RE: The questionable morality of Christianity (and Islam, for that matter)
July 20, 2015 at 5:15 pm
(July 20, 2015 at 4:19 pm)Dystopia Wrote:It's just that I see people throwing it around arbitrarily just because they don't agree with something.
Okay.
(July 20, 2015 at 4:19 pm)Dystopia Wrote:
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.
Children do ask about political ideology, except when they are indoctrinated, i.e., except when they are taught to not question things, which is to say, except when they are taught to accept such things uncritically.
Very often, though, parents become unpleasant when their children ask too many questions about dearly held beliefs. And then the children learn not to question those things.
(July 20, 2015 at 4:19 pm)Dystopia Wrote: What do you think of people who are raised secular and become religious? Those people obviously exist
I have never met anyone who fits that description. I have heard people make claims along those lines, but when questioned about their upbringing, it has always just been that they were not brought up to be as fanatical as they are at present, not that they were raised to be secular.
So, maybe such people exist as you say, but I have never met them, and it is not obvious that they exist.
I suppose, though, that someone who hears voices might imagine that god is talking to them rather than that they have a mental problem, so it seems to be a possibility that someone who was raised to be secular could become religious.
(July 20, 2015 at 4:19 pm)Dystopia Wrote: - 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.
You can teach them about religion, but that does not mean that they will believe it is true. Think of Santa Claus (if people teach that to children in your country, this should make sense). Eventually, they figure out that Santa isn't real. Of course, parents don't tend to tell their children that they will burn in hell forever if they stop believing in Santa, and they do not generally push the idea as hard as they do their religious beliefs. Or in other words, there is less indoctrination in the case of Santa than in the case of religion.
(July 20, 2015 at 4:19 pm)Dystopia Wrote:
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.
So I guess you now believe in god. Otherwise, you are not a counterexample to what I am claiming. If you do not believe in god, you are an example of what I am claiming happens when a child is not indoctrinated.
(July 20, 2015 at 4:19 pm)Dystopia Wrote: 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?
Tell me, please, do you think that threatening children with eternal torture for questioning a particular belief is indoctrination? If you don't, then what, precisely, do you think indoctrination is?
(July 20, 2015 at 4:19 pm)Dystopia Wrote: 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.
Who said anything about making it illegal to teach one's children whatever one chooses to teach them?
"A wise man ... proportions his belief to the evidence."
— David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section X, Part I.
