I buy that. If a child is the one who asks, by all means the truth should out. But I don’t think parents should be hung up from day one about “telling their children lies,” when in fact the “lies” are compelling stories laden with meaning. I think forcing “truth” onto children who are yet at a stage where they are learning equally well from a perfectly healthy mix of fact and fiction is neither beneficial nor particularly helpful.

Ho ho ho! (He says, mimicking that jolly old non-entity.)

… yeah I see what you mean about young minds and imagination, yet I don’t have the same outlook with regards to how a child deals with fact and fiction. I see a difference between imagination and story telling, and when a child asks a question. When a child asks ” Mum … is Santa real?” ….we are not in the realm of imagination any more. A question like that is usually a request for a truthful answer. Children have just as much ability to ask a question as they do to have an imagination, I reckon they can do it both at the same time. So when a question like that is asked, the answer is important. A parent may say .. maybe ( which is a grey area)… or no … and that would be the truth. If the parent says yes … its a lie. The thing is, when I was a child ( I have good memories from age 3) I did want answers to things, but I also had a good imagination. The two didn’t conflict. Knowledge of the truth about Santa did nothing to diminish my imagination. I think children deserve more credit with what they can and can’t discern about their world around them, and their world within.

Perhap in your own childhood toilet training was a little too strict.

Given YOUR proposition that an all-powerful being can do whatever he pleases, including the ability to erase thoughts, reverse time, and ignore causality, then it is rational to conclude that human rationality is not possible. The mention of God does not destroy rational discussion, it ends it.

In this sense, you can not possibly claim that I hold rationalism as the only valid viewpoint. I am a live and truthful human with kids who recognizes the value that others have in religion. I stand fully willing to accept a religion (and teach it to my kids as true) if anyone can convincingly demonstrate that his holy book is without flaw.

KC writes “As it happens, the responses so far have pretty much underscored my argument. Note that every one so far argues that religious belief cannot be rational.” You must include your own comments in this criticism! You complain of rationalism’s “odd blind spot” when you completely ignored my question. I’m asking you to demonstrate what you have claimed. I will ask you again: please rationally explain how Jesus’ virgin birth can be UNIQUELY proved AND disproved. If no evidence or logic can disprove it, it is not a question that can be discussed in rational terms. Rational discussion of any premise can’t start with the assumption that the premise is true. You have assumed that there is an all-powerful being who can do whatever he wants and therefore he *could possibly* do what you claim. This is not rational explanation; it is begging the question.

Let me demonstrate:
Assume all-powerful being…the question then becomes not *if* He could, but *has* the messianic figure al-Mahdi, who is an infallible male descendant of Muhammad, been born but has disappeared and we await his return to fill the world with justice. On your terms, I have now rationally explained why Shia Islam is “a valid religion.” It is less than a minor point that Sunnis reject this “valid” explanation.

KC, I respect your views and I would defend your right to worship with my life, but you have not supported your position and have cast atheists as fundamentalist. Moreover, you claim that there is no “true” skeptic movement, and perhaps you are correct, but let me end my comments with a quotation:

“There was only one Christian, and he died on the cross.” – Nietzsche

“My point is that it may be fine to have fiction, but a child needs to know its fiction.”

I think that’s cool…at the right time. But you’ve got to wait until they’re ready. Young children see the world a little differently than adults. Their brains don’t differentiate between fact and fiction. To a very young child, it simply doesn’t matter whether or not Snow White is real or just a fictional character. From a child’s p.o.v. the distinction doesn’t count. What matters is the story itself. That’s just the way a young child’s brain is wired. At that stage, learning is all about make believe, pretending, role-playing. Cardboard boxes aren’t really airplanes or transmogrifiers, but they are when the child is inside of one using her imagination. And that’s what a young brain needs at that age, not a strictly adult sensibility about “truth.”

That’s all I’m getting at.

@ Ixnu

You answered your own question.

“Why did you think Joseph wanted to quietly divorce Mary? He knew very well that virgin births wasn’t the natural order of things. It’s also why it took an extraordinary event to convince him otherwise.”

As is repeated in this blog and its comments numerous times, “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” It’s not that “rational” atheists (unless driven by other issues) are being pig-headed, it’s just that there doesn’t seem to be any “extraordinary evidences” or “events” around to suggest the theistic case might be a reasonable possibility.

Religious mythology doesn’t count. Evidence does. Testable evidence.

As to C.S. Lewis, et al, I would suggest that it is entirely possible for people to hold rational beliefs and irrational beliefs at the same time. I suspect that a majority of the human population could be lumped into that category.

Given the proposition that you have a being that created the entire universe, why is it irrational to accept the same being cannot do whatever He pleases? Is it not rational to acknowledge that he could? The question then becomes not *if* He could, but *did* He? Why did you think Joseph wanted to quietly divorce Mary? He knew very well that virgin births wasn’t the natural order of things. It’s also why it took an extraordinary event to convince him otherwise.

This is an odd blind spot in “rationalism,” the assumption is that the atheist viewpoint is the only valid one. A devout atheist is closer to a devout Fundamentalist Christian than perhaps either would be willing to admit.

As it happens, the responses so far have pretty much underscored my argument. Note that every one so far argues that religious belief cannot be rational. Yet whether one believes in religion or not, neither C.S. Lewis or, for a contemporary example, Billy Graham are irrational men. The only way to argue that position is to accept as a given that religious belief cannot be rational while never considering that it might.

That doesn’t strike me as being a rational thought process. In fact, it’s one of the reasons I think there isn’t a true skeptics movement.