(September 24, 2017 at 1:58 am)Jörmungandr Wrote: Meh. Parents pass on their beliefs to their children under conditions in which it is unlikely for the child to doubt. If you want to call that indoctrination, then yes, I believe parents have the right to indoctrinate their children into their religious beliefs. Somewhere along the line you have to make the case that having religious beliefs is an evil unto itself in order to make the case that transmitting their religious beliefs in this manner is immoral. Parents "indoctrinate" their children into a lot of beliefs. I don't think it makes sense to interfere with the process by which we transmit our culture to our children. What are you suggesting? Criminal penalties if "teaching" passes over into "indoctrination"? I don't personally believe that the way a family transmits its culture to its children can be characterized that simply. Children are taught the concepts of religion. That's more than half the battle toward getting them to believe. Is that indoctrination? I don't think so.
Oh Lordy
I watched this whole video and was inspired by her analysis of what many christians and some kids would take as new knowledge. I was extremely indoctrinated as a child. Believe this because God says so! And hell and shit... Well that didn't work for me. As a young adult I made decisions based on the good in god and the sinner in me (eventually found out he's a maniacal killer, not me) Doh!
By believing I was the all sinful one and the only good in me was from God I had a hard time trusting myself and my morals as an atheist. Am I gonna be this POS person without God? Nope... I still love and care about people. I find more beauty in this earth knowing I'm not just waiting around for a heavenly life. Time is more precious and mostly I'm not stunted by believing I know this to be true. Now, I can't decide on my own and change my opinion if convinced otherwise.
The biggest issue with giving children these bible based interpretations as fact is that they lose the ablity to evolve and grow. My daughter came home from church with my folks saying Jesus died for her sins and continued to share the gory details of the sacrifice he made for my shy sweetheart of a girl. I said "Baby did you Kill Jesus!"
She looked at me confused and said "No". "Then you don't feel guilty for that.. Yada yada Yada... " ( don't wanna say too much cause my parenting is already open for judgment here). Her face turned from sadness and stress to relief, happy girl. Some of us put remarkable amounts of guilt on ourselves and for no other reason than the lies we were taught as kids. Im fine with her going to church at times with my born-agin family, because she has the power to think things through and decide for herself.
I love this girl in the video and hope my kiddos follow in her example and think about/question what they are being told as fact. Isn't that how we evolve?
