. . . between a Christian and an atheist? What is going on? Is it the millennium? Or perhaps a sign of the "End Times"?

Stop teaching children lies. Stop telling them God exists. Let them learn for themselves that He doesn't. As Richard Dawkins says: Teach them how to think, not what to think. They'll figure out the truth and be better (and happier) for it.

are you not telling people what to think in your comment

No, I'm not. I'm telling them what to do. Big difference. Oh, and I was referring to children, in case you missed it.

If I may, newslamp:

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant—

Success in Circuit lies

Too bright for our infirm Delight

The Truth's superb surprise

As Lightning to the Children eased

With explanation kind

The Truth must dazzle gradually

Or every man be blind—

Emily Dickinson

“Teach them how to think, not what to think. They'll figure out the truth and be better (and happier) for it.”

I love that poem, and perfectly appropriate. Thank you.

Well said, no one benefits from teaching children lies.

Great post.

its been said in my circles that every generation must learn everything all over again. That includes Christianity. The older i get, the more i believe it.

newslamp:

No, I'm not. I'm telling them what to do. Big difference. Oh, and I was referring to children, in case you missed it.

So you're asserting that thinking--even guided, directed, intentional thinking--is not an action? I.e. that in telling people what to do you're not precisely telling them what to think? How is telling people what to do different from or better than telling them what to think? How is either not authoritarian?

"Stop teaching children lies. Stop telling them God exists. Let them learn for themselves that He doesn't. As Richard Dawkins says: Teach them how to think, not what to think. They'll figure out the truth and be better (and happier) for it."

Oh, but most empirical studies show that people who believe in God are happier for believing in God than those who do not believe in God.

The same studies will show, however, that there is a "sweet spot," where you can get too deeply religious/spiritual that you reduce your happiness to the level of total atheists due to a rigidness of thought and social interactions.

The belief in God is often what gives people meaning. Without some belief in a God which cares about what happens to us and how we live, then we are reduced to thinking of our lives as simply about getting our needs met. In short, we lose a meaning to life.

That is the critical difference in believing in God or not.

"Only a life lived for others is worth living." -- Albert Einstein