I’d add to that any belief in the historical nature of Jesus, because well, was he there?
That’s exactly why I brought him up, his argument rests on dismissing large swathes of science as unreliable. Then holds up ancient texts written by simple-minded desert people with a bronze-age mentality as completely 100% reliable. As cr1t points out, the hypocrisy is staggering.
Why do we rent our clothes and cast ash upon our brows for these religiots? they cannot and will never accept evolution, scientific method, proof. reason etc. (and neither are they capable of doing so) Let’s concentrate on how we can sell our ideas and values to those who really matter, i.e. the undecideds, the ones who are disillusioned by religious promises, terror and domination. and then the children…blank sheets all at young ages…how can we ensure that their minds are not contaminated by bullshit? Sunday Schools are the seedbeds of most religions…can we offer an alternative session where kids are allowed to ask questions without feeling pressured by peers to conform? Do we have access to technologies that kids can access to ask these questions? Do schools offer debates that seriously allow open discussion on these issues? (I guess some do).
Small things make a difference. I am grateful for the wave of “religious” movies making its debut at the moment. Reason being is that movies are generally fiction, and when a movie such as Noah is screened with its wonderful CGI and storylines, it presents itself as just another blockbuster and moves the story itself into the realm of mythology, futher cross pollination in other movies such as Hercules - where a scene depicts him chained to two pillars which he then pulls down to collapse a building (temple), robs Samson of his tale and firmly confirms it as myth. Most if not all 6/7 year olds will grow up remembering Hercules rather than Samson simply because of this. Ditto with computer games such as Black & White, the more the merrier in my opinion.
In my experience kids are like spunges and until its been beaten out of them, question everything and everyone, when it comes to religion (or witchcraft, demons, general woo), and I have the opportunity, I pose them an entirely different scenario to think about which is age appropriate, or for example -as in the case with my in-laws - when the 7 year old lad told me that “God wont be happy with you if you dont eat all your food”, I simply countered that FSM would be as I should righfully not eat anything but spaghetti… A long discussion (was actually quite interesting) followed where I explained to him about my god as opposed to the one being shoved into his head. He thought the flying spaghetti monster to be a far more interesting god than the one he’s been exposed to up to date and he has not forgotten, he’s 9 years old now and with every family gathering comes stand with us when the usual pre-meal prayer is performed (we do not partake) - it might be deference to us and not practice for him when at other social gatherings, but the fact remains that he does it at all.