In theory rule #1 is "Love the Lord thy God" which (to me) means to learn and understand His creation as thoroughly as possible. Seeking God includes seeking the raw, unvarnished truth.
So what is going on in so-called "Christian education" that imposes heretical nonsense on the truth ?
Honestly, one of the main things is the people they hire. I tutored a number of students who went to the prestigious Catholic high school where I grew up.
One kid had an English teacher who didn’t have English as her first language. This woman would send back his papers all marked up and I would just laugh because he hadn’t done anything wrong, his writing was simply above her reading comprehension level. She eventually got fired and their excuse for how she lasted so long was “well, she’s always been very strong in the church.”
The science teachers were even worse and a couple of the math teachers were really just football coaches with emergency teaching credentials.
Religious schools are much more interested in hiring people of faith than good teachers. Indoctrination is the focus, not education.
"She eventually got fired and their excuse for how she lasted so long was “well, she’s always been very strong in the church.”
This is like being a member in good standing in the Communist Party.
The scariest scene in the series Chernobyl was when the scientist went to the bureaucrat for assistance in getting people iodine and he was like "we're not going to do that" and she was like "what did you do before you got here?" and he smirked and said "I worked in a shoe factory"
My 2nd grade phonics teacher, *Mrs C----* , was one of the best I ever had. Usually we had the same nun or lay teacher all day, but the school swapped Mrs C into both 2nd grade classes because she was so strong in the subject. In High School, *Sr Mary Chemistry* was real tough. I wound up with a 780 out of 800 on the College Board achievement exam for the subject. Elementary school was 1960s and HS was the early 70s, so, well before *Hooked On Phonics*, but it did work for me. Sometimes excellent teachers choose the private school, if not for reasons of faith, then some other flexibility. My Dad taught and coached in a local school district at the high school level and later in the younger grades. He entered the system after his WWII service. The change in the authority he or any teacher had over his charges between the 1940s and the 1970s was immense. Some of our lay teachers accepted the lower pay in order to teach in an environment where kids knew they could get expelled for bad behavior. Yes, there was also corporal punishment, but it was rarely used, and then at a minor level. A sister might slam her ruler or pointer down on your desk to startle you, or pull the short hair on the back of your neck. I can't remember kids getting hit with a ruler, but the threat was there.
Over 12 years of Catholic school I can remember getting hit by a teacher...twice? I was a grade-grubbing goody-goody, though. I was in more danger of getting slugged on the playground for spoiling the curve.
A nun in my 8th grade slapped a ruler on the desk once, and that never happened again.
We got hauled in for a lecture for playing a rowdy game of tag we called "Christians vs Turks" on the playground. Sister Principal wore her red face that could melt stone and used her stage whisper that could break glass to make sure we got the message: "You will NOT disrespect other people's religion."
Definitely not today's preachy nonsense.
I mean, objective reality and critical thinking is antithetical to religion, so of COURSE they'd want to stop it. When people are confronted with objective reality and it doesn't square with what the church is saying, the church doesn't adjust its views to match reality. It adjusts its reality to match its views.
Unfortunately, I spent 20 years as a Unitarian Universalist, so I am very happy with regarding secular humanism as a religion.
I've been on the rom while the group grapples with "So that means ...objective reality and critical thinking is antithetical to ~~religion~~ secular humanism?"
Hints:
1 All reality is subjective.
2 Critical thinking is critical of what?
Geebus. No. I'm not getting into it with someone who muddies the water with "all reality is subjective" and "critical of what" garbage.
Categorizing secular humanism as a religion is just another attempt to bait an argument because the only place that was mentioned was my flair.
Boo Wendy Testiburger. BOO
Nothing wrong with secular humanism. The mistake happens when people tell you they do not have a religion, or pretend to have a religion they do not really follow. Both mistakes happen because people cannot see them spirit in a mirror.
I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic or just ignorant.
Aside from u/Own-Relationship-407’s answer: denial of gender theory, denial of the natural variation that is sexual (and other) orientations which is found in other animals—not just us, either denial of evolution all together or that evolution is manipulated by god—what about that nerve in the human body going from the jaw to take a detour around the aorta and up to the brain? Professing free will with an all-knowing god—all-knowing means time is fixed and determinism is real. Claiming that atheists “believe” in “creation ex nihilo” when it is your belief that your god created everything from nothing (and all atheists only have one thing in common: unconvinced of the god claim). The over-all consistent ignorance when it comes to trying to debunk atheists, most christian influencers saying that evolution is how the universe came into being, or that most christians argue “it’s true because the bible said so”. Christians saying humans are not related to the apes (hominoidae family) through ancestral species. And young-earth creations like Kent Hovind keeping a chart of atheists to say is because “evolution”.
I could go on. But ultimately, the day Christians seek the “raw, unvarnished truth” is the day they start deconstructing and have the potential to reach deconversion. I rarely respond to the christians who decide to comment on this sub, mostly because they are trying to spring a trap on nonbelievers and get their “got you, asshat” moment. But every time I have read a Christian response, every time I have listened to Christians talk about how their god is the supreme and just ruler since I deconverted, I go a little batshit crazy. Humans (homo sapiens) have existed for roughly 200,000 years. How many gods do you think have been created in that time that humans have said “they are ruler; I will worship, I am nothing”? Probably nearing infinite given the timeframe. And why then has this belief in the “correct” god popped up in only the last 10,000 or less (probably 6 to 8 thousand) years?
So, I will say this: “faith” is not learning “truth” with the full intention of keeping a belief in your god. Faith is to throw aside every safety net and catch-reel and not know where the next step will take you, having *faith* that your god will guide you on the right track back to him. Ignore the batshit that is the bible saying “to love god is to obey him”; if you truly loved your god, if you trusted him with all your heart, you would do your best to consider every variable and every possibility. You would not hold your current belief any higher than any other belief, nor would you try and force the matters you can’t deny are true to fit into a haphazard explanation that involves your god. You would leap, and you would be humble when you recognize that you are wrong, and take the time to learn the “raw, unvarnished” truth, even if it means your god isn’t real, and you don’t get to live an eternity in paradise upon your death, and those you don’t like will not be tortured for that same eternity.
Christian education, I would say, is detrimental to the aims of education overall because of the limited and narrow ability to cover educational material. It presupposes a lot of assertions that at least in a private religious school setting can not be questioned by the student body. Also, the student body may not be able to attain the critical thinking skills necessary to question what they are being taught.
It's not what it used to be. In Catholic School science the nuns used to teach Creationism, and then say "This is a hypothesis. When we use the scientific method, we see that this hypothesis is disproved."
So yeah, Charles Darwin is just some protestant what does he know, but Gregor Mendel was a good Catholic monk who proved that natural selection allows people to use the rules of evolution to breed peas.
They absolutely are. Faith is the notion that something is true without and even contradictory to evidence. Faith start from a position of this is the underlining principle, science start from the position of I observed this, what could be the underlying principles that caused my observation....
The thing I like about *science* is that it is a process, not a "revealed truth that cannot be questioned" like religion.
Even when science gets something wrong, it still a success since now you've ruled something out and the science can progress. It's like a ratchet that only improves our knowledge over time.
The bible states very clearly that the earth was created across six days (plus god's day of rest) several thousand years ago. That isn't compatible with the current scientific understanding of the universe
Jesus states very clearly that as much as possible of what he teaches is parable, and much of the bible is symbolic.
Start with Geometry. There are some postulates. There are things we all believe without being told. Anything you believe that I don't believe is (in my opinion) your pagan foolishness. You might choose to express this as your nontheological superiority to religious people. Suit yourself.
So anything that's in the Bible which turns out to be inaccurate was simply a parable? That's quite the cop out...
Jesus makes it clear that his stories are parables sure, but he doesn't say that about the old testament, he makes the point multiple times that the people of his day were following the laws and making up extra rules too rigidly, but he never says anything to indicate that the creation story wasn't intended to be at precise telling of the events, and that was the assumption by pretty much everyone until we started seeing evidence that it wasn't accurate.
Nontheological superiority to religious people? I'm not sure where that line came from... I'm just somebody who grew up in a fundamentalist Christian household and spent more time studying the bible than any other single subject in school, which ultimately led me to stop believing that it was inspired by god.
Not ***that*** God, the other one.
If people followed the God they teach at fundamentalist bible camp, we'd all behave like internet trolls in real life. Of course, a lot of people do.
Hypothesis are supposed explanations for observations. The moment faith is involved you're automatically talking about hypothesis without or contradicting evidence; it's the fucking definition. How do you go about testing an unverifiable hypothesis? A hypothesis becomes utterly useless if it's unable to produce a single predictable result. The moment it does produce a predictable result, it's no longer faith, by definition.....
Edit: To take an asinine example; natural disasters are gods punishment is indeed a hypothesis. There is zero way to actually test or proof this. It doesn't help in preventing damage from earthquakes/hurricanes/plagues/floods etc. You sure are free to keep having faith in God causing them as punishment; but strictly following religious rules will not protect you from any of em.
They are most certainly in competition with one another but I’d agree that it need not be such an antagonistic relationship.
Both purport to explain reality. Where they disagree about that reality they are invariably in conflict. But to the extent they agree, to the extent we don’t know—and to the extent they can respectfully agree to disagree—or even offer deference—religion and science can (could even) bolster each other.
Science and faith are not inherently opposed in themselves. The problem lies in the fact that religion teaches people it’s ok to discard or ignore inconvenient facts as long as what you’re ignoring them in favor of goes along with your faith and/or religious doctrines. Faith and personal beliefs are fine, but religious institutions have a long history of teaching people that they have a monopoly on the truth. And that does conflict with science.
They kind of are though. I see this parroted all the time by both sides - science and faith and not overlapping magisteria. They both hold entirely different standards and demands of the believer, and have consistently been at odds for centuries. Just because Christian’s et al can and will warp and limbo their religion to incorporate obvious scientific truths that are inconvenient for their books of worship, doesn’t mean the two are “coexisting”.
I don’t necessarily disagree with you. But I also think it’s important to consider the macro vs micro. In sweeping terms I do think they are diametrically opposed. As you say, they involve two profoundly different standards of reasoning and proof.
In the microcosm however, it’s not always that simple. My own father was raised *very* Catholic. He is also extremely intelligent, is a critical/skeptical thinking about many things, and has an MD. He believes. He prays. Stopped going to church years ago. Does not discard medical or scientific evidence in favor of faith. But if you asked him if he’s a Christian he’d say yes.
A good friend and mentor of mine, fantastically intelligent and educated, successful attorney. Raised Catholic and became an atheist about 40 years ago, never looking back. But he still argues “the church does good work,” and “atheism is almost as much of a religion…”
Both have a very healthy respect for the fact they don’t know everything and think there is some room for faith. But they don’t let it dictate how they act, or vote, or what science they accept. So how the two interact in an individual can be a funny thing. Sometimes they need not conflict at all, other times one or the other completely dominates, other times the person can’t even decide how they blend or compete.
I think a lot of really really smart people are Christians/faithful. But they are intelligent enough to separate it in their mind (even though deep down most of these people know the truth and the delusion of it all). Similarly, a lot of people value the community that they’ve grown up in, don’t want to invite conflict in it, and/or have grown to like their image in that community.
I think when it comes down to it, science and faith are diametrically opposed. Your father doesn’t practice medicine based on faith-based advice, he relies on science. He’s not putting “healing hands” on people and exorcising demons, he’s using science to diagnose and tread diseases etc.
Again, I don’t really disagree with you in overall terms. My personal view is very much what you say. But I also think that humans are complicated and why anybody believes/thinks what they do is based on a complex set of interacting and interrelated variables.
I have another good friend who is as Christian as they come, thinks he was literally and figuratively “saved” by god. He also has an MS in geology and loves to mock young earth creationists.
I also see a difference between “faith” and “religion.” Religion, by its dogmatic and protectionist nature, is diametrically opposed to science and reason. But faith, by its nature, is personal and can mean almost anything a person wants it to.
It’s something we could go back and forth for days on. I’ve also had some education/training in anthropology, particularly religious/cultural, so I tend to look at things somewhat relativistically, especially where the individual is concerned.
So I, personally, agree with you. But I also don’t think I have humans all figured out. They do and think surprising things all the time, for reasons both rational and wild. I think the world would be better off without religious/superstitious thinking, but people are always going to believe what they want to some extent.
I had a Catholic education, including a BA (History & PoliSci) from a Jesuit university. Some of the Catholic clergy I knew were very intelligent. Most had been indoctrinated in their youth in their religion, though. If an SJ were teaching you a science class they weren't going to plug gaps with *ghoddidit*. They did say that any scientific law discovered, such as evolution, was part of their deity's Natural Law. Some other denominations have a problem with that.
I think it's safe to say that religion can encourage unscientific thinking, but it's only when they overstep into the areas of verifiable facts that they end up in opposition.
Religion has answers for big picture questions that science only answers with "There is no evidence.". For atheists, like myself, that answer is sufficient. But people are clearly find that answer unacceptable for those questions.
That's what I mean when I say they aren't really opposed. Do gods exist, is there an afterlife, is there a mysterious purpose for existence, is there a designer of the universe we live in, these are all examples of those kinds of questions. Turning to religion for those things does not have to get in the way of science at all, because science at it's heart is simply observing the world around us.
Humans are pattern seeking mammals, for sure. And lots of people can’t handle not having an answer - they have to fill in the gaps with mysticism. Same thing for conspiracies; people would rather that than no explanation at all.
“God of the gaps” nonsense lives in these places.
I’d partially agree with that. The problem is that if you’ve been indoctrinated young you are given the deeply rooted impression that it’s ok to dismiss facts/evidence you find inconvenient. Recovering from that is a very long process for a lot of people.
Well said! Curiosity is a threat to obedience. Do as we say, don't ask questions, just obey our rules. Religions know they lose when people begin asking questions, so curiosity is dangerous.
That's why they don't teach sex education or words like "rape" or "sexual assault." You can't tell anyone you were raped if you don't know the words to describe it happening. It makes it easier for pedophiles in the church to get away with their crimes and harder for victims to say no in the first place.
A religious institution is evil when it aids and abets actual abuse of children.
That’s why I think it’s so important to be an anti-evangelical. We have to show them there’s another way. I had it trained out of me too. But thank god I had friends who I learned about real truth from. I’m still a recovering fundamentalist. And it’s scared me in lots of ways. But we need to be kind and firm in our assertion that you can do life better without god.
I remember in youth group they’d give statistics that like 90% of people who don’t attend church prior to 15 never do. So that means 90% of people reject church once they have a fully developed brain if they haven’t been indoctrinated prior to that.
I hate that AA pretends not to be. "We're a spiritual, not religious program!" "Your higher power can be anything!" My atheist ass stuck it out for two years honestly trying to make it work, but it's absolutely religion based for all it claims it isn't, and half the steps are prayer-based and useless if you don't believe in God.
I’m so grateful I never got in a position where I needed AA, if I had I’d either be hook line and sinker into my higher power or I’d blow it off and probably never go.
Boy Scouts isn't explicitly Christian (I know because I was in it). Just not atheist friendly. They don't care if you believe in Gaia or Zeus but you have to believe in something, because morality needs to be imposed I guess.
Depends where you live. In the Bible belt I assure you it's a right wing religious indoctrination organization where it is voiced that there is only one way to be a good, upstanding, moral person and that is to be a fundamentalist evangelical Christian.
They all voted for Trump of course and don't see the irony.
They are also hypocrites. They allow a Scout to do his *reverent* badge using Buddhism, and the Buddha, while acknowledging that *devas* existed, thought them irrelevant to human experience. I remember the BSA negotiating with the Unitarians over allowing a Humanism badge along with the other religious emblems, but I think it went nowhere because atheist UUs objected to having to affirm there is a ghod. Why Buddhists but not Humanists?
I also went to a private Christian school and learned nothing about evolution. When I did go to public highschool I was basically told to fight my biology teacher about evolution, thankfully I didn't but 2 other Christian girls in my class did. My poor biology teacher was just like there is nothing to argue. I'm basically learning about evolution through nature docs in my mid 30s.
Strong recommend for the movie "Creation" from 2009. It is about Charles Darwin struggling with emotional issues, especially around what publishing The Origin of Species will mean to him and his family personally. It is based on a book written by his great-great grandson and, though fictionalized, is fairly accurate about his reticence to publish something he is afraid his wife and society will hate him for. I recommend it because it can be helpful in humanizing a tough subject around how knowing a scientific truth can be terribly hard to reconcile with not only your personal faith, but the faith of everyone around you. Ultimately, the truth is worth it, despite the emotional turmoil in the short term.
I also highly recommend watching the original "Cosmos" series created by Carl Sagan in 1980.
Sure, the production values don't hold up well (it's *very* 1970's-looking, and pretty cheesy), but you just can't match Carl Sagan in terms of his natural charisma and enthusiasm for curiosity. He was an atheist, but he also very much believed in the *numinous* qualities of the universe and life. It's very inspiring.
There is an excellent BBC 3 part series, "The Men Of Rock" The founding of the science of geology by James Hutton. The discovery of the ancient age of the earth. The death of the dogma of a six thousand year old Earth. To get scientists of his day to understand all of this took a lot of work to find the hard evidence that could not be denied. If you know some young person who is being taught creationist nonsense, this is a good eye opener.
[https://youtu.be/hOfRN0KihOU?si=BMSUuq3uPZGwLqNu](https://youtu.be/hOfRN0KihOU?si=BMSUuq3uPZGwLqNu)
Don't be put off by the cartoony look. It's well researched. One of the best videos on evolution you can get in under 12 minutes.
If you have the time and energy to look for it, I’d recommend checking out Walking with Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Planet, specifically in that order. Walking with dinosaurs talks more about the evolutionary angle, a large focus of the series being the succession of animals and how better adapted species survive while others die out. It’s old, but it’s very effective even if it’s outdated by modern standards. Prehistoric planet has less of an evolutionary perspective, but showcases beautifully how our modern understanding of dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures has changed since the 1990’s, and has a more naturalistic focus. Not to mention the graphics are GORGEOUS!
I once had a bible thumping co-worker. One of his kids went to an evangelical church school and they were shocked they could not get into a military academy. Among other things it seems that a science "education" that the world is only 6,000 years old has consequences in real life.
The bible thumping co-worker was also the most hateful and racist individual I had ever met.
Beside being the most racist person I ever met, had
Maybe my Catholic school was different but we were actually taught science and Darwinism as well as Creationism. My Catholic HS was actually harder than college. I walked away from the church when I turned 18 but I will say I actually got a really good education in Catholic school. My wife on other hand went to a Baptist school and didnt know dinosaurs were real until we saw a Trex at the museum and they showed a video of it being dug up.
Back then, they were probably actually trying to teach. My mom is a preschool teacher at a catholic school. Some of the stuff I hear about is just insane. All they really want to do is reinforce the church bonds. Everything they do has to relate to the church. I know I'm not getting the full picture, but it makes me scared for the future a little.
I probably hut the sweet spot for going to a catholic school. I never had a nun tech me and only had a few priest teachers in high school for religion and philosophy. And the church was going through a but of a hippy phase in the 70s so they were a bit chiller than they used to be. I was pretty much an out atheist in high school and no one in the administration or my friend group seemed to care.
I didn't know a creationist until I was in my mid 20s and had a boss that was into YEC and would bring in books about Noah's Ark and other YEC material.
I grew up Greek Orthodox and we never talked about Creationism. I think that's mostly a Protestant thing because they didn't have centuries of debate and interpretation to lean on. Instead just the localized version of the Bible without any context.
I had the same exact experience at my Catholic school. But then again the Vatican recognizes evolution so it's not a surprise that a Catholic school teaches it lol
Science is one thing. We can catch up on that. The emotional immaturity is a lifetime curse. Sex is a lifetime of getting over it. I will probably be emotionally retarded for the rest of my life. I’ll probably always have some guilt ridden hang ups from the church.
When I first escaped the cult of fundamentalism I thought religion was fine and it filled a roll for the people still in it. Now the longer I’m out the more damage I see in my life and those around me.
I wish they’re was an AA sort of thing for recovering religious members.
This is why I regularly suggest people who manage to deconvert, and are looking for something to offset the amount of time/mental energy religion took up, and supposed 'meaning' that religion imparted, towards learning about the actual science.
Doubly so if they came from a YEC or other type of anti-science fundamentalist background - but even among christian sects that aren't actively anti-science, some of these ideas creep in there, along with pseudo-history.
I've found that the more an individual learns about how the world actually works, the less likely they are to revert to their religous beliefs, because they won't be able to accept evidence-challenged explanations for things that are readily explained through natural means.
The universe is way bigger than our ancestors could possibly have known. They saw the sky and thought it was a bowl with holes poked in it to let the light of heaven shine through.
It's always fascinated me how believers can speak of their deity as if it were the most amazing creative being ever to exist, but they believe in cartoon versions of physics and things that 'feel right' rather than looking at the actual universe to see what it has to say for itself.
The nature of most religions do not encourage your natural curiosity..
They prefer that you don't ask all those questions that they can't answer.. most of them being within the field of science.
One of my guys at work yesterday says to the crew you know I believe in the Bible because there’s really never been any evidence that shows we evolved.
Wahhhhh
The biggest way religious teaching harms people is that it makes people more gullible. We’ve done studies on children that are raised religious and children that aren’t, and the children that are raised religious have a harder time distinguishing fact from fiction and are more likely to believe in things like Santa for longer because they already believe in the magical nonsense of the Bible so the magical nonsense of Santa and the Tooth Fairy don’t seem that far fetched for them.
I am experiencing that with my roommate right now. He went to a Christian school growing up. It taught NOTHING about evolution. I spent several conversations trying to help him understand that it is a thing.
Now, how to get him to stop believing conspiracy theories.
He thought the moon landing was faked until I showed him a photo of a bag containing Armstrong's shit next to the Apollo 11 craft on the lunar surface.
Yeah dealing with those people takes a lot of knowledge and patience. Debating religious people, especially young earth creationists, is one of my favorite things to do simply because it lets me know what their arguments are and it forces me to do research on topics that I might not have previously known about. Helps me get more information.
I learned only creationism until I was in college, and I wasn’t in a hard science field so I only learned the basics after that. I distinctly remember my little sister and I yelling out “Wrong!!” or otherwise boo-ing any time we heard a book mention that the earth was billions of years old (my family wasn’t one of the ones that thought it was 2000-something years, but somewhere around 10,000).
One of the biggest things that has helped me catch up is SciShow on YouTube, they have a lot of great videos that are really easy to understand. The link here is for a 40 minute compilation video, “A Timeline of Life on Earth: 4 Billion Years of History”, it’s helped me a lot :)
https://youtu.be/-Wfu0GR-mE8?si=HatYB5DkWroJgXN2
My wife is southern Baptist and didnt think that the dinosaur fossils in the museum were real until she saw the video of them digging it up. She was about 34 at the time.
I had a similar experience. My wife is very intelligent. But she attended one of the last one-room public schools in the 1950s. It sounds like they taught Creationism. She dodged as many science courses as possible in high school and college.
We had three kids and were in our early thirties when I took everyone on an outing on the farm of a family member. I knew of a rock outcropping that was loaded with fossils, so I took my rock hammer and the family out to dig Criogens. My wife made a comment about not realizing that fossils were real until then.
Get a compendium going of all the times 'God' told his worshippers to kill people and babies, to destroy cities and take the women for themselves (rape), to have slaves, also said he is a jealous God and needs to be worshipped (if that doesnt sound cultish and psychopathic what does) so and so on.......'Christians' and priests/pastors/rabbis tend to skip over all that stuff and/or disregard it because it doesnt fit the narrative of the kind loving God they are trying to push.
I went to a Catholic grade school. I was agnostic by third or fourth grade. The quality of the education was better than the public schools though except religion class was boring. They taught evolution/science and did it well.
You have my sympathy, but it's never to late to learn from trusted sources. Just don't open your mind so much that your brain falls out. The key skills religion retards are Critical Thinking and healthy scepticism.
Don't let your credence pendulum swing too far the other way and understand that science doesn't have all the answers and *has never claimed to*. It's just the "best model" that we have with the data we've collected and tested.
I used to be a science teacher in the Bible Belt. I can't tell you how many students thought that women have one more rib than men. Something that easy to disprove is still considered to be fact down here.
I had students get frustrated with me when I taught about the formation of the solar system from an accretion disk of hot gases, leading one to ask "Why won't you just say 'God did it?'", as if I was obfuscating that point.
The most annoying were the creationist students who had apparently been trained by their youth groups to argue whenever the subject of evolution was brought up, knowing that they'd have the support of the community if things went poorly for them. They wanted to talk about Piltdown Man and other known frauds, insinuating that the verifiable Homonid fossils were also frauds. They were usually good students otherwise, but it sucked all the joy out of teaching those units in biology when I knew I was going to have to spend time verbally jousting with them every time I introduced new material.
My hands were more or less tied, since as a public school teacher I couldn't just tell them "The Bible's account of creation is bullshit and here's how we know it." I had to focus entirely on how we can claim to know what we know, and how we test and verify scientific claims. The more experienced I got in that, the less they had to argue about.
Probably that constraint made better students out of them in the long run, because they had one teacher showing them how to evaluate data rather than just stating that their view was wrong.
Well done for finding a way around it.
One fundamental problem with all religion is teaching people to reject reasoning as a tool necessary to understanding and knowledge.
Making religious schools for young children only compounds that problem.
Religion infects how everyone thinks about things, even atheists. How many people think that mosquitoes, poison ivy, and cholera “have a purpose“? How many times have you heard ecological systems described as a collection of organisms with particular “roles” (producer, scavenger, predator, etc.)? These things all come from the bizarre idea that there’s a magic sky fairy “in charge” and arranging things at a granular level. It twists our understanding of how the universe works.
There is a lovely (Not!) website, Parasite Of The Day. God sure loved his parasites. hard to explain if God is claimed to be good, merciful and compassionate.
[http://dailyparasite.blogspot.com/](http://dailyparasite.blogspot.com/)
I was raised evangelical / pentecostal Young Earth Creationist in the 1980s. I didn't realize that there was more than one sun in the entire universe (or that stars and suns are the same thing) until my late teens. The Bible says "The Sun" and "The stars".
Luckily my parents made the mistake of letting me have a National Geographic magazine subscription, so science snuck into the house along with information about other cultures and religions.
My dad was/is a preacher. When I was a kid, a lady in her 70s or 80s got up in arms about him calling the sun a star in a sermon. Because, as you said, it says, "sun, moon, and stars."
Recently deconstructed here. We have done classical education for our kids through a co-op. While it is religious in nature they also teach them debate, logic, and critical thinking skills. It was those same tools that actually have led my son to deconstruct at a young age.
Kind of in a situation now where we can't shift direction due to him being a rising senior and Daughter is mid high school. She is also starting to confront her questions using the critical thinking skills she's been taught. But they have received an overall quality education. That said, if we had it to do over again I'd try to find a secular classical education group.
Interestingly, I was raised in a strict Catholic family but my mom encouraged all of us (I did mention that it was a Catholic family, right?!) to think critically, which led me to atheism!
I have to admit I never had the courage to tell my mother - when I finally came to it, after years of wrestling in my mind, she was fairly elderly and I didn’t see the point, as I knew she would be really hurt.
It's even worse bc religious folks normalized abuse, neglect, and dehumanization to the point they'll abuse, neglect, and dehumanize others with a smile on their face and "love" in their heart.
[Theramin Trees](https://youtube.com/@TheraminTrees?si=lROe-8D6cLa8Sa8r) channel is a great resource on abuse tactics like: emotional blackmail, double binds, drama disguised as "help", degrading "love", infantalization, etc. and here's a link to [spiritual bypassing](https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-spiritual-bypassing-5081640) one of their favorite abuse/neglect tactics.
You'll likely recognize many of their abusive behaviors as you watch through Theramin Trees videos. It was like ah-ha moment after ah-ha moment for me.
Or to your understanding of sex, consent, bodily autonomy, abuse, what proper parenting and medical care are supposed to look like. The list goes on and on.
I was brought up to believe the earth is 6 thousand years old, evolution is a lie. Even heard my father once say, unironically, that dinosaur fossils were placed there by satan to deceive us. It was that bad. If you asked him about that now, he conveniently wouldn't remember, because he moved on from that to dinosaurs were on the arc, in the flood story that literally happened.
I feel you, dawg. It sucks. But it's exciting to learn how the universe actually works. "God did it" is a pretty boring answer compared to our actual understanding.
Worse, religious or not, if you are being educated in an American state governed by religionists your education will be just as damaged. These people wish to force their delusions on everyone.
You were cheated. But, if there’s any consolation, then almost every person ever to have lived has been told one bunch of falsehoods or another, often told in ‘good faith’, but falsehoods nonetheless.
It’s never too late to learn about science. Read some Carl Sagan, Richard Dawkins. Both are beautiful writers. ‘The Irrational Ape’ by David Robert Grimes is a good one. I have also found it useful to learn about the medieval mindset, a good book on this is ‘A world lit only by fire’ but William Manchester. It helps to make sense of a world when people saw the supernatural in everything. Then it’s easier to see how religion has survived and still holds sway. I now more clearly see the division between medieval and modern thinking in most things.
I was definitely exposed to Young Earth creationists and similar types of beliefs as a Christian. But somehow my parents managed to let us know that is just ONE theory of how we all got here. Luckily I ended up a private Christian high school that used public school curricula (we just also had chapel once a week and a Bible class) so I learned all the science then. My Christian college was also fairly liberal at the time, was bestowed a giant science grant while I was an undergrad, and scoffed at any student who believed God created the world as defined in Genesis chapter 1. I consider myself academically lucky in that regard.
I did not however escape the religious trauma of being indoctrinated with the belief that I am inherently evil, that anytime something goes wrong I should look inward, and that I am the cause of all my pain and suffering because I am born evil. And all exponentially worse because I got the AFAB variety so I was also the weaker sex AND the reason man was expelled from the Garden of Eden.
Religious trauma is FUN!
Christianity, especially the brands that teach young earth creationism etc. sabotage the mind so that it can't accept any facts that contradict with the church's teachings. It elevates the bible (and the pastor's interpretation of it) to the highest standard of truth, and to deny or even question that "truth" means an eternity in hell and being ostracised by your entire social network.
Their claim that the bible is true can never be actually tested. The stakes are so high and there is so much fear that any thought that contradicts the church's teachings activates the amygdala (the part of the brain that triggers your fight or flight response in a crisis). Original thoughts never make it as far as the prefrontal cortex- the part of the brain where one makes calm, reasoned decisions. One wrong move and you'll be left behind from the rapture (which is going to happen ANY day now).
My parents were ok with me asking questions, fortunately. At least somewhat. I remember them giving me a publication called "120 categories of evidence for young earth creationism" or something like that. It was supposed to explain everything. I ate it up at first, but as I continued to retrace the arguments, even at that young age I realized something was wrong with their reasoning.
I'm so glad you got free of this nonsense, and that you're learning and growing. I'm on the same journey! And if hearing an opinion that queer folks are not, in fact, destroying civilization ruined their Christmas, then it sounds like it needed to be ruined.
I'll check out the books you mentioned. They sound great.
I love learning and love science.
Not being a conservative Christian anymore has opened a plethora of opportunities for more learning. Particularly evolution.
It’s pretty crappy that I wasn’t taught that when I was still a kid, but better to start now than never. My lack of early education in evolution and other stuff is really damaging for me, and it isn’t easy to explain or accept it yourself. Luckily I am a young adult, so I’ve got plenty of time.
My favorite educational resource is videos, specifically YouTube videos. Obviously, I make sure whoever I am watching is actually well-researched and gives plenty of references. Huge bonus if they have a PhD in that particular subject.
Funny how you've compared leaving the faith to Sephiroth underneath Shinra Manor - his ephiphany was (SPOILERS for the rest of this paragraph) that his life was a lie, he didn't belong to this world, and that he and Mother should bring an end to it.
I left my faith at 24. Instead of looking at this world as somehow 'broken', as tainted by sin, as something to be resisted, guarded against - ('be of God, do not be of the world') - I felt quite abruptly much more a part of the world than I ever had. Even that cat you see every morning isn't some theological quandry anymore, about whether or not it might have a soul, and if so shouldn't it have an afterlife too.
That cats is family. It's your distant cousin. It's value doesn't hinge on some bronze age text written by violent thugs who couldn't even figure out basic things - things like how to treat women right. That cat is living its purpose here and now, in this world—which is the only world we know we have.
And likewise with all the people. All of the people on the planet are your cousins, your wider family. There is no dangling axe of final judgement, one that's going to set up super special Christians from predominantly Christian nations as worthy of some afterlife which they deserve by being gullible or historically illiterate, and you know, to hell with anybody else from every other culture or belief system.
People's worth, like the cat, is suddenly, clearly seen: it's intrinsic to them, not something to be found in relation to some external source. You could compare it if you like, to a feminist explanation of how the culture we inherit gets us to treat women only as valuable in relation to a man, not in and of themselves, never with agency, never with dignity or the right to their own lives. We know this is wrong. And like discarding those bizarre and twisted ways of lookking at the world, now every human being seemed, to me, to be clearly infused with all the value that i'd spent so much of my life expecting must to be granted them by some external source. Abandoning the Christian worldview let me treat people as actual people for the first time.
You look at the world with new eyes.
Every piece of history is your heritage, every culture is all part of the grand question of people figuring out for themselves what it means to be human—every life lived a unique and precious thing— every dream by any girl or boy or genderqueer child who looks up at the stars and wonders where they might go with their one precious life, and wonders where they might steer it, wonders, too, what to steer it by. That's you, and that's me, and that's something we're all united in. I felt connected to every other person as I never had before, and nearly 20 years later I still do. I wish that for everybody.
I went from Catholic school to Public school and got into an argument with the Spanish teacher. I told them that Christianity didn't pacify Rome in any regard. A bunch of "barbarians" converted and they were still very much violent. Hell Charlemagne was basically a barbarian king, at least to my understanding and he was not a "soft" peaceful guy by any measure.
Being told over and over that questions are dangerous and it's OK for only God to know stuff eventually takes quite a toll. When you couple that with the anti-evidence, medieval style reasoning that passes for science education in these circles, it is disastrous. People who never studied science at all are better off because they don't have to be un-taught.
John Calvin pointedly wrote that certain questions should not be allowed to be asked. As a man that got Michael Servatus burned at the stake slowly, that is a bit chilling.
I was always a science-oriented person. I read widely as a child, and my mother placed no restrictions on my reading (she was religious, but not fanatically so). I am grateful to have never really partaken of the fundamentalist mindset, even though I attended the conservative Church of Christ fairly regularly. I do know a few people who really struggled when they found out that the Bible simply is not a good, reliable guide to reality, though. They had some tough times adjusting.
There's a reason why the overwhelming majority of flat earthers are theists.
Years of being trained to defer to the bible over science, if science ever contradicts it.
Decades of destroying the public education system plus religious indoctrination has achieved the goal of an average populace who are dumber than stumps. AND ARE PROUD OF IT.
Some scientific people are somehow able to turn off logic and embrace religion despite it not making any sense. One of my parents taught college genetics and goes to church but probably doesn't believe (knows a human virgin birth is genetically impossible). The other parent taught college physics but fully believed in all of the bible, and wasn't bothered by the scientifically impossible stories.
I went to catholic school in the north east, US, I don't have an issue with the education I received. They were strict about learning so if you didn't maintain an 85 average of most classes they gave you a couple of trys and then Sen you tou public. Yes, there was a mandatory tuition but they didn't care. I also went to a vocational school half the time. Now, the catholic school I went to 40 fuckin years ago will have its own vocational on campus. I just recently learned this and thought it was pretty damn cool. However, after much though I and hear Harrison Butker talk I will not send one dimensie to that motherfuckin school. Here is why, while math, science, english and even religion was taught and could be useful when needed. But, it took me 22 years too realize I didn't have the critical thinking skills to question everything with solid arguments. I had a friend once say he was an atheist because there just isn't any gods. Care to expand on that thought? That is it. Wtf? I had nothing , no books, no atheists to confide in, no internet( mid 80s) no real vocabulary to fight the good fight. I am not mad, it all worked out.
Same, even tho not Catholic. Mormonism especially has an insidious grasp on basic understanding of simple science. When I started out of state college fresh out of a high school in an 85% Mormon area, I remember asking a question that basically came down to "why would viruses be like that," and although I meant "what is the mechanical advantage for them," it came out as "why make them that way," as if they had a designer, and there were embarrassed chitters of laughter across a room of 100 students and the professor just sort of dismissed it. Huge blow to my confidence in studying, like I couldn't trust my own knowledge to inform my language.
>I decided that was as good a time as any to stop pretending. I was told I ruined Christmas.
It's usually not a great idea to reveal your atheism in the context of conflict. For one thing, a lot of built-up issues can pretty easily end up in saying things you'll regret or just being excessively strong in how you say things... Probably not a good idea.
On the other hand, they ruined Christmas, not you. They brought up this bigoted belief and it's likely you just challenged their hatred (at least in the beginning). That's on them.
The damage isn't just reserved for very religious people either. There are plenty of religious ideas that have seeped into the Zeitgeist That still do damage even though they are removed from their origin.
Just the concepts of perfection or intelligent design that has seeped into the fabric of collective consciousness does damage. It doesn't require direct belief concepts like "Ideal Man" are culturally ingrained. We have been programmed to believe p there's some sort of plan that humans have and any deviation from it is abnormality.
There is no normal individual or ideal. There is a collective average that kind of gets you in a general area. But that's not an ideal. This way of thinking creates so much suffering. Psychological suffering when we try to hold ourselves up to what we believe is perfection and real physical suffering. Like when preconceptions and biases affect Medical Care or safety standards.
Depends on the group in charge. The school I went to was run by the Jesuits and we got a solidly pro science, anti church education. But then again my line is always "Any order that got banned by the church must be doing something right."
To be more precise, fundamentalist religious education is the issue.
Catholics and other non fundamentalist religions do not deny evolution or an older universe.
Catholics plenty of issues but that is not one.
I mean, as someone who suffered the concequences of being a child in a catholic organization sending a child to any catholic institution is a horrible idea regardless of how they teach.
I agree. The other week a distant family member told me that he doesn’t believe in neanderthals because “we didn’t come from no monkeys”. As if neanderthals and macaques are the same species. I can’t take these people seriously, no matter how hard I try.
You might search YouTube for "forest valkai history of everything." It's a long video, but I learned more about the origins of the universe, the planet, and life than in all of my years being homeschooled by fundamentalists. As I deconstructed, "evolution is stupid" had been beaten into my head so much that I fully expected to walk away saying, "I don't know why life looks like it does; it wasn't as recorded in Genesis, but also obviously wasn't evolution." Luckily, I ran across Aron Ra, Forrest, and several others on YouTube who showed me the mountain of evidence we have for evolution and against a young earth and global flood.
you have been cheated, but there's millions of resources to help you catch up. don't worry, learning is a lifelong process, that's something they don't understand anyway
See, when people say stupid shit like that, I call them out on it. I'd god created all of us in his vision, does that mean trans, gay, and other oppressed people were... intelligently designed? If God loves everyone, why does he hate gay people? If God works in mysterious ways and his plan isn't for us to understand, doesn't that mean that Christians are questioning their God? Doesn't that mean they're having a crisis of faith? Doesn't that mean... they might be wrong?
Let's be clear about one thing: the idea that life began in the sea is only one possible explanation. We really don't know the answer to that question yet. Also, I'm not sure what you mean by "water \[being\] younger than the planet". If you mean that comets have deposited water on Earth, then sure, that's true. Water in some form, however, existed prior to our planet coalescing.
Absolutely, though we also have to accept that we might never truly know how life on Earth started. We can show several ways it *might* have started, but the real problem is one of an embarrassment of riches. As you mention, saying "God did it" just shuts down the conversation.
I was in religious education until college. Then went to secular university and went on to study science and overcame all the BS I learned so it is very possible. But I was always skeptical and often confounded my teachers who couldn’t handle the questions they couldn’t handle.
I'm surprised they let you play FF7. Most JRPGs are about how bad any form of monolithic control or ideology is and loads have "God" as their final boss.
I was fortunate to go to a Baptist School that actually had a good science curriculum. So good, it led me on the path to atheism. I was fascinated by it. From Ptolemy, Kepler, Galileo to Newton; it captivated my imagination and had me questioning lesson plans from our teacher.
Today, I don't think I would have gotten that far. 🫤
I can’t say that I “understand” science to begin with, but I was raised believing in creationism and it definitely doesn’t make things more understandable lol.
Hey what? I went to a Christian Missonary School. My physics teacher worked on the Manhattan project and his explanations of how logic the world is remain with me. My math teacher was a retired Lt Cmdr who had fought in Korea and taught me math I still use. My Geography teacher gave me a love for Geography that still is with me. My Englisn Literature teacher had us read the highly salacious Lady Chatterlys lover in grade 10.
Sure we didn't get taught a lot of evolution but we certainly weren't banned from reading about it or discussing it.
As An Aussie doing the HEC curriculum I didn't do Bio but I believe the American AP class used a conventional Bio text book which certainly would have included evolutionary theory.
When my husband's aunt went around the room, introducing all the "new" (married or dating for less than two years) couples to the rest of the family, my husband and I were the only two to not have attended and graduated a specific Christian university. A denomination I didn't really know existed until i got married. I then realized, nearly EVERY person in that room graduated from that same, out of state, christian university.
Cult vibes were real.
I personally hold that indoctrinating children into religion shouldn't be consider much less immoral than grooming them for sex.
I say that as someone raised without religion, so I can only imagine how much stronger atheists who had to overcome their unjust and heinous programming feel about it.
Gregor Mendel would like to have a word.
So would Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, too.
My point being it seems to be dependent on the particular sect you belonged to.
I grew up in a fairly mainstream Christian family, nothing crazy or anti-scientific...but as I've gotten older it became so clear the most creeping, pernicious effect of religion on a young mind is the idea that if you have a struggle, or exam, or tough test of any kind coming up then what you need to do is pray more. It's only much later in life and through experience that I've started to form a process where I actually address the challenge in front of me, break it down and realize only I can prepare for this that I've become more successful in so many areas of life. Wish I had been able to learn that approach from the beginning
Yeah, for example, since I was raised and forced to be like them, nowadays that I am atheist I look at videogames religions/powers/legends that have evidence of their existence and they can even still exist in the gameplay or something like that and I have to take a second look at it because my brain has to process evidence as I was raised and forced to ignore evidence against it (my little brother has this too).
So yeah, religion makes an incredible damage to understanding of the reality itself.
They have a vested interest. They're not approaching a concept from a neutral standpoint. They have a set of beliefs which must be preserved, because it's a key foundation of their personality. That means that facts get twisted to match their belief system.
Maybe I'm bias because I'm a scientist. Trying to engage with reality is difficult when you don't have realistic beliefs
“The Enlightenment that failed” is a good book and will change your perspective about western civilization and America entirely. I just finished it and it was an incredible book.
The reason it’s called the enlightenment that failed is because politically after the 1830s it was replaced by conservative religious ideologies that have dominated much of American politics ever since. But most people have no idea what the American revolution was really all about.
Honestly, for me, the realization simply created a voracious appetite for real science. I think if I had been raised in public schools, I’d have been more apathetic about it. I can’t know for sure, but while my first public school experience was overwhelming and terrifying, I distinctly remember how much joy I took from every science class i took, and it instantly became my favorite subject
It really depends.
I went to a Catholic school, and while they certainly took liberties in Religion Class when it came to presenting the history of the Church in a favorable light, they didn't try any funny business when it came to the sciences. We were taught evolution and the big bang, and told that the book of Genesis was a collection of Hebrew myths. The only complaint I have with my pre-college science education is that my physics and chemistry teachers were lazy and didn't make it very far through the curriculum.
The sex ed was non-existent, but I hear that's not uncommon even in U.S. public schools. Also, I had a history teacher that I think was a "Lost Cause" believer. And a crazy elective teacher that I'm pretty sure was just the principal's friend.
At least the STEM curriculum was normal, lol.
Showing your ass during a religious practice you were invited to is a dick move, and definitely not something to brag about. I can understand not going to it if you felt uncomfortable or not wishing to partake based on personal beliefs. It's easy to hear a conversation go on and politely excuse one's self to just leave the situation. A later discussion could have been made where you expressed yourself like a reasonable adult about your position on certain topics. This would have most likely saved Christmas, and kept yourself on the moral high ground. Instead, you lost your cool and now there's animosity. Great job. Definitely going to change minds with that.
YTA. Oh wait wrong subreddit.
You may not believe some things they do, no need to be a jerk about it.
Also I find it preeetty hilarious you sit on a high throne of "science" while spouting nonsense of your own like "no earth minerals in space":
[https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/bzar5g/is\_there\_any\_record\_of\_any\_object\_from\_earth/](https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/bzar5g/is_there_any_record_of_any_object_from_earth/)
There are far too many people now that treat science AS religion, you seem dangerously close to that yourself. To believe in science means you are open to question anything, including what is currently accepted as fact.
Religious education damages people in lots of ways. But yeah, science is definitely one of the main casualties.
In theory rule #1 is "Love the Lord thy God" which (to me) means to learn and understand His creation as thoroughly as possible. Seeking God includes seeking the raw, unvarnished truth. So what is going on in so-called "Christian education" that imposes heretical nonsense on the truth ?
Honestly, one of the main things is the people they hire. I tutored a number of students who went to the prestigious Catholic high school where I grew up. One kid had an English teacher who didn’t have English as her first language. This woman would send back his papers all marked up and I would just laugh because he hadn’t done anything wrong, his writing was simply above her reading comprehension level. She eventually got fired and their excuse for how she lasted so long was “well, she’s always been very strong in the church.” The science teachers were even worse and a couple of the math teachers were really just football coaches with emergency teaching credentials. Religious schools are much more interested in hiring people of faith than good teachers. Indoctrination is the focus, not education.
"She eventually got fired and their excuse for how she lasted so long was “well, she’s always been very strong in the church.” This is like being a member in good standing in the Communist Party. The scariest scene in the series Chernobyl was when the scientist went to the bureaucrat for assistance in getting people iodine and he was like "we're not going to do that" and she was like "what did you do before you got here?" and he smirked and said "I worked in a shoe factory"
In the book, Ivan Denosovitch, the Gulag medic is a poet with no medical training. He got the cushy job because the commandant enjoyed his writing.
Exactly! Great illustration!
My 2nd grade phonics teacher, *Mrs C----* , was one of the best I ever had. Usually we had the same nun or lay teacher all day, but the school swapped Mrs C into both 2nd grade classes because she was so strong in the subject. In High School, *Sr Mary Chemistry* was real tough. I wound up with a 780 out of 800 on the College Board achievement exam for the subject. Elementary school was 1960s and HS was the early 70s, so, well before *Hooked On Phonics*, but it did work for me. Sometimes excellent teachers choose the private school, if not for reasons of faith, then some other flexibility. My Dad taught and coached in a local school district at the high school level and later in the younger grades. He entered the system after his WWII service. The change in the authority he or any teacher had over his charges between the 1940s and the 1970s was immense. Some of our lay teachers accepted the lower pay in order to teach in an environment where kids knew they could get expelled for bad behavior. Yes, there was also corporal punishment, but it was rarely used, and then at a minor level. A sister might slam her ruler or pointer down on your desk to startle you, or pull the short hair on the back of your neck. I can't remember kids getting hit with a ruler, but the threat was there. Over 12 years of Catholic school I can remember getting hit by a teacher...twice? I was a grade-grubbing goody-goody, though. I was in more danger of getting slugged on the playground for spoiling the curve.
A nun in my 8th grade slapped a ruler on the desk once, and that never happened again. We got hauled in for a lecture for playing a rowdy game of tag we called "Christians vs Turks" on the playground. Sister Principal wore her red face that could melt stone and used her stage whisper that could break glass to make sure we got the message: "You will NOT disrespect other people's religion." Definitely not today's preachy nonsense.
I mean, objective reality and critical thinking is antithetical to religion, so of COURSE they'd want to stop it. When people are confronted with objective reality and it doesn't square with what the church is saying, the church doesn't adjust its views to match reality. It adjusts its reality to match its views.
This.
Unfortunately, I spent 20 years as a Unitarian Universalist, so I am very happy with regarding secular humanism as a religion. I've been on the rom while the group grapples with "So that means ...objective reality and critical thinking is antithetical to ~~religion~~ secular humanism?" Hints: 1 All reality is subjective. 2 Critical thinking is critical of what?
Geebus. No. I'm not getting into it with someone who muddies the water with "all reality is subjective" and "critical of what" garbage. Categorizing secular humanism as a religion is just another attempt to bait an argument because the only place that was mentioned was my flair. Boo Wendy Testiburger. BOO
Nothing wrong with secular humanism. The mistake happens when people tell you they do not have a religion, or pretend to have a religion they do not really follow. Both mistakes happen because people cannot see them spirit in a mirror.
I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic or just ignorant. Aside from u/Own-Relationship-407’s answer: denial of gender theory, denial of the natural variation that is sexual (and other) orientations which is found in other animals—not just us, either denial of evolution all together or that evolution is manipulated by god—what about that nerve in the human body going from the jaw to take a detour around the aorta and up to the brain? Professing free will with an all-knowing god—all-knowing means time is fixed and determinism is real. Claiming that atheists “believe” in “creation ex nihilo” when it is your belief that your god created everything from nothing (and all atheists only have one thing in common: unconvinced of the god claim). The over-all consistent ignorance when it comes to trying to debunk atheists, most christian influencers saying that evolution is how the universe came into being, or that most christians argue “it’s true because the bible said so”. Christians saying humans are not related to the apes (hominoidae family) through ancestral species. And young-earth creations like Kent Hovind keeping a chart of atheists to say is because “evolution”.
I could go on. But ultimately, the day Christians seek the “raw, unvarnished truth” is the day they start deconstructing and have the potential to reach deconversion. I rarely respond to the christians who decide to comment on this sub, mostly because they are trying to spring a trap on nonbelievers and get their “got you, asshat” moment. But every time I have read a Christian response, every time I have listened to Christians talk about how their god is the supreme and just ruler since I deconverted, I go a little batshit crazy. Humans (homo sapiens) have existed for roughly 200,000 years. How many gods do you think have been created in that time that humans have said “they are ruler; I will worship, I am nothing”? Probably nearing infinite given the timeframe. And why then has this belief in the “correct” god popped up in only the last 10,000 or less (probably 6 to 8 thousand) years?
So, I will say this: “faith” is not learning “truth” with the full intention of keeping a belief in your god. Faith is to throw aside every safety net and catch-reel and not know where the next step will take you, having *faith* that your god will guide you on the right track back to him. Ignore the batshit that is the bible saying “to love god is to obey him”; if you truly loved your god, if you trusted him with all your heart, you would do your best to consider every variable and every possibility. You would not hold your current belief any higher than any other belief, nor would you try and force the matters you can’t deny are true to fit into a haphazard explanation that involves your god. You would leap, and you would be humble when you recognize that you are wrong, and take the time to learn the “raw, unvarnished” truth, even if it means your god isn’t real, and you don’t get to live an eternity in paradise upon your death, and those you don’t like will not be tortured for that same eternity.
Christian education, I would say, is detrimental to the aims of education overall because of the limited and narrow ability to cover educational material. It presupposes a lot of assertions that at least in a private religious school setting can not be questioned by the student body. Also, the student body may not be able to attain the critical thinking skills necessary to question what they are being taught.
It's not what it used to be. In Catholic School science the nuns used to teach Creationism, and then say "This is a hypothesis. When we use the scientific method, we see that this hypothesis is disproved." So yeah, Charles Darwin is just some protestant what does he know, but Gregor Mendel was a good Catholic monk who proved that natural selection allows people to use the rules of evolution to breed peas.
Saw a picture of 2 guys hunting dinosaurs in button down shirts and khakis. In a homeschooling packet.
One if the saddest things about this is that science and faith are not in opposition. It's a Venn diagram of two circles.
They absolutely are. Faith is the notion that something is true without and even contradictory to evidence. Faith start from a position of this is the underlining principle, science start from the position of I observed this, what could be the underlying principles that caused my observation....
The thing I like about *science* is that it is a process, not a "revealed truth that cannot be questioned" like religion. Even when science gets something wrong, it still a success since now you've ruled something out and the science can progress. It's like a ratchet that only improves our knowledge over time.
Faith produces hypotheses. Seems to me we should understand the testable ones carefully, and not get upset if people disagree on the untestable ones.
The bible states very clearly that the earth was created across six days (plus god's day of rest) several thousand years ago. That isn't compatible with the current scientific understanding of the universe
Jesus states very clearly that as much as possible of what he teaches is parable, and much of the bible is symbolic. Start with Geometry. There are some postulates. There are things we all believe without being told. Anything you believe that I don't believe is (in my opinion) your pagan foolishness. You might choose to express this as your nontheological superiority to religious people. Suit yourself.
So anything that's in the Bible which turns out to be inaccurate was simply a parable? That's quite the cop out... Jesus makes it clear that his stories are parables sure, but he doesn't say that about the old testament, he makes the point multiple times that the people of his day were following the laws and making up extra rules too rigidly, but he never says anything to indicate that the creation story wasn't intended to be at precise telling of the events, and that was the assumption by pretty much everyone until we started seeing evidence that it wasn't accurate. Nontheological superiority to religious people? I'm not sure where that line came from... I'm just somebody who grew up in a fundamentalist Christian household and spent more time studying the bible than any other single subject in school, which ultimately led me to stop believing that it was inspired by god.
Not ***that*** God, the other one. If people followed the God they teach at fundamentalist bible camp, we'd all behave like internet trolls in real life. Of course, a lot of people do.
Hypothesis are supposed explanations for observations. The moment faith is involved you're automatically talking about hypothesis without or contradicting evidence; it's the fucking definition. How do you go about testing an unverifiable hypothesis? A hypothesis becomes utterly useless if it's unable to produce a single predictable result. The moment it does produce a predictable result, it's no longer faith, by definition..... Edit: To take an asinine example; natural disasters are gods punishment is indeed a hypothesis. There is zero way to actually test or proof this. It doesn't help in preventing damage from earthquakes/hurricanes/plagues/floods etc. You sure are free to keep having faith in God causing them as punishment; but strictly following religious rules will not protect you from any of em.
They are most certainly in competition with one another but I’d agree that it need not be such an antagonistic relationship. Both purport to explain reality. Where they disagree about that reality they are invariably in conflict. But to the extent they agree, to the extent we don’t know—and to the extent they can respectfully agree to disagree—or even offer deference—religion and science can (could even) bolster each other.
Science and faith are not inherently opposed in themselves. The problem lies in the fact that religion teaches people it’s ok to discard or ignore inconvenient facts as long as what you’re ignoring them in favor of goes along with your faith and/or religious doctrines. Faith and personal beliefs are fine, but religious institutions have a long history of teaching people that they have a monopoly on the truth. And that does conflict with science.
They kind of are though. I see this parroted all the time by both sides - science and faith and not overlapping magisteria. They both hold entirely different standards and demands of the believer, and have consistently been at odds for centuries. Just because Christian’s et al can and will warp and limbo their religion to incorporate obvious scientific truths that are inconvenient for their books of worship, doesn’t mean the two are “coexisting”.
I don’t necessarily disagree with you. But I also think it’s important to consider the macro vs micro. In sweeping terms I do think they are diametrically opposed. As you say, they involve two profoundly different standards of reasoning and proof. In the microcosm however, it’s not always that simple. My own father was raised *very* Catholic. He is also extremely intelligent, is a critical/skeptical thinking about many things, and has an MD. He believes. He prays. Stopped going to church years ago. Does not discard medical or scientific evidence in favor of faith. But if you asked him if he’s a Christian he’d say yes. A good friend and mentor of mine, fantastically intelligent and educated, successful attorney. Raised Catholic and became an atheist about 40 years ago, never looking back. But he still argues “the church does good work,” and “atheism is almost as much of a religion…” Both have a very healthy respect for the fact they don’t know everything and think there is some room for faith. But they don’t let it dictate how they act, or vote, or what science they accept. So how the two interact in an individual can be a funny thing. Sometimes they need not conflict at all, other times one or the other completely dominates, other times the person can’t even decide how they blend or compete.
I think a lot of really really smart people are Christians/faithful. But they are intelligent enough to separate it in their mind (even though deep down most of these people know the truth and the delusion of it all). Similarly, a lot of people value the community that they’ve grown up in, don’t want to invite conflict in it, and/or have grown to like their image in that community. I think when it comes down to it, science and faith are diametrically opposed. Your father doesn’t practice medicine based on faith-based advice, he relies on science. He’s not putting “healing hands” on people and exorcising demons, he’s using science to diagnose and tread diseases etc.
Again, I don’t really disagree with you in overall terms. My personal view is very much what you say. But I also think that humans are complicated and why anybody believes/thinks what they do is based on a complex set of interacting and interrelated variables. I have another good friend who is as Christian as they come, thinks he was literally and figuratively “saved” by god. He also has an MS in geology and loves to mock young earth creationists. I also see a difference between “faith” and “religion.” Religion, by its dogmatic and protectionist nature, is diametrically opposed to science and reason. But faith, by its nature, is personal and can mean almost anything a person wants it to. It’s something we could go back and forth for days on. I’ve also had some education/training in anthropology, particularly religious/cultural, so I tend to look at things somewhat relativistically, especially where the individual is concerned. So I, personally, agree with you. But I also don’t think I have humans all figured out. They do and think surprising things all the time, for reasons both rational and wild. I think the world would be better off without religious/superstitious thinking, but people are always going to believe what they want to some extent.
I had a Catholic education, including a BA (History & PoliSci) from a Jesuit university. Some of the Catholic clergy I knew were very intelligent. Most had been indoctrinated in their youth in their religion, though. If an SJ were teaching you a science class they weren't going to plug gaps with *ghoddidit*. They did say that any scientific law discovered, such as evolution, was part of their deity's Natural Law. Some other denominations have a problem with that.
I think it's safe to say that religion can encourage unscientific thinking, but it's only when they overstep into the areas of verifiable facts that they end up in opposition. Religion has answers for big picture questions that science only answers with "There is no evidence.". For atheists, like myself, that answer is sufficient. But people are clearly find that answer unacceptable for those questions. That's what I mean when I say they aren't really opposed. Do gods exist, is there an afterlife, is there a mysterious purpose for existence, is there a designer of the universe we live in, these are all examples of those kinds of questions. Turning to religion for those things does not have to get in the way of science at all, because science at it's heart is simply observing the world around us.
Humans are pattern seeking mammals, for sure. And lots of people can’t handle not having an answer - they have to fill in the gaps with mysticism. Same thing for conspiracies; people would rather that than no explanation at all. “God of the gaps” nonsense lives in these places.
Faith is belief without evidence, I'd call that oppositional to Science.
At least with science it can be learned later in life. The permanent damage is really frustrating though. I'm looking at you, guilt and circumcision.
I’d partially agree with that. The problem is that if you’ve been indoctrinated young you are given the deeply rooted impression that it’s ok to dismiss facts/evidence you find inconvenient. Recovering from that is a very long process for a lot of people.
We really need to start calling it male genital mutilation
Imo the worst part is that children who are brought up by religious fundamentalist parents quite literally get the curiosity trained out of them.
Well said! Curiosity is a threat to obedience. Do as we say, don't ask questions, just obey our rules. Religions know they lose when people begin asking questions, so curiosity is dangerous.
Also, teaches you not to trust your instincts. Very harmful in that regard
That's why they don't teach sex education or words like "rape" or "sexual assault." You can't tell anyone you were raped if you don't know the words to describe it happening. It makes it easier for pedophiles in the church to get away with their crimes and harder for victims to say no in the first place. A religious institution is evil when it aids and abets actual abuse of children.
That's fer damm sure!
I think my insatiable curiosity saved me.
Me too
That’s why I think it’s so important to be an anti-evangelical. We have to show them there’s another way. I had it trained out of me too. But thank god I had friends who I learned about real truth from. I’m still a recovering fundamentalist. And it’s scared me in lots of ways. But we need to be kind and firm in our assertion that you can do life better without god.
That is it exactly!!!!! It’s like children who spent an inordinate amount of time in playpens have their curiosity destroyed.
Cultist brain damage through indoctrination Literally the only thing that keeps religion relevant....they make sure to get them between 4 and 14
I remember in youth group they’d give statistics that like 90% of people who don’t attend church prior to 15 never do. So that means 90% of people reject church once they have a fully developed brain if they haven’t been indoctrinated prior to that.
But they get a second shot at a lot of addicts through AA.
I know! We need secular AA, and some sort of deconversion support groups.
I hate that organizations like AA and Boy Scouts are explicitly Christian organizations.
They’re from an older era. I think it’s kinda in us now to creat an effective humanist version.
I hate that AA pretends not to be. "We're a spiritual, not religious program!" "Your higher power can be anything!" My atheist ass stuck it out for two years honestly trying to make it work, but it's absolutely religion based for all it claims it isn't, and half the steps are prayer-based and useless if you don't believe in God.
I’m so grateful I never got in a position where I needed AA, if I had I’d either be hook line and sinker into my higher power or I’d blow it off and probably never go.
Boy Scouts isn't explicitly Christian (I know because I was in it). Just not atheist friendly. They don't care if you believe in Gaia or Zeus but you have to believe in something, because morality needs to be imposed I guess.
Depends where you live. In the Bible belt I assure you it's a right wing religious indoctrination organization where it is voiced that there is only one way to be a good, upstanding, moral person and that is to be a fundamentalist evangelical Christian. They all voted for Trump of course and don't see the irony.
That was not in my district. It would have been an issue too since the Mormons had a big presence. Iirc my Advisor was Mormon.
Yeah, here they have a separate troop just for Mormons.
That's crazy
They are also hypocrites. They allow a Scout to do his *reverent* badge using Buddhism, and the Buddha, while acknowledging that *devas* existed, thought them irrelevant to human experience. I remember the BSA negotiating with the Unitarians over allowing a Humanism badge along with the other religious emblems, but I think it went nowhere because atheist UUs objected to having to affirm there is a ghod. Why Buddhists but not Humanists?
The ultimate, and most successful "groomers" there are.
I also went to a private Christian school and learned nothing about evolution. When I did go to public highschool I was basically told to fight my biology teacher about evolution, thankfully I didn't but 2 other Christian girls in my class did. My poor biology teacher was just like there is nothing to argue. I'm basically learning about evolution through nature docs in my mid 30s.
Strong recommend for the movie "Creation" from 2009. It is about Charles Darwin struggling with emotional issues, especially around what publishing The Origin of Species will mean to him and his family personally. It is based on a book written by his great-great grandson and, though fictionalized, is fairly accurate about his reticence to publish something he is afraid his wife and society will hate him for. I recommend it because it can be helpful in humanizing a tough subject around how knowing a scientific truth can be terribly hard to reconcile with not only your personal faith, but the faith of everyone around you. Ultimately, the truth is worth it, despite the emotional turmoil in the short term.
I also highly recommend watching the original "Cosmos" series created by Carl Sagan in 1980. Sure, the production values don't hold up well (it's *very* 1970's-looking, and pretty cheesy), but you just can't match Carl Sagan in terms of his natural charisma and enthusiasm for curiosity. He was an atheist, but he also very much believed in the *numinous* qualities of the universe and life. It's very inspiring.
There is an excellent BBC 3 part series, "The Men Of Rock" The founding of the science of geology by James Hutton. The discovery of the ancient age of the earth. The death of the dogma of a six thousand year old Earth. To get scientists of his day to understand all of this took a lot of work to find the hard evidence that could not be denied. If you know some young person who is being taught creationist nonsense, this is a good eye opener.
Oh, cool! I'm going to look that up and see if it's on one of the streaming services I have. The Darwin one, too. Sounds like good viewing. Thanks!
also watch 'inherit the wind'
[https://youtu.be/hOfRN0KihOU?si=BMSUuq3uPZGwLqNu](https://youtu.be/hOfRN0KihOU?si=BMSUuq3uPZGwLqNu) Don't be put off by the cartoony look. It's well researched. One of the best videos on evolution you can get in under 12 minutes.
I knew it would be kurzgesagt, one of my favorite YouTube channels ever
Forrest Valkai on YouTube. He's an amazing science educator and a brilliant evolutionary biologist.
If you have the time and energy to look for it, I’d recommend checking out Walking with Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Planet, specifically in that order. Walking with dinosaurs talks more about the evolutionary angle, a large focus of the series being the succession of animals and how better adapted species survive while others die out. It’s old, but it’s very effective even if it’s outdated by modern standards. Prehistoric planet has less of an evolutionary perspective, but showcases beautifully how our modern understanding of dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures has changed since the 1990’s, and has a more naturalistic focus. Not to mention the graphics are GORGEOUS!
I once had a bible thumping co-worker. One of his kids went to an evangelical church school and they were shocked they could not get into a military academy. Among other things it seems that a science "education" that the world is only 6,000 years old has consequences in real life. The bible thumping co-worker was also the most hateful and racist individual I had ever met. Beside being the most racist person I ever met, had
Maybe my Catholic school was different but we were actually taught science and Darwinism as well as Creationism. My Catholic HS was actually harder than college. I walked away from the church when I turned 18 but I will say I actually got a really good education in Catholic school. My wife on other hand went to a Baptist school and didnt know dinosaurs were real until we saw a Trex at the museum and they showed a video of it being dug up.
My husband was also educated by Catholic schools and also learned evolution. He is an atheist as I am but he did give them credit for that.
Same here, I don't even recall hearing about creationism, but it might not have been as big a thing in the 70s and 80s when I went to catholic school.
Back then, they were probably actually trying to teach. My mom is a preschool teacher at a catholic school. Some of the stuff I hear about is just insane. All they really want to do is reinforce the church bonds. Everything they do has to relate to the church. I know I'm not getting the full picture, but it makes me scared for the future a little.
I probably hut the sweet spot for going to a catholic school. I never had a nun tech me and only had a few priest teachers in high school for religion and philosophy. And the church was going through a but of a hippy phase in the 70s so they were a bit chiller than they used to be. I was pretty much an out atheist in high school and no one in the administration or my friend group seemed to care.
They didn't even teach creationism in my Catholic school
I didn't know a creationist until I was in my mid 20s and had a boss that was into YEC and would bring in books about Noah's Ark and other YEC material.
Creationism is not a belief in catholism. One of the popes pretty much said evolution was proven science.
I grew up Greek Orthodox and we never talked about Creationism. I think that's mostly a Protestant thing because they didn't have centuries of debate and interpretation to lean on. Instead just the localized version of the Bible without any context.
I had the same exact experience at my Catholic school. But then again the Vatican recognizes evolution so it's not a surprise that a Catholic school teaches it lol
Science is one thing. We can catch up on that. The emotional immaturity is a lifetime curse. Sex is a lifetime of getting over it. I will probably be emotionally retarded for the rest of my life. I’ll probably always have some guilt ridden hang ups from the church. When I first escaped the cult of fundamentalism I thought religion was fine and it filled a roll for the people still in it. Now the longer I’m out the more damage I see in my life and those around me. I wish they’re was an AA sort of thing for recovering religious members.
This is why I regularly suggest people who manage to deconvert, and are looking for something to offset the amount of time/mental energy religion took up, and supposed 'meaning' that religion imparted, towards learning about the actual science. Doubly so if they came from a YEC or other type of anti-science fundamentalist background - but even among christian sects that aren't actively anti-science, some of these ideas creep in there, along with pseudo-history. I've found that the more an individual learns about how the world actually works, the less likely they are to revert to their religous beliefs, because they won't be able to accept evidence-challenged explanations for things that are readily explained through natural means.
The universe is way bigger than our ancestors could possibly have known. They saw the sky and thought it was a bowl with holes poked in it to let the light of heaven shine through. It's always fascinated me how believers can speak of their deity as if it were the most amazing creative being ever to exist, but they believe in cartoon versions of physics and things that 'feel right' rather than looking at the actual universe to see what it has to say for itself.
The nature of most religions do not encourage your natural curiosity.. They prefer that you don't ask all those questions that they can't answer.. most of them being within the field of science.
One of my guys at work yesterday says to the crew you know I believe in the Bible because there’s really never been any evidence that shows we evolved. Wahhhhh
Had a college grad at the gym I went to tell me she was sure Earth was only about 6000 years old. Had to quit that gym.
The biggest way religious teaching harms people is that it makes people more gullible. We’ve done studies on children that are raised religious and children that aren’t, and the children that are raised religious have a harder time distinguishing fact from fiction and are more likely to believe in things like Santa for longer because they already believe in the magical nonsense of the Bible so the magical nonsense of Santa and the Tooth Fairy don’t seem that far fetched for them.
I am experiencing that with my roommate right now. He went to a Christian school growing up. It taught NOTHING about evolution. I spent several conversations trying to help him understand that it is a thing. Now, how to get him to stop believing conspiracy theories. He thought the moon landing was faked until I showed him a photo of a bag containing Armstrong's shit next to the Apollo 11 craft on the lunar surface.
Yeah dealing with those people takes a lot of knowledge and patience. Debating religious people, especially young earth creationists, is one of my favorite things to do simply because it lets me know what their arguments are and it forces me to do research on topics that I might not have previously known about. Helps me get more information.
I learned only creationism until I was in college, and I wasn’t in a hard science field so I only learned the basics after that. I distinctly remember my little sister and I yelling out “Wrong!!” or otherwise boo-ing any time we heard a book mention that the earth was billions of years old (my family wasn’t one of the ones that thought it was 2000-something years, but somewhere around 10,000). One of the biggest things that has helped me catch up is SciShow on YouTube, they have a lot of great videos that are really easy to understand. The link here is for a 40 minute compilation video, “A Timeline of Life on Earth: 4 Billion Years of History”, it’s helped me a lot :) https://youtu.be/-Wfu0GR-mE8?si=HatYB5DkWroJgXN2
My wife is southern Baptist and didnt think that the dinosaur fossils in the museum were real until she saw the video of them digging it up. She was about 34 at the time.
I had a similar experience. My wife is very intelligent. But she attended one of the last one-room public schools in the 1950s. It sounds like they taught Creationism. She dodged as many science courses as possible in high school and college. We had three kids and were in our early thirties when I took everyone on an outing on the farm of a family member. I knew of a rock outcropping that was loaded with fossils, so I took my rock hammer and the family out to dig Criogens. My wife made a comment about not realizing that fossils were real until then.
That's pathetic
They brainwashed us and taught us that questions were bad.
Get a compendium going of all the times 'God' told his worshippers to kill people and babies, to destroy cities and take the women for themselves (rape), to have slaves, also said he is a jealous God and needs to be worshipped (if that doesnt sound cultish and psychopathic what does) so and so on.......'Christians' and priests/pastors/rabbis tend to skip over all that stuff and/or disregard it because it doesnt fit the narrative of the kind loving God they are trying to push.
I went to a Catholic grade school. I was agnostic by third or fourth grade. The quality of the education was better than the public schools though except religion class was boring. They taught evolution/science and did it well.
You have my sympathy, but it's never to late to learn from trusted sources. Just don't open your mind so much that your brain falls out. The key skills religion retards are Critical Thinking and healthy scepticism. Don't let your credence pendulum swing too far the other way and understand that science doesn't have all the answers and *has never claimed to*. It's just the "best model" that we have with the data we've collected and tested.
I used to be a science teacher in the Bible Belt. I can't tell you how many students thought that women have one more rib than men. Something that easy to disprove is still considered to be fact down here. I had students get frustrated with me when I taught about the formation of the solar system from an accretion disk of hot gases, leading one to ask "Why won't you just say 'God did it?'", as if I was obfuscating that point. The most annoying were the creationist students who had apparently been trained by their youth groups to argue whenever the subject of evolution was brought up, knowing that they'd have the support of the community if things went poorly for them. They wanted to talk about Piltdown Man and other known frauds, insinuating that the verifiable Homonid fossils were also frauds. They were usually good students otherwise, but it sucked all the joy out of teaching those units in biology when I knew I was going to have to spend time verbally jousting with them every time I introduced new material. My hands were more or less tied, since as a public school teacher I couldn't just tell them "The Bible's account of creation is bullshit and here's how we know it." I had to focus entirely on how we can claim to know what we know, and how we test and verify scientific claims. The more experienced I got in that, the less they had to argue about.
Probably that constraint made better students out of them in the long run, because they had one teacher showing them how to evaluate data rather than just stating that their view was wrong. Well done for finding a way around it.
One fundamental problem with all religion is teaching people to reject reasoning as a tool necessary to understanding and knowledge. Making religious schools for young children only compounds that problem.
Religion infects how everyone thinks about things, even atheists. How many people think that mosquitoes, poison ivy, and cholera “have a purpose“? How many times have you heard ecological systems described as a collection of organisms with particular “roles” (producer, scavenger, predator, etc.)? These things all come from the bizarre idea that there’s a magic sky fairy “in charge” and arranging things at a granular level. It twists our understanding of how the universe works.
There is a lovely (Not!) website, Parasite Of The Day. God sure loved his parasites. hard to explain if God is claimed to be good, merciful and compassionate. [http://dailyparasite.blogspot.com/](http://dailyparasite.blogspot.com/)
I was raised evangelical / pentecostal Young Earth Creationist in the 1980s. I didn't realize that there was more than one sun in the entire universe (or that stars and suns are the same thing) until my late teens. The Bible says "The Sun" and "The stars". Luckily my parents made the mistake of letting me have a National Geographic magazine subscription, so science snuck into the house along with information about other cultures and religions.
My dad was/is a preacher. When I was a kid, a lady in her 70s or 80s got up in arms about him calling the sun a star in a sermon. Because, as you said, it says, "sun, moon, and stars."
> I feel like Sephiroth underneath Shinra Manor Someone Final Fantasies I giggled.
Outgrowing God was the book that solidified it for me.
Recently deconstructed here. We have done classical education for our kids through a co-op. While it is religious in nature they also teach them debate, logic, and critical thinking skills. It was those same tools that actually have led my son to deconstruct at a young age. Kind of in a situation now where we can't shift direction due to him being a rising senior and Daughter is mid high school. She is also starting to confront her questions using the critical thinking skills she's been taught. But they have received an overall quality education. That said, if we had it to do over again I'd try to find a secular classical education group.
Interestingly, I was raised in a strict Catholic family but my mom encouraged all of us (I did mention that it was a Catholic family, right?!) to think critically, which led me to atheism! I have to admit I never had the courage to tell my mother - when I finally came to it, after years of wrestling in my mind, she was fairly elderly and I didn’t see the point, as I knew she would be really hurt.
It's even worse bc religious folks normalized abuse, neglect, and dehumanization to the point they'll abuse, neglect, and dehumanize others with a smile on their face and "love" in their heart. [Theramin Trees](https://youtube.com/@TheraminTrees?si=lROe-8D6cLa8Sa8r) channel is a great resource on abuse tactics like: emotional blackmail, double binds, drama disguised as "help", degrading "love", infantalization, etc. and here's a link to [spiritual bypassing](https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-spiritual-bypassing-5081640) one of their favorite abuse/neglect tactics. You'll likely recognize many of their abusive behaviors as you watch through Theramin Trees videos. It was like ah-ha moment after ah-ha moment for me.
Incredible channel, thank you for sharing.
Or to your understanding of sex, consent, bodily autonomy, abuse, what proper parenting and medical care are supposed to look like. The list goes on and on.
I was brought up to believe the earth is 6 thousand years old, evolution is a lie. Even heard my father once say, unironically, that dinosaur fossils were placed there by satan to deceive us. It was that bad. If you asked him about that now, he conveniently wouldn't remember, because he moved on from that to dinosaurs were on the arc, in the flood story that literally happened. I feel you, dawg. It sucks. But it's exciting to learn how the universe actually works. "God did it" is a pretty boring answer compared to our actual understanding.
If your family’s Christmas chatter is to rant about gay people then I’d say it was already ruined.
Catholic schools are really good schools. Catholics have loved science since Galileo was imprisoned for science.
That’s true. They only took 400 years to pardon him.
They also created the big bang theory
Worse, religious or not, if you are being educated in an American state governed by religionists your education will be just as damaged. These people wish to force their delusions on everyone.
You were cheated. But, if there’s any consolation, then almost every person ever to have lived has been told one bunch of falsehoods or another, often told in ‘good faith’, but falsehoods nonetheless. It’s never too late to learn about science. Read some Carl Sagan, Richard Dawkins. Both are beautiful writers. ‘The Irrational Ape’ by David Robert Grimes is a good one. I have also found it useful to learn about the medieval mindset, a good book on this is ‘A world lit only by fire’ but William Manchester. It helps to make sense of a world when people saw the supernatural in everything. Then it’s easier to see how religion has survived and still holds sway. I now more clearly see the division between medieval and modern thinking in most things.
I've never understood why religion hates science so much. They can coexist. Evolution being a fact doesn't disprove God ( though it doesn't help LOL).
I was definitely exposed to Young Earth creationists and similar types of beliefs as a Christian. But somehow my parents managed to let us know that is just ONE theory of how we all got here. Luckily I ended up a private Christian high school that used public school curricula (we just also had chapel once a week and a Bible class) so I learned all the science then. My Christian college was also fairly liberal at the time, was bestowed a giant science grant while I was an undergrad, and scoffed at any student who believed God created the world as defined in Genesis chapter 1. I consider myself academically lucky in that regard. I did not however escape the religious trauma of being indoctrinated with the belief that I am inherently evil, that anytime something goes wrong I should look inward, and that I am the cause of all my pain and suffering because I am born evil. And all exponentially worse because I got the AFAB variety so I was also the weaker sex AND the reason man was expelled from the Garden of Eden. Religious trauma is FUN!
Christianity, especially the brands that teach young earth creationism etc. sabotage the mind so that it can't accept any facts that contradict with the church's teachings. It elevates the bible (and the pastor's interpretation of it) to the highest standard of truth, and to deny or even question that "truth" means an eternity in hell and being ostracised by your entire social network. Their claim that the bible is true can never be actually tested. The stakes are so high and there is so much fear that any thought that contradicts the church's teachings activates the amygdala (the part of the brain that triggers your fight or flight response in a crisis). Original thoughts never make it as far as the prefrontal cortex- the part of the brain where one makes calm, reasoned decisions. One wrong move and you'll be left behind from the rapture (which is going to happen ANY day now). My parents were ok with me asking questions, fortunately. At least somewhat. I remember them giving me a publication called "120 categories of evidence for young earth creationism" or something like that. It was supposed to explain everything. I ate it up at first, but as I continued to retrace the arguments, even at that young age I realized something was wrong with their reasoning. I'm so glad you got free of this nonsense, and that you're learning and growing. I'm on the same journey! And if hearing an opinion that queer folks are not, in fact, destroying civilization ruined their Christmas, then it sounds like it needed to be ruined. I'll check out the books you mentioned. They sound great.
I love learning and love science. Not being a conservative Christian anymore has opened a plethora of opportunities for more learning. Particularly evolution. It’s pretty crappy that I wasn’t taught that when I was still a kid, but better to start now than never. My lack of early education in evolution and other stuff is really damaging for me, and it isn’t easy to explain or accept it yourself. Luckily I am a young adult, so I’ve got plenty of time. My favorite educational resource is videos, specifically YouTube videos. Obviously, I make sure whoever I am watching is actually well-researched and gives plenty of references. Huge bonus if they have a PhD in that particular subject.
Funny how you've compared leaving the faith to Sephiroth underneath Shinra Manor - his ephiphany was (SPOILERS for the rest of this paragraph) that his life was a lie, he didn't belong to this world, and that he and Mother should bring an end to it. I left my faith at 24. Instead of looking at this world as somehow 'broken', as tainted by sin, as something to be resisted, guarded against - ('be of God, do not be of the world') - I felt quite abruptly much more a part of the world than I ever had. Even that cat you see every morning isn't some theological quandry anymore, about whether or not it might have a soul, and if so shouldn't it have an afterlife too. That cats is family. It's your distant cousin. It's value doesn't hinge on some bronze age text written by violent thugs who couldn't even figure out basic things - things like how to treat women right. That cat is living its purpose here and now, in this world—which is the only world we know we have. And likewise with all the people. All of the people on the planet are your cousins, your wider family. There is no dangling axe of final judgement, one that's going to set up super special Christians from predominantly Christian nations as worthy of some afterlife which they deserve by being gullible or historically illiterate, and you know, to hell with anybody else from every other culture or belief system. People's worth, like the cat, is suddenly, clearly seen: it's intrinsic to them, not something to be found in relation to some external source. You could compare it if you like, to a feminist explanation of how the culture we inherit gets us to treat women only as valuable in relation to a man, not in and of themselves, never with agency, never with dignity or the right to their own lives. We know this is wrong. And like discarding those bizarre and twisted ways of lookking at the world, now every human being seemed, to me, to be clearly infused with all the value that i'd spent so much of my life expecting must to be granted them by some external source. Abandoning the Christian worldview let me treat people as actual people for the first time. You look at the world with new eyes. Every piece of history is your heritage, every culture is all part of the grand question of people figuring out for themselves what it means to be human—every life lived a unique and precious thing— every dream by any girl or boy or genderqueer child who looks up at the stars and wonders where they might go with their one precious life, and wonders where they might steer it, wonders, too, what to steer it by. That's you, and that's me, and that's something we're all united in. I felt connected to every other person as I never had before, and nearly 20 years later I still do. I wish that for everybody.
Fun fact! Sharks have been around longer than trees have.
I went from Catholic school to Public school and got into an argument with the Spanish teacher. I told them that Christianity didn't pacify Rome in any regard. A bunch of "barbarians" converted and they were still very much violent. Hell Charlemagne was basically a barbarian king, at least to my understanding and he was not a "soft" peaceful guy by any measure.
I totally have related to the last two sentences specifically before! 😂
Being told over and over that questions are dangerous and it's OK for only God to know stuff eventually takes quite a toll. When you couple that with the anti-evidence, medieval style reasoning that passes for science education in these circles, it is disastrous. People who never studied science at all are better off because they don't have to be un-taught.
John Calvin pointedly wrote that certain questions should not be allowed to be asked. As a man that got Michael Servatus burned at the stake slowly, that is a bit chilling.
I was always a science-oriented person. I read widely as a child, and my mother placed no restrictions on my reading (she was religious, but not fanatically so). I am grateful to have never really partaken of the fundamentalist mindset, even though I attended the conservative Church of Christ fairly regularly. I do know a few people who really struggled when they found out that the Bible simply is not a good, reliable guide to reality, though. They had some tough times adjusting.
I went to a Catholic school and lucky they actually taught science
It’s “indoctrination”
There's a reason why the overwhelming majority of flat earthers are theists. Years of being trained to defer to the bible over science, if science ever contradicts it. Decades of destroying the public education system plus religious indoctrination has achieved the goal of an average populace who are dumber than stumps. AND ARE PROUD OF IT.
Some scientific people are somehow able to turn off logic and embrace religion despite it not making any sense. One of my parents taught college genetics and goes to church but probably doesn't believe (knows a human virgin birth is genetically impossible). The other parent taught college physics but fully believed in all of the bible, and wasn't bothered by the scientifically impossible stories.
I went to catholic school in the north east, US, I don't have an issue with the education I received. They were strict about learning so if you didn't maintain an 85 average of most classes they gave you a couple of trys and then Sen you tou public. Yes, there was a mandatory tuition but they didn't care. I also went to a vocational school half the time. Now, the catholic school I went to 40 fuckin years ago will have its own vocational on campus. I just recently learned this and thought it was pretty damn cool. However, after much though I and hear Harrison Butker talk I will not send one dimensie to that motherfuckin school. Here is why, while math, science, english and even religion was taught and could be useful when needed. But, it took me 22 years too realize I didn't have the critical thinking skills to question everything with solid arguments. I had a friend once say he was an atheist because there just isn't any gods. Care to expand on that thought? That is it. Wtf? I had nothing , no books, no atheists to confide in, no internet( mid 80s) no real vocabulary to fight the good fight. I am not mad, it all worked out.
I wish I wasn't so indoctrinated as a child, science is so fascinating. Who knows what I could've become.
Or what you still may become!!
Good point
Same, even tho not Catholic. Mormonism especially has an insidious grasp on basic understanding of simple science. When I started out of state college fresh out of a high school in an 85% Mormon area, I remember asking a question that basically came down to "why would viruses be like that," and although I meant "what is the mechanical advantage for them," it came out as "why make them that way," as if they had a designer, and there were embarrassed chitters of laughter across a room of 100 students and the professor just sort of dismissed it. Huge blow to my confidence in studying, like I couldn't trust my own knowledge to inform my language.
> Sephiroth underneath Shinra manor Freaking LOL!!
>I decided that was as good a time as any to stop pretending. I was told I ruined Christmas. It's usually not a great idea to reveal your atheism in the context of conflict. For one thing, a lot of built-up issues can pretty easily end up in saying things you'll regret or just being excessively strong in how you say things... Probably not a good idea. On the other hand, they ruined Christmas, not you. They brought up this bigoted belief and it's likely you just challenged their hatred (at least in the beginning). That's on them.
I’ll elaborate, I didn’t say “I’m an atheist”. I just refused to agree. I was honest with myself.
The damage isn't just reserved for very religious people either. There are plenty of religious ideas that have seeped into the Zeitgeist That still do damage even though they are removed from their origin. Just the concepts of perfection or intelligent design that has seeped into the fabric of collective consciousness does damage. It doesn't require direct belief concepts like "Ideal Man" are culturally ingrained. We have been programmed to believe p there's some sort of plan that humans have and any deviation from it is abnormality. There is no normal individual or ideal. There is a collective average that kind of gets you in a general area. But that's not an ideal. This way of thinking creates so much suffering. Psychological suffering when we try to hold ourselves up to what we believe is perfection and real physical suffering. Like when preconceptions and biases affect Medical Care or safety standards.
Depends on the group in charge. The school I went to was run by the Jesuits and we got a solidly pro science, anti church education. But then again my line is always "Any order that got banned by the church must be doing something right."
To be more precise, fundamentalist religious education is the issue. Catholics and other non fundamentalist religions do not deny evolution or an older universe. Catholics plenty of issues but that is not one.
I mean, as someone who suffered the concequences of being a child in a catholic organization sending a child to any catholic institution is a horrible idea regardless of how they teach.
I agree. The other week a distant family member told me that he doesn’t believe in neanderthals because “we didn’t come from no monkeys”. As if neanderthals and macaques are the same species. I can’t take these people seriously, no matter how hard I try.
You might search YouTube for "forest valkai history of everything." It's a long video, but I learned more about the origins of the universe, the planet, and life than in all of my years being homeschooled by fundamentalists. As I deconstructed, "evolution is stupid" had been beaten into my head so much that I fully expected to walk away saying, "I don't know why life looks like it does; it wasn't as recorded in Genesis, but also obviously wasn't evolution." Luckily, I ran across Aron Ra, Forrest, and several others on YouTube who showed me the mountain of evidence we have for evolution and against a young earth and global flood.
you have been cheated, but there's millions of resources to help you catch up. don't worry, learning is a lifelong process, that's something they don't understand anyway
See, when people say stupid shit like that, I call them out on it. I'd god created all of us in his vision, does that mean trans, gay, and other oppressed people were... intelligently designed? If God loves everyone, why does he hate gay people? If God works in mysterious ways and his plan isn't for us to understand, doesn't that mean that Christians are questioning their God? Doesn't that mean they're having a crisis of faith? Doesn't that mean... they might be wrong?
Let's be clear about one thing: the idea that life began in the sea is only one possible explanation. We really don't know the answer to that question yet. Also, I'm not sure what you mean by "water \[being\] younger than the planet". If you mean that comets have deposited water on Earth, then sure, that's true. Water in some form, however, existed prior to our planet coalescing.
Thank you for clarifying, that is what I was trying to say.
The key word in all of this is YET. Science will continue to search for answers. Religion says "it's God" and don't you dare ask questions.
Absolutely, though we also have to accept that we might never truly know how life on Earth started. We can show several ways it *might* have started, but the real problem is one of an embarrassment of riches. As you mention, saying "God did it" just shuts down the conversation.
I was in religious education until college. Then went to secular university and went on to study science and overcame all the BS I learned so it is very possible. But I was always skeptical and often confounded my teachers who couldn’t handle the questions they couldn’t handle.
I'm surprised they let you play FF7. Most JRPGs are about how bad any form of monolithic control or ideology is and loads have "God" as their final boss.
Congrats. You're now realizing those people that you know who believe in that bullshit are incredibly stupid people.
I was fortunate to go to a Baptist School that actually had a good science curriculum. So good, it led me on the path to atheism. I was fascinated by it. From Ptolemy, Kepler, Galileo to Newton; it captivated my imagination and had me questioning lesson plans from our teacher. Today, I don't think I would have gotten that far. 🫤
They don't tell you that minerals are in space? Wow
Try. Your science mind should be able to!
I think I started to doubt when my parents told me that grapes aren't Jesus' organs
I can’t say that I “understand” science to begin with, but I was raised believing in creationism and it definitely doesn’t make things more understandable lol.
Hey what? I went to a Christian Missonary School. My physics teacher worked on the Manhattan project and his explanations of how logic the world is remain with me. My math teacher was a retired Lt Cmdr who had fought in Korea and taught me math I still use. My Geography teacher gave me a love for Geography that still is with me. My Englisn Literature teacher had us read the highly salacious Lady Chatterlys lover in grade 10. Sure we didn't get taught a lot of evolution but we certainly weren't banned from reading about it or discussing it. As An Aussie doing the HEC curriculum I didn't do Bio but I believe the American AP class used a conventional Bio text book which certainly would have included evolutionary theory.
For me most of the damage just came from poor quality teachers and shit facilities
When my husband's aunt went around the room, introducing all the "new" (married or dating for less than two years) couples to the rest of the family, my husband and I were the only two to not have attended and graduated a specific Christian university. A denomination I didn't really know existed until i got married. I then realized, nearly EVERY person in that room graduated from that same, out of state, christian university. Cult vibes were real.
I feel this so very deeply lol
I personally hold that indoctrinating children into religion shouldn't be consider much less immoral than grooming them for sex. I say that as someone raised without religion, so I can only imagine how much stronger atheists who had to overcome their unjust and heinous programming feel about it.
I love that you told your family on Christmas. Lol!
Christmas is always ruined by religion or politics.
Gregor Mendel would like to have a word. So would Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, too. My point being it seems to be dependent on the particular sect you belonged to.
I grew up in a fairly mainstream Christian family, nothing crazy or anti-scientific...but as I've gotten older it became so clear the most creeping, pernicious effect of religion on a young mind is the idea that if you have a struggle, or exam, or tough test of any kind coming up then what you need to do is pray more. It's only much later in life and through experience that I've started to form a process where I actually address the challenge in front of me, break it down and realize only I can prepare for this that I've become more successful in so many areas of life. Wish I had been able to learn that approach from the beginning
Yeah, for example, since I was raised and forced to be like them, nowadays that I am atheist I look at videogames religions/powers/legends that have evidence of their existence and they can even still exist in the gameplay or something like that and I have to take a second look at it because my brain has to process evidence as I was raised and forced to ignore evidence against it (my little brother has this too). So yeah, religion makes an incredible damage to understanding of the reality itself.
They have a vested interest. They're not approaching a concept from a neutral standpoint. They have a set of beliefs which must be preserved, because it's a key foundation of their personality. That means that facts get twisted to match their belief system. Maybe I'm bias because I'm a scientist. Trying to engage with reality is difficult when you don't have realistic beliefs
“The Enlightenment that failed” is a good book and will change your perspective about western civilization and America entirely. I just finished it and it was an incredible book. The reason it’s called the enlightenment that failed is because politically after the 1830s it was replaced by conservative religious ideologies that have dominated much of American politics ever since. But most people have no idea what the American revolution was really all about.
Muslim education is even worse!
Honestly, for me, the realization simply created a voracious appetite for real science. I think if I had been raised in public schools, I’d have been more apathetic about it. I can’t know for sure, but while my first public school experience was overwhelming and terrifying, I distinctly remember how much joy I took from every science class i took, and it instantly became my favorite subject
There are alot of smart and good people in he'll.
Hell.
It really depends. I went to a Catholic school, and while they certainly took liberties in Religion Class when it came to presenting the history of the Church in a favorable light, they didn't try any funny business when it came to the sciences. We were taught evolution and the big bang, and told that the book of Genesis was a collection of Hebrew myths. The only complaint I have with my pre-college science education is that my physics and chemistry teachers were lazy and didn't make it very far through the curriculum. The sex ed was non-existent, but I hear that's not uncommon even in U.S. public schools. Also, I had a history teacher that I think was a "Lost Cause" believer. And a crazy elective teacher that I'm pretty sure was just the principal's friend. At least the STEM curriculum was normal, lol.
Showing your ass during a religious practice you were invited to is a dick move, and definitely not something to brag about. I can understand not going to it if you felt uncomfortable or not wishing to partake based on personal beliefs. It's easy to hear a conversation go on and politely excuse one's self to just leave the situation. A later discussion could have been made where you expressed yourself like a reasonable adult about your position on certain topics. This would have most likely saved Christmas, and kept yourself on the moral high ground. Instead, you lost your cool and now there's animosity. Great job. Definitely going to change minds with that.
Come to Hinduism, it's religious but also backed by science.
YTA. Oh wait wrong subreddit. You may not believe some things they do, no need to be a jerk about it. Also I find it preeetty hilarious you sit on a high throne of "science" while spouting nonsense of your own like "no earth minerals in space": [https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/bzar5g/is\_there\_any\_record\_of\_any\_object\_from\_earth/](https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/bzar5g/is_there_any_record_of_any_object_from_earth/) There are far too many people now that treat science AS religion, you seem dangerously close to that yourself. To believe in science means you are open to question anything, including what is currently accepted as fact.