[ExI] Rick Warren on religion

[William Flynn Wallace]

Well, for one thing, people lie, including children.  Muslim children are
Muslim because their parents are.  (They don't have to declare for
themselves or be baptized etc.)  Probably the data collectors assume the
same for families everywhere.

In the case of the Muslims, you take your life in your hands if you deny
your parents religion.  So if inwardly they are not believers, outwardly
they have to be.  This is certainly less true of Christians and other
religions, but I"ll bet most kids, teens, put their parent's religion down
when filling out forms until they reach college.

I do wonder what is happening in Ireland.  The church there has been so
guilty of sexual activity with children that many are not going to Mass,
but I'll bet they put "Catholic' in forms.

Which is all to say that there can be a huge difference between inward and
outward conformity.

I believe that what you believe is true in the past and has been for a long
time.  Look at the history of England and how it could be death if you
practice the 'wrong' religion.  But times, they are a' changin.

So I still need real data.  Going to church is becoming rarer and rarer in
our country, and possibly in European countries as well, which is why I
still say we need data.

I don't know what any of you have experienced.  Many of you are atheists.
In my case it was a big struggle within myself to come out as an atheist.
Family flak doesn't even begin to describe it.

What people put down on forms and what they truly believe can be very, very
different.

bill w

On Sun, Dec 9, 2018 at 10:55 AM John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sun, Dec 9, 2018 at 11:10 AM William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > OK, John, I'll call your bluff - I don't have any data,though I suppose
>> I could get some, but do you?  Most children wind up in the same religion
>> and so forth?
>>
>
> All you need to do is glace at this color coded map of the world's
> religions:
>
> World's religions map
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_religious_groups#/media/File:World_religions_map_en.svg>
>
> If children did not usually have the same religion as their parents this
> map would be a uniform grey, but instead we see gaudy primary colors. Why
> is there a very strong correlation between geography and religious
> philosophy, why should one have anything to do with the other? Because very
> young children tend to believe what adults tell them, and if they are told
> it often enough they can hold that belief for life even if what they are
> told is utterly ridiculous.
>
> If you show me 2 people and tell me the first one is from Ireland and the
> second one is from Afghanistan and ask me to guess which one is a Christian
> and which one is a Muslim I believe I could do so and my chances of being
> correct would be considerably better than 50-50. Geography and religious
> belief seem to be two very radically things, so if I'm wrong what is your
> explanation as to why knowledge about the one gives us knowledge about
> the other?
>
>  John K Clark
>
>
>
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