Quote:
Originally Posted by whipp";p="
Why do the people actually believe in imaginary men who live in the sky and keep a list of who is naughty and nice and brings good little boys and girls presents on Christmas morning.....wait a minute, is that God or Santa Claus? (*)(*)(*)(*), I always get those two mixed up.
Well, my question is why do people believe in those fairy tales anyway. My father was a holliness minister and I tried believing and praying to Santa-Jesus for 16 years before I realized it was *beep**t.
I am now a 33 yr. old wife and mother of a 13yr. old daughter and it will be a cold day in hell before I put my child through the crap I was put through growing up. She was raised on science and facts not fear and stupidity.
I put out the call 10 yrs. ago for anyone to prove to me that there is a God and no one has done so yet. The call is still open!
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Well, I can understand your anger. It's mostly at yourself, am I right? There's a rock'n'roll band, called "Dream Theater", that has a beautiful song about this - it's called "Hollow Years". Part of the lyrics go something like this:
Once the stone
You're crawling under
Is lifted off your shoulders
Once the cloud that's raining
Over your head disappears
The noise that you'll hear
Is the crashing down of hollow years
Anyhoo..... I'm not really sure how to respond to your post, except to say two things:
a) the existence of God can not be proven or disproven. It is a matter of
faith. You either believe or you don't. "Belief", in this case, has certain consequences - but they key question is: "belief in
what, exactly"? 'Cause I submit, that everyone and their brother has a different "imagination" about what God is all about - you know, ranging from an old man in the sky with a long white beard, to some kind of "universal energy", or..... What I mean is,
you are free to choose a God of your own understanding, are you not? Because, I submit, that it's pointless to go after a God of "other peoples'" understanding. Am I right? At the end of the day, the only thing that matters is the relationship between you and God, 'cause all the rest of that crap, is just "people", trying to foist their opinions on you.
b) if I were you, and if I had a similar response to my Christian upbringing, I would think
very carefully before I posed the choice to my daughter in the terms you posted here. In my eyes, there is not a
choice between religion and science. Those two things are not mutually exclusive. You can strictly adhere to the scientific method, and
still have faith. The important question though, is faith in
what - because, for instance, you can put your faith in the "words" of the Bible, but if you do, I'd suggest that your faith is misplaced - because those words, are a
human creation (I mean, it may be the "word of God", but it's "as translated by man", and it's that latter part where the inaccuracies arise, right?
) -
So I would propose this alternative perspective for you to consider - why would I want to
deprive my daughter of the ability to reach her own conclusion, about the relationship between faith and science?
Because, think about it in these terms - a religious experience can be a wonderful thing. It's what happens
after that, that can sour you on the whole piece - I mean, 'cause that's when you get into the "implementation" of religion "here on earth" - and the minute you do that, you're in an "earthly" domain, dealing with all the "earthly" imperfections, and the "earthly" people that are still confused about why God created 'em that way if all they're going to do is bicker and fight -
But if you hammer into your kid from a very young age, this idea that there's some kind of "incompatibility" between faith and science - well, it seems to me, that this has just about as much truth to it, as Santa Claus.
Think about it.
