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Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”
Except they often do when it comes to magic stuff. It's a great quote if you apply it to practical knowledge and good life habits though, their brains won't outgrown that.
In China, the law forbids "forcing children under 18 years old to practice religion". In reality, it strictly applies to Islam only, and children are not allowed in mosques in many parts of China. I know it is impossible to pass such laws in a religious country like America. However, it would be nice if parents can wait until their children get older.
The issue isn't whether children are taught religion or not, but rather whether or not children are taught to affirm the worth and dignity of others. The Chinese are essentially declaring that the teaching of religion must necessarily preclude acknowledging that one's religion applies only to one's own body, one's own family and one's own worship - that people who teach religion are incapable of teaching their children reasonable boundaries for the insinuation of their religion in society as a whole. I think the Chinese are going too far, but to be honest if you look at American society, especially since the late 1970s, their cynicism is justified. Various Christian movements in the United States has repeated demonstrated an inability in this regard. To be fair, though, I believe that religious reactionaryism is on the decline in the US, but we still see the impact of the infection in today's middle-aged and older adults, asserting that society should be structured to force other people (never themselves, notice) to comply with Christian beliefs and values that they don't subscribe to, instead of respecting their right to live their lives in accordance with their own beliefs and values.
In China, the law forbids "forcing children under 18 years old to practice religion".
In reality, it strictly applies to Islam only, and children are not allowed in mosques in many parts of China.
I know it is impossible to pass such laws in a religious country like America.
However, it would be nice if parents can wait until their children get older.
Noted.
Exactly why would building a foundation of faith in your child be "nice"?
My BIL's parents let their children chose when they were old enough. Problem is they never chose. Parents have the right to teach their children the religion they belong to. Do you want a household where the parents go to church but not the kids? How naive is that?
I know there is a movement to take kids away from the parents and away from their influence like the Communist countries, but we are free here to raise our children the way we want to raise them, thank God. We are still free.
I think we should teach Children ABOUT ReligionS. Knowledge is a good thing IMO and the more we widen Kids' horizons the better. My Father ( a staunch Atheist) ensured I was taught about all the major Religions and a lot of minor ones as well as different Philosophies.
I was from an early age taken to Churches, Synagogues, Mosques, Shinto Temples, Buddhist Temples etc... given a lot of books on religion and met a lot of people from all kinds of Faiths. It made me realise the breath and variety of people's beliefs, I suppose made also made me more tolerant of them as there was no "universal truth".
I thank my Father for having the courage to teach me about what he believed was complete fantasy and letting me make my own mind up. I am an Atheist but I feel I gained a lot of understanding and knowledge because of his openess.
Religion should not be taught. To me it has to be experienced and felt at a profoundly personal introspective level. Anything else is pure indoctrination.
A Child's mind should not be made for them which is why only showing one side of Religion ( or none I suppose) is not good enough. We need to respect Children and realise they have the right to make their own minds up without our own prejudices and pressures.
Teach Religions but as Philosophies and make it was wide a net as possible.
As an Atheist the bonus for me for this kind of education is that you are far more likely to realise that indeed Religions are not exactly the most logical and common sensical of institutions....
But in the process you still risk enticing a child into a Faith though that should be their decision and theirs alone. A risk which has to be taken. Children are not there to be clever little monkeys we are teaching "tricks" to, not little mimicking apes to become carbon copy images of ourselves. They deserve better and more from us. The right to understand and know as much as possible. Their brains are quite capable of grasping even complex issues and concepts presented in a age appropriate manner.
Denying a child knowledge whichever side of the religious argument you stand is to me criminal and short sighted.
Not ONE Religion and not ONE view but many. Including the concept of Atheism and Agnosticism.
Last edited by Mooseketeer; 04-22-2013 at 05:23 AM..
I know there is a movement to take kids away from the parents and away from their influence like the Communist countries...
What a complete crock of paranoid BS and nonsense. Your tin foil hat is on a litle too tight these days.
Quote:
Originally Posted by momonkey
To be weak minded is to believe that all that exists emerged from nothing and for no particular reason.
Yes. Although nobody actually says the above, it is far more logical to believe that an invisible supernatual being named Yahweh--one of the patron deities of some sects of ancient Hebrews--created the universe in under a week a few thousand years ago so he could see untold billions of souls fall into sin so he'd have to send his son (who was also Yahweh) to Earth to be horribly tortured and sacrificed. Because we are all so special.
Despite what people say, religion does teach good moral lessons.
Often, it also teaches immoral lessons; that's the problem. We work very very hard in our church school to filter out all the legacy idiocy that would have us teaching our children immoral lessons, but from what I've read and heard about from others in my community, most parents, and I fear most church schools, don't apply reasonable filters like that to their teaching of religion to their children. The vast majority of those cases are cases where the parents and churches themselves embrace beliefs and values that are distinctly antisocial, i.e., insinuating their own beliefs and values into society overall, and therefore seeking to oppress those who hold to different beliefs and values under a veritable theocracy, forcing them to live their lives in accordance with other people's beliefs. These folks I'm referring to work very hard to rationalize their offensive perspectives and avoid taking responsibility for their offensive objectives, hiding behind self-defining claims of primacy.
So yes, religion does teach good moral lessons, but they effectively do so to help hide the immorality that many (but not all) religions are promulgating.
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