This is my first post on the website, but I would love to have a discussion about this topic. I believe that religion is actually killing the curiosity of young people, me being one of them at some point in time. I was a follower of the christian faith for 5-6 years leading up till I was about 11 or 12. When I was following the religion, I had no feeling to learn new topics, or hear other view points about what others opinions for the most part. Now, I'm a atheist who tends to discuss with others on a weekly basis about the topic, and listen to all viewpoints to try to have a better understanding, and try to find answers. What I would like to hear is what everyone's opinion on the topic is. I stand by mine that religion is killing the curiosity of anybody participating in it, especially the younger age group.
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I totally agree that religion kills curiosity. Thinking is not what religion wants, that would expose its fallacies and immoral teachings. For example, Christianity uses apologetics to rationalize and confuse conversation over the morality of slavery. They will tap dance around the subject to avoid admitting it is immoral for one human to own another as property. They will use stupid arguments such as indentured servitude and “times were different back then’ so on and so forth. They don’t want to admit slavery is immoral because their god in the bible sanctions it. We fought a civil war in the United States to settle this argument. I say, get over it…your so-called god is immoral. Religion wants mindless sycophants, thinking and curiosity is not wanted, but fear and blind faith is.
They promote the idea of, not needing knowledge since god is the answer to everything.
One factor which surly shines, is why do they never teach their origin.
Like who was their first historical pope.
How were the first saints.
The history of Christianity is never thought in religion lessons at school.
That is not important, what is important is to teach a theology that has been proven to be flawed and immoral to innocent, uneducated children.
Many young people are not buying the lies anymore. Rachel Slick daughter of apologist Matt Slick was home-schooled and subjected to rigorous indoctrination but her curiosity led her out of the darkness and into the light of science and reason. You can read of her journey to sanity here:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2013/07/15/the-atheist-daug...
"Atheists frequently wonder how an otherwise rational Christian can live and die without seeing the light of science, and I believe the answer to this is usually environment. If every friend, authority figure, and informational source in your life constantly repeat the same ideas, it is difficult not to believe they’re onto something. My world was built of “reasonable” Christians — the ones who thought, who questioned, who knew that what they believed was true. In the face of this strength, my own doubts seemed petty."
That is so true, I went through the same experience.
Unless you are ready to stand on your own feet and say that it is ok for you to be the only person that disagrees you will be overwhelmed with pressure of your environment.
I found strength is logic and that unless some logical contradictions weren't explained they must have something wrong.
Then from there if you are not lazy and try to find the answer you will come at the right questions to ask.
The truth is that you are never thought to ask the right questions, even though your instinct tries to point you at some of them.
Actually, I would just say some people are curious and others are not.
I am religious and very curious....most of my family and friends are irreligious and not curious. They are not the type of secular people that have worked out their viewpoints through thought and study.
Most people are relatively apathetic about the 'big questions' in life...if it were otherwise than places like this forum would be bursting at the seams with posters.
what do you mean you are religious and very curious?
are you curious enough to research the validity of the gospels?
How can you be curious and not have any doubt about god himself?
If you doubt god then you are rational and curious but if you are blindly convinced that god MUST be this and that then your not curious enough.
You just think you are.
"what do you mean you are religious and very curious?"
Just what I say
"are you curious enough to research the validity of the gospels?"
Yes. Are you curious to research the validity of the historico-critical method itself?
"How can you be curious and not have any doubt about god himself?"
My curiosity led me to belief. I was an atheist...thought and study convinced me to become a theist.
"If you doubt god then you are rational and curious but if you are blindly convinced that god MUST be this and that then your not curious enough."
One can definitely be a theist and still be rational and curious.
Jeff-- "If you doubt god then you are rational and curious but if you are blindly convinced that god MUST be this and that then your not curious enough."
Frrank--"One can definitely be a theist and still be rational and curious."
How is that even an answer?, it is an unsupported claim.
do you doubt god or not?
Simple question of yes or no.
do you doubt that he is love?
do you doubt that he is always right?
do you doubt that all his claims are actually coming from him?
do you doubt that Jesus existed for real?
no doubt= not curious
doubt = curious
since you cannot be curious if you know something, you must have doubt about something to be curious and check on it.
It only requires a below average level of IQ to answer , yes or no to those questions.
"My curiosity led me to belief. I was an atheist...thought and study convinced me to become a theist."
I don't believe you because you cannot even answer a simple question of yes or no, if you think you were an atheist, think again, an atheist is not a belief but a way of thinking that cannot go away once learned.
You are not thinking like an atheist but like someone that never learned this skill.
So, if I believe something definite about God, like 'God is Love'...this means I am not curious?
What exactly am I allowed to believe about God?
That is the point, you should not believe in anything(not only god).
You should analyse well the facts for yourself and build your own conclusions Without Believing the word of no one, including atheists or books.
You should amend your post to say "do not believe the word of anyone without analyzing what they say".
Anyways, once one believes in God this does not mean they shut off their mind. You seem to be arguing against a caricature theist, probably a simple-minded fundamentalist American Protestant. Sorry, not every believer lives doggedly off a few phrases from the Bible (though for some people, if that is all they are capable of, that is good enough for them).
My belief in God, rather than ending my curiosity, directs it. Believing in God, when I go to find about how He works in the world and how I can return to Him I look not only towards the Bible but towards the writings of metaphysicians, theologians, Saints and even poets and writers.
I am sure you believe in the scientific method, which then directs your curiosity towards the world in the direction of what physicists, biologists and astronomers say about it.
You should amend your post to say "do not believe the word of anyone without analyzing what they say".
No !!! you can analyze well what they say and still not believe them.
How do you expect me to believe that you were an atheist though reason when you cannot even understand what I am talking about.
"Anyways, once one believes in God this does not mean they shut off their mind."
Yes, it is exactly what happens when one believes in a theistic god(not just god)
They shut off their mind to 'doubt' which is one of the most important intellectual qualities needed for progress.
"I look not only towards the Bible but towards the writings of metaphysicians, theologians, Saints and even poets and writers."
really? then how come you haven't answered my questions yet but dodged them?
"I am sure you believe in the scientific method, which then directs your curiosity towards the world in the direction of what physicists, biologists and astronomers say about it."
I don't believe in the scientific method.
I have verified that the scientific method works everytime without contradictions and through experience I have learned to rely on it.
I do not believe in scientific method because someone told me so or there is a book that says to believe in it.
That is the difference.
I learned how to use my brain effectively and not how to obey orders from an invisible entity that uses men to send orders.
EDIT:
"You are not thinking like an atheist but like someone that never learned this skill."
(an atheist that became an atheist trough "thought and study")
You can definitely be an atheist and become a theist but not trough good "thought and study".
Sure you can.
Look up Seyyed Hossein Nasr. He is an MIT trained scientist and also a metaphysician and a Muslim. He is of course not the only example but he is a superb one.
From Dr. Nasr's website: http://www.nasrfoundation.org/bios.html
"Nasr chose to go to M.I.T. for college. He was offered a scholarship and was the first Iranian student to be admitted as an undergraduate at M.I.T. He began his studies at M.I.T in the Physics Department with some of the most gifted students in the country and outstanding professors of physics. His decision to study physics was motivated by the desire to gain knowledge of the nature of things, at least at the level of physical reality. However, at the end of his freshman year, although he was the top student in his class, he began to feel oppressed by the overbearingly scientific atmosphere with its implicit positivism. Furthermore, he discovered that many of the metaphysical questions which he had been concerned with were not being asked, much less answered. Thus, he began to have serious doubts as to whether physics would lead him to an understanding of the nature of physical reality. His doubt was confirmed when the leading British philosopher, Bertrand Russell, in a small group discussion with the students following a lecture he had given at M.I.T, stated that physics does not concern itself with the nature of physical reality per se but with mathematical structures related to pointer readings."
as I said, not because a guy has a degree or is the best man of the world, he must be right or wrong.
learn to analyze the facts yourself and not the fame or popularity.
You cannot become an atheist though reason and then become a theist that believes without doubt.
There is simply no way to let go of the doubt and be reasonable anymore.
"as I said, not because a guy has a degree or is the best man of the world, he must be right or wrong.
learn to analyze the facts yourself and not the fame or popularity."
I do analyze the facts for myself. I linked to Dr. Nasr's website because you insist that someone cannot become a theist through study and analysis, and he is someone who obviously did. I did too, believe it or not.
Being a theist does not kill curiosity, but simply directs it in a different channel than the curiosity of a materialist. If there are theists who are not curious that is less to do with religion than with their innate mentality...same with irreligious people who are not curious, of whom I know very many.
Dr. Nasr, I do not know him, and i did not see that he was an atheist anywhere on his site.
So he does not fit the claim you made that an atheist that became atheist trough reason can become a theist afterwards.
I do analyze the facts for myself.?
Really, then when you see that god orders the milling of babies in the old testament why can't you see that god of the OT is evil or that he makes mistakes?
Do you accept the fact that up to this day there is no evidence of Jesus the messiah existence?
not that some dude named Jesus walked the earth but that that particular guy that was walking on water existed.
Do you accept the fact that there is no evidence for a christian god?
are you curious enough to
Religion kills curiosity, it's true.
Once you have the answers (God did it) why look for other answers.
The trouble obviously is that "God did it" is a non answer.
Unfortunately all the responses so far have been from old guys like me. Hopefully you'll get some good answers from some of our younger members.
You have unleashed yourself at a very appropriate age, I also escaped at the age of 12.
Keep on asking questions and thinking clearly. You are doing well, congratulations
.
I'm not sure that "Religion Kills Curiosity" ...
but I'm damn sure that it seeks to control curiosity/knowledge.
Initially , access to the supposed Holy texts is very tightly controlled.
Look at how long it took to get the Bible translated into languages other than the Churches own (dead language) Latin.
Control the language ,control the meaning ,control the "flock".
How many people died trying to get the word out ?.
How long did it take before those other than clergy were allowed to be taught to read and write ?
Incidentally ,you may notice the parallel between some of the early Christian churches insistence on the use of Latin and the Islamic insistence on Arabic.
Just how many medieval French peasants could actually communicate with Scottish peasants in Latin ... about as many as there are Berber tribesmen who can converse with Kazakh trades men in Arabic. ( Converse ...not reiterate Arabic learned by rote..)
Once people start to question ,simply stand by the supposed Holy text.
Never deviate from the "official" line.. continue even in the face of evidence to the contrary (Earth is centre of universe .... OR ELSE)
Use Holy texts to "manufacture" answers ,dissemble and obfuscate ...over complicate and muddy the waters as much as possible.
Produce "placebo" theories to cover the shortcomings of the written texts ... (ie the under sea waters used to account for the extra liquid required for Noah's little spell of inclement weather..)
Finally , create the illusion that adherents already have knowledge (even if it doesn't stand up to scrutiny) ...
As evidence for this last ...see below .....
ChildofGod
“but i do. i know all that i need to”.
I KNOW ALL THAT I NEED TO…..
Maryam
“I have questioned and researched and I got all the answers”
I GOT ALL THE ANSWERS
the illusion of knowledge.... thinking you know stuff ....when really you know damn all !
It seems that those who are the most educated are the most unsure, and those with the least education are positive that they have all the answers.
Couldn't of said it better myself
I believe that it does kill curiosity but it also depends on a person because for me curiosity and learning is a never-ending journey.
I can not say with certainty that ALL religion kills curiosity but I will say there are many that sure seem to not only do it, but do so in an intentional and deliberate manner.
I can't say either that all religion kills curiosity, because I haven't studied all of them. But, the ones I have studied (Christianity and Islam) and see a sense that these religions already have the answer. Which makes me think that it kinda does halt curiosity in its tracks, since they already have the answer.