A Christian revival

[Gordon]

I disagree that they return to the faith they had.It is a different faith. As a child you just have faith. To take up a faith, any faith in adult hood is chosen.

Seems like a false dichotomy to me - is it not the case that the tenets of the Christian faith would be exactly the same for both a life-long Anglican adherent or someone choosing to return to the Anglican fold after an absence? If not, what is the difference?

[Nearly Sane]

Seems like a false dichotomy to me - is it not the case that the tenets of the Christian faith would be exactly the same for both a life-long Anglican adherent or someone choosing to return to the Anglican fold after an absence? If not, what is the difference?

Perhaps Vlad is arguing that we shouldn't count those under 18 in any numbers of a religion?

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

I disagree that they return to the faith they had.It is a different faith. As a child you just have faith. To take up a faith, any faith in adult hood is chosen.

But it’s still the same faith – for Christians the ground has been prepared for you to return to the same suite of beliefs (a man/god Jesus, a resurrection, specific miracles etc) you accepted as true when younger. It’s relatively rare on the other hand for someone to be brought up with one such suite of faith beliefs to abandon them and then to embrace a different suite of faith beliefs: most converts to Christianity were brought up as Christians; most converts to Islam were brought up as Muslims etc.

That’s the point.       

Would you say you had a religious upbringing? Is your agnosticism inherited or chosen?

That’s a false analogy. Would you say you had a leprechaunal upbringing? Is your agnosticism about leprechauns inherited or chosen? 

[ProfessorDavey]

I disagree that they return to the faith they had.It is a different faith. As a child you just have faith. To take up a faith, any faith in adult hood is chosen.

But I have already made that point - see reply 65.

However, there remains a clear distinction between:

1. Someone who as an adult follows a religion that they were inducted into as a child (e.g. baptism), learned all about in religious instruction lessons (e.g. in Sunday school), engaged in worship (attending church) engaged in a series of ceremonies aimed at instilling the religion further (first communion, confirmation) and had schooling which further embedded that religion (faith school) and

2. Someone who as an adult follows a religion that they had no meaningful involvement with until they'd reached adulthood.

These two situations cannot be compared.

And although I've used christianity as an example, the bits in brackets can easily be changed to the equivalents for other religions.

Would you say you had a religious upbringing? Is your agnosticism inherited or chosen?

Again I've already addressed this (see my definition in reply 38) in which I made it clear that the same distinctions should apply to those with non religious upbringing:

'For completeness we should also add in 'inherited non-religion' (someone brought up non religious who retains that non-religion as an adult) and 'chosen non religion' (someone brought up in a religious household who chooses to become non religious as a adult.'

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Vlad,

But it’s still the same faith – for Christians the ground has been prepared for you to return to the same suite of beliefs (a man/god Jesus, a resurrection, specific miracles etc) you accepted as true when younger. It’s relatively rare on the other hand for someone to be brought up with one such suite of faith beliefs to abandon them and then to embrace a different suite of faith beliefs: most converts to Christianity were brought up as Christians; most converts to Islam were brought up as Muslims etc.

That’s the point.       

That’s a false analogy. Would you say you had a leprechaunal upbringing? Is your agnosticism about leprechauns inherited or chosen?

Actually, in my own experience and reading former Christians who decided they didn't actually have a faith/ or it was their parents faith or lost their childhood faith one notes
quite a lot of key knowledge that is missing and misunderstood or not experienced. For people who aren't familiar at all with inherited religion thinking that infants can hold, understand,and hold onto doctrine and then this is just picked up with in adulthood, this might be a forgivable ignorance.

In terms of christianity repentance and faith/ relational trust can be missed even in aged churchgoers. Other religions have their own encounter and response moments even if that is as basic as seeing  that religion in a different light.

Personality I think that lines of argument like yours suffer from problems introduced by Myers and Dawkin's thesis that atheists don't have to know about religion to talk expertly about it ha ha

[jeremyp]

Actually, in my own experience and reading former Christians who decided they didn't actually have a faith/ or it was their parents faith or lost their childhood faith one notes
quite a lot of key knowledge that is missing and misunderstood or not experienced. For people who aren't familiar at all with inherited religion thinking that infants can hold, understand,and hold onto doctrine and then this is just picked up with in adulthood, this might be a forgivable ignorance.

It's still all Christianity.

Personality I think that lines of argument like yours suffer from problems introduced by Myers and Dawkin's thesis that atheists don't have to know about religion to talk expertly about it ha ha

No their thesis is that you don't need to know the intricacies of Christian theology to understand that Christianity is bollocks. In any case, Richard Dawkins is quite knowledgable on the subject of Christianity. He probably knows more about it than most Christians.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

Actually, in my own experience and reading former Christians who decided they didn't actually have a faith/ or it was their parents faith or lost their childhood faith one notes
quite a lot of key knowledge that is missing and misunderstood or not experienced. For people who aren't familiar at all with inherited religion thinking that infants can hold, understand,and hold onto doctrine and then this is just picked up with in adulthood, this might be a forgivable ignorance.

You’re still missing the point. Children told that the fundamental tenets of their faith (for Christians, the god of the Bible, a man/god Jesus, miracles, a resurrection that actually happened etc) who lapse and then “convert” will generally convert (ie, return) to the faith that still features the god of the Bible, a man/god Jesus, miracles, a resurrection that actually happened etc. It’s relatively rare for them to convert to a religion featuring, say, a prophet riding a winged horse, and vice versa.

This should give you pause at least. It doesn’t, but it should.   

In terms of christianity repentance and faith/ relational trust can be missed even in aged churchgoers. Other religions have their own encounter and response moments even if that is as basic as seeing  that religion in a different light.

Relevance?

Personality I think that lines of argument like yours suffer from problems introduced by Myers and Dawkin's thesis that atheists don't have to know about religion to talk expertly about it ha ha

Personally I think you’ve just tried yet another straw man (it’s often been the case that Dawkins et al know at least as much about the contents of the religions as the theists they debate) though, that said, you’re also trying the Courtier’s Reply fallacy again here. The claims that religions make are secondary to whether or not the justifying arguments for them are sound. I no more care about claims about the colour of leprechauns’ shoes than I care about the claim that Jesus was alive, then dead for a bit, then alive again when the justifying arguments for both claims are wrong.   

[ProfessorDavey]

Actually, in my own experience and reading former Christians who decided they didn't actually have a faith/ or it was their parents faith or lost their childhood faith one notes quite a lot of key knowledge that is missing and misunderstood or not experienced. For people who aren't familiar at all with inherited religion thinking that infants can hold, understand,and hold onto doctrine and then this is just picked up with in adulthood, this might be a forgivable ignorance.

As I said the way in which an adult and a child may engage with religion will, necessarily differ because one is ... err ... an adult and the other ... err ... a child. But that doesn't mean that the childhood experience becomes irrelevant. It clearly doesn't as by far and away the most common feature that defines adult christians is that they had a christian upbringing and, by the way, by far and away the most common feature that defines adult muslims is that they had a muslim upbringing etc.

Try this analogy - imagine an adult professional violin player whose parents took them to violin lessons from the age of five. Now the way in which that adult engages with their instrument will be hugely different to the manner in which they did so as a child. And perhaps their level of knowledge and talent as an adult far outways the knowledge and talent of the parents. But it would be complete nonsense to dismiss the violin-playing upbringing that the parents chose for that child as somehow irrelevant to the adult violin player.