Christian apologetics, for all its flaws, did give me an appreciation for believing things based on evidence and reason, not based on brain washing. As a Christian after immersing myself in apologetics I found myself disturbed in church watching my kids sing "Jesus Loves Me." Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so. I saw them sing that and made clear to my wife I didn't like it and wanted to avoid that song. Christianity is true and we know it for good reasons. But a child doesn't know it. And nobody should be believing it because the Bible says it. That's not a good reason. There are other good reasons (or so I thought at the time).
Since then I put my boy in Boy Scouts. I know. I'm a bad liberal sometimes. My kids home school though and I want them plugged in to something. My wife is still a Christian after all. So we are in scouts. But frankly I find the Pledge of Allegiance disturbing when stated by children in the same way I don't like the "Jesus Loves Me" song. The Whitest Kids U Know has a skit that communicates the same thing.
Dr. Samuel Johnson said it best "Patriotism is the last refuge of a Scoundrel"
ReplyDeleteIn a wider context I interpret that he meant that if an argument can only be justified by 'Dogma' then it's nonsense and the proponent has only their own interests at heart.... not yours!
As a non-religious individual, as opposed to an anti-religious, I hold no dogmatic conception of Absolutes, be they deities or science.