The questionable morality of Christianity (and Islam, for that matter)

[Dystopia]

Sure, some of our bias is going to come off. I would hope good parents would try to minimize this, and raise children who think for themselves as much as possible. If you have good ideas to pass on, you should be able to do so in a reasoned manner, after giving them the tools they need in order to think. Jamming a load of shit up their arse knowing they haven't reached this stage is the problem. I could easily argue religion is not suitable for children anyhow.

But I suppose I'm talking about people who see the world in pretty much the opposite way to me.

Why? Do you think children, despite lacking full development, are completely incapable of understanding ideas? Surely not - Most children can understand basic stuff - You can teach them all you believe and support, and I don't see why a good parent should do otherwise - The problem in these kind of threads is that the only reason we call something indoctrination is because we don't agree with it. Does anyone consider teaching kids that murder is wrong some sort of "indoctrination"? If so, why? We basically tell them that murder is wrong and we don't allow them to accept the moral conclusion that murder is right. It makes sense for every parent to teach kids what they believe in. I'm sorry if this makes me old fashioned, but I abhor any law or idea that wants to strip parents from rights to teach their children, I'm a proponent that kindergarten and school are complementary when it comes to morality and basic ideas, not fundamental. 

It is easy for me to support the right to teach what I agree with, but I honestly think I should support the right to teach your kids what I'm completely against. If you want to raise your kid a nazi, go ahead, I'm not going to stop you, it's not illegal to be a nazi anyway - What you can't do is to force them to agree with you, specially after a certain age (usually 16) when the law provides greater autonomy.

Children are capable of learning about politics, religion, sports, morality - They're smarter than we think,as long as we don't teach them super complicated complex problems.

Honestly, I think we all end up supporting what our society generally supports or what the west (for westerns) supports, if we were born someplace else we would be supporting different moral principles. Even if we don't believe, we still agree with the majority of moral principles society has, it's not like we invent our own morality out of the blue.

[Wyrd of Gawd]

Sure, some of our bias is going to come off. I would hope good parents would try to minimize this, and raise children who think for themselves as much as possible. If you have good ideas to pass on, you should be able to do so in a reasoned manner, after giving them the tools they need in order to think. Jamming a load of shit up their arse knowing they haven't reached this stage is the problem. I could easily argue religion is not suitable for children anyhow. Trying to compare Jesus to "that will burn your hand" is about as false as an equivalence can get.

But I suppose I'm talking about people who see the world in pretty much the opposite way to me.

Education. Educating parents. It's the most humane way of dealing with stuff.

The old education magic ball.  Who does the educating?  It's still the process of brainwashing others to believe what the one doing the educating believes in.  Gotta get the herd to believe in the same things as determined by the big wigs by whatever means necessary.

[Dystopia]

Sure, some of our bias is going to come off. I would hope good parents would try to minimize this, and raise children who think for themselves as much as possible. If you have good ideas to pass on, you should be able to do so in a reasoned manner, after giving them the tools they need in order to think. Jamming a load of shit up their arse knowing they haven't reached this stage is the problem. I could easily argue religion is not suitable for children anyhow. Trying to compare Jesus to "that will burn your hand" is about as false as an equivalence can get.

But I suppose I'm talking about people who see the world in pretty much the opposite way to me.

Education. Educating parents. It's the most humane way of dealing with stuff.

The old education magic ball.  Who does the educating?  It's still the process of brainwashing others to believe what the one doing the educating believes in.  Gotta get the herd to believe in the same things as determined by the big wigs by whatever means necessary.

What do you believe is the alternative? Letting strangers from the government teach my kids whatever they wish?

[Pyrrho]

A question - When is it not brainwashing and indoctrination?

Answer - When you agree with the doctrine...

Am I lying?

We are all morally guilty - Those who don't believe are still influenced by the predominant religion, and we all believe more or less what our society teaches us, or our parents. I don't think believing what your parents taught you is much better than believing what god told you to do, even though the latter probably doesn't exist - You're still following orders.

You seem confused on the meaning of the term "indoctrination":

indoctrination

1 The process of teaching a person or group to accept a set of beliefs uncritically

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/defini...ctCode=all

The key word in the definition of "indoctrination" is "uncritically."  It is not a question of what is taught, but how it is taught, that distinguishes between indoctrination and other teaching.


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.

[Rekeisha]

So what view point do the kids start off with? Do children come out of the womb knowing what they should know about living life?

[robvalue]

I can explain, in many different ways, why murder is "wrong". No one can explain to anyone what the fuck Jesus is meant to be or why he matters to anyone. We see the failings here daily.

I'm talking about children below the age of 7, say. Maybe younger still. On the whole, they are going to accept facts without question, especially if they're not given the option of questions. So if you're "teaching" them something you can't rationally defend to anyone else, as a fact rather than a belief, that is indoctrination. If it's something they absolutely must know but can't understand yet, that is the exception. Jesus does not fit this bill. You can later explain about the hot stove. Not so with Jesus.

As early as possible, you should be encouraging them to question, even question the things you tell them. Religion is the opposite.

What the fuck do I know? This is all my opinion, of course.

[Dystopia]

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.

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.

[Dystopia]

I can explain, in many different ways, why murder is "wrong". No one can explain to anyone what the fuck Jesus is meant to be or why he matters to anyone. We see the failings here daily.

I'm talking about children below the age of 7, say. Maybe younger still. On the whole, they are going to accept facts without question, especially if they're not given the option of questions. So if you're "teaching" them something you can't rationally defend to anyone else, as a fact rather than a belief, that is indoctrination. If it's something they absolutely must know but can't understand yet, that is the exception. Jesus does not fit this bill. You can later explain about the hot stove. Not so with Jesus.

As early as possible, you should be encouraging them to question, even question the things you tell them. Religion is the opposite.

What the fuck do I know? This is all my opinion, of course.

Human beings are not known for being rational - The percentage of us who can apply rationality and critical thinking to our everyday activities is very very small - The majority of people do lots of irrational things, and even the most rational ones do irrational stuff as well, we all have biases, dogmas and engage in dangerous groupthinking. Requiring people to perform almost impossible standards of rationality for the common peasant is, IMO, asking too much. This isn't about our personal opinions, it's about what is right to put on the law. A Christian would happily say their belief in god is rational, a deist would say the same, an atheist will say not believing is rational - And even if any of those groups could be classified as irrational, there's more to life than being rational, emotions, feelings, happiness, joy - All those things, even when not rational, motivate us to act.

I'm not a parent myself - I disagree with the view that you must question absolutely anything - I've seen the result of my aunt doing that with one of her kids. Do you know what happens? He refuses to do his homework because he wants to "question" the school system, and doesn't like school, and thinks teachers are cunts - Because he was told he could question anything. I think questioning, specially directed at authorities, is something we shouldn't encourage overwhelmingly and just leave it to kids to decide when they grow - I mean, aren't we indoctrinating them to question too much anyway?

[Wyrd of Gawd]

The old education magic ball.  Who does the educating?  It's still the process of brainwashing others to believe what the one doing the educating believes in.  Gotta get the herd to believe in the same things as determined by the big wigs by whatever means necessary.

What do you believe is the alternative? Letting strangers from the government teach my kids whatever they wish?

The point is that whoever does the teaching it's all the same brainwashing process.  The herd has to believe in the things that the big wigs believe in or else chaos results.  

BTW, strangers from the government taught you what they wanted so why shouldn't the same thing happen to your kids?

[Longhorn]

So what view point do the kids start off with? Do children come out of the womb knowing what they should know about living life?

Yes, they come out perfectly aware of their own deliciousness and eagerly await to be eaten