Religious indoctrination of children is nothing short of brainwashing
If I had a nickel for every time I have uttered that phrase. . .well, I say it a lot. It's frustrating how so few people understand what I mean.
Children are impressionable. If parents teach their children something when they're very young, it will stick. Look at Santa Clause: How many young children in America do you think are convinced that Santa exists?
The same goes for religion. Parents, for some strange reason, are allowed to teach their children that one religion is better than all others, and raise them with it. So many American children believe in a god simply because their parents do, and because their parents sent them to Sunday School, or Hebrew School, or whatever. When a three year old is brought to church and told that god loves him/her, he/she is going to get sucked in.
For example, I have a theist friend who said he started going to church at a young age. When I questioned him, he went on about his god's powers, and how much his god loves him. At one point he even admitted omnipotence is an illogical idea, but that doesn't matter if his god is omnipotent.
Similarly, I have a friend who told me she started going to church around the age of three, and is a rather firm Catholic. She says that indoctrination of kids is not brainwashing. . . "it's religion." Obviously, faith suspends normal social rules.
Sadly, it's going to be a looooong time before anyone in power recognizes that it is a bad thing for parents to raise their kids with a religion. The only thing children can do about this is spread the word themselves.
posted by Anonymous @ Sunday, October 09, 2005
7 Comments:
So is it okay for parents to raise their kids with a particular political affiliation?
Why does this always come up? I do NOT support raising children with the ideal that all religions are false. I DO support raising children without any religious ideals whatsoever.
…yes, that can be done without raising children with a religion.
Just like how kids should be brought up as Republicans and Democrats, right?
Wow. That's just scary. I don't want to live in a country where parents are that regulated as to what they are allowed to teach their children.
It doesn't matter, though, such a society would never survive... so it won't happen. And, while we're at it, Plato's Republic wasn't supposed to be practical.
I am, however, for teaching children about religions in public schools... even a limited and otherwise flawed short course would open up a lot of eyes and minds (this has been touched upon here; I'm just agreeing.)
I have a brother who was indoctrinated (yes indoctrinated is the same thing as 'taught' in the religious sense) from a very young age in a fundamentalist church. While I attended the same church, I did not succumb to the indoctrination. My brother is now a blathering creationist, racist, homophobic hypocrite whom I can hardly bear to be in the same room with. I wish he had not believed all that he heard when he was a child.
Plenty of fundamentalist nut jobs begin as children just being taught about their non-believing friends going to hell or the wonderful story of Abraham ready to murder his son because 'God' told him to. It must be wonderful for these fortunate children who are 'taught' these stories to wonder, as they go to sleep, if ‘God’ will tell daddy to kill them while they are asleep.
I personally think teaching kids from the bible, a book which has all the terrible things that we all know about, is tantamount to child abuse. It is particularly so if the whole hell doctrine is taught to them.
Is there anything we can do about how other people raise their kids concerning religion? No. But that doesn't mean that we can't say that it is, in our opinions, brainwashing or abuse.
Hmm. The majority of America is religious. On what evidence do you base your claims that many people revert to atheism?
I only became an atheist because:
A) I have a parent who is an atheist
B) I happened to buy a book in Australia in which Douglas Adams discussed religion
C) In 6th grade, my hebrew school teachers sucked
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