this post was submitted on 12 Oct 2023

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Unpopular Opinion

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Religious and superstitious beliefs should not be respected. (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

416 comments fedilink hide all child comments

We're in the 21st century, and the vast majority of us still believe in an utterly and obviously fictional creator deity. Plenty of people, even in developed countries with decent educational systems, still believe in ghosts or magic (e.g. voodoo). And I--an atheist and a skeptic--am told I need to respect these patently false beliefs as cultural traditions.

Fuck that. They're bad cultural traditions, undeserving of respect. Child-proofing society for these intellectually stunted people doesn't help them; it is in fact a disservice to them to pretend it's okay to go through life believing these things. We should demand that people contend with reality on a factual basis by the time they reach adulthood (even earlier, if I'm being completely honest). We shouldn't be coddling people who profess beliefs that are demonstrably false, simply because their feelings might get hurt.

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[–] [email protected] -5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

He made the claim that these beliefs are demonstrably false. We are waiting for the demonstration.

Also being atheist IS taking a position, making a positive claim that God does not exist. Agnosticism is neutral, not taking a stance.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Every child is born an atheist.

[+] [email protected] -9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Science disagrees with you:

Summarising scientific experiments conducted with children across the globe, Professor Barrett illustrates the ways human beings have come to develop complex belief systems about God’s omniscience, the afterlife, and the immortality of deities. He shows how the science of childhood religiosity reveals, across humanity, a “Natural Religion,” the organization of those beliefs that humans gravitate to organically, and how it underlies all of the major world religions, uniting them under one common source.

https://www.harvard.com/book/born_believers_the_science_of_childrens_religious_belief/

[+] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

[deleted]

[–] [email protected] -4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Justin L. Barrett (born 1971) is an American experimental psychologist, Founder and President of Blueprint 1543, a nonprofit organization. He formerly was the Director of the Thrive Center for Human Development in Pasadena, California, Thrive Professor of Developmental Science, and Professor of Psychology at Fuller Graduate School of Psychology. He previously was a senior researcher and director of the Centre for Anthropology and Mind at the Institute for Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology at the University of Oxford.

Sorry you feel he is not sciency enough.

You talk as if you have read the research and understood the experiments he did over 3 years in numerous mainly non-religious countries on children who were not in contact with a religious discourse. The conclusion is that they innately inclined towards believing in a higher being. Which means that NO, children are not born atheists.

Which part of the research do you disagree with? I'm eager to read your paper and assess your qualifications.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

mainly non-religious countries on children who were not in contact with a religious discourse.

Ahh yes all those children he studied whom obviously grew up in a vacuum and were never exposed to the concept of a deity, through common language phrases and cultural beliefs.

To conduct this experiment with untainted data would likely involve placing children into an environment with no outside exposure and carefully controlled interactions with restrictions on language use which would arguably be unethical.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The research was peer reviewed. They should have included smarter people like you :)

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

Finally we agree on something.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

There are a few proofs against existence of god. Ineffectiveness of prayer. Impossibility of miracles under controlled conditions. Biological nature of human cognition which precludes life after death.