Evolution: Education and Outreach

Same old pattern I’m afraid. https://evolution-outreach.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12052-018-0083-9

A follow up as to religious belief after the students completed their courses.

This is a few years ago about students entering Harvard.

Wow, this is happening very fast in Australia. Here is the results of the census.

http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/mediareleasesbyReleaseDate/7E65A144540551D7CA258148000E2B85

Looking at the data over time, it don’t look like TE is much of a stopgap in going from YEC to Atheism. With time TE lost more people than YEC did. And atheism is now over 62%.

Maybe for some. But not all TE is equal. I am certainly not in a way point to atheism.

What exactly is the pattern to which you are referring? @theman8469, what is your position on all this? Are you an Old Earth Creationist?

All babies are born atheists and must be indoctrinated in a faith usually of their parents and society that they live in usually during childhood. Whether they are staying with that indoctrinated faith when they reach adulthood is the subject of the study posted.

That is the opposite argument that atheists typically make, saying we are prone to believe in God, so therefore its false. Pick an argument to go with. You can’t argue both.

I never seen that argument made. Can you point me to who made such claims?

Are you referring to the human predisposition to explain the causes of things to agents?

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Yup…

The hyperactive agency detection (HAAD), or hyperactive agent-detection device (HADD), is the most widely accepted explanation for religious belief in biology, psychology and sociology. It offers us a naturalistic explanation of the origin of beliefs which form the basis of every religion. Because of this, you can expect that many religious believers are skeptical of its claims. Some of them claim that this is a “just-so” story, part of “atheist mythology.”
Hyperactive Agency Detection — A Just-So Story?

But this have nothing to do with the acceptance of truth in a particular God of your parents or your society. No child is going to come up with the Genesis story to explain how the Earth got here. I am sure that you will hear amazing stories from a group of children but none would be the Genesis story unless told to by an adult as truth.

Moving goal posts are we? You said every baby is an atheist until they are told about God.

Of course, Genesis is not inborn knowledge. Though it does speak to deep grand questions. Even if you think it is false or a myth, a good reading will speak to those grand questions too. It is certainly not as silly as many atheists take it to be. This is why, in fact, it raises such strong emotions in people.

As One who follows Jesus, I agree that we cannot get to God unless He reveals Himself. We are build to be in relationship with Him, but need Him to meet us and and reveal Himself. I’m not sure exactly what the challenge you see here to my understanding. Perhaps I am wrong, but not for any of the reasons you are touching on here.

You are not only moving the goalposts but changing stadiums. :grinning:

My claim is that every child is born with a blank innate state but with a human propensity for learning. That is what I call an atheist child . Okay, perhaps I should change this to an inherently agnostic child. At some point in learning a child will make up agents to explain how things work. This is HADD. Children will make up all kinds of agents, some which are amazingly innovative and some are hysterically humorous. But it is my claim that none of these children will make up the Jesus story or the Adam and Eve story unless told to by an adult. This is the indoctrination stage. As a maturing child or young adult, this is usually revisited and a more critical thinking decision is made. This is what I believe we are seeing in survey after survey the past few decades all over the Western world.

I’m okay with that.

Thank you for correcting my error in rounding a 6.99 on the Dawkins scale (completely agnostic none) to a 7 (atheist). sorry it is my engineering (not physics) background to round up to the nearest whole number. :grinning:

That’s what I would call a “non-religious child.”

In a post today, Bradley Bowen makes A Case for Atheism.

I don’t care for his argument. I have no more interest in the case for atheism than I have in the case for theism (of any kind). And I’d say that’s what makes me non-religious rather than atheist.

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I agree. This is more of an issue with Islam as babies are legally born into the Islamic faith if they had a Muslim father and can not legally convert to another religion or no religion at any age. This would be apostasy and cause for the death penalty in 40 countries.

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Actually Children seem to be intrinsic theists who naturally posit a designer; which can be ‘educated’ away. https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/volume-24/edition-4/cognitive-science-religion

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Maybe. I was just quoting inconsistent atheist arguements to him. Likely though kids do not have a well developed view.

You do know that Jesus is a historical person, wherever of not he was divine or not. I am sure that no child would ‘make up’ Nero or David Hume without some historical knowledge.

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Maybe, or perhaps several actual persons whose actions the Gospel writers compose into a single person Jesus narrative.