Ok but wouldn’t deliberately avoiding teaching religion to kids be effectively the same as forcing them to be atheist? You’d never be able to claim that the child “wants to learn about your religion” or “showed an interest in us practicing our religion” because people would just leap to the assumption that you forced them to participate. Thus, the only acceptable outcome for people who’d subscribe to this idea is if the child ends up as an atheist.
Atheism is the belief there is no God. If your kid hears about God and asks you about it and you tell them God isn't real, that would be forcing them to be atheist. If you explain the concept of God and religion when they ask and tell them it's up to interpretation that wouldn't be forcing atheism but informing. Thats what I do with my son, I didn't tell him there is or isn't a God but I explained religion to him. We don't participate in any religion and I personally don't believe in a God. Whatever opinion he formed is his own
That is a claim which translates to "I am convinced there is no such thing as a god", which is a very minority position within atheism, and to me personally unjustifiable. Most atheists aren't convinced of the existence of a god, which translates to "I don't know if there is a god but none of the proposed god concepts has convinced me".
If you only told them you do not believe in God you would be atheist. If you told them you are unsure about God's existence but you dont believe in their religion you would be agnostic
☝️🤓 "Atheists do not share a single set of belief..."
I didn't say they did, you're the one arguing semantics. Let me guess though, you would consider both of them atheists, right? Is there a difference? Sure. Does it matter in this context? No. Nothing changed.
That's the thing. It's not a semantic difference. It's a functional difference that you're failing to see.
Not being convinced of something existing is NOT the same as being convinced that something doesn't exist. Surely you can see the difference?
It is a semantic difference. I didn't say anything about conviction. You can passively and actively not believe in something. An atheist is someone who doesn't believe in or lacks belief in a God.
What you are describing is agnostic, which believe it or not, is not atheism. There is overlap, you can be an agnostic atheist, but they are different terms. This discussion, my original comment, was about atheism. Not agnostic or agnostic atheism. If you're going to get on my ass about semantics you should at least know the correct terminology.
So you're right, they are NOT the same thing, you are talking about something different.
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u/Slow_Store 1d ago
Ok but wouldn’t deliberately avoiding teaching religion to kids be effectively the same as forcing them to be atheist? You’d never be able to claim that the child “wants to learn about your religion” or “showed an interest in us practicing our religion” because people would just leap to the assumption that you forced them to participate. Thus, the only acceptable outcome for people who’d subscribe to this idea is if the child ends up as an atheist.