Can You go to Jail For Going to Church?

Both of them are tools.

You DO NOT use your child to get back at an ex. Grow up both of you.

Indoctrinating a child in ANY religion is a form of child abuse in my opinion.

The ONLY reason that these absurd superstitions -- and all the violence and hatred and evil that they bring with them -- persist is because we indoctrinate children before they know any better. If religion wasn't presented to people until they were educated adults the entire concept of religion would be laughable and would become nothing but mythology in a single generation.

And dueling religions as a part of a bitter divorce? That's completely perverted and the only one that'll lose in that game is the child...

If you want to read a good book regarding the divorce industry, check out "Taken into custody" by Stephen Baskerville.

Unless there's a specific stipulation in child custody laws that says one parent can limit the legal activities of another, this is an Amendment 1 issue.

Shannon, do you go waiting for a post on religion to start that kind of thing? I'm SURE you'll leave teaching them about atheism out of your childrens lives.

Yet another example that Church + state = good people getting screwed over for being good people.

Squee, atheism isn't a religion that you teach. It's the absence of superstitious indoctrination in favor of a reasoned understanding of the observable universe around us. Atheism comes naturally from not filling a kid's head with nonsense mythology.

Shannon,

The absolute belief that there is no higher power, takes a whole lot more faith than believing that there could perhaps be one.

Welcome to religion my friend.

"Squee, atheism isn't a religion that you teach."

The indoctrinations of athiesm:
1. The individual sets the conditions by which God is required to prove his existence.
2. Other people's theophanies do not count as evidence.
3. All religions are alike. Any criticisms about one specific creed or religious individual should be applied to all traditions everywhere. Therefore, Jehovah's Witnesses are responsible for the Spanish Inquisition.
4. Anyone believing "superstitious nonsense" is a liar or a fool.

Theophany is not evidence.

Oh god. This case between these two individuals is ridiculous, as my personal view AS AN ATHEIST, is that I want to expose my kids to all kinds of views and people and let them make up their own minds.

But instead I get a bunch of sanctimonious spiritualists trying to evangelize in the comments. Maybe we could stay on topic and leave the atheists alone for once?

And Shannon, religion is mostly hard wired. Evidence shows that some people are born with the inability to be religious, while others can't help it. Introducing religion for the first time in adulthood would probably change nothing.

Cola - "But instead I get a bunch of sanctimonious spiritualists trying to evangelize in the comments. Maybe we could stay on topic and leave the atheists alone for once?"

Um yea, I think it was Shannon who opened the can of worms. Read much?

Shannon - Thank...um, whoever, that we have you to tell us what to think.

"Theophany is not evidence."

Um, wow. That sounded kind of defensive. I think you're proving my point for me.

Shannon and his little girl talking:

Shannon: My dear, if anyone ever says they saw God, they're either crazy or lying.
Shannon's little girl: But why, daddy?
Shannon: Because I've never seen God. It is not reasonable for a God to show himself to one person but not another. Therefore all theophanies are false.
Shannon's little girl: What's a theophany?
Shannon: Something religious people say when they're not busy with "all the violence and hatred and evil that they bring with" their superstitions.

The issue here is that the guy disobeyed a court order.

The religious theme just makes it that much more sexy.

Replace "God" with "Leprecaun" or "Ghosts" or "Cyclopean Giants" or "Zeus" or whatever mythology is not your personal superstition and see if your response sounds as clever as it does in its initial version.

stuart and g.park both have good answers to the issue in hand. While the father did violate the court order I would say that the judge overstepped his authority and it is ultimately going to end up a 1st ammendment issue.

Shannon you claim atheism isn't a religion yet you are in fact proselytizing with the best of them.

I agree with Shannon that indoctrinating children is not a good idea. It seems to me that teaching a child to behave decently, treat others with respect, etc. because it's the right thing to do is much healthier than teaching that failure to comply will bring hellfire and damnation. It also leads to blind obedience to a leader who may turn out to be evil, or just self-serving. Children should be encouraged to think for themselves and encouraged to ask questions.

"Replace "God" with "Leprecaun" or "Ghosts" or "Cyclopean Giants" or "Zeus" or whatever mythology is not your personal superstition and see if your response sounds as clever as it does in its initial version."

I cannot disprove the existence of any of those. What's more, if I found someone that believed in any of them, I should not want to be as insulting as you are even if I were as dismissive.

Though I agree one must not believe without evidence. We're just disagreeing about what constitutes valid evidence.

I am glad, however, that you think I am clever.

"I agree with Shannon that indoctrinating children is not a good idea. It seems to me that teaching a child to behave decently, treat others with respect, etc. because it's the right thing to do.."

I'm glad you really agree that indoctrinating is a good idea. It doesn't have to be "doctrine" to be "indoctrination". Children with their undeveloped brains aren't animals. Even at a young age they are learning to be human and how to live, and need to be taught the best and noblest morals that their parents can come up with.

"Children should be encouraged to think for themselves and encouraged to ask questions."

I totally agree.

This story was posted on another blog I read (and it didn't devolve into an "all religions suck" argument). The basic issue I have is that the father was a non practising catholic who converted to judasim when he met and married his former wife. They agreed that any children would be raised jewish. It's only when they divorced that he suddenly "found" his religion. The fact that he invited a camera crew to come with him is pretty telling. It's not about religion, it's an ass screwing over his ex wife and blatantly ignoring a court order because he knows that as the religious majority he is going to get the sympathy in the mainstream US press. You can resume arguing over the religion issue now.

"It's only when they divorced that he suddenly "found" his religion. The fact that he invited a camera crew to come with him is pretty telling. It's not about religion, it's an ass screwing over his ex wife and blatantly ignoring a court order because he knows that as the religious majority he is going to get the sympathy in the mainstream US press."

Suppose the fellow "rediscovered" he was an atheist rather than a Catholic, and the judge issued an order requiring him to take his daughter to church. Would you agree with that, even if the dad was a nauseating publicity hound and wanted to be on tv? I wouldn't.

The power of the state shouldn't be backing either horse in this race. They should figure it out themselves.

Most people I know who were brought up non-religiously have a very rational and open-minded attitude toward religion. The ones who were brought up religiously turn into Shannon.

They say that if atheism is a religion, then not collecting stamps is a hobby.

This is true.... unless

you go around trying to convince others not to collect stamps, then it is a hobby.

If you fervently try to convince others that there is no higher power or creator, then it becomes a religion.

If you are a Christian (and the same goes for the majority of faiths, although not all), then you should believe with all your might that everyone else is brutally wrong, so wrong that they deserve to be tortured in hell for all eternity simply for not believing the same thing. That is one of the core concepts. Any Christian that tells you he is open minded and accepting of other faiths is either a liar or an idiot.

And conversely, any atheist or person of rational thought that really critically looks at what religion is and what religion has done should vehemently renounce it and recognized its continued danger to our species and our planet. Tolerating something so wrong on every level is completely irrational and counter-productive to the sort of reasoned critical thought that breeds atheist views.

Of course I strongly recommend books such as "GOD IS NOT GREAT".

And DD, if someone collects stamps, that's their business and their problem and doesn't affect those around them. Religion on the other hand is arguably the single most destructive force in the entire human experience.

Shannon,
Belief in God or not, is absurd to think one beliefs won't be passed to our children, via indoctrination, heterodoxy, or simple curiosity. Ignorance is the single most destructive force in human experience

It seems like a better choice would have been to challenge the constitutionality of the judge's order, which would seem to conflict with the free exercise clause of the 1st amendment.

Instead, he violated the order and faces contempt charges.

Some future conversation between Shannon and his little girl, now all growed up.

Little girl all growed up: Daddy, I attended church with some friends last week.
Shannon: That's great! Getting a close-up view of the superstitious is a great way to recognize how foolish they are compared with us critical thinkers.
LGAGU: Oh no, Daddy. I really liked it. I think I'll keep going.

What would Shannon say next, I wonder? Would it be

"I'll always love you no matter where your life's course takes you. Keep on being awesome."

or

"WHAT!? After all the time I spent telling you how to use your brain!?"

or even

"You're a fool and no daughter of mine!"

?

I ask this sincerely. Does the stridence of your views allow you to love and accept those around you despite their own beliefs? I am ready to love my little boy no matter what he does with his life, as painful as it might be to see him blunder through avoidable disasters. And I think I am close to as devout in my own beliefs as you are.

As for your last post, my own faith is quite immune to the charges therein. I would only comment on one passage:

"you should believe with all your might that everyone else is brutally wrong, so wrong that they deserve to be tortured in hell for all eternity simply for not believing the same thing."

Just because the majority of Christendom goes along with the Dantean vision of heaven and hell doesn't mean all do. (and stop blaming the Jehovah's Witnesses for the Spanish Inquisition, too! :)

God loves all his children, and doesn't fry them everlastingly for not filling out their checklist of religious conformity properly.

Eternal rewards rely on the development of the soul, not on some arbitrary imposition from outside. I think of heaven and hell as remarkably similar places. The difference is in the sort of peope that live in each.

Sartre got close, but still had it wrong. Hell isn't other people, it is our own brains. Put a miserable man in a mansion and he'll stay miserable. Put a miserable man in heaven and it, by definition, becomes hell.

The reward of the righteous is that they get to be themselves forever.

The punishment of the wicked is that they have to be themselves forever.

If you see a believer whose soul is cankered with hatred, pride or fear, there's not much God can do for them, regardless of how well they go through the motions of orthodoxy.

I feel like the problem with your "side" of the discussion is that you're making the common mistake of treating atheism as just another religion. I see this a lot, and I understand that it's hard for people of faith to wrap their head around atheism because it's alien to their worldview. But there's a profound difference in not just the beliefs, but the knowledge and understanding that takes you to the conclusion.

Imagine that a person understands how an engine works. Now imagine that many years later they take a trip to a "primitive" society that has no such knowledge, and that they return espousing the idea that engines are in fact powered by magical elves (or whatever). To me, that's what converting to religion seems like. It's just completely bizarre, and while it's true that I can not prove conclusively that an engine is not powered by magical elves (since one can't prove anything absolutely), if I were to take up that belief knowing what I know, it would probably be reflective of serious cognitive and quite likely medical problems.

Anyway, if my daughter came to me and told me that she had found faith of course I would still love her. However, I would would have real worries about her thinking process and what's brought her to such a fallacy, and love would motivate me to counsel her and try and help her and try and find out why this had happened. Thankfully I say with some certainty that she knows better, but if I turn out to be wrong -- I've certainly gone through teenage phases where i've believed goofy things -- it will not change my love for her one bit, any more than I'd love her less if she got a bad grade on a school test, or her ability to play chess got worse.

Hmm... my long post seems to have been auto-moderated. If a moderator is reading this, as a point of curiosity, what triggered it?

Why is it that it's socially acceptable to brand very young children as Christians or Jews or Muslims? If I were to go around and tell people that my toddler is a socialist/a member of PETA/a firm believer in corportal punishment I'm sure people would look at me like I was crazy.

@Shannon Larratt - Sorry about that. The trigger is probably just an innocuous word that unfortunately is used in spamming.

For example "shoes" is auto-moderated because there was a spammer who used that word a lot.

"But there's a profound difference in not just the beliefs, but the knowledge and understanding that takes you to the conclusion."

I've spent too much time on Reddit to accept that. Sorry. I will only say that I strongly disagree with your assertion that there is only one legitimate kind of "knowledge and understanding" (the kind you have experienced), and instead will say that no more than a fraction of athiests I have found or read appear to actually expend sincere mental toil or effort in analyzing or verifying the positions they are willing to defend so vociferously. (There are some, but they are usually more subdued and prefer to exchange ideas rather than bandy insults.) The run-of-the-mill athiest would much rather rely on the words and ideas of those they trust. In this respect they have much in common with many religious people.

I couldn't say whether that is true of YOU, of course, but your smug alternation between insult and patronization does not leave me hopeful. Nor does your willingness to advocate the words of a polemicist like Hitchens. That guy hardly convinces anyone of anything. His books are for the already converted, which is why you like them so much, and I don't. He's the Michael Moore of philosophy. Don't think that just because reading his books makes YOU burst with pleasure and pride, they will inspire believers into accepting a different worldview.

(Fun fact: Googling the words "hitchens convinced me" in quotes returns a grand total of 8 matches. "Hitchens is an idiot" returns 338,000.)

I'm glad you love your daughter a lot. She's a cutie. And I am sorry about your chronic pain. I can't promise that I won't pray for you. :)

I think the headline is misleading. "Can You go to Jail For Going to Church?" This, to me, suggests that they were preventing Mr. Reyes from going to church, which they weren't. He was given a court order and he used disobeyed them so he could one-up his wife. That is why he emailed her photos of a baptism that she did not want to have happen and also this. It is like he was given a restraining order not to take his child to a specific location and he not only disobeyed it but invited the media to watch him do it. Both of these people lack common sense. I personally see this as Mr. Reyes being a control freak.

Shannon: You are making atheists look bad. Please stop.

cuimhne and D.D.: you both have my favorite posts so far. Kudos...now if only I can find an anti-stamp collecting cult.

So the child has one christian and one jewish parent — can a judge really pick sides here, forbidding the child to be "exposed" to the christian religion but allowing "exposure" to the jewish religion? Is that even lawful? It seems absurd. And for 30 days?

It must be because the father baptized the child without the mother's permission, and she has maybe sued him over it? And until that case is tried, he has to lie low with the church visits? I don't think we have the whole story here... (And if that is true, your post is really stupid and incendiary.)

Couple agreed to raise the child as a Jew (father even converted to Judaism before marriage) so it was a verbal agreement. Divorce brought out the Catholic in the dad so he decided, against a COURT ORDER, to take his child to church and have her BAPTIZED!!! It isn't so much the child being exposed to the father's former religion as he is still technically a Jew, he essentially converted his child to a different religion just to give his ex wife a petty FU and the Torah you road in on. Both parents are stupid and petty, but as far as I know, you can't un-baptize a person. The biggest loser here is the little girl who is no longer kosher in her mother's eyes and is a prop for revenge in her father's.

Shannon, what you wrote in your first comment is pretty much exactly what I would have said (albeit not so elegantly). Even as I clicked to read the comments I anticipated the debate that you had been inevitably pulled into (and handled quite brilliantly). I would hope to have you on my side in any such debate (and they seem to happen all too frequently).

The poor child, with all this fallacy being thrown at her in a misguided attempt to hurt the other parent. At least, if he did convert to Judaism to marry his wife and then baptised his child, he seems not to regard religion particularly seriously, and would hopefully educate the child in a balanced way if he got custody.

@Greengirl

People are going to generalize others into categories, taking the most extreme stances as status quo if you like it or not. If Shannon doesn't make Atheists "look bad", then somebody else will. If they want to form their reality of what an Atheist is due to Shannon's opinion and treat all other Atheists the same way, then that is their choice.

@Cola

Religion is not "hardwired", but if you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually take it as truth. Children or adults facing a crisis are even more susceptible to this if it comes from authority figure or mentor, and from it forms their reality of the world around them. Belief may be hardwired, but religion is a man made product that exploits this mental quirk.

A woman had her child taken from her and given to her deadbeat ex because she was in my particular religious group (The Chuch of The SubGenius). She had lengthy and expensive court proceedings, and only recently got the kid back when her ex was convicted of drunk driving or some such. Google subgenius magdalen custody or something.

Wow, all the silliness.

The underlying problem here has nothing to do with the validity of and religious belief, and everything to do with two people using their child as a pawn in their game of bitter oneupmanship.

The bitter oneupmanship between atheists and non-atheists here is just a sidebar.

@ted

Please, for the love of god, stay off topic!

@ted - that's remarkably insightful. I find that fanaticism crosses the line between religion and atheism.

@Alex

You should read the arguments between PS3 and Xbox 360 fan boy in console game forums. It's a never ending war.

Remarkably insightful? Yeah, it's like monkeys typing Shakespeare, eh?

Well, Alex, you stopped posting videos of cute kittens, and I had to come up with something.

Gauldar, sorry - um... what about those darn Scientologists? Always going through my stuff...

@ted

Be nice to the, they are just trying to help by removing theatan soaked materials past their expirery date from your sock drawer and replace your bathroom scale with a *NEW AND IMPROVED* e-meter. It's for the greater good!