Why making your children follow your religion truly is brainwashing

[Koldo]

Not equivalent as it was stuff I was taught through memorization of the bible. I don't know what the hell you are talking about. We had to learn about the bible, memorize lines, and learn about what it said about life, nature, reality, etc., the same way we did with Shakespeare, mathematics, logic, poetry, even grammar. Apparently you have some singular idea of what it means to have to memorize bible versus (ever read Tom Sawyer?) that doesn't conform to what I had to memorize them for or others I know of personally or through literature or through studies. One wonders where you are getting your idea of what children are asked to memorize and why. Often, they are just required to memorize and aren't necessarily taught anything. Legions of children can recite the entire quran verbatim but can't tell you much of anything about it. Bible schools often require children to memorize psalms and verses like song lyrics without any explanation. Other times children are taught what certain lines or ideas mean usually independently of either memorization or even specific lines (the lines are used as examples of a concept that is presented first independently of them).

Do you think teaching about greek mythology in the current days is done in the same manner as cathecism ?

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Children are taught the Bible and sometimes taught to memorize it or some of it.

So was I

It's part of their education in Christianity.

It was for me (specifically, Roman Catholic Christianity).

Memorizing Shakespeare is in no way equivalent.

Did you have to? How would you know?

Shakespeare is taught as literature, not as a worldview including facts.

It was for me.

You weren't taught that Romeo and Juliet actually happened

I wasn't taught that Adam and Eve were real and was taught that Mark Anthony was real and a great deal of what I learned about the royal family and it's history came from Shakespeare.

You were only memorizing it to inform you of literary culture.

Thanks for telling me why I was doing something. Now, in reality, you're just wrong. I don't know why you would argue with me about why or how my parents educated us. I didn't you realize you were around during my formative years observing the process of my education such that you know what it was better than I

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Do you think teaching about greek mythology in the current days is done in the same manner as cathecism ?

No, as I didn't know yet what catechism was. But I was taught that much of the bible was like much of the mythology stories I learned and others were like the fables of Aesop I learned. This was incorrect, as the mythologies I learned were inaccurate Western "Christianizations" of other cultures, but I was told this nonetheless.

 

[Me Myself]

I think the first question is who advocated teaching this in science class.

No one, that's the point. There is no evidence for your assumption, if there was it could be taught in science classes.

So your opinion on the subject is merely your opinion.

 

[Magic Man]

So was I

It was for me (specifically, Roman Catholic Christianity).


Did you have to? How would you know?


It was for me.


I wasn't taught that Adam and Eve were real and was taught that Mark Anthony was real and a great deal of what I learned about the royal family and it's history came from Shakespeare.


Thanks for telling me why I was doing something. Now, in reality, you're just wrong. I don't know why you would argue with me about why or how my parents educated us. I didn't you realize you were around during my formative years observing the process of my education such that you know what it was better than I

This is just plain silly. You've now proven you'll go to any desperate length to try to support your crazy views on this topic. Good work.

 

[Magic Man]

No one, that's the point. There is no evidence for your assumption, if there was it could be taught in science classes.

So your opinion on the subject is merely your opinion.

 

[Magic Man]

No, as I didn't know yet what catechism was. But I was taught that much of the bible was like much of the mythology stories I learned and others were like the fables of Aesop I learned. This was incorrect, as the mythologies I learned were inaccurate Western "Christianizations" of other cultures, but I was told this nonetheless.

Then, just as Sojourner, you're talking about a completely different kind of religious upbringing than most Christians in this country.

 

[Me Myself]

How does your hand smell?

 

[Magic Man]

How does your hand smell?

I don't know, but my forehead's starting to hurt from all this nonsense.

 

[Me Myself]

I don't know, but my forehead's starting to hurt from all this nonsense.

The err is likely beyond your forehead too.

 

[Willamena]

The err is likely beyond your forehead too.

To err is human
To surrender a point, divine

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Then, just as Sojourner, you're talking about a completely different kind of religious upbringing than most Christians in this country.

What do you base your view of how most Christians were raised on? Every upbringing involves some peculiarities. For example, I prefer to trace any past, current, or future psychological problems which did, do, or might exist for me to the fact that my father took me through Cantor's proof that some infinities are "larger" than others when I was about 6 (and the notion of infinity period was a challenging and scary one, at least for me at that age). A close childhood friend of mine was raised by a math professor who works at Brown. Surprisingly, all his kids are both Jewish like their parents and did brilliantly at math (my friend recently got married in the science museum in Boston). I grew up in Massachusetts, and Christians raised there tend to have a different experience than those raised where my mother was (Colorado) and, from what I understand, different than those raised in the so-called "bible-belt." Then there is the fact that Christian denominations aren't the same. It means different things to be raised Catholic than Mormon a priori.You seem to wish to lump Christian upbringings together in a way that is totally unrealistic. Quite apart from individual difference in the way kids are raised due to local culture, city vs. suburb vs. urban, parenting differences, etc., there is the fact that forms of Christianity differ rather vastly.

Raising children involves indoctrination. Period. That's what culture is. You wish to see indoctrination of a religious nature as somehow fundamentally different. It's that same indoctrination which allowed science to develop (and now generally impedes it more than anything). People simply are not educated the way they should be at all, mostly because education today consists of preparing for a college education that shouldn't exist and isn't needed rather than college being for higher education and high school teaching the kinds of things that are necessary for a productive citizen to know, from things like logic and stats to critical thinking and writing. Vocational schools are often looked down on as inferior to a college degree even when they are directly relevant in ways a college degree isn't. Science education is woefully inadequate mainly because it is taught poorly and the central tool of the sciences (mathematics) is taught even more poorly (what in god's name is the point of teaching matrix algebra to high schoolers in a single chapter of some pre-calc or algebra II book when in order to get anything useful one out of it one needs what is typically taught as a semester of linear algebra after calc I in college?). It's a pity that more people aren't taught the bible as a central piece of Western culture the way that Shakespeare is sometimes taught. It's a pity that more and more children are taught, not only by parents but by teachers (who, even if they are good, are constrained by curricula) to solve by rote problems or question in an established form rather than creativity and critical reasoning. Arguments are culturally viewed so negatively that I wasn't even allowed to teach from a textbook on critical argumentation (sigh).

People don't divide into critical, rational, and well-educated vs. religious. There close-minded people who couldn't think critically if you paid them and simply regurgitate the views of their advisors and who attend Harvard Grad programs in the sciences because the sciences have become too divorced from their philosophical underpinnings. Are there places where science education is hampered by religious doctrine? Absolutely. But it is everywhere hampered by our system of education- period.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

To surrender a point, divine

That's ridiculous. God still hasn't surrendered any points to me!

 

[Magic Man]

What do you base your view of how most Christians were raised on?

I base it on how most Christians were raised.

Raising children involves indoctrination. Period.

Not necessarily.

You wish to see indoctrination of a religious nature as somehow fundamentally different.

Correct. Religious indoctrination is different from most other stuff people have brought up here. There are some equivalent examples, such as political indoctrination and sports indoctrination, but those aren't as encouraged as religious indoctrination.

People don't divide into critical, rational, and well-educated vs. religious.

Correct, and no one here that I've seen has tried to argue any differently.

 

[Me Myself]

That's ridiculous. God still hasn't surrendered any points to me!

That you know of.

 

[Me Myself]

I base it on how most Christians were raised.



Not necessarily.



Correct. Religious indoctrination is different from most other stuff people have brought up here. There are some equivalent examples, such as political indoctrination and sports indoctrination, but those aren't as encouraged as religious indoctrination.



Correct, and no one here that I've seen has tried to argue any differently.

How would you teach morals allegedly withouut indoctrination?

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

I base it on how most Christians were raised.

Except for Sojourner. And me. And Christians I know. And those I know of. :sarcastic

Not necessarily.

Yes, necessarily. This isn't magic. It's science:
Henrich, J., Heine, S. J., & Norenzayan, A. (2010). The weirdest people in the world. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 33(2-3), 61-83.

Correct. Religious indoctrination is different from most other stuff people have brought up here

Yes, namely, it's religious. That's what differentiates it. But as your opinion of being raised Christian is apparently based on bumper stickers or something, all counter-examples are treated as exceptions that prove the rule somehow. This is exactly the kind of lack of critical thinking and reasoning I refer to when I speak of the deficits of education. You cite nothing, refer to nothing, use blanket statements you support only by saying they are true, and treat your definitions as facts because you defined facts themselves to begin with and somehow necessarily, therefore, what you say is fact (and it becomes proven when you say it is). You don't represent the sciences accurately but here again you don't give any reason. I am not saying this is typical for you, but it is a great example in this case.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

That you know of.

touché!

 

[sojourner]

That's either not the whole definition, or a bizarre one. I think that this is more accurate-

"literal: taking words in their usual or most basic sense without metaphor or allegory"

It still works out the same way, though.

Because that is not really the sense in which the existence of God is understood literally- as above, it simply means that this claim is interpreted at face value, rather than as a metaphor or allegory for something else.

In any case, at best you can say that many Christians disagree with you, or have, by your lights, an inaccurate conception of God or of theism generally. This does not mean that deep down, as it were, they REALLY believe exactly what you believe.

And of course, once you're forced to admit the patent fact- that many Christians hold just the sort of view you repudiate- most of the objections to religious indoctrination that you've rejected on the basis of your pet (mis)conception of religion regain their force.

We do not have a literal picture of God. People may say that we do, and that that picture looks a whole lot like what they've been taught to believe. But I think that's part of the reason why atheists say that Christians are hypocritical and dishonest. We claim a literal God, when no literal God can exist. I'm sure many Christians conflate a literal image with a metaphorical image. And that's the problem many of you have here with teaching such a literal image to children. It's fundamentally dishonest. My point in all this is that we need to be careful to separate the religion from what is taught about the religion. None of us disagree that what WBC teaches about Xy isn't really Xy. What many parents teach their children about God -- isn't really God. It's a particular image, or metaphor, of God. The religion teaches that "no one may see God's face and live." "God is unknowable in God's greatness." "No one has seen the Father." In other words, the religion, itself, says that God is too big for us to grasp. When parents teach their kids that "God is absolutely this particular thing," they're being dishonest with regard to what the religion says. And that's the issue most take in this thread.

 

[sojourner]

It occurs to me that for someone who can go off at the slightest statement in opposition to religion, you seem REALLY quick to denigrate the faith of others.

I'm not denigrating their faith. I'm denigrating their poorly-constructed theological concepts that simply do not jive with the religion they purport to follow. What I'm after is honesty -- not apologetics.