(from an atheist website)

.

That's the etymology rather than the meaning. It can have the meaning you give it, but it's more significant meaning is someone who believes there is no God, thereby making an important distinction from agnostic and giving the word a purpose that it otherwise lacks.

@David_Cooper
Beautifully stated!

I think you have the evolution part right. I’m with you through the first half of your last sentence. But evolution isn’t motivated by money. It builds what works biologically and, eventually at least, throws away what doesn’t work.

The fact that humans can choose to use various, otherwise adaptive, traits for selfish gain (a type of exaptation) is no different in religion than in government or in business or just about anywhere humans are found.

Evolution doesn’t construct money scams. It builds adaptive systems, and humans use those, and anything else they can get their hands on, for selfish gain, just as any animal might, only more capably. To suggest that a cultural system as ubiquitous as religion is nothing more than a scam would be to ignore the entire evolutionary component of its history.

@skado Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that money had anything to do with the evolution of religion. I think the money and power angle came later.

Sounds good, but most parents will not like, nor tolerate a child dissenting or questioning their imposed belief system on them. I tried that as a kid and got the "burn in hell" response as my questions threatened others. Creating room for a child to grow and learn means allowing them the ability to dissent from their parents or family. I have rarely seen that in my lifetime in any belief system.

@ClareCK Of course, it will never happen for who is going to let go of their beliefs in which they have invested many years of their life and which forms a large part of their sense of identity. Human beings seek validation of their beliefs and any challenge to them usually results in a reinforcement of them.

I believe that at age 14 to 16 as a bare minimum threshold, children should be able to choose to not be forced to attend church or any religious institution or ceremony against their will. It is horrid, from personal experience, to be forced to even hear the drivel of organized religion in which you have no investment or belief in.

@ClareCK No child, of any age, should have to suffer exposure to the mental illness that is religious faith.
I was raised being forced to attend catholic mass every Sunday.
My earliest memories are of sitting on a damned uncomfortable wooden pew, listening to some priest go on and on about stuff that made no sense to me.
I knew god wasn't real.
By the time i was 12, I knew I couldn't continue to sit through the bullshit. My sister and I would go to the church, get that day's program before mass started, leave and go across the street to Dunkin' Donuts.
We'd have really yummy donuts for breakfast, and pay for them with the money we were supposed to put in the collection plate.

I take issue with your absolutist bullshit.

@Mofo1953 What's absolutist in what I said? Your interpretation skills are where you're introducing bullshit.

@David_Cooper "if you're using...the other definition... you're wrong" "lack of rationality is more than sufficient." Says who? You? Need any more proof? Pure unadulterated bullshit dude

@Mofo1953 I assumed you were objecting to incorrect absolutism due to your description of absolutist bullshit. If the definition is being used where it means they believe there is no God, then it's clearly wrong - there's no bullshit there because no babies believe there is no God. So, where is the absolutist bullshit that you've invented?

@David_Cooper asked and answered, go bother other people if you don't want to accept your bullshit.

Why do definitions matter so much? Most people who say they are atheist from my observations and interactions just don't care about religion or gods and don't want to hear it or be exposed to it. People using agnostic often do so as it sounds less threatening to believers of religion. I use both depending on circumstance, but honestly don't lose sleep working about God's and imaginary beings. So call me whatever..just leave me be, on the proselytizing. Lol

Maybe a new term of I don't care or don't want to hear about religion, is needed to be mashed into a new term.

Frankly, arguing about who is or isn't an atheist versus agnostic is just semantics to most non-relgious people.

I honestly leave a room immediately when indoctrination speeches start, as I'd rather lick paint then endure the tedium of it all.

@Mofo1953 You're the one bothering people by posting bullshit onto their comments, so I'd recommend that you stop bothering people altogether.

@Mofo1953, @ClareCK The definitions matter because we have an army of people trying to sabotage discussion by insisting that atheism means non-belief in God and who object to its primary meaning of belief that there is no God, which is the useful definition. That then makes it easier for religious nutters to attack atheists.You can see this in another thread here about a claim that babies are born atheists, making atheists look stupid in the extreme when all those religious people see atheism as belief that there is no God.

@David_Cooper stubborn and dumb like a child, no you are, very mature dude, now accept your inane bullshit and go bother those who care because I don't give a fuck about anything you say or post.

@Mofo1953 You obviously care a lot about what I say and post because you're trolling under my comment, and that makes you the immature one here who's spreading bullshit everywhere.

@David_Cooper you can't stop replying, can you? Typical from know it all assholes. Aside from the excessively long and boring retorts.

@Mofo1953 You're describing yourself, darling. If you don't want to make a bigger fool of yourself, you'd do well to take your own advice and sling your hook.

@David_Cooper confirmed, assholes can't stop, look in the mirror, dude. What part of go bother those who care about your imbecilic bullshit don't you get?

@Mofo1953 Indeed you can't stop yourself. Not only are you a bullshit monger and troll, but you're a stalker. I don't fancy you, so get lost.

@David_Cooper one more time because he just can't keep his moronic trap shut, go ahead asshole, waiting for your total bullshit response because you just can't stop with the imbecilic posts of who gives a fuck.

@Mofo1953 You give a fuck - you're obsessed.

@David_Cooper see, you just can't stop, look in the mirror asshole.

@Mofo1953 You're describing yourself. Get a psychologist and sort yourself out.

@David_Cooper still talking shit, and still not stopping. What an imbecile.

@Mofo1953 You keep describing yourself while projecting your faults onto others. Get a psychologist.

@David_Cooper like I'm going to listen to a fucking moron. One more time, shut the fuck up already, but you can't, that's the sign of a know it all asshole. Can't wait for your next imbecilic retort, you just can't stop, figure it out.

@Mofo1953 I'm not the one who should be backing out of this - you're the one trolling under my answer, and that reveals that you are the one with a psychological issue. You're the one who started the unpleasantness here and started throwing insults, but you're blind to your failings. You also amplify them while I point out that you have a problem and point you towards getting help. There's nothing imbecilic coming from me at all - that is your speciality.

@David_Cooper I rest my case, absolutist prick can't stop texting his moronic crap.

@Mofo1953 You just can't take the truth, so you just spew shite out of your mouth.

@David_Cooper and you can't stop because you can't handle the truth of being a sick absolutist asshole who is also an imbecile.

@Mofo1953 You can't stop because you're a shite-fountain. Maybe it's your gut microbes that are making you angry. Try laxatives to see if that helps. If nothing else, at least it might send things through the tube in the right direction.

Ah - he's cracked and hidden himself. That's a shame as it means he wasn't a troll but is merely suffering from a medical problem. I wish him the best with his recovery.

@David_Cooper every time you post your imbecilic crap, you prove the obsession you have to demonstrate your absolutist bullshit, you can continue with your asinine assumptions, like I am going to listen to your ridiculously retarded crapola, continue braying you dumbass!

How nice to know that you are. "not aware of any scientific school of thought that considers the teaching of local culture, be it language or religion or folkways, to be child abuse. There is no medical or scientific support for this claim." Perhaps you should tell the W.H.O. they are clearly on the wrong track, and would surely welcome the benefits of your wisdom in these maters. See link.

[who.int]

A scientific acknowledgement of the evolutionary function of human culture is not an endorsement of any of it’s specific, local practices.

Those have evolved over time according to local habit, as they will, thankfully, continue to do. There is no particular ritual that is essential to the biological functioning of “religion.” They will all evolve to suit the sensibilities of the time and place.

But even those rituals that, correctly in my opinion, seem barbaric by 21st century Western standards, were never dispensed as an expression of abuse, such as in anger, frustration, resentment or callous disregard for the welfare of the recipient. They were performed with the best of intentions for the individuals and for the society, by the very same people who were the recipients themselves only a generation before.

This distinction in no way shields the practice from continuing civilizing evolution, but the fact that some cultures are slower than ours to modernize these practices is not evidence of anything endemic in, or essential to, the philosophical abstraction we call religion. They can and, in my opinion should be, dissuaded with maximum urgency.

World Health Organization has not, to my knowledge, claimed that the generational perpetuation of religion, in the general sense, is inherently abusive to children or adults.

For the record, I have never claimed religion is the source of morality. I have consistently said our moral capacity is given to us by biology, as is our capacity for complex culture, including religion. Individual local culture, in turn, determines the specific expression of that moral instinct, just as it determines the specific local language, etc.

Rather than religion creating morality, it is more like it is our biological predilection for morality which, in part, causes us to generate religious culture, just as it is our biological predilection for unlimited gain that then corrupts not only those very same religions but everything else we possibly can.

We have some native capacity for morality and we generate the local and temporal guidelines for it, but we are not particularly good at following either, because they are in competition with multitudes of other instincts and influences.

@skado Sorry but, "I’m not aware of ". Is an absolute, it therefore is, an endorsement of all "specific, local practices".

@skado For the record. if as you say.

"I have never claimed religion is the source of morality. I have consistently said our moral capacity is given to us by biology, as is our capacity for complex culture, including religion. Individual local culture, in turn, determines the specific expression of that moral instinct, just as it determines the specific local language, etc.

Rather than religion creating morality, it is more like it is our biological predilection for morality which, in part, causes us to generate religious culture, just as it is our biological predilection for unlimited gain that then corrupts not only those very same religions but everything else we possibly can.

We have some native capacity for morality and we generate the local and temporal guidelines for it, but we are not particularly good at following either, because they are in competition with multitudes of other instincts and influences."

Then I am in full agreement with you, but also for the record, I never even mentioned morality in my comment.

And the only place where I differ from you is in that, I think that today reason, and education have taken us to the point where there are better ways for our, "biological predilection for morality" to be interpreted and used to generate moral codes, than traditional, and especially theist religions. And that in a world where that is already taking place, and is seen to be doing it better, then it is natural that those traditional religions will be the increasingly the places where, those who are as you say "not particularly good at following either, because they are in competition with multitudes of other instincts and influences" will find their homes.

@Fernapple: “…but also for the record, I never even mentioned morality in my comment.”

@skado Was not talking about your comment, but about the last above. "I have never claimed religion is the source of morality." Skado.

@Fernapple
Which I posted, for the record, after you quoted me elsewhere and then made the comment about morality, as if it reflected my beliefs. It does not.

@skado Those comments were an enlargement on my comment about apologists in general, and have nothing to do with this line.

@Fernapple
Thanks for the clarification.

I consider my childhood religious upbringing abusive. Does that count? I was forced to pray, attend church, memorize the Bible, get baptized, listen to people ranting in supposed tongues and insanity I cannot even describe, and on and on until I felt I left home. It damaged me for decades as a woman as Christian teachings are all about submission of women to men. "Suffer not a woman to teach" and on and on. I hated the doom and gloom of the Bible and how mentally oppressive that was to my development. Everything was a sin and the flames of hell were always locking at my ankles. Yes, it is abuse for a sentient teenager to be forced to engage in these rituals against their will.

@ClareCK
Any situation in which a child is non-accidentally damaged physically and/or psychologically counts as child abuse, whether the justification in the mind of the abuser is thought to be a religious imperative or any other. And the religious domain probably offers more fertile ground for this type of institutional malignancy than any other. This is why I advocate for religious reform.

That said, if a child is beaten with a baseball bat, we don’t blame it on the institution of baseball. We place the blame where it belongs, on the abuser, regardless of how well the bat lends itself to the task.

There is nothing inherent in the philosophical or anthropological abstraction we call “religion” that requires or benefits from the abuse of fellow humans of any age or gender.

Individuals who perpetrate or excuse maltreatment in the name of religion, or any other cover, bear 100% of the responsibility for their crimes, and deserve 100% of the blame.

Any retributive energy aimed at impersonal institutions or abstractions is energy that will have no effect on the source of the abuse. Please hold the abusers accountable for the actions they freely chose to perpetrate. And please help reform any institution that promotes, excuses, tolerates, or passively allows itself to serve as cover for the maltreatment of human beings. Understandable vengeful fantasies notwithstanding, baseball is not likely to go away any time soon.

Animism is total bullshit.

@barjoe Sounds like the expert has spoken!