XPost: talk.atheism, alt.atheism, alt.agnosticism   
   From: thedevilsadvocaat@hotmail.com   
      
   "Damien Valentine"  wrote in message   
   news:1179053527.141574.154330@u30g2000hsc.googlegroups.com...   
   > On May 12, 2:11 pm, "Pro-Humanist FREELOVER"    
   > wrote:   
   >   
   >> The atheist choir, moreover, is too ready   
   >> to observe society's convention of accord-   
   >> ing special respect to faith, and it goes   
   >> along with society's lamentable habit of   
   >> labelling small children with the religion   
   >> of their parents.   
   >   
   > I suspect that we "observe society's convention of respecting faith",   
   > for the same reason that we respect artistic or musical or literary   
   > preferences: because in the end, whether someone likes Shakespeare   
   > better than Stephen King doesn't matter.   
      
   I'd agree with your view if the believers would a) keep their beliefs to   
   themselves and stop asking for special treatment (tax breaks, religious   
   schooling funded by tax-payers with no choice) and b) didn't try to impose   
   their faith on others (right-to-lifers).   
      
   > And neither, in the   
   > overwhelming majority of cases, does their theology.  A Jew is just as   
   > likely to be good or bad as a Christian, or a Muslim, or a Buddhist or   
   > an atheist; they've all produced their share of saints and crooks.  We   
   > don't say that anyone who enjoys Cubism or Impressionism is insane, or   
   > inherently evil, and neither should we say it about anyone who   
   > worships Jehovah or Vishnu.   
   >   
   >> You'd never speak of a "Marxist child" or   
   >> a "monetarist child". So why give religion   
   >> a free pass to indoctrinate helpless chil-   
   >> dren?   
   >>   
   >> There is no such thing as a Christian child:   
   >> only a child of Christian parents.   
   >   
   > Perhaps.  But if someone raised their child according to Marxist   
   > principles, or monetarist principles, or liberal or conservative or   
   > Darwinist or vegetarian or Francophile principles, would we then be   
   > justified in calling that child abuse (as Dawkins does)?  Should we   
   > call the police?  If I do decide to call my son a "Marxist" -- even if   
   > nothing about my parenting resembles the holy teachings of "Das   
   > Kapital" -- and if he is happy with accepting the label, should I be   
   > arrested?  Is this worse than molesting him?  (As Dawkins has also   
   > stated: chapter and verse from "God Delusion": "Once, in the question   
   > time after a lecture in Dublin, I was asked what I thought about the   
   > widely publicized cases of sexual abuse by Catholic Priests in   
   > Ireland. I replied that, horrible as sexual abuse no doubt was, the   
   > damage was arguably less than the long-term psychological damage   
   > inflicted by bringing the child up catholic in the first place.")   
   >   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)