Ban

[Purple Rabbit]

Should we not protect children from these rather unsecular ideas.

It's not an "unsecular" idea though. Secularism is about the separation of church and state. As far as I am aware, that covers both religion interfering in government, and government interfering with religion. What religions decide to teach their children is up to religion, not to government.

“Religion” can claim no dominion over children or their minds. Besides the fact that as a container of all religious practices “religion” is no legal entity, there is no educational or other basis for that. Your suggestion that it somehow can claim this is just ridiculous and reminds me of the state of affairs in early twentieth century and earlier in history. Parents do not “own” their children and have no unlimited and exclusive rights to influence their young minds. The state however IS a legal entity that has partial responsibility in ensuring equal opportunities for all its citizens and protection from threats like the ones posed by ambitious religious indoctrination.

Your libertarian take on this totally passes over the rights of individuals that not or not yet can make their own decisions. Secularism entails the right to be free from religious rule and teachings and free choice on this must be guaranteed for children as well. Freedom of religion is easy to understand for adults, most of us are repulsed at the thought of someone forcing religious views on us. But what choice do we leave for children if we follow your libertarian advice?

Since children at a young age cannot overlook consequences of specific religious upbringing and how it affects their potential, their right on freedom of choice as an adult is impacted by decisions made by others when they are young . Also even when a child is capable of formulating opposing views there is the dependency on parents for social security that leaves little room for free choice. This means that extreme caution for the possible occurrence of a situation of early indoctrination is necessary. If the parents fail to recognize this, the state should interfere. Not interfering would mean favoring the religion of the parents over free choice of the adult that grows out of the child. In the case where religious upbringing clearly inhibits the potential of the child, as is the case with muslim schools, the state cannot be passive. Not to mention the physical abuse that is common all over the world in muslim schools.

On a personal level, I'm far more inclined to let parents raise their children the way they want, as long as they don't break the child's civil rights. In a secular society, Christians would bring up their children as Christians, Muslims would bring up their children as Muslims, and atheists would probably leave the whole "religion" thing out of it. Far too many people these days try to pollute secularism by thinking it is somehow anti-religious or "atheistic". It's not.

When are civil rights more broken? Are they broken when we put a limit on how parents and religious institutes can indoctrinate young minds or are they broken when we allow that young minds can be fucked up by any religion or sect that can lay its hands on them? Your problem is that you adhere to a rather romanticized version of libertarianism and shut your eyes for the consequences for young people that are the adult citizens of tomorrow shaping the secular society. In the end you may find no secular society left to fulfill your ideas in, since libertarianism can only be sustained by free minds.