Supporter Exclusive: No really, God is real, okay kids?
Added 2024-08-01 19:55:21 +0000 UTCJust a little comment on something that I find odd.
Comments
Maybe this is all an over analysis - a thousand years ago - it was god vs gods. Today, they see the battle as god vs no god. C.S Lewis wrote for kids and dealt with both Islam and non-belief in his books. See "The problem of Susan" - by Neil Gaiman
QuebecCity Oliver
2024-08-04 21:44:43 +0000 UTCProbably not. Though as a December special, maybe. The problem with the letter, then and now, is that it is about lying and we know that it is a lie - that fantasies and myths and fairy tales are important, not because they are true, but because they makes us human. (Well, not you, obviously, but the rest of us). Terry Pratchett wrote an entire book - Hogfather - basically in response to "Yes, Virginia..." including this line - "'...yes, Twyla: there is a Hogfather.'"
QuebecCity Oliver
2024-08-04 21:32:55 +0000 UTCMaybe? My experience is that talking about your doubts plainly is taboo. You're supposed to "doubt your doubts" (as one of the apostles so pithily put it) so my data points are skewed to those who have left and are way more willing to talk about what their doubts were/are. What I hear a lot of is "I didn't get an answer when I prayed. The problem of evil was too much to ignore. The mormon church's stance on lgbtq+ is actively hurting my family/me, so I'm out. I can't ignore the sexual/monetary scandals I've heard about." Maybe that means that some people are leaving and still maybe believing in god? anecdotally, that's what seems to be my brother's position--the mormons are crazy, but god is real. Though most people I know that have left the mormon church have gone to atheist, not just another denomination.
Kyeudo .
2024-08-04 04:00:39 +0000 UTCSo we don't really know the effect of the song, but one thing that's clear is it's not good enough to prevent all the member loss. (Maybe some though?)
Logicked
2024-08-04 03:54:41 +0000 UTCThe mormon church is bleeding members. Not as fast you or I would hope, but the numbers the church puts out for membership are laughably inaccurate. The church reports like 17 million, but it is incredibly difficult to get your name off the records, so most people who leave don't bother to do it. Some people estimate the actual number of actively participating members is only around a 1/3 of that 17 million.
Kyeudo .
2024-08-04 03:09:44 +0000 UTCThat's interesting. I wonder about the backfire rate. I guess maybe not as high as I might assume or hope.
Logicked
2024-08-04 02:21:43 +0000 UTCExmormon here. One of the “beloved” Primary songs (taught to kids as young as 3 up to about 11) is “A Child’s Prayer.” It was copyrighted in 1984. The first verse, which is to be sung by the child/children, starts “Heavenly Father, are you really there? And do you hear and answer every child’s prayer? Some say that heaven is far away…” The second verse, which is to be sung by the parent/adult starts with answers to those questions: “Pray, he is there. Speak, he is listening.” I think the idea was to let the kid ask the question very young, and to immediately give an answer (later in the song, the kid’s verse also talks about Jesus wanting the children to come to him.) That way, when the question comes up as a teenager/adult, the song will also just pop into your head with a ready answer for squashing all those doubts. I’ve been out of primary for more than 20 years, been an atheist for pushing 6 years, and the only thing about that song I had to look up was the copyright date. Stuff you learn to music as a young kid FUCKING sticks with you. I think that’s the point of christians making songs like that.
Kyeudo .
2024-08-03 15:56:28 +0000 UTCI don't think dealing directly with god's reality is "fucked up" as such. The hell stuff is for sure though.
Logicked
2024-08-02 20:13:05 +0000 UTCThis is something to ponder - people cling to belief for the sake of the belief. What am I holding on to for no good reason? Think of the soul or ghosts - many people want to believe these things are real because they are part of the culture. I teach English and one thing I teach is "go to" and I teach it with the phrase "go to hell" because it is funny and my students have heard the phrase before. Didn't you cover a video for kids about "hell is real"? - Found it - Hey kids, you’re going to hell! Yay Fortnite! (SSundee Response). Edit - Isn't that just as fucked up or more so than dealing with gods not being real?
QuebecCity Oliver
2024-08-02 19:47:50 +0000 UTCI was considering making an exclusive responding to the Yes, Virginia letter. Worth doing or no?
Logicked
2024-08-02 15:30:17 +0000 UTCI think Santa, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy are given a lot of leeway due to this idea of "childhood innocence" that's a persistent trope in modern Western thinking, where the children's ignorance is glorified as a virtue. Because of this, lying to them about these things is considered to be a good thing, since by believing in them, they are given the opportunity to "be innocent", contrasted with the pragmatism and cynicism of adulthood. It's to the point where a child not believing in any of these is often used as a short-hand of them having to "grow up too fast", while adults believing in them is a short-hand for them being kooky an crazy. And as for why people seem to be okay with this, I think the reason is twofold; on one hand, it's a culturally entrenched meme, the same way as even a lifelong atheist would say "My god!" or "Jesus F. Christ!" if they saw something shocking, while on the other, it's considered to be a harmless thing for children. Because of that, nobody really gives them any deeper thought, so there's little opportunity to associate these collective deceptions/delusions with religious stories and dogma.
Egathentale
2024-08-02 12:43:58 +0000 UTCInteresting. Thanks.
Logicked
2024-08-02 06:12:09 +0000 UTCJust did a little digging, looked up the video, in the channel description it says their puppets lip sync songs taken from other sources. In the video description it says the song comes from a CD called "Ralph and Elmer, Remember When" from a site called PuppetsInc. I googled it, and it seems they do scripts for puppet shows. The description under Ralph and Elmer includes "Each script, in an everyday setting, features the down-home horse sense of Elmer helping his city friend, Ralph learn about God and looking at Biblical solutions to modern situations". https://www.puppetsinc.com/Ralph_and_Elmer_Puppet_Shows_s/72.htm (Edit: the link isn't working right for me now, but it might be because I'm on mobile, idk) I didn't find any references to that specific song or it's context though, but I bet my guess was pretty close. Not paying for the scripts to find out for sure 😄 It definitely is a weird song out of context either way. Maybe the Wesley's Wuppets channel was just after clicks for a catchy song and didn't think that deeply about it. I worked with kids in a church setting for several years, and after a lot of observation and with the benefit of hindsight, I think a lot of indoctrinated adults don't fully understand that kids haven't had their years of brainwashing. So from their immediate perspective "God is real" might seem like a good and obvious message to send, and they are blind to the implications and questions a song like this might provoke in more open and curious minds because they not only don't question it, they stopped even knowing how to question it long ago.
AlienAceCat
2024-08-02 05:57:24 +0000 UTCYour guess about the kids' songs makes sense, but the strange thing about both of them is that they're from YT channels, not TV shows or anything, and the only context is the song itself.
Logicked
2024-08-02 04:58:36 +0000 UTCFrom my experience as a former Christian who used to work in a church nursery, I'd bet likely this song comes from some Christian kids show in the vein of VeggiTales, where the protagonist is put in some situation, and then the answer is religious dogma - often in catchy song form. Probably the plot is the MC meets an atheist, and this song is in response to that person saying God is not real. It introduces the kids to the concepts of atheists, then tells them that the atheists are wrong out of the gate, and hey, let's all sing a song about how we just know God is real and not think too hard about it. So it's intention isn't to have the kids question the reality of God, but to start them young from a basis that atheists should be automatically dismissed if they meet one. Like a vaccine against rationality. As for the adult song, that seems less like a hymn that would be sung in church and more like Christian rock thing you'd listen to on the radio. It's less a worship thing and more an ego thing, kind of a "me and God standing strong against the world" type song, 'oh woe us me I'm so persecuted and misunderstood by everyone, but I know deep down I'm right' etc. It's to quiet the cognitive dissonance with emotion and let them feel self-righteous in their inexplicable beliefs so they don't have to think about it. Could be wrong, but that's my best guess.
AlienAceCat
2024-08-02 04:40:45 +0000 UTCIt's only nonsense if you take the reasons and motivations they tell you. If they were honest and just said "I like the story, it makes me part of a community and it feels good." there would be no problem. Apologists just really want to avoid the fact their religion is just another noble myth, ironically butchering the myth in their fumbling.
Tanner
2024-08-01 21:29:09 +0000 UTCI guess you have a point. I tend to try to think of meaningful motivations and reasoned strategies, but often it's just nonsense. Doesn't remotely apply only to religion, either.
Logicked
2024-08-01 21:13:56 +0000 UTCI feel like you don't understand that a talking donkey was created in order to deal with a critique in the story as it was told before the talking donkey was created. A. TALKING. DONKEY. Apologetics is a cesspool of contradictions and attempts to patch holes in the program. Triple omni strikes me as the same problem as existence - gods seem not to exist, even a child can see this. Of course, triple omni was an attempt to out-god the Roman and Greek gods.
QuebecCity Oliver
2024-08-01 21:05:48 +0000 UTCSanta is probably more of a problem than a lot are willing to acknowledge.
Logicked
2024-08-01 20:42:53 +0000 UTCWhich all seems like an acknowledgement of the religion being on the back foot. And it seems to me that it could just as easily have the opposite effect, of this seeming like a valid or common topic of discussion as if it's in dispute by someone.
Logicked
2024-08-01 20:40:06 +0000 UTCI suspect that these kinds of songs are made to basically prebuild a defense to questioning if god is real. You present the question when they are too young to really understand the depth of it, then answer it in a way that satisfies them at that age. Later in life if someone asks them if god is real they already have the emotional idea that they asked that question and it was answered satisfactorily, even if they can't remember the details.
Tanner
2024-08-01 20:29:51 +0000 UTCNot raised religious - raised as an atheist - by atheist parents - however, the whole Santa is not real is a problem for religious people - no Santa, why no gods? The very 1st episode of "Life in Pieces" deals with this with a 5-year-old! The parents lie, after a long pause. Think of this as the problem with that episode - the parents tell the 11-year-old that she should have lied about Santa. Collectively, we are supposed to lie about Santa and all gods but more and more we have dropped the first lie, so why not the second lie?
QuebecCity Oliver
2024-08-01 20:29:22 +0000 UTC
