Should teaching children religion be banned?

[psychopath]

I know I know, but think about it for a second. Teaching children religion = brainwashing children into believing lies. Should parents/adults be allowed to trick children into believing lies? When children are young they believe what adults tell them, so isn't this a kind of abuse?

I don't actually have a desire for it to be banned, the thought just popped into my head and I'm curious what you all have to say about it.

[V.R.]

Religion should be the parent's job. If they want to preach it to their kids, so be it.
But if the SCHOOL wants to preach it, I'm totally against that.

[psychopath]

V.R. Wrote:Religion should be the parent's job. If they want to preach it to their kids, so be it.
But if the SCHOOL wants to preach it, I'm totally against that.

But why should a parent have any more right to teach a kid lies? Do they "own" the kid?

[V.R.]

psychopath Wrote:

V.R. Wrote:Religion should be the parent's job. If they want to preach it to their kids, so be it.
But if the SCHOOL wants to preach it, I'm totally against that.

But why should a parent have any more right to teach a kid lies? Do they "own" the kid?

We really can't stop them, can we? How could we control this law? Like, if we see a child who exhibits religious belief, we call the CPS? Even if we COULD do it, it'd be far too strict and authoritarian.
Also, there's the possibility that a child will discover some religious literature sometime.

[psychopath]

Yea, it would be extremely difficult to implement, and banning in general is a slippery slope.

V.R. Wrote:Also, there's the possibility that a child will discover some religious literature sometime.

The difference would be that it wouldn't be being force fed into their head.

[Absnt]

I know what your saying, parents always force beliefs onto their kids. It's shit. I don't think we can do anything about it though, and if the person is smart at all, they will eventually make their own decision. I grew up/am growing up in a house that goes to church every fucking week and I can't bring myself to believe a word of it. Although, when I was younger it was a bit harder to accept that my parents were wrong. Ah well.

[Thought Criminal]

I hate this shit. My aunt and uncle are super religious christfag bible thumping tea party racists from the south. Not even exaggerating that. My uncle is a pastor. Recently they adopted 2 fostor children, while having met the birth parents of one of the children I can say that they are in very good hands compared to the last ones but it just makes me sick all of the shit that gets shoved down these little kids throats. Like my aunt quizzes them on shit from the bible before they go to bed each night, they cant watch T.V. on sunday because its not worthy of the day of the lord and they have plans to homeschool them to keep them away from any secular views.
They home schooled my 2 blood cousins that way. Both of them have grown up and are married now. My cousin Isaac seems to hold their fanatical view of things but Hannah got married a few months ago and is planning to move across country to raise her kids the way she wants and keep them away from her nutjob parents. While My aunt and uncle are still family It just makes me sick when I think of what they stand for. It's disgusting.

[HeartofShadows]

Thought Criminal Wrote:I hate this shit. My aunt and uncle are super religious christfag bible thumping tea party racists from the south. Not even exaggerating that. My uncle is a pastor. Recently they adopted 2 fostor children, while having met the birth parents of one of the children I can say that they are in very good hands compared to the last ones but it just makes me sick all of the shit that gets shoved down these little kids throats. Like my aunt quizzes them on shit from the bible before they go to bed each night, they cant watch T.V. on sunday because its not worthy of the day of the lord and they have plans to homeschool them to keep them away from any secular views.
They home schooled my 2 blood cousins that way. Both of them have grown up and are married now. My cousin Isaac seems to hold their fanatical view of things but Hannah got married a few months ago and is planning to move across country to raise her kids the way she wants and keep them away from her nutjob parents. While My aunt and uncle are still family It just makes me sick when I think of what they stand for. It's disgusting.

Ugh foul.

Exactly why I hold parents in such low view.
I can't remember where I found it but I found a image of some people protesting the health care and taxes and it was a bunch of parents making their kids hold the signs and protest while they smiled like the ignorant fucktards that they are and for some reason it made me angry(they were wealthy).

Also I came from a christian grandma and all that so I know how full of shit the faith can be.

[jose]

i think religion should be the kid's choice. if a kid wants to believe in god, let him believe in god. if a kid doesn't want to believe in god, let him believe what he wants.

instead of forcing your beliefs on your kids, why not just tell them about god instead of making them do everything they don't want to do? besides, when i was little, i didn't understand what the priest was saying so church didn't teach me anything.

[Sociopath]

Ok, I may be willing to favor this, under some conditions:

All religions should be taught (or most of them, there are over 4,200 religions in the world ) from a neutral point of view. No saying "this is what happened, deal with it." Instead, say "this is what MAY have happened, also, we no proof that it happened." Remind people time and time again about the absence of proof that religion has to offer. Too many people believe things without proof. Also, teach evolution as an alternative as well.

[NowhereWoman]

psychopath Wrote:

V.R. Wrote:Religion should be the parent's job. If they want to preach it to their kids, so be it.
But if the SCHOOL wants to preach it, I'm totally against that.

But why should a parent have any more right to teach a kid lies? Do they "own" the kid?

The difficulty is that we want parents to have the power to teach their kids to be anything the kids want, to be able to homeschool/unschool them, to allow the kids to form unconventional ideas.
At the same time, we don't want parents having the power to degrade their kids, indoctrinate them, or the like....

I want more power to parents and more power to kids. So the parent can teach the kid whatever they want, but if the kid wants outta the bullshit they can get out.

It's hard cuz it's kind of contradictory to say "The government shouldn't let parents do _____" when we are also saying "The government should let parents do _____"
In any case, if I were a parent, I wouldn't want the government encroaching on my parenting. I wanna raise my kids outside of the bs that public school teaches and that society deems normal. But what if that was considered 'indoctrination,' or CPS thought it was 'unhealthy?'

We have to change society not give the gov more power.

[Squittle]

How would you judge which religions to ban, and evaluate the extremity of the parent's beliefs, and decide just how extreme parents had to be in their religious indoctrination to have consequence brought unto them?

Teaching your son that he'll burn forever in an imaginary afterlife for kissing another boy, or how to stone his future wife for speaking in church, or how to repress sexual urges until his blue balls explode like two very sticky supernovas are all awful, disgusting, and abusive. I concede that much. Indoctrinating your child into your religion, especially if it's one of the major monotheistic doctrines, is just molestation. But I don't think it's practical to ban it. There are infinite complications and subjective judgments that would have to be made by the authorities evaluating the case, such that it becomes pretty much impossible to have a fair trial regarding the situation.

Whether its right to ban parents teaching their kids mainstream religion, however, is a different issue. If there were some method of objectively and fairly judging the effects on the child's mind, monitoring the parent's teaching, and examining the various mental problems that arise from it, then yes, it would be perfectly fine to ban it because the right of the disempowered children who can't speak for themselves to be free from brainwashing takes precedence over the right of the empowered parents (or schoolteachers, fuck forbid) to brainwash. It's impractical and would pretty much be a drain on funds and manpower, but if it were possible, then by all means.

This reminds me of the question about whether freedom of religion entails allowing Christians to sell their daughters into sex slavery, or oppress their wives or something, but there's more consensus on that.

[Squittle]

V.R. Wrote:Religion should be the parent's job.

Religion should be the kid's job.

[HeartofShadows]

I try to be open minded sometimes but I just can't see any lasting good from religion.

Sure it makes some people nicer because it gives them hope in life but that can easily be replaced by something else.

Everything else religion gives us is shit and restriction.

[SoulRiser]

Depends on your definition of 'teaching'. Giving them information and letting them make up their own minds about it is fine. Trying to manipulate them into thinking and behaving a certain way "or else you'll go to hell!" is not fine.

EDIT: With that said, good luck trying to ban it in people's homes though. If you're going to do that, you'd be better off taking a wider approach and banning any forms of manipulation. Basically anything where a parent tries to make a kid believe something without letting them make up their own mind about it. But once again, that's gonna be hard to prove.

[HeartofShadows]

SoulRiser Wrote:Depends on your definition of 'teaching'. Giving them information and letting them make up their own minds about it is fine. Trying to manipulate them into thinking and behaving a certain way "or else you'll go to hell!" is not fine.

EDIT: With that said, good luck trying to ban it in people's homes though. If you're going to do that, you'd be better off taking a wider approach and banning any forms of manipulation. Basically anything where a parent tries to make a kid believe something without letting them make up their own mind about it. But once again, that's gonna be hard to prove.

at least until we reach that enlightenment stage before we die out.

[NowhereWoman]

Squittle Wrote:

V.R. Wrote:Religion should be the parent's job.

Religion should be the kid's job.

This.

[Prince Rilian]

Who would ban it and on what authority?

[Squittle]

Prince Rilian Wrote:Who would ban it and on what authority?

Authority is really a silly concept, but when it is the only pragmatic option for ridding the world of an unnecessary evil like indoctrination, you generally seek the authority of the government or, in lieu of that, whatever institution the people organize to protect civil liberties (where they need protecting). I know it's sort of a bitter idea to most of us here, myself included, but I see expanding the power of the law, in this case specifically, as the moral option over allowing abuse and indoctrination to go on. That is to say that the power that parents exercise over children is more dangerous than the power that the law exercises over abusive parents, and the rights of powerless children take precedence over the rights of manipulative parents.

TLR - the law, or whatever other entity happens to preserve order and protect the rights of the oppressed in the society in question, because the freedoms of abusive parents matter less than those of malleable children.

[HeartofShadows]

NowhereWoman Wrote:

psychopath Wrote:

V.R. Wrote:Religion should be the parent's job. If they want to preach it to their kids, so be it.
But if the SCHOOL wants to preach it, I'm totally against that.

But why should a parent have any more right to teach a kid lies? Do they "own" the kid?

The difficulty is that we want parents to have the power to teach their kids to be anything the kids want, to be able to homeschool/unschool them, to allow the kids to form unconventional ideas.
At the same time, we don't want parents having the power to degrade their kids, indoctrinate them, or the like....

I want more power to parents and more power to kids. So the parent can teach the kid whatever they want, but if the kid wants outta the bullshit they can get out.

It's hard cuz it's kind of contradictory to say "The government shouldn't let parents do _____" when we are also saying "The government should let parents do _____"
In any case, if I were a parent, I wouldn't want the government encroaching on my parenting. I wanna raise my kids outside of the bs that public school teaches and that society deems normal. But what if that was considered 'indoctrination,' or CPS thought it was 'unhealthy?'

We have to change society not give the gov more power.

This right here squittle.

[Squittle]

And is there some other institution that can protect the right of those kids to think for themselves? Changing society sounds great and all, and we certainly wouldn't need this sort of ban if indoctrination no longer existed. Problem is, we live in a society where indoctrination is rampant. If there's some means by which abusive and brainwashing parents can be stopped and the freedoms of children can be protected other than the law, I'm glad to hear it.

(Bear in mind, I don't necessarily think banning religious indoctrination would be very practical with the current bureaucracy, even if it is the right thing to do.)

[HeartofShadows]

Squittle Wrote:And is there some other institution that can protect the right of those kids to think for themselves? Changing society sounds great and all, and we certainly wouldn't need this sort of ban if indoctrination no longer existed. Problem is, we live in a society where indoctrination is rampant. If there's some means by which abusive and brainwashing parents can be stopped and the freedoms of children can be protected other than the law, I'm glad to hear it.

Whats so different than indoctrination by the government and indoctrination by religion?

Even if religion were banned kids would still be brainwashed and manipulated in another way.

Its human bias and that won't change unless we got like a massive recall of society which some silly ban on religion isn't going to help.

[Squittle]

HeartofShadows Wrote:Whats so different than indoctrination by the government and indoctrination by religion?

Even if religion were banned kids would still be brainwashed and manipulated in another way.

Its human bias and that won't change unless we got like a massive recall of society which some silly ban on religion isn't going to help.

Banning parents from indoctrinating their children implies no external indoctrination on the part of the government. Though I agree that, in practice, there would be some further oppressive expansion of state influence accompanying this decision, which is why it's not really realistic to ban this stuff.

[SoulRiser]

How 'bout... let parents do anything. But make sure it's common knowledge that if kids really want to get away from their parents, there's a legal option for them to do so relatively easily and stress-free.