Balstrome
Member
Most of us have old folk in our family, who believe in gods. What are we enlighten supposed to do with them, when they come at us with the god-speak. I mean you can not whack them on the nose with a copy of The Moral Landscape, can you?
Should we just let them rock on until the reading of the will, trying to counter any effects they have on our young and dumb?
Balstrome
Member
I mean there is only so many times you can say to yourself "Remember the will!" before you start to sound like a bastard. I have a couple cousins that look like they are heading right in the belief. It's really sad, because their main reason is that they have been told that this will fix all their problems that they currently have in their life.
There are many young believers who are still on their way to being set in their ways. Better to focus on those who have the capacity to outgrow their faith and let the old ones die off.
(Side note: I also think this is the quickest way to bring about the irrelevance and eventual disbanding of the republican party in America)
drax
Member
Tough question there Balstrome. As I shed religion I thought that I would have a difficult time with my parents as they got older. My mother was raised as a German Lutheran, and my step dad is Catholic. Surprisingly they haven't really pushed me on religion. My girlfriend's family, on the other hand, are mostly Baptists who are YECs and completely focused on the end times. I cannot talk to some of them at all, and it isn't just the older folks. She has cousins who are the next generation of hardcore bible thumping spirit filled Jesus freaks. Her parents and grandmother have come to accept me. I think it's because I tend to handle responsiblity reasonably well.
When they do try to rope me in to their ways I just explain that I try to base my life on logic and reason.
B.O.B.
Member
It is tempting just to let them be untill they shuffle off and take their religion with them. My concern however is for the impact they can have on the young. For example my mother and I no longer even discuss religion. We have come to accept each others positions as essentially intractable and that is that. However she has done some serious ambush evangelism on my son and is really trying to cement her legacy of belief with him now that I have proven to be hopeless and unsavable. Fortunately for me my son is a pretty sharp kid and a self described atheist at 14, but in many families this may not be the case. If it makes the oldsters happy then by all means let them do as they like, but the trick is to make sure that all of the obsolete mythology goes with them when they depart, and that they don't create another generation deluded by an irrelevant tradition.
flyz4free
Member
There is a wonderful couple that live about a couple hundred yards away in our old farm house. He is 86, she is 84. Evangelistic christians. I have talked to him several times about the more blatent contradictions in his beliefs, the first amendment, etc. His response is 'I don't read the bible too much. I just listen to other people that are smarter than me that can tell me what it all means.'
I finally got him to admit that the 1950's god in the pledge and in our motto was indead the christian god. I told him that was our government prefering one relgion over all others and irreligion which is unconstitutional (which really gripes his retired military butt). He said, "if they want their god on our money then let them get their own laws passed." Kind of sums up his unabashed ignorance and the danger it represents quite succinctly ~~
It is kind of a self correcting problem.
Nox, I have Coke searing in my nostrils... you bastard!
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