Profound Realization
Active Member
Making something legal/illegal are just subtle ways of indoctrination in itself.
So no, in my opinion. Children are more wiser than adults in my perception.
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Should it be Illegal to Indoctrinate Kids With Religion?
- Thread starter Nakosis
- Start date
Making something legal/illegal are just subtle ways of indoctrination in itself.
So no, in my opinion. Children are more wiser than adults in my perception.
Mister Silver
Faith's Nightmare
The problem is that children are malleable. Do you think children learn on their own to be racist, or do you think it is more likely that they learn it from their religiously bigoted parents?
Profound Realization
Active Member
Understandable, and a wise parent will allow their children to be free. A wise parent would also learn a great deal from a child. In my opinions. Everyone always wants to change and control everyone else, including their own children. It's what's beautiful about being free.... one can live their own life and believe whatever they wish to believe without conforming to others or trying to please others. This goes for anything, not just "religion." I don't have statistics but I'm willing to make a logical guess that most children break free and come to their own eventually anyhow. At least in the less extreme circumstances. Unfortunately, once the chains are broken from their upbringing, other adults just conform them to something else and new chains transpire.
Katzpur
Not your average Mormon
Define "indoctrinate."
There is a huge gap between educating and indoctrinating. Perhaps that should be kept in mind when responding to this thread. The OP question is the equivalent of asking if it should be illegal to brainwash kids. It's not the same, however, as asking whether it should be illegal to merely teach the kids their parents religion.
Mister Silver
Faith's Nightmare
To be honest, I don't see a distinction between teaching that there is only one true religion to a child and brainwashing that child.
Profound Realization
Active Member
Adults are malleable too, our ego's are just more massive than a child's than we are willing to admit. Adults think they don't conform and are not malleable but we do and are.
2-edged sword. My father was racist. Perhaps he was enslaved by his father. I never was as a child, always intuitively knew it wasn't "right."
A friend on the other hand, his father was a racist as he gladly accepted his fathers train of thought well into his adult years. Unsure if that has changed, as we no longer associate.
Is one who calls another a racist really a racist? Is a bigot-accuser really a bigot themselves? Reverse racism, bigotry? Children tend to make less judgements.
Children have all sorts of mentors...parents, sitters, other family, teachers, other children which would essentially mean other childrens' mentors.
Nevertheless, adults and children are bombarded from all angles by other minds with different things and expected to accept or not fit in. A network of slavery, in my opinion.
Essentially, it's the difference between teaching a kid to understand the idea of one true god, and training a kid to uncritically accept the idea of one true god.
A whole lot of ideologically-minded parents (including all too many religiously-minded parents) train their children to accept various ideas uncritically. I have close friends who were raised that way, and some of them are even as adults so incapable of critical thought that they have been the victims of one intellectual scam after another through-out their lives. In my opinion, their education -- or their lack of one -- was criminal.
Indoctrination can mar a kid for life -- even when they escape from or reject their original training, they often lack crucial thinking skills.
in·doc·tri·nate
inˈdäktrəˌnāt/
verb
- teach (a person or group) to accept a set of beliefs uncritically.
Mister Silver
Faith's Nightmare
You would be correct. Just look at how many adults voted for Trump against what could be considered better judgment.
However, children are to be protected from that which can harm them. I consider religion to be harmful to society, certainly more harmful than what little good it does as though it can outweigh the harm.
You were a lucky young child, yet not all can be as lucky as you, which you have already proven by mentioning your friend. We must find ways to protect those unlucky ones.
Mister Silver
Faith's Nightmare
Still, I don't think you understand how there's really no distinction. Children look up to their parents and adult figures; children emulate them; children will adopt those ideas merely to gain love and acceptance; children do not have the mental capacity to understand that they can go against what their parents want, usually that happens at puberty, rebellion and all that jazz, but not always if it has already been too deeply ingrained.
Perhaps I don't understand how there can be no real distinction because my mother exposed me to Christianity without indoctrinating me in it. Or perhaps it's because I had an education in which I was exposed to thousands of ideas -- including such things as the theory of evolution -- without being brainwashed into accepting them uncritically -- which is the essence of indoctrination.
Katzpur
Not your average Mormon
Critical thinking should always be encouraged, and children should be allowed to freely question religious doctrines they are taught. That said, I had no problem with parents raising children in a religious household. It's now they do it that matters. Personally, I think my parents excelled in this. I was always taught that I had a Heavenly Father who knew me personally and who loved me deeply. I was taught that I could approach Him in prayer any time I wanted, and that no concern of mine was too trivial for His ears. I was also taught that He loves people who looked and thought differently from me, and that I should respect them as I would want them to respect me. Was I indoctrinated? I don't know, but I was well-taught -- by word and by example.
Mister Silver
Faith's Nightmare
Perhaps I don't understand how there can be no real distinction because my mother exposed me to Christianity without indoctrinating me in it.
But you're also not a Christian today, correct?
Take the Duggar family, for instance, do you think those kids had a choice in thinking differently? That's how most fundamentalist religious families operate, due to the fact that they believe a war between heaven and hell is real.
Because, quite obviously, neither of us are endowed with supernatural mind reading powers and were talking past each other?
Not even close to being a Christian in terms of theology.
The Duggar kids were not, in my opinion, educated. They were indoctrinated. And I agree with you that's how most fundie families operate.
Mister Silver
Faith's Nightmare
So you are theologically inclined; meaning that you adhere to a theological belief system?
whirlingmerc
Well-Known Member
You mean like teaching kids militant atheism, funding Carl Sagan wannabes to bash opposing religious views to secularism? Better to take the high road and teach kids there are superior pleasures in following God now and later than in the alternatives
Psalm 125 - Believers are like mountains and God like mountains around that mountain.
Discussion guide week 5 - Psalm 125
Psalm 125 - Believers are like mountains and God like mountains around that mountain.
Discussion guide week 5 - Psalm 125
No, not at all. Theologies and me don't mix. What I meant was that I might share some things with Christians -- shared values in some cases, for instance -- but I do not share their theological beliefs at all.
...which is?