Ask Lemmy

Idk how you take that and say who’s to say if one’s better than the other. (...) hat’s what good parents who are religious should be doing.

On a more general note, may I advise you to be more cautious with your use of certain words. I mean, 'good parents' is a very strong expression nobody should use solely based on a first impression, a few words read, and certainly not as a way to demonstrate a point in a discussion because... doing so you're only projecting your own personal values and ideals regarding what good parents should do (which could be 100% correct, or not, that’s not the point) and, well, in that specific case I can assure you you do not know who my parents were. Or if they were any good.

I will tell you they looked real nice people and most people meeting them liked them a lot. I will also tell you they're long gone and that I did not shed a single tear when they passed away. What does that say about them and what does that say about me? Maybe that's telling what an ungrateful asshole I'm, and I may very well be that. Or maybe it's telling how appearance can be misleading and how much better and how much more intimately I knew my parents than anybody else. Who am I to tell?

Your story unironically proves that atheist parents are far and away better parents than religious ones. Idk how you take that and say who’s to say if one’s better than the other. (...) hat’s what good parents who are religious should be doing. Not teaching their children to do exactly as they do.

I think it unironically shows what you believe in, which is fine by me and which is something I may even 100% agree with. That’s not the point.

My point was only this: my atheist parents (so you know: they both were sent to a religious school as kids too. Therefore, they did with me exactly like their parents did with them save that their own parents did not call themselves atheists) forced their own personal opinions onto me, without me being given any real choice.

My point was that the question should not be limited to spiritual or religious matters. And also being religious does not make someone an asshole more nor less than being an atheist would make them an asshole. It’s the person that’s the issue.

Then, I went back to the OP question, saying this was an interesting and very old question with no simple answer, referring to that Plato dude writing about raising children somewhere in the 4th or 3rd century before that other dude, Jesus, was even born. Why mentioning Plato? Maybe because that bearded Greek dude wearing a dress and sandals realized that families in his time were already pushing what he considered way too much personal values and crap, not just religious craps, onto their own child and that the only crap a child should be fed is the crap that the city (aka the Nation) has deemed good for… the city? I would encourage anyone to go read Plato.

So, where does that leave us?

We will all agree that thinking they hold onto some indisputable truth will concern many religious persons, right? Where I seemingly disagree with a few around here, is that I also think it concerns way too many so-called atheists who I think would be much more accurately described as 'anti-religious' (because 'a-theism' is the idea that there is no god, not that one should hate on god or religion). So, unlike those anti-religious persons, I don't consider what they call atheism as a de facto smarter/better choice than being 'theist', or religious. That’s way too simple… like I was saying.