RE: The questionable morality of Christianity (and Islam, for that matter)
July 20, 2015 at 4:19 pm
Quote:You seem confused on the meaning of the term "indoctrination":Oh no, I'm not confused about the meaning of the term - It's just that I see people throwing it around arbitrarily just because they don't agree with something. Any teaching can be indoctrination - Or not - You can teach your kid to be a nazi and not indoctrinate him, even if nazism is wrong.
Quote:Pretty much the only way you are going to get a child to maintain a belief in god is through indoctrination. Children naturally have questions about things, and if that natural tendency is allowed free reign, then the child is going to eventually realize that the god story does not make sense. Unless, of course, the child is abnormally stupid.Your reasoning doesn't make sense - It is as likely as the child asking questions about their parents' political ideology. What do you think of people who are raised secular and become religious? Those people obviously exist - And considering adults have "better functioning" brains than children, I don't think it makes sense to conclude that you need to indoctrinate to teach religion. All you need is to tell them what you believe, and you're already teaching them what it is. It is hard for me to support teachings of something I don't agree - But I can't keep my ideas coherent if I don't support the right of people to teach things I abhor - That's part of the burden.
Do all children make the same questions? And do all children make as many questions? Some children are naturally satisfied with easy answers - When my mom told me there's a god, I believed her, she didn't force me to believe or told me I'd go to hell if I didn't - She just told me there was a god, and I believed her - I didn't ask questions.
I wasn't questioning the meaning of the term indoctrination, but the fact people only apply it when they don't agree with something - If you happened to be religious, you wouldn't support the idea that teaching religion is indoctrination or brainwashing, so why do you think your specific position on the issue is more valid? A government (a good one) should be impartial to these issues, and that includes not accepting ideological or irrelevant ideas as true or false. The right to teach religion, or politics, or morality, is a fundamental one, and it isn't indoctrination as long as you don't force shit down kids' throats. It is that simple.
Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you