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Therapist says if you're an atheist you should lie to your kids about God.

So, we've now established that there is no difference in the moral teachings of the world religions, and that they are all equally violent once in power.
But the lying to children in the OP was about the afterlife and giving comfort.

There the Abrahamic religions are really NOT the good way to go, sorry DOC.
After all, Judaism has no real afterlife, and Christianity and Islam are both so unclear on what is 'good' that odds are everyone gets to suffer for ever.
Don't worry little Jimmy, grandma is being tortured for all eternity, but you get to join her soon enough does not really sound comforting.

When it comes to afterlife, the other religions are just more comforting. I personally don't believe in any afterlife, but reincarnation just sounds better.

Personally, I'd go with Pratchettism. Death gives a caring, painless personal end and you get the afterlife you yourself want.
 
DOC, my man, hey!

Does not chrrristianism promise eternal life? Have you ever reflected on what an appalling fate that would be, to live FOREVER? Think about it. Every day, all day, for absolutely EVER, with no escape. A poster here once observed that the most exquisite paradise would become perdition to anyone; it would be damnation, and THERE WOULD BE NO ESCAPE. Calling eternal life unendurable is meaningless when YOU MUST ENDURE IT FOREVER.

I once put it this way to Jabba of sainted memory: After octillions of billions of years, when every subatomic particle is a quadrillion kilometers from the next one, there eternally chrrristian you would be, still playing solitaire, and not even the first microsecond of eternity would have passed.

If I believed in a hideous thing like that, I'd damn well lie to the kiddos and tell them that death is the end.

If I understand chrrristianism correctly, you believe, with conviction, in eternal life. And apparently you want children to believe in it too. For their own good.

As the big dog might say, wow.
 
sackett said:
After octillions of billions of years, when every subatomic particle is a quadrillion kilometers from the next one, there eternally chrrristian you would be, still playing solitaire, and not even the first microsecond of eternity would have passed.
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That's my favourite thing about christianity - heaven is the worst hell imaginable.

They really don't think this crap through.
 
DOC said:
I realize that the Greek and subsequent Roman gods of antiquity could be interesting to read about but the growth of Christianity pretty much put them on the ash heap of history.

One of the reasons why that happened can maybe be explained by what Thomas Jefferson said about this person (Christ) that Christians believe is God in the flesh.

Jefferson said this about the teachings of Christ:

"{they're} the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man."

So maybe it might be better to tell your kids about a possible God who offered humanity what Jefferson said were the most sublime and benevolent code of morals ever offered.

And yes I know Jefferson had the opinion that the miracles of Christ could not be supported by reason but then again I have a feeling Jefferson (who could read Greek French and Latin), didn't believe in the existence of the Greek gods either. So given the choice, why not go with a god that some say offered the most sublime and benevolent code of morals ever given humanity and also go with a god that is still relevant in our society today unlike the Greek gods.
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It's not just a choice between either believing in the Christian God or else believing in some other god. That's not the choice at all, is it. You do not need to believe in the existence of any of them.

And you certainly should not believe in any of them unless you think there is good genuine evidence for them.

But the Christian God (and all the others) were first proclaimed at a time thousands of years ago when nobody had any other decent explanation for things in the world around them. At that time people believed that a God must have been responsible for such things as the creation of mankind, the stars in the sky, death & disease, famine and drought, thunder & lightening, earthquakes & volcanoes etc etc. But now, after a couple centuries of modern science, we know differently ... we now know that none of those things are due to any supernatural heavenly God ... we now know that all those things are entirely natural and fully explained processes in nature.

For at least the last 100 years, educated people have really known that all the orginal reasons that people gave for believing in the existence of a God or gods, have turned out to be untrue ... we have long since discovered that all those things are fully explained by science (with no gods involved).

So it's not a choice between rejecting Greek or other gods and then saying “well that means I am therefore forced to believe in the Christian God”. The choice is whether or not you accept the discoveries of science (where so far there is zero evidence of any God, but totally overwhelming evidence against any God being the cause of anything that science has ever investigated).

And that's really the problem with all religious belief – it's anti educational, and anti-scientific in particular.
 
Ten thousand years of God Bothering and "Pascal's Wager" is still the best thing anyone has come up with.
 
JoeMorgue said:
Ten thousand years of God Bothering and "Pascal's Wager" is still the best thing anyone has come up with.
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Hey, at least quantum physics gives them the "god of the gaps".

"Ooh look! Science is only 99.99999% sure about something - we can slip an omnipotent, omnipresent god who runs the entire universe in there!"

Maybe black holes are actually god?
 
The Atheist said:
That's my favourite thing about christianity - heaven is the worst hell imaginable.

They really don't think this crap through.
Click to expand...
The worst hell of heaven would be eternally knowing that many loved ones are suffering eternal torture in hell. Must be worse for the “loving” God who has had to endure this horrific knowledge from the beginning. Thank god it’s all a load of crap.
 
sackett said:
I once put it this way to Jabba of sainted memory: After octillions of billions of years, when every subatomic particle is a quadrillion kilometers from the next one, there eternally chrrristian you would be, still playing solitaire, and not even the first microsecond of eternity would have passed.
Click to expand...


I'm pretty sure the highlighted part is not generally in the Christian concept of heaven.
 
DOC said:
I realize that the Greek and subsequent Roman gods of antiquity could be interesting to read about but the growth of Christianity pretty much put them on the ash heap of history.
Click to expand...

I disagree. They are still relevant to much of popular culture and entertainment even in the US, a country that has never had a large population that worshipped these gods.

So given the choice, why not go with a god that some say offered the most sublime and benevolent code of morals ever given humanity and also go with a god that is still relevant in our society today unlike the Greek gods.
Click to expand...

Because the people who claim to follow that god don't really reflect that sublime and benevolent code of morals. They seem to focus more on hate than love and more on salvation than reducing suffering. I'll go with Ghandi's quote: I like your Christ, but not your Christianity.

Besides, they picked up plenty of Christianity from the culture they were raised in. My goal was to broaden that perspective, not narrow it.
 
ynot said:
The worst hell of heaven would be eternally knowing that many loved ones are suffering eternal torture in hell. Must be worse for the “loving” God who has had to endure this horrific knowledge from the beginning. Thank god it’s all a load of crap.
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You just aren't looking at this the right way.

Take a look at the inspirational writings of Turtullian:

Tertullian on the Joy That Results from Watching People Suffer Eternal Punishment (Spectacles 30)

What a panorama of spectacle on that day! Which sight shall excite my wonder? Which, my laughter? Where shall I rejoice, where exult--as I see so many and so mighty kings, whose ascent to heaven used to be made known by public announcement, now along with Jupiter himself, along with the very witnesses of their ascent, groaning in the depths of darkness? Governors of provinces, too, who persecuted the name of the Lord, melting in flames fiercer than those they themselves kindled in their rage against the Christians braving them with contempt?
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It goes on and on giving a clear insight into the pleasure Tertullian anticipates on viewing the spectacle of suffering. Nor was he alone among those very holy and inspired fathers of the Church. Thomas Aquinas had a similar mindset.
 
DOC said:
One could argue if the parents spoke of a Christian God they wouldn't be lying since Bart Ehrman said Jesus certainly existed and Christians believe Christ is part of the Godhead (Trinity) or as some say God in the flesh.
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But he didn't say he was a god. He said he was an apocalyptic rabbi who got himself put to death for talking of revolution against the Romans, and was gradually portrayed as a deity over genera by people who never knew him or his acquaintances.

There most likely was a Nicholas of Myra living in Asia Minor in the late 3rd and early 4th Centuries, but that doesn't mean that history confirms the existence of Santa Clause and his elves.
 
ynot said:
The OP is essentially saying “Lying works so well for us theists we think atheists should lie as well”.

Why is it always “Grandma is in heaven” and it’s never “Odds are Grandma is in hell”?
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That's an inference usually left to the children of Christian fundamentalists to make on their own. I can attest that while I was never actually told that dead relatives and friends who hadn't been "born again" were doomed to eternal agony in Hell, it was an all too disturbing implication of the dogma.
 
Steve said:
No one has ever grown up to persecute and even kill people because those people do not believe in Santa Claus. The belief in gods has had entirely different results.
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Someone hasn't seen the sobering Jack Chick account of the kid who snaps and becomes a homicidal psychotic instantly upon learning that Santa Claus isn't real.
 
DOC said:
Recent events tell us Hinduism and Buddhism are not as peace loving as people think:

From the article: A Short History of Violent Buddhism by Kallie Szczepanski

"In more recent times, unfortunately, Buddhist monks in other countries have also encouraged and even participated in wars - particular wars against religious minority groups in predominantly Buddhist nations."

https://www.thoughtco.com/short-hist...uddhism-195794

And don't forget Gandhi was assassinated by a Hindu militant who advocated Hindu supremacy.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/on-religion/the-violent-toll-of-hindu-nationalism-in-india
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Yes, we have examples of people being "good" and "bad" independent of what religion, faith, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, hair color, musical preference, educational level, and so on that they subscribe to.
 
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