Juliashmoolia

I thought I was browsing anonymously

You are. I can see you anyway.

Oh ok, so you were just abusing your administrator privileges.

PS. Hi Julia!

What the!!?? How do you know I'm reading this thread? I thought I was browsing anonymously

Well you're not now, are you?

LOL neat trick.

PS. Hi Julia!

What the!!?? How do you know I'm reading this thread? I thought I was browsing anonymously

Stupid atheists.

The trouble is that all children are "indoctrinated," whether the parents like it or not.

So? You seem to be suggesting that because avoiding indoctrinating would be very difficult, it isn't a good approach.

The single best predictor of a person's views, is their parents' views. And children are clever beggars: they aren't fooled by our pretenses of neutrality. They're very good at figuring out what we REALLY think, and then they go with that.

I'm not suggesting you try to fool them. Be open and honest about your beliefs, but don't force them upon your children.

My parents voted Labor all their life. It is more likely that I will vote Labor too because children often follow their parents cue, particularly when they don't know any different. The difference is that its not been drummed into me since I was in nappies that the very idea of voting for anyone other than Labor is wrong, and to actually go ahead and vote otherwise is a sinful act which God hates and will punish me for. Therefore I don't have an innate fear that voting for anyone other than Labor will be physically and spiritually harmful for me. Therefore I am free to vote without fear of eternal damnation. And indeed, I think I've only ever voted for them once which was the first time I ever voted (I hadn't done any research and didn't really know who else to vote for).

A believer raising their kids to "make up their own mind" will end up producing a believer; an atheist doing the same thing will end up producing an atheist. A hypocritical churchgoer will raise an unbeliever; and a superstitious person who attends no church will nevertheless raise a believer (in whatever). Perhaps not always, but usually.

Do you have any evidence for these ideas?

Atheist's don't believe in anything, they LACK belief. There is no such thing as a non-hypocritical churchgoer is there? Your third remark about superstitious non-church goers sounds like something just made up on the spot.

The thing is, there IS a alternative, you just need to learn and understand the difference between childhood religious education and religious indoctrination:

Religious Indoctrination is the process of continually subjecting children to complex religious rituals, ceremonies, laws and doctrines before they have the ability to critically assess and consent to what they are doing.

Religious Education is the process of educating children about the sociological phenomenon of religion, one that is found in every human culture. Its doesn't favour any one religion over another.


I'll leave you with a remark from Mr Schopenhauer:

And as the capacity for believing is strongest in childhood, special care is taken to make sure of this tender age. This has much more to do with the doctrines of belief taking root than threats and reports of miracles. If, in early childhood, certain fundamental views and doctrines are paraded with unusual solemnity, and an air of the greatest earnestness never before visible in anything else; if, at the same time, the possibility of a doubt about them be completely passed over, or touched upon only to indicate that doubt is the first step to eternal perdition, the resulting impression will be so deep that, as a rule, that is, in almost every case, doubt about them will be almost as impossible as doubt about one's own existence." (Arthur Schopenhauer, On Religion: A Dialogue)

The Bible says we are to indoctrinate our children - see Deuteronomy 6 and Proverbs 3 for instance. But far from producing psychological damage this is designed to help them! Nobody is forcing us to teach our kids nonsense; we can stick to sensible Bible principles.

Hahaha. Yeah.

So we have Budster saying children can't help but be indoctinated by their parents, Richard saying the bible commands parents to indoctrinate, and Ev giving us the exceptions that prove the rule via anecdotal evidence of people who have managed to overcome their childhood indoctrination.