Do you agree with my husband that it's hypocritical for my atheist son to let his 14 year old son go to church?

It sounds like your son and his wife are just being good parents.

The word hypocritical is thrown around much too much these days. My Ex was an atheist, ex Christian, I was a cultural Jew and he went along with my kids being raised as Jews because he felt any education was worth having. Now both my sons are married to Catholics and choosing their own paths and I am a Jewish Unitarian. We never hid our beliefs but we never imposed them. Religion should be learned about and discussed but everyone has the right to their own personal beliefs.

I think you are right in thinking kids have a right to make up their own minds and need to study to be able to make an informed opinion.

No. It’s not hypocrisy.

Intellectually what they’re doing could be called balancing disagreements. In that context it allows rational argument based on input from new or different experience. It’s not dishonest or cynical in the way hypocrisy usually is.

And just in terms of parenting it’s probably what most families do when guiding the curiousity of young kids trying to find their own way in the world.

Totally okay in my view.

Today I asked him how he knew. He said it was because of things I say on Facebook.
I asked him to show me the next time he came across such a discussion. I prefer to keep my non beliefs private. Too many people and friends would be offended or even hurt. I don’t want that.

@Dutchess_III Private from your husband but he learned about them on Facebook? That seems a bit odd.

“Son, I don’t believe, so I’m not allowing you to go to church.”

That would sound weird.

To me that is the best possible parenting when it comes to religion. You do not force your beliefs on your children. You can explain them, and explain why you believe the way you do but you cannot insist your children believe the same. You would only be fooling yourself anyway. Now that said, if your grandson went to one of them snake handlin’ places I’d put some pressure on him to go look elsewhere.

I do not agree with your husband.

No, I don’t agree, but I think personal matters get tied up with religious ones sometimes and this isn’t just an atheist being dogmatic, but somehow feeling like his grandson going to church is rejecting him in some way. In either case, I think he should let it go and let the kid choose for himself what he believes and whether he wants to attend church.

What do you mean “private from your husband?” @janbb? I never kept it from him. We just never talked about religion.
If he actually gleaned it from Facebook it would be because he knows me so well.
I asked him to show me such a post if it comes up again.

@Dutchess_III I realize that question is derailing the thread so let’s drop it.

The main thing is that everyone agrees that your grandson should be allowed to do his own religious exploring.

It’s OK @janbb. It’s in Social for a reason. I’m fine with side conversations.

Just because the parents think one way and are allowing their son to investigate is not hypocritical. They are allowing him to investigate and are actually being supportive and open. I applaud them for not doing what many parents would do and tell him how he should think and what he should believe in.
I put my kids through private school (faith based) and told them if they wanted to investigate other religious beliefs I would be fine with that.
It’s a personal thing and personal choice.

“Other religious beliefs?” Did you allow them to go with no religious beliefs?

@Dutchess_III As stated, it is their choice.

I’ll bet you a dozen donuts he has the hots for a girl in his class and she goes to that church.

I don’t know if the child is capable of that. He’s has a mild mental disability. He’s 14 but looks, and acts, more like a 10 year old.

I agree 100% with you.

Forcing any child into your belief system, whatever that is, without allowing them the opportunity to explore is just wrong.

And to be quite honest, you’re in the Midwest, it’s not like you can avoid churches or his friends that go to church, to kids it all just sounds like fun.

Of course not. I’m a Jew and a hard atheist, and I rather enjoy going to shul.

I would let him go to church but I wouldn’t force him.
I always felt that it would be best to let the children be educated in religious ways and have them make up their own minds about whether they want to be Atheist or not.

Problem is, @KNOWITALL, we don’t realize we’re forcing a religion on our kids when we’re doing it. We’re just taking them to Sunday school, or vacation Bible school where they play and do cool, fun things.
You have to step outside of it to realize what you were doing.

I told him it’s your fault @caravanfan! ~

I’ll just add that my 13 year old daughter decided to have a Bat Mitzvah despite the fact that she was an atheist.

PICTURES @caravanfan !!

@Dutchess_III I’ll text you at some point. Certainly not going to post here.

Ok. But it’s been like 10 YEARS!

@Dutchess_III It was super fun as a kid!
He also hasn’t been indoctrinated at home, it sounds like, so he’ll be okay.

The bigger question is can you all accept him if he chooses to believe? I converted at 17 years old against my family’s wishes, it’s tough.

My mom the Sunday school teacher cannot stand that I even allow a Quran in my home, let alone the others I have. Ha!

Of course I would accept him. I just would hope he wouldn’t start talking religious smack. He’ll go to extreme lengths to get attention. Even negative attention.

His little sister, my MiniMe, gets indoctrinated at her mom’s. One time, at Thanksgiving dinner, she demanded to know why we didn’t have Jesus on the cross as a center piece on the table.

@Dutchess_III That’s an odd centerpiece to me. What religion is her mom?

She was only 5 or so when she said it. My son actually has a crucifix on his wall. Used to be my Mom’s. Then I took it. Then he stole it from me! So that’s probably where it came from.

I don’t see it as hypocritical, but as an atheist I would try to direct my children towards a religion that doesn’t believe atheists all go to hell and that only one religion is correct. I have always said if I had children I wouldn’t be so fast to be “open” to allowing my children to explore (be indoctrinated) into another religion, and definitely I would be extremely reluctant to any sort of Evangelical religion that is going to promote converting other people.

I am in favor of learning about other religions though, in a comparative religion format at the High school level. Younger than that I think it is fun for kids to learn about traditions around holidays.

Since I am Jewish, if my child had a religious curiosity I would direct him or her towards Judaism. My husband’s family is Catholic, so I would also be ok with my kid going to church with his grandparents when they were together, but still I would be telling my child they are Jewish, but that their father was raised Catholic. Some Evangelical sects actively recruit teenagers with parties and socials and I find it offensive and flat out wrong. They do it without asking the parents first, it is conniving.

If the mom is ok with it, then it is ok, who am I to say what another mom should do regarding religion, but I would want to warn not to be naive, and that exploring the religion can lead to believing in the religion and what that means.

I have the same attitude on that issue, that I have on the issue of gays, transgenders, and abortion. We should mind our own..And stop telling people what to think, when to think, who they can or can’t love, etc. As some, or most of you know, I was raised by churchgoers, but became an agnostic. I believe religious faith, or lack there of, is a matter of personal choice. My grand kids are being raised believers by, not only my wife, but by their other set of grand parents. Troubles me not a whit. My grand son and I had a talk about these things the other day, I tried to give him honest awnsers without persuading him one way or the other. He told me, somewhat in shock, that his history teacher did not believe in God. I told him many people don’t but that in a free society, people decide these things for themselves. He asked if I believe in God, and he said the teacher had told the children there is no God. I told him I honestly can’t say. In my view these things are unknown and unknowable. And that 500 years ago, the man might have been burned alive for making a public remark like that. My only issue with the teach, if trying to teach these kids WHAT to think as opposed to HOW to think. There’s a difference. The child seemed satisfied with my answer.

@JLeslie as an atheist I would try to direct my children towards a religion that doesn’t believe atheists all go to hell and that only one religion is correct.

Trust me when I say even seemingly loving religions like Buddhism would still have people who basically say all atheists should go to hell

I’ve been around a Buddhist cult that basically told people that Buddhism was the only right religion and anyone saying otherwise was the devil trying to redirect you to a trap to harm you. And anyone who didn’t believe in the same thing they believed even other Buddhists were the devil reincarnated eager to lead people to harm.

Any religions can be twisted into “all atheists go to hell” if the follower has an ugly enough heart.

@Mimishu1995 Luckily, most Jewish people barely think about the afterlife. Generally we focus on behaviors not specific worship, except for maybe very religious Jews, and we don’t try to recruit other people into the religion, because we aren’t afraid others will go to hell because they are a different religion, so we don’t need to help save them.

I don’t know any Catholics writing letters to their children terrified they will burn in hell if they aren’t religious, but I know several born again Baptists who do just that to their children and siblings. Jehovah Witnesses too.

I thought Buddhists believed in many paths to goodness, but honestly I know very little about the religion.

@JLeslie I don’t claim to know much about Buddhism either, because the kind of Buddhism people in my country believe seems to stray away from the original Buddhism from India. But I do know that it was originally about being good in the face of evil around you. It was about not following other people and becoming a bad person yourself, even though life may be horrible and there may be no reason to be good. The motivation to being good in this life is knowing that you have lived and will live in another life. You received all the goodness in this life because in the past life you were a good person, and you should strive to be good now because in another life you will receive all the goodness you have cultivated in this life. That also means if you were a bad person in the past life, you are to be cursed with your own misfortune now, and if you still insist on being bad, then you will carry all the misfortune to the future life.

Now this is where the religion gets twisted by people with less than ideal intention. So because no one knows who you were in the past life and who you will be in the next life, people start to assume that if you are cursed with misfortune, that means you must be a bad person in the past life. So the only way to redeem yourself now is to accept the religion. This is where a lot of the “good people get messed up by life because they were bad in the past life” began. It makes room for a lot of cruel judgments about people’s value simply based on how much they fare in life, and it’s like rubbing salt to the wound to people who are already feeling bad enough about their life. Not to mention you are forced to constantly live in fear of messing up, because every bad thing you do will be carried over to the next life. And we all know no one is perfect.

I agree with the consensus. Let him explore Christianity (or Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, etc.) for himself. The only issue of concern I might have is the risk of indoctrination if his parents aren’t there to supervise what and how his church is teaching him about Christianity. Some churches can be very manipulative in an unhealthy way.

That would be my concern too @gorillapaws.

@gorillapaws Indoctrination can be a two way street. As you say, children should be free to explore different faiths for themselves. But as in my post above, my issue with my grand sons teacher is that he seems to be trying to indoctrinate those kids into atheism. Which in my view is no better than some hedge preist or nuns in a Catholic school indoctrinating children with religion. Had the guy said, “Ok, I don’t believe in God and here is my reasoning, then fine. Call it a learning experience. But telling them flat out that God doesn’t exist? Indoctrination is Indoctrination, anathema to me, regardless of what side of the fence a person is on. Just introduce the subject and allow the kids to draw their own conclusions. There are no right or wrong answers in that topic. Just my own two cents.

@Nomore_lockout I’m not willing to draw a false equivalence there. I won’t deny that atheist indoctrination is something that can and does happen, but I don’t think it’s nearly as common or as manipulative as what we see from other belief systems. Oftentimes they’ll prey on your fears of death and eternal torment, promise you love, happiness and a guilt-free existence, etc. My aunt was preyed upon by a fundamentalist Christian church that took advantage of her grief after the passing of her husband. She ended up donating lots of money and became a very different person in a short period of time. It was sad to see.

@Nomore_lockout Atheism indoctrination seems to be something the hardcore people on r/atheism love to do, basically telling people that God doesn’t exist and you are stupid for believing in God. They don’t exactly prey on your vulnerability or your hope for happiness, but rather indoctrinate a victim mindset in you, things like the world is a shitty place and you don’t have any responsibility to fix your life because you are the poor poor victim that is somehow hated and shunned by society. They also promise you a “better” way to see the world, like some kind of secret few people are supposed to know, and promote a superiority complex. This kind of indoctrination works best on people who are disillusioned at one point in their life, don’t know what to believe and need an answer to why things don’t go the way they expect.

This is the same logic as communities like incels, people are loyal to those communities even though the communities are extremely negative.

Just my own two cents too :)

@Mimishu1995 but but but this guy is an educator. He is there to educate not indoctrinate. As I said, if he had broached the subject differently, like “I don’t believe in God and this is why, a b and c”, then no prob. As I told my grand son he is entitled to his views just as you are entitled to yours. We don’t burn people and we don’t kill people we don’t agree with, like they did in the Middle Ages. My issue isn’t what he said, it’s HOW he said it. Telling a classroom full of children, “There is no God”? Just wrong.

@Nomore_lockout Telling a classroom full of children, “There is no God”? Just wrong.

You would be surprised how many Redditors and 4channers would be more than willing to do that…

Maybe but they are as full of shit as having some slick Televangelist come into a class room and scare the crap out of kids with hellfire and brimstone. Flip sides of the same coin. And they don’t even see it. Reminds me of the old Y!A Religion and Spirituality site. “If you don’t accept Jaysus as your Savoir you will burn for eternity and I hope you do!”. “If you don’t accept the reality (whose reality?) that there is no God, you’re an unseducated moron! Eat shit!” Yeah peeps. I’m impressed. Yawn…

@Nomore_lockout Yeah. I never say they are right. I fully agree they are full of shit. I just want to show you that those people are not as rare as we think, and they can definitely thrive in misery.

Dogmatic atheism is self-defeating. It imparts a significance to religion that it does not deserve, and thus helps perpetuate religion.

Of course a Christian social or service is trying to proselytize and indoctrinate. It’s not some innocent get to know you party. I wouldn’t let my kid go if I could help it. Hopefully, it would be a passing interest or some girl he thinks he likes as @LuckyGuy said.

I went to a dinner and fashion show and tips at a mega church (1,000 people in attendance) and the fashion tip lady was sure to tell you that all the mistakes you made you can be forgiven and Christianity is how you can feel better about yourself. It was very interesting to me. She specifically mentioned abortion, which shocked me. My girlfriend who invited me had an abortion in her 20’s that I know she felt very badly about.

Similar to @Nomore_lockout, when my niece and nephew were young I was always vague about my beliefs, answering as factually as I can about what my religion says about the topic, and I always reinforced the religion their parents raised them in as being a place they can still identify with but find their own place. Religion rarely came up.

A few months ago I went to my niece’s new house, and met her SO, the whole family was together. Her boyfriend and she told me they went to some dinner at a Jewish friend’s house. It might have been Shabbat, or a holiday, I don’t remember, and they really liked it and seemed interested in Judaism. The way I see it, they can make any tradition they want regarding Friday night even being Catholic. They are in their late 20’s. I did tell her Judaism always seemed more earthly to me, and I expanded a little more about my feelings about religion than when they were kids and asked me questions.

The only problem I can see is that if your son’s son attends church on his own, as @gorillapaws says he could be vulnerable to indoctrination, especially as he is so young. I’d want to know a bit more about this church, what it does and who is running it.

@JLeslie I’ve still yet to have a Jewish person knock on my door to proselytize. “Have you heard the bad news? Your messiah isn’t the guy. Come to temple and we’ll tell you all about it…” Some faiths seem to respect boundaries much better than others it seems.

@Mimishu1995… No more Locklut isn’t talking about Redditors or 4Channers. He’s talking about children’s educators. We are trained not to discuss our personal beliefs with our students. And with good reason.

@Dutchess_III I’m talking about shitty people in general, in response to @gorillapaws‘s claim that atheism indoctrination is much less common than religious indoctrination.

I was just confused because you replied to @Nomore_lockout, who was talking about his kid’s teacher, and not to @gorillapaws. Sorry.

@gorillapaws It will never happen.

I basically told my niece “you don’t need to be Jewish to do those nice traditions you like.” Maybe I could have roped her into the religion, she seemed to be one foot in the door.

This is one of the biggest problems Jews have, we don’t recruit, we practically push people away, and in turn our numbers are extremely small. Maybe we should change our methods. It we be nice if she made some Jewish babies since I failed in that department.

“My husband thinks it’s hypocritical of his parents to let him do that since neither my son, nor his wife, believe in God.”
In our family us kids ( 5 ) went to Church on our own while the parents slept in without kids running amuck.
Had nothing to do with Religion, just a quiet day at home without the kids.

It would be hypocritical if they went to church and said they don’t believe in God. It would also be hypocritical if they believe their child has a right to explore religion and make decisions about their own beliefs but stopped him from doing so. So since they are not doing either, they are far from being hypocritical. You can no more force someone to believe than you can force someone to disbelieve.
There is comfort in believing in God and maybe that’s what he’s looking for.

A good parent lets their kids explore options in life and lets them decide things for themselves, as long as they’re not harming themselves physically (i.e. drugs or self harm).

@Pandora It’s not hypocritical to go to church if you don’t believe in God. I know plenty of people who go to their church for the social and ritual aspects of it.

@Caravanfan Guilty as charged. In my adolescence at any rate.

Before the deciding for themselves, though, there has to be some kind of foundation or guiding principles or something. Immature kids who have no life experience can’t just be shown a smorgasbord of religions and practices, with all of them having their faithful true-blue followers and their skeptics and bashers, and be told to pick one and follow it all their lives.

It’s like those teachers who started telling their fourth graders “There’s no right or wrong answer. Just give your opinion.” First they NEED to now what are right and wrong answers before they can form an opinion that makes any sense. What 9 year old has a rational basis for thought? Then they adopt a belief and spend the rest of their lives defending it against facts.

I think it’s fine for the youngster to go to church if he wants. Better than forbidding it and having him go on the sly, as a rebellion, like it would be if they told him not to date someone. But they have to be prepared for a convert and maybe proselytizer in their household.

I have to agree with @Caravanfan. There are plenty of atheists who attend or belong to places of worship. They like the ritual, or the tradition, or the social aspect, or it feels comfortable, or some are closeted atheists in towns where everyone goes to church.

I don’t see being an atheist and going to church as hypocritical at all, but I’m Jewish, and many Jews are atheists, it’s very common, and still can be observant or still want their children doing the ritual of bar mitzvah so they go to classes for it.

There are preachers who are atheists; now that is hypocritical, but I have some empathy for those who become atheists over time and being a minister is their job. I once saw a report about it. There is a group online, they all disguise their real names, they have to stay incognito.

Here’s some articles. https://abcnews.go.com/amp/WN/atheist-ministers-leading-faithful/story?id=12004359

I didn’t read this all the way through, but it looks interesting. https://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/dennett/papers/preachers_who_are_not_believers.pdf

Another thought, I don’t mind going to church with my MIL and I’m not Catholic, I don’t believe in God, but I go to be with her. I think a lot of spouses do that.

@JLeslie Interesting post. I heard a story once, from a person I trust and respect, about a conversation he had once with his Presbyterian Pastor. He had just gone through a nasty divorce and was fighting for custody of his kids, and he told his Pastor that he had lost his faith, and probably would not be returning to services again. The Pastor looked at him, and told him bluntly, “I understand, I have no faith myself”. When he asked the guy why he would continue pastoring, the guy just shrugged his shoulders, took on a sad expression, and turned and walked away. So it takes all kinds I guess. People flip flop all the time, people of faith turn atheist, atheists get religion. Go figure.

I have never heard of an atheist “getting religion,” especially if they’ve experienced religion before they became an atheist.

@Nomore_lockout Wow!

@Dutchess_III I have a friend who was raised atheist who says she believes in God, but she defines God as within herself or something like that. More new age I guess? I do think it’s rare for atheists to become theists or find religion so to speak.

I do think people define God in different ways and that blurs things a little.

@Dutchess_III Oh, I have. Francis Collins (current director of NIH) is the most famous one I can think of right now. C.S. Lewis was also an atheist and found religion.

@Dutchess_III There are several stories on You Tube (I know know) about some atheist dude who had a near death experience and actually became a pastor. And about a formerly atheist neurologist who had a similar experience and is now, while not religious, he’s become very spiritual. And he swears by what he claims he saw in the so called afterlife..The story about the Neurologist has been featured on numerous TV shows and news casts as well.

I wanted to make a correction. There are Rabbis who are atheists and I don’t find it hypocritical, because I don’t think they are usually preaching about God. I assume Christian ministers are always preaching about God, talking about accepting Jesus, but I don’t know.

Maybe some ministers of nondenominational churches or all inclusive type churches might be atheists too, and the main thrust seems to be a place for people to come to for support, acceptance, and that idea of social connection. That seems ok I guess.

@JLeslie It is as long as they don’t start the Bible Thumping. That is annoying as hell, no pun intended. And the various sects who think they have a patent or trademark on the term Christian.

@Nomore_lockout I find it offensive that some sects of Christianity don’t consider others to be Christian. They will say Catholics aren’t Christian, or Mormons aren’t. I don’t get it. Seems to me if someone accepts Jesus as their savior then they are Christians. At the same time, some very religion Jews might not see me as a Jewish, so it’s not really just Christians who do it, but I think it happens more in Christianity.

@JLeslie Yeah I think all of the Abrahamic religions have devolved into separate cults like that. Sephardic Jews for example, or Sunni Muslims. But Christianity is the worst of the lot. In my view anyway. “I’m a Christian (Reg.U.S.Pat.Off.)” A certain Jelly was on a thread recently, maybe this one, and was saying even Bhuddists are guilty of sectarianism to an extent. If there is a God, I wish he she it would make it clear what is expected and cut the crap.

@Nomore_lockout For the record, Jews don’t consider Sephardic Jews as a cult. They are a historical branch of Talmudic Judaism from the Spanish diaspora after the Inquisition and have a long and important history.

Yeah, it’s not so much the Sephardic think the Ashkenazi aren’t Jewish or vice versa, it’s the ultra orthodox who might say atheist Jews aren’t really Jews or non observant Jews aren’t really Jews, but I think that’s not across the board. There are so few Jews in the world I think most religious Jews think we need all we can get religious or not.

Not at all. Exposure to different belief systems is a good thing.

@JLeslie Throughout history it was a death sentence to be from the non-ruling religion, as you know. Likely that’s where prejudices arose in various religions.

On my Finding Your Roots PBS show there are a lot of people with Ashkanasi dna, generally seen as a good thing.

@KNOWITALL Do you mean a lot of people who don’t identify as Jewish who have Ashkenazi DNA? I have seen that show.

Makes perfect sense what you wrote about identifying with the ruling class and ostracizing or degrading other groups. At least conversion is better than death I guess.

@JLeslie Yes. It is a great show, so much forgotten history.

I have a typo, it should be I haven’t seen that show, I will check it out. Thanks.

@Caravanfan I believe they thought it hypocritical for the Parents to let the child attend church. If you go to church it is to learn about God. If you do not believe in God then it is still hypocritical. Think of it in this way. If I went to a Republican rally because they were going to throw a big party and I give money at that rally then I am supporting their ideas that I detest. You don’t go to church every Sunday just for the social aspect. Or at least, let me say you shouldn’t go just for that. That is why Christianity has such a bad rap today. People don’t go to church to learn about faith because if they did, they would practice what is preached. Love one another. Though I have met some atheist who are better at following Jesus than so many so called Christians. I suppose they would be less of a hypocrite than those who say they believe in a God but act like they don’t when they walk out the door.

@Dutchess_lll It could be worst. My husband wasn’t raised with any particular faith. They were agnostic. His father didn’t believe in religion. Well, one became Baptist, the other Roman Catholic, and the third one is Jehovah’s Witness. So I think door number 3 could’ve been the worst option.

JWs? OMG. The worst of the worst.

You can be agnostic and still identify with a religion. Jews do it all the time. Maybe we need to get the word out about that. Lol. It could increase our numbers.

@Pandora I wonder how common that is that people raised with no religion seek a religion. It’s two separate things really, religion and theism, although they overlap of course.

I was raised Jewish, atheist, and only celebrated holidays, no other mention of religion or religious beliefs. Being Jewish was like being Italian or Japanese, it was just an identity thing or ethnicity, not a belief thing really. I didn’t realize people seriously believed in God and referenced a book for religious guidance until my late teens.

@JLeslie I think it’s probably as common as it going the other way. People use the faith or their own lack of faith as reasons to justify who they are or because they lack purpose. I think it’s the idea of rationalizing one’s existence. We all believe in something. Mother Nature or God or science. I’m not saying science is fake. But there is more we don’t know about science than what we do actually understand. So what we end up saying, is if we don’t understand it yet doesn’t mean there isn’t a logical explanation. We just haven’t discovered what it is yet. Others say its all of God or Gods design, and others, it’s just a natural phenomenon and accept it and move on. We are all looking for answers for our existence and hoping to find the real answer before we die.

Of course, there are those who do not care one way or the other because their God is the Almighty Dollar Bill or Power.

@Pandora I disagree. I’m not searching. I don’t care if I don’t understand something about the universe. I don’t think science is a belief or leap of faith. I also don’t think religion and science have to be at odds.

Religious people always say we need something to believe in, but that isn’t how I feel. I was raised void of that, but maybe it’s semantics and I don’t really know what that means.

I care about nature and protecting the earth, the air, the water. I believe all of nature is connected and it needs balance. I don’t believe there is something unseen controlling it though.

I think most religions focus a lot on death, but Judaism doesn’t, and atheists don’t. So, again my upbringing probably has a lot to do with how I think. It seems most religions use explanations of death to control people, motivate them, or ease their minds.

Ease their minds about going to a great place after death or ease their mind that the 3 children they lost before the age of 5 went to a better place. Infant mortality was incredibly high hundreds/thousands of years ago. Even young adult deaths were plentiful. The Judaism death rituals focus mostly on the people left behind and dealing with the mourning and grief.

@JLeslie Okay, so there may be people who don’t but I still think there are a great deal of people who do. For the record, I do believe in science and in God. I believe they both can co-exist. I’m just saying that there are billions of humans and a great percentage of them will look for some reason for mankind existence. Whether through science or faith. It’s the what came first. The chicken or the egg.

When I was a practicing Christian I still accepted the evidence of science. My co-Christians were a little distraught over it.

@Dutchess_III I knew a Priest growing up who became a Bishop and he was so cool. He absolutely believed in science and believed both can exist. He also believed in evolution as do I. He had a library of science books and philosophy, in his office. I also went to Catholic School and it was there where I fell in love with Science.

Not every Christian is against science and evolution. Not every Christian is a fundamentalist.

I didn’t know there was an argument between science and religion in modern day until I was in my 30’s. I’m not sure there was one 40 years ago.

I knew about the evolution court case, but that was back in the 60’s around the time of my birth. No one I knew had a problem with evolution and plenty of my friends were raised religiously. Mostly, they were Catholics. One of my very religious friends, she was either Baptist or Methodist, wound up being a biologist. Her dad was a biologist and he was Catholic, but I think he was agnostic, her mom was the more religious one.

This pitting science against religion or vice versa seems made up and political. It reminds me of the made up war on Christmas.

I would never assume just because someone believes in God that they are anti-science. I don’t have any negative assumptions or prejudgements about people who believe in God or who are religious.

@jca2…I once confided in a church member that I had my doubts about all the miracles….the immaculate conception, raising people from the dead. She was shocked
“But…but…you have to believe those things to be a Christian! Thats what it’s all about!”
I thought “I thought Christianity was about loving others…”

@Dutchess_III It is all about loving others. I’m sorry your friend answered that way. It’s OK to have doubts.

Uhmm – I think I meant yes, with bacon…

Would you mind repeating the question?

I never had any problem with having doubts @snowberry. I figured God made me that way!

@Dutchess_III Interesting.

@Dutchess_III: IF you want to believe that Christianity means not believing science, then you believe that and I can’t sway you. However, it’s not true and just because some people told you that doesn’t make it so.

Read again @jca2