Some things are in our genes and do not need to be learnt, other things we pick up throughout life.

Children are instinctively gullible for a reason, it is in our human nature to trust our parents for reasons of survival. 'Dont swim with the crocodiles' for example, is good survival advice, and if we didnt listen to our parents advice we would not be as strong a species as we are.

This is why it is wrong to bring kids up with religion, because they will believe whatever you tell them even if it is wrong. If Christianity happened to be correct, then all those poor islamic and jewish kids are being led to a life full of wasted time, money and beliefs.

People dont need religion to have morals, including children. Whilst not all religious people are bad, or immoral, the number of bad things done in the name of religion is massive. So teaching religion, in my view, is generally bad.

I have never heard of anyone doing anything bad in the name of athiesm.

The New Testament is less awful but it is hardly pleasant. You believe in Genesis(it was your posts i was reading when i was inspired to write my original post), so you must also think the entire old testament is justified and true, or do you pick and choose the nice bits? I know Jesus changed a few things about but you cant argue that its all nice and about love, can you?

Many religious beliefs are abusive in themselves. Burning in hell for eternity, the stoning of heathens, of gays etc etc etc

Many many beliefs within the bible and other scriptures are truly awful.

Why are you turning this into a religion versus science discussion?

This thread is about how religion abuses(Or doesnt abuse depending on your view) children. Are you trying to divert the attention away from child abuse on purpose?

My thoughts exactly, in much better words than i am capable of writing myself.

No parent should, but many many many parents do.

Its not necessarily directly comparable, but i do agree with you in principle.

I'll give my child the opportunity to make his own mind up, and when he is old enough, he can call himself a Christian, a Muslim, a Gay, or whatever he chooses.

No parent will disown their child when they denounce the Easter Bunny either.

Its an abuse which often continues throughout the childs entire life.

This is true, many kids truly believe they will end up in hell. This is one of the reasons why i believe religion abuses children.

Are you sure? Shall i give you more time to think about this?

This was going to be a post in another thread, but i thought it deserved a thread of its own..

Its funny to see people arguing over things written in Genesis. Arguing like they truly believe that the story is real.

Actually, it isn't funny at all, its a massive shame. Its a shame that their brains have been so polluted that they cannot see what is obvious to many others(that being that the story is just a story, which even many religious people acknowledge). It is a shame that no matter how much evidence and logic is put before them, that they will keep on believing.

The biggest shame of all, is that when these people have children, they will indoctrinate the same rubbish into their babies tiny brains, and they'll grow up as misguided as them. And the vicious cycle continues to continue. This is one major reason why so many people in the world believe so much in their imaginary friend they call God. This is nothing short of Child Abuse. The abused grow up and keep abusing, and they think its perfectly normal.

Installing religion into a childs gullible mind, is wrong, and abusive. Agree or Disagree?

I suffer greatly from Morning Wood. So greatly in fact that i also get it in the afternoon and evening too. When i say 'i suffer', i really mean 'my partner suffers', because i always poke her with it until it goes away.

It is so easy to use the bible for evil partly because religion gets unnecessary respect. You aren't allowed to say anything against religion in many situations without being branded a bigot. The views of religious folk are too often taken into account too strongly about too many subjects they have no justified expertise on. These views are very often unfounded and full of bias. All of the main monothiest religions are based on the evilness of god(which they will strongly disagree with even though it is plain fact), and this evilness transmits to a large number of the religions followers.

If you read the book you would find things in there that you dont know, which would help you to be able to do things even better than you already can. I can see why people are quick to dismiss this book, and not see how it could be useful or relevant to them, but it is in fact relevant to everybody in one way or another. Anyone who thinks they know everything about anything, is always going to be wrong.

She might appreciate the cash more. In three years the tech shares might be worthless.

I cant stand salesmen, or being sold to. Mainly because you know what the salesman is doing and saying is trying to manipulate you into something for their own benefit. But as you know the teachings in the book are more towards techniques of advising people for THIER own benefit. I'm not a salesman in any shape of form, i look at the books advice from a different angle, like more towards just being more friendly and honest to people in general, this might have an outcome beneficial to myself, but it is more directly beneficial to other people.

The book is definately dated in terms of many of the examples it gives, but the general ideas are timeless because they are based on underlying aspects of human nature which don't really change.

You are correct, although the book stresses the need to be sincere, and that if you are not sincere that people will see through it.

The title of the book doesn't really indicate the true ideas in the book. It is more geared towards how to be liked, rather than how to win friends. It is also more related to how to be liked by and win the trust of people in a business setting, although some of the ideas do apply to all kinds of relationships.