My 4 yr old and I have already had our arguments about God.

[dad]

Today my 4 yr old told me about the lion who didn't eat the guy because God told him not to. I said, "Don't you think that's a little hard to believe?" He seemed to agree that that one was a little out there.
He goes to a preschool run by this church and they tell him all these stories. Then he tells them to me, and I tell him that this god stuff is all a bunch of stories somebody made up. My wife is a lot more mellow about it than me. She says it's fine for him to know what the stories are and he can decide for himself if he believes it.
He is 4, so you cannot expect a little kid to think logically. My son usually says that he does believe it and I'm the one who is lying. I'm like, thanks preschool, for indoctrinating our little ones with all this bullshit. But how a 40 year old can continue to believe this is almost beyond my comprehension. I know, I'm in the most minor minority there is, but it is beyond me. What is wrong with people in general? 95% of people believe this stuff, which means I think 95% of all people are idiots I need to stay away from.... also how people can continue to support Bush is a similar mental problem. It's all related or similar / just a willful suppression of the facts getting into your brain. I can at least fathom how someone could be a Republican. They don't care about the environment, say screw the poor people, start more wars. But a sane Repub should still be hating on GWB because he's an incompetent idiot by any standard.
Ah well, I'm off topic already. I guess my rant is done for this evening.

[NMMNG]

1. The saddest thing is

The people who believe in the Bible are still what I call "cafeteria believers". They pick and choose what they want to adhere to and, in particular, what they want to impose upon others. Don't like the hundred or so verses that say you should help the poor because you want to keep your money to yourself? Just ignore them. Really don't like the part that says divorce is a sin because you got two of them? Just ignore it. The one that says to love thy neighbor--that only applies to the neighbors you want to love. But those few verses that talk about homosexuality being wrong--those are steadfast and incontrovertible. Other people better pay attention to that or your wrath, and the wrath of any law you can get made, will be upon them. :eyes:

[trotsky]

2. And don't forget, they know better than you.

It's your child's immortal soul at stake - they'll do whatever they can, because they think your sweet innocent child will roast in hell for eternity unless they can make him believe in Jeebus.

Most of these people are not completely lacking critical thinking skills; they're able to function in society and all that. It's just that the brain has an incredible coping mechanism, making it able to "wall off" certain areas of thought and make them immune from serious questioning. I guess I can see the evolutionary value in that - if you are brought up being told "See that striped animal with large teeth over there? He will KILL you, don't ever go near one of those!", a brain that never questions that is more likely to survive to the next generation than one that doesn't!

[Lars39]

3. He doesn't have the critical thinking skills to defend himself

against brainwashing. He's still very malleable at 4.
I can't remember the exact quote, but there is truth to the "If I have them until 7 years of age, they're mine for life" concept.

[onager]

4. My mom teaches at a church preschool...

And look how I turned out!

:hi:

She even teaches at an SoB (Southern Baptist) pre-school! It's attached to the church my family always attended, founded in 1859 and sited on the corroded buckle of the Bible Belt...in the Appalachian foothills.

That means a heterogenous bunch of little believers from stable, god-fearin' Red State familes, right?

Wrong. About half of her pre-schoolers in any given class are either suffering thru a divorce with their parents,or being raised by grandparents/other relatives because their parents effectively abandoned them. Mom usually starts the school year with a drawer full of Restraining Orders. It's incredibly sad to talk to some of these kids.

They're not even that heterogenous. One little Fundie girl...and her loudmouth Mom...terrorized an entire class about celebrating Xmas and Easter. Actually, about NOT celebrating them.

People who can out-Fundie Southern Baptists? Maybe there IS something to that Armageddon stuff..

[geniph]

6. You mean homogenous, not heterogenous

Heterogenous=different, diverse.

There are fundies who don't celebrate EASTER? To me, Easter should be the whole point of Christianity, because if you don't believe in the "I am the Resurrection and the Life" then what the hell DO you believe in?

[enki23]

7. "i am blind vengeance. the torturer."

"i am the god of clots, champion of corpses, progenitor of anguish, and inflicter of pain. i am the lord of filth and forced sodomy. the god of the craven, of those who cower in bunkers, hurling cancer."

"i am lord only of the dead."

[onager]

10. Yep, you're right!

It was late when I wrote that. And I had more than a few drinks...(Friday is my only day off, so I tend to celebrate on Thursday night.)

Oh, they celebrate the resurrection myth of Easter. But that's all they celebrate. No Easter Bunny, no chocolate eggs or candy, etc. Same for Xmas. No Santa, no gifts. And anyone who does celebrate that way is going straight to H-E-double-hockey-sticks.

That was the second bit of good news Fundie Kid had for a class full of 4-yr-olds. Right after she told them Santa didn't exist. Too bad the class didn't have a precocious atheist kid: "Well, guess who ELSE doesn't exist?"

[enki23]

5. i'd get him the fuck out of there

most of us know all too well how hard it can be to recover from that shit.

[dad]

8. 34

I am with you, but my wife is not. I never wanted him to go to the parochial pre-school, but there are not many other options where we live. My wife does not think there is any harm in it. I am Cabarrus County's #1 atheist, so for me it is all I can do to keep it from driving me bonkers when my son comes up with this "god" stuff.
He'll be in regular kindergarten next year - public school - so I'm just gritting my teeth and bearing it for now. Hell I should be used to it after 5 yrs of moron Bush in charge.
Our little girl is 2 and will be starting in the same preschool next year, so there's more of this to look forward to in the years to come. blah! Thanks for being there fellas...

[neebob]

9. It's great that you're modeling questioning at such a young age

I could write an essay, but I'll just sum it up by saying I can't even imagine what my life would have been like if it had been okay to question things at my house when I was a kid. At 45, I'm still struggling with the total inability to communicate with my parents and my mother in particular, since my dad died. I struggled with it just last night, in fact, and I think I finally realized once and for all that there's nothing I can say to my mom on any subject and no way of putting it that will result in her understanding or believing me. More importantly, she doesn't want to. She has that ability to wall off areas of thought that trotsky talks about upthread, only it applies to a lot more than religion. Ugh.

What a different world it would have been if my dad had ever said, "Don't you think that's a little hard to believe?" or anything along those lines. I'm sure it seems very basic to you. It does to me, too, as a parent, but I really admire it in others' parents and feel envious when I see examples of it.

[goddess40]

11. Read him some of Aesop's fables

they are a lot like the stories in the Bible. Bible stories have some good lessons - there made up but still can be good examples. The Bible has some scary shit too, meant to keep people in line.

[PinkUnicorn]

13. I loved those :)

...and the 'adventures' of Reynard the fox where is pulled the mickey out of aristocracy and clergy were good as well :)

Unfortunately at 4, you really can't give a child a 'real' bible as opposed to the kiddy versions. With things like rape, incest, murder, kids being ripped up by bears and war the thing reads like a triple X snuff film.

But what one could do is introduce him to some of the 'other gods' which humanity believes in. The trickster gods would be quite suitable - Native American Coyote causing trouble, Loki and Thor on their fishing trip, Prometheus and his fooling of Zeus, A thousand and one nights in Arabia (Arabian nights), and so on. Pretty soon he'll realise that genies, talking foxes, moon stealing gods, are not real and from there it is a short step from catagorising them all as fables - including the grey haired old sourpuss who sits on a magic throne in the sky and arbitrarily zaps people.

[arewenotdemo]

15. Excellent suggestion!

[A HERETIC I AM]

12. Try the "What seems more logical/reasonable" approach

Even though he is four, he can probably appreciate something like this; "Son, what makes more sense? The idea that these are just STORIES designed to make a point and not really true or that some invisible man that lives in the sky actually told a Tiger not to eat that guy?"

Inflame in him a healthy skepticism and he'll be fine.

[pauliedangerously]

14. I dunno, man...

I dropped out of sunday school when I was four years old because my teacher didn't make any sense. It never made sense to me, not from a logical standpoint. Now that I'm older, though, I realize why it's so popular.

I don't think people really believe this stuff at all. Yeah, I know that 95% of the people asked will say they do, but I figure they're just trying to hedge their bets IN CASE it really exists...as if they can get one over the LORD.

:rofl: