Amen.

Yes I think some children do lack respect for their parents. Especially when they are teens. But clinging to an authority figure or a parent (following their rules, not being independent) is not "respect for parents."

You can live your own life and still have respect for your parents. You should not expect your children to live the way you want them to and believe only the way you do as a sign of respect, and if they want to do otherwise think that they don't respect you. That's not allowing them to grow and be who they want to be. There is no freedom in that.

You don't own your children so you should not expect them to be what you desire them to be. They are their own person and they should be free to follow their own dream. Also, you don't live your life to please your parents. They may want you to be a doctor or lawyer and you may want to be something else. They my expect you to take over the family business, and you may want to do something different.

Everyone is a free soul.

JB

But atheism as philosophy has nothing to do with being rebellious against rules.

Atheism is the belief that there is no supreme creator.

It's not a belief about being rebellious agains a supreme creator that they believe to exist.

So all I can see is that you view atheism incorrectly. Perhaps you see atheistic people who also are rebellious against rules. But that truly has nothing to do with atheism. Those people just happent to also be rebellious people.

Like someone else pointe out, most of the religious rules are also common law.

Therefore if a person is breaking the law they aren't merely atheists, but rather they are criminals.

There are actually a lot of criminal Christians too. In fact that jails are full of criminals who claim to be Christians.

I'm damn good killing my own threads.

I'm damn good killing my own threads.

you see I can't say any god because I believe in just one God.
so my answer will remain as:
"a person who denies God."
If you read my posts most of them don't even talk about christianity. I mainly talk about God, and my relationship with Him.
Regardless the fact I'm a christian catholic.
Except, ofcourse, in the ocassions when I specificly talk about something related to the Church which is not the case in this thread.

The truth hurts . A man by any name is a man . Jesus was a man with a penis and an anus .
.

For me...I look at the athiest belief in this manner:

It's like a child who has never known their father (not in the sense of a Christian reborn who now knows their father...but in the sense that they have no memory of ever seeing, speaking, touching, playing with that father.)

So...to that child, did they have a father? Who was their father? What did he look like? Why wasn't he there when they needed him? Why should they listen to someone who isn't there?

Now logic tells that person that yes...they were created somehow (obviously) but it is impossible to put a face and a name on that creator.

As to the rules...really, the "rules" of Christianity are not much different than normal moral rules. "Don't kill" "don't adulter" etc etc. So I don't believe that it is a "running away from the rules" thing as it is so much a thing that there is no real way of knowing of where we came from, who created us, etc etc until we die and finally find out.

Some (like my sister) have decided that rather than "waste" their entire lives trying to find that one right religion and belief, they're just going to live their lives to the best of their ability and let their questions be answered when they die. Or they look at the history of the religion, the way the religion is currently...and decide that, based upon those facts, they just can't associate themselves with a religion that would do (fill in blank here).

thats my view.nobody knows until ya die and you can't come back and tell anyone so the mystery remains.

I've seen you do that before. You start a thread and then complain about the responses... well so people stop responding.

JB

TLW:

Interesting analogy but why not take it all the way to the logical (or in the case of the bible; illogical) conclusion. The rebellious child who does not listen to his parents may in fact be asked to leave, will perhaps be scorned to some extent and might even lose contact with the parents who loved, cared for, and raised him.

What those parents would not do however (unless they are wired as sadistic monsters) is send their rebellious child to a place of eternal damnation. It would never happen. Find me any parent that is sane, anywhere in the world and ask them this question:

"Is there anything your son or daughter could do to you that would make sending them to an eternal and painful hell a just punishment?"

I know of no parents who would do this, none that would or could become so unhinged with their son or daughter's behavior that they would impose this type of punishment. Now, here we are talking about imperfect parents, parents who, according to your beliefs, are sinful by nature. If anyone would be able to conjure up a justification for such a punishment, surely it would be the human parents, right?

Nope, not according to Christianity. According to the good book God sent his only begotten that whosoever shall believe shall have everlasting life. And if you don't believe, eternal damnation. This is from the perfect god, the perfect being of the universe. A child misbehaves on a cosmic scale so grand that an eternity in hell is the best answer?

I'm not denying that people rebel. All of us do. We rebel against workplace productivity, posted speed limits, and sometimes against vows and rules that are taken with solemn oath. But that rebellion is part of being human and that we were born human and then can fail so miserably in the eyes of "he" who created us that the only resort, the only fit justice is one of eternal agony---no, that just won't do.

You just didn't take the analogy far enough, but it was still a worthwhile read.

-Drew