{"id":19456,"date":"2012-09-21T00:55:44","date_gmt":"2012-09-21T03:55:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/?p=19456"},"modified":"2012-09-21T00:55:44","modified_gmt":"2012-09-21T03:55:44","slug":"the-religion-of-lifes-origin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2012\/09\/21\/the-religion-of-lifes-origin\/","title":{"rendered":"The Religion of Life&#8217;s Origin"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Any guesses as to who said this?<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>You can\u2019t even begin to understand biology, you can\u2019t understand life, unless you understand what it\u2019s all there for, how it arose&#8230;So I would teach [it] very early in childhood. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s all that difficult to do. It\u2019s a very simple idea. One could do it with the aid of computer games and things like that.<\/p>\n<p>I think it needs serious attention, that children should be taught where they come from, what life is all about, how it started, why <!--more-->it\u2019s there, why there\u2019s such diversity of it, why it looks designed. These are all things that can easily be explained to a pretty young child. I\u2019d start at the age of about 7 or 8.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The reason atheism (more accurately, the &#8220;New Atheism,&#8221; or <em>anti<\/em>-theism) is starting to bump heads so much with religion is that it is <a href=\"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2011\/11\/22\/military-atheists-seek-status-as-lay-faith-group-leaders\/\">beginning to frame itself <em>as<\/em> religion<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The quote above is from Richard Dawkins (<a href=\"http:\/\/cnn.com\/video\/?\/video\/living\/2012\/09\/05\/orig-red-chair-richard-dawkins.cnn\">video<\/a>) on teaching evolution. One of the more respected atheist professors (within his community) admits one needs to understand &#8220;what [life] is all there for,&#8221; and asserts that the theory of evolution explains &#8220;what life is all about.&#8221; He likewise asserts a methodology &#8212; inculcating young children in one&#8217;s beliefs &#8212; he would no doubt vehemently oppose if it was a religious leader talking about creation, but as the quote shows, it could easily be one. (Dawkins has been characterized as calling teaching religious beliefs to children &#8220;child abuse.&#8221;)<\/p>\n<p>Again, Dawkins represents a distinct movement and has <a href=\"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2012\/04\/02\/fort-bragg-hosts-uneventful-atheist-festival\/\">addressed members of the US military<\/a> as a leader of that movement. While he is often called an &#8220;atheist,&#8221; that is not necessarily academically correct or complete. It is one thing to lack a belief in God; it is quite another to assert that belief in God is dangerous and should be opposed (by the state, if necessary).<\/p>\n<p>It is noteworthy, however, because Dawkins&#8217; &#8220;movement&#8221; is a part of the American culture &#8212; which means it is also part of the US military culture. As this New Atheist subculture tries to be recognized within the military, it bears many of Dawkins&#8217; hallmarks, not the least of which is the emulation of the religions it simultaneously opposes. But can these broadly categorized &#8220;atheists&#8221; be granted status as a religion under US government policies? Those questions have yet to be answered, but they will be &#8212; and have been &#8212;\u00a0asked.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Any guesses as to who said this? You can\u2019t even begin to understand biology, you can\u2019t understand life, unless you understand what it\u2019s all there for, how it arose&#8230;So I would teach [it] very early in childhood. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s all that difficult to do. It\u2019s a very simple idea. One could do it with the aid of computer [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[20,2,17,10,171,1521],"class_list":["post-19456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government-and-religion","tag-atheism","tag-military","tag-religious-expression","tag-religion","tag-religious-freedom","tag-richard-dawkins"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19456"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19456\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}