(March 12, 2016 at 3:01 am)robvalue Wrote:(March 11, 2016 at 5:07 pm)Emjay Wrote: I just hate this. (as if I didn't already know the answer) what do religious people fear in letting their children reach an age of critical thought before teaching them about their religion? And not seven like I think the Catholic Church suggests, but an age of real critical thought... adulthood. I wonder what the world would be like if religious education was not allowed until say 18... a very different and much better place. Any earlier than that and it's not a real choice to believe but just the natural trusting and impressionable nature of children. And it makes my blood boil to hear stories, like Judi's, of young kids being told they're going to hell... seeming to forget that children naturally have very vivid imaginations, much more vivid perhaps than any adult.
18? That would be it. Done and dusted. No one is going to be able to convert an 18 year old who hasn't had any one lean on them about religious dogma. Well, it would be very rare anyway.
They would still have the advantage that society is saturated with mythology though. That's the good thing about England, we've reached the tipping point where this is no longer the case. Jesus isn't everywhere. He's hardly anywhere, in fact. So unless you get indoctrinated, it is generally viewed as a dumb story.
I totally agree. Telling a young child about hell is one of the most vile, disgusting things I could imagine. Talk about a parenting short cut.
Hiya Rob. Sorry I've taken a while to reply but I'm playing a mafia game at the moment and you know what that's like
Yep, what we need is an Age of Consent for religious teaching... an age under which people are deemed incapable of giving informed consent to the ideas that are being implanted... not taught... but implanted in them. It's almost like hypnotic suggestion, perhaps it even is that, because what choice do they have when they're bombarded with only those messages and nothing else by those closest to them?
Going a bit further into this utopia, you could put age ratings on religious programming... so an 18 certificate on watching Joyce Meyer or whatever, just as you would with any other potentially harmful content that children are not psychologically equipped to deal with. That would perhaps deal a bit with some of the external influence in society. I know it sounds silly but it is psychologically damaging especially if there's no choice or consent involved in receiving those messages. But then it might just become the forbidden fruit, just as smoking or alcohol is to kids... but hopefully it would be at least one drug they could say 'fuck that' to after trying it once.
I wonder how many adults really think about hell... I mean immerse themselves in the idea of it... not many I'd think. But with their imaginations children will just do that naturally whether they like it or not. I did when I was a child, well teen, and went through months of nightmares because I thought I had committed the unforgivable sin. I'm glad I can now say fuck the holy spirit (thanks to you guys on this site) and sleep like a baby.
