re: Virgin Mary painting shows 'tears' at Chicago church

She enjoys it. The old folks enjoy her belting out the tunes. She really doesn't understand it other than god is good. In about 4 years her mom will supposedly let her choose if she wants to still do the church thing or not.

Until then when she comes over for the weekend, uncle takes her to mass and will sit and explain anything she has questions about. And make up things, like Rougarous prowling for bad little children. Which got me the response of " God wouldn't let anything happen to me!"

Which is both adorable to me and wishing she would be this age forever. And a little red flag of, "who told you were a bad child?"

I'm jumping in here late. But littered throughout the Old Testament is paragraphs of God punishing his people smiting them. The New Covenant changed all of this but just from the point of view of who God really is and why he would allow evil and suffering and such I think we as people in general have a narrow view of a benevolent God. He is all-loving but he is also just and now the Son pleads on our behalf to the Father.

I don't got any easy answers or anything I just wanted to chime in and try to give some perspective to God and his personality.

Way to not get this whacked Yall!

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I believe it’s more of a coping mechanism for most (not all) of those who don’t believe in God....to justify leading a more “fun” lifestyle and feel better about doing things that maybe that little voice inside keeps saying might be wrong.

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That is ridiculous.

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She enjoys it.

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My boys were both baptized, and the oldest went so far as to have his first communion. After that I started to roll my eyes and my wife, who knew I was vocally atheist by then and had begun to question her own beliefs by that point (without any real prodding form me) simply asked, "So what are we going to teach them?"

I responded, "Nothing."

We've basically kept to that. I've never once said anything negative about belief or church, unless we were talking about evolution or young Earth creationism. I've just never introduced it as a truth into their lives. They are mandated to go to mass when they stay with their grandparents, but other than that it just never comes up. And...it literally has not made one bit of difference.

Quick story. My oldest is incredibly sweet. Back after my second son was born and he was 4 1/2, we went to church for the second one's baptism. While sitting in the pews (again, he'd never spent any real time there) he glances up at the crucifix his eyes wide and turned to me and said, "What happened to THAT guy?!?" I mean, obviously that's what a kid would say when confronted with a hyper realistic torture scene before they have become accustomed to it. Kids are so damned honest...

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There's also the tired "Country is being led down a sinful path when national leadership is somewhere around 80-90% Christian at any given time

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Taking politician's at their word (HAHAHAHAHA) nearly every President has been Christian, nearly every Senator, and nearly every Congressperson. In addition, so has nearly every State Governor and City Mayor...and nearly every judge ever elected or appointed. Our government, from top to bottom, has been littered with Christians since the very beginning until now.

I'd kind of like those odds and see if I could still argue I'm being persecuted with a straight face...

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Like God of the Gaps arguements

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That's kind of what we've been talking about here, with the idea that because we can't say what came before the Big Bang it must have been a creator.

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I would absolutely live like that.

I am a human and sin just like everyone else.

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And this is why theists have zero claim to the moral high ground. Atheists don't rape and murder because we simply wouldn't do that to our fellow human beings. Theists don't rape and murder because they are afraid they will be punished for it.

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Your fundamental error is thinking that the only atheists you interact with are those who inform you of their atheism.

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I really don’t care what someone believes one way or another. Like I said, just my opinion based on what I’ve seen.

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I really don’t care what someone believes one way or another. Like I said, just my opinion based on what I’ve seen.

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I understand that's your opinion based on what you've seen. What I'm trying to explain to you is that basing your opinion on your anecdotal interactions leaves you with an ill-informed opinion. If you tell an atheist that you will pray for them, literally none of them will reply "I don't believe in god, but thank you". The majority will simply be polite to you while never telling you that they are atheists. A small handful will get aggressive towards you. You have no idea that the people being nice to you are atheists. So, in your mind, the only people who are atheists are the ones who are a dick to you, which simply isn't reflective of reality.