Atheist Sunday School (and the rest)

In Palo Alto, California, a group of non-believers got so jealous of the "values" and sense of community which  religious friends gave their children through church groups that they have set up their own Sunday School . They tell inspirational stories and sing songs about their individual importance. The leader is called Mr Bishop.
       Meanwhile the untiring Richard Dawkins has annoyed Churchmen in Germany by saying that telling children there is a Hell is child abuse; and in Toronto a splendid children's book by that other Oxonian anti-Church campaigner, Philip Pullman, has been removed from school shelves on suspicion of being anti-Catholic. The book is The Golden Compass, now a hot film for (er..) Christmas. That's subject to a  US Christian boycott too - but atheist critics are equally furious that it has 'watered down' its death-of-God message. I daresay the Palo Alto atheist Sunday School will have a great outing...

Comments

[alan]

Libby - I watched the German TV programme with Dawkins. He was opposed by a protestant bishop, a catholic theologian and a christian politician - all speaking German, of course. Even the "moderator" (I used the term loosely) made Dawkin's position, (difficult enough anyway having to rely on an interpreter) even worse by quoting bits out of his book and asking him to defend them. The smirking christians, outnumbering Dawkins 3 to 1, had a real field day, taking up about 90% of the time with their long-winded statements.
-- Having said that, Libby, I must add that I was very disappointed with Dawkins' performance. He was mild, always on the defensive, and seemingly quite content to let the believers have their say with hardly a counter-argument.
-- Libby, I can assure you that if I'd been on the panel, the believers wouldn't have got away that easily. Instead of defending my arguments, I would have attacked their absurd beliefs, rituals, dogmas etc.and put them on the defensive.
--Unfortunately, the only way I can get my atheistic views aired is on web-sites such as yours - thank you, Libby.
-- One final word: Indoctrinating children in school with any religious belief is, in my opinion, an infringement of a child's inalienable right to an unbiased education.

[Peter]

It's a bit odd that the title of the article was 'Atheist Sunday School', as opposed to 'Humanist Sunday School', but everyone here seems to be happy about the coverage. I certainly am.

I'm reminded every Sunday of how much work taking care of kids is, when they all come bounding in the door for lunch - so these teachers and organizers definitely deserve huge public credit, and I'm glad they're finally getting some.

The URL for our organization is:
http://humanists.org/

There are some videos up on Google Video, too - just look for 'Humanist Community'.

Today we had an awesome presentation titled 'The Life & Times of Dr. Wangari Maathai'. Good stuff.

If you are interested in a Humanist group in your neck of the woods, just Google 'humanist' or 'humanism' and you'll be able to track one down.

Cheers!

[andrew holden]

The immoral, demented and ineffectual God in Pulman's trilogy deserved to die and any church as controlling and evil as the one in the book would have to be actively resisted - especially by people of faith. I'd definitely be on the same side as Lyra and Will!

Of course Pulman's God isn't even remotely like the Living God of the Bible and not all Churches act like the Magisterium.

[Recusant]

Alan

So by "unbiased education", you mean one that is biased towards your world view? Priceless.

And maybe you can't get your atheistic views aired because you don't do it very well. Dawkins doesn't seem to be suffering with his best-sellers. It ain't a conspiracy: it's the market.

[British Patriot]

Yes but for the British Govt to actively convert British People and their children to Islam by stealth has to be equally abusive don't you think.

http://bfbwwiii.blogspot.com/2007/10/frankfurt-subversion.html

[carol vincent]

I have never heard such prattle in my life. These people who accuse Christians of indoctrinating children do exactly the same thing with their own belief of denying God. They tell their children there is no God and so show their hypocrisy in 'child abuse' as some call it. We each have a right to bring up our own children in the way we choose without these do-gooders interfering all the time. There are too many people telling others what to do with their children. I am a Christian and I am proud to share my faith with my children; it at least gives them a hope and a future which is based on 'real experiences' that they have witnessed over time. Each to their own I say!

[alan]

Recusant - if you are able to think logically you will realise what nonsense you've just written in your fit of anger.
-- By "unbiased education" I mean education that informs in an unbiased way, and doesn't present one world view as being the only true one. That is being unbiased. No indoctrination.Get it, Recusant?
-- British Patriot, yes, you're right. It's equally bad to teach children that Islam alone is true, as it is to teach them that Christianity is the only truth. Children have a right not to be brainwashed at school. (At home, parents can tell their children whatever they wish.)
-- Carol Vincent, please get your facts straight. Perhaps you haven't met any atheists. You see, they don't "deny" god, and they just don't have any "belief", not in the religious sense, that is. No, atheists like me tell their children (in my case my grandchildren) that there are millions of people who believe in Allah and God, and millions who used to believe in Thor and Zeus and Jupiter etc., and millions more who don't believe in the supernatural at all. I tell them that whilst I don't believe in these deity-concepts, many intelligent people do. I tell them to inform themselves and then to make up their own minds in their own good time.
-- What, Recusant and Carol Vincent is wrong with that? Please get your facts right before ranting on at atheists. We're really quite harmless, so you've no need to be afraid of us.
--And one last word. Personally, Recusant, I think I air my atheistic views VERY well, now that I have the web to air them on (especially after having to listen to religious tripe for decades without any platform to answer back).
-- Why not try to refute my arguments? You sound a little condescending. So give me one argument (logical please) for believing in the existence of god, and I'll bust it for you, Recusant. OK?

[carol vincent]

Who's angry? You don't know anything about real christianity. It was Darwin who said, 'it's one thing to live without God yet another thing to die without him'. It's a shame he only found out who God was on his deathbed. Well for all your shouting, I have encountered many experiences with God over the last 27 years and I tell my grandson how real God is. I was surprised to see that your letter got through, as it was quite irrate to say the least. Who were you slandering anyway? And what would you know about Christianity when all you know about is religion. True Christianity isn't religious; it bases itself on a real encounter with the living God not just some religious myth. I won't argue with athists has they don't want to see truth, creation speaks for the glory of God, it's harder for you to believe that there is no God because you have to dispute the evidence that's all around you each day. Have a nice day and take a good look around you then deny that someone put this all together. Where did atoms and matter come from? Please tell me.

[Coel]

Carol writes: "It was Darwin who said, 'it's one thing to live without God yet another thing to die without him'. It's a shame he only found out who God was on his deathbed."

The idea that Darwin made a death-bed conversion is a falsehood invented by Lady Hope and since spread by wishful-thinking Christians. And please give a cite for that quote; bet you can't.

"it's harder for you to believe that there is no God because you have to dispute the evidence that's all around you each day."

If you think that the world around us is evidence for God then you have deluded yourself by your wishful thinking.

[alan]

Hey Carol - steady on. I wasn't slandering anyone. In fact I was trying to make a polite reply to your post. Sorry you misunderstood.
Admittedly I did get a bit irate with Recusant, but he did provoke me as you can see by his post. He said I didn't air my views very well, so I challenged him to a logical argument. He hasn't replied.
As I said, Carol, I'm really a quite harmless, friendly atheist - can you imagine that? But I have strong views which I like to express, especially when arrogant believers try to attack all atheists as being immoral and evil. We're not, Carol.
--
PS - I admit it, I don't know where atoms and matter came from. Unfortunately, Carol, neither do you nor the pope nor any other preacher. In their arrogance, they just won't admit it.

[Tom McKague]

Would somebody please explain to me why a person who does not believe in an afterlife, expend a lot of energy trying to persuade those who do to re-consider. For example, the humanist society seems bent on taking over jobs normally carried out by the Church: Marriage, death, and counselling etc. We are now reading of the latest Athiest fad of Sunday School? Quite ridiculous.
With only death to look forward to, the Athiest could always ask the Buddhists for moral support, maybe becoming one huge club of believers of well, nothing really.

[Tony Francis]

Tom McKague: I have to agree with you. If I were an atheist (which I am not), I wouldn't waste one second of my precious existence trying to convince believers of anything. There are just too many other pleasurable things to do.

[Nathan]

One suggested argument for existence of God:
If there is no transcendent law giver, above humanity, then there is no foundation for absolute morality. This being the case morality is the creation of the individual or social group. Thus what makes your morality any better than that of another individual or a different social group? How can you say that the killings in Kenya by one group is wrong or that the extermination of 6m Jews by the Nazis was anything other than one group pursuing their truth? Consequently all you can state is opinion and make emotional appeals. Any attempt in this regard to argue otherwise is merely your attempt to impose your will on someone-else's and what right do you have to do that?
If however there is a transcendent law giver then an objective morality above social norms and political ideologies can be argued and such hideous atrocities rightly condemned.
Without a god all the atheist can argue is that from within their cultural sphere such acts are wrong but that such acts are not inherently bad.
If you are to take a Darwinian approach, in terms of a philosophy rather than just a scientific process, then it could be argued that the destruction of competing groups is good as it decreases competition for natural resources and thus increases the life chances and consequently opportunities for successful reproduction of the aggressor group. It might though be argued that attacking such groups also decreases genetic diversity within the gene pool and consequently poses a threat to the wider species' survival but if genetic diversity increases naturally with mutations etc. then this will only be temporary problem. Thus you can see that Darwinism is at best ambivalent to genocide and at worst in favour of it.
What's your best argument against theism – I don't like it? Or the Flying Spaghetti Monster? Remember that any argument you throw at theism you too must be able to answer successfully from your world view.

[Tony Francis]

Nathan: you are correct. In the absence of God, the groups in power make up the rules. In fact, atheists frequently argue that morality is relative, and depends on the circumstances presented by the given time and place. There is no such thing as absolute morality in the atheist scheme. Nor can there be such. This is in contradistinction to the concept of "natural moral law", a law that imbues all nature with morality. It originated with the Persians, but is the basis of Christian philosophy and Pharisaic Judaism. The latter was the product of Greek philosophy.

[Edward Eck, Boston, MA]

You misunderstand evolution. The result of the process of evolution is the spread of a gene throughout a population. It is not material whether the spread is accomplished by competition or (as is a contemporary view) by cooperation. Consider the result of cooperative survival strategy of the Innuit, for example: the survival of a population and its genes through cooperation.
A similar argument can be made against genocide: genocide is wrong from an evolutionary standpoint because it reduces the number of genes available within the population.
The underlying premise is that a large varity of genes is good because it enhances the number of genes that potentially posess survival characteristics.
You might also want to consider the morality of the christian god, especially in view of Deuteronomy. This god was quite in favor of promoting genocide.

[alan]

Tony, here's just one suggestion as to how morality can well do without any god-concept.
Bad - socially destructive
Good - socially constructive
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Examples:
Bad - killing, deceiving, lying, murdering, cheating, aggression, war, selfishness, dishonesty etc.
Good - compassion, love, honesty, help, selflessness, peacefulness etc.
-------
Otherwise the human race would have died out long ago, i.e. if killing etc. were to be considered good.
It seems to me that only "bad" people need a god to keep them moral, whereas "good" people only need their conscience.
So a whole lot of "good" people would manage quite well without the god they've been led to believe in.
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Think about it, Tony.