The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #158223   Message #3747809
Posted By: Steve Shaw
31-Oct-15 - 08:29 PM
Thread Name: BS: The Pope in America
Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
Don't complicate things! Either you know that there are doubts about all the tenets of your faith, or else you're pete. Now if you're an honest man you will want neither your school nor you yourself to be telling your child that these doubtful things are so true that he should not only believe them but also that he should live your life by them. Unfortunately, that is precisely what faith schools do. I'm asking a really simple question: do you think it is better to tell children that extremely dubious things are true, and that they'd better believe them, than telling them the truth, which is that lots of people believe these things, there is no evidence for them, especially the bits that appear to deal in miracles, and that you should of course live a good and virtuous life and perhaps make your mind up about religion (a very grown-up thing) when you're grown up? I mean, what are you so scared of? Children are a bit like me, simple beings who thrive far better when adults are honest with them and gain their trust by legitimate means, not by dealing in fables that they later have to pick the bones out of. And no, those fables are not a means to an end. The searing truth is the only means to the end which we call the truth.