Do atheists indocrinate their children into their belief system?

Discussion in 'Religion Archives' started by S.A.M., Mar 23, 2008.

  1. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    Fear that imaginary things will get you if you behave badly?

    I have no problem with them, as long as kids know they are fiction.
     
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  3. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    Sometimes. It works both ways. Sometimes children have imaginary friends too, that parents go along with.
    And can comprehend what reality means. Most children with poor social skills for example lead introspective lives and can be quite involved with fantasy. Parents could ideally force them to be more realistic but that would be cruel in my opinion.
     
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  5. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    The key word is imaginary. They seldom mistake imaginary friends for real demons that will torture you for all eternity if you touch yourself in a bad place.


    Again, fantasy is harmless, but not knowing it's a fantasy, while the parents support that view, cannot be mentally healthy.
     
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  7. (Q) Encephaloid Martini Valued Senior Member

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    If such data were to be made available that strongly supported the above two points you made, would you feel compelled to respond or act upon it?
     
  8. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    Do you know anyone who believes that?

    That begs the question of what reality is.
     
  9. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    None of my friends are children, but parents really do tell their children such things.

    I'm sure that's a problem for you and the non-reality based community.
     
  10. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    Personally I've always found children to be pretty smart about such stuff. Unless they've been frightened.

    I mean like believeing we have rights over a 2000 year old ancestral piece of land because God gave it to us.

    Hard to explain to children, that sort of stuff.
     
  11. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    I have heard personal anecdotes of children who were deliberately scared to death by stories of hell. In fact, it's a common practice to perform plays about hell on Halloween:
    http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2007-10-26-hell-house_N.htm

    I
    Another example of the problems that religion can cause.
     
  12. Cris In search of Immortality Valued Senior Member

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    Q,

    Unlikely. People should be free to do as they wish.
     
  13. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    I have heard stories of children who jumped off their balconies after watching superman. Clearly, all movies with flying fictional people should be banned.

    I have also heard stories about dogs who carry off children, Clearly all dogs should be banned, etc.
    Its a secular state, bite your tongue, made up mostly of Nobel Prize winners. Besides, the religious were firmly against it.

    Not sure if I agree with that. If they are overtly abusive, there should be some intervention.
     
    Last edited: Mar 24, 2008
  14. GeoffP Caput gerat lupinum Valued Senior Member

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    Only those who have no association with it.
     
  15. (Q) Encephaloid Martini Valued Senior Member

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    And, if it was found the data supported that your points corresponded to indoctrination, that supported a form of child abuse, would you be compelled to respond or act?

    If the data supported that childhood indoctrination would negatively affect a person later on in life, would you be compelled to respond or act?

    As you can see, a link can be drawn between those two points you made and a form of child abuse. Is it in our best interests to explore this matter or simply dismiss it as freedom?

    Have we not in the past discovered a number of issues that have resulted in child abuse? Did we do anything about it?

    Of course, by responding or acting, one could simply bring public awareness to the subject for formal inquiry, for example.
     
  16. GeoffP Caput gerat lupinum Valued Senior Member

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    In fairness, let's also reverse the statement:

    If it was found the data supported that the absence of religious 'indoctrination' was a form of child abuse, would you be compelled to respond or act?

    If the data supported that atheism would negatively affect a person later on in life, would you be compelled to respond or act?
     
  17. (Q) Encephaloid Martini Valued Senior Member

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    Geoff, you're agreeing with me. We are discussing this point from the view of indoctrination, regardless of whether theism or atheism or any other 'ism' is involved.

    There are ample demonstrations of indoctrination from theism. You have provided us with an example of indoctrination from atheism.

    Clearly, from what you've told us, it has had profound, and yet negative results.

    So, essentially, what we are trying to determine is whether or not we should be addressing childhood indoctrination as a form of child abuse.
     
  18. Myles Registered Senior Member

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    You missed my point. A stupid question ( see op ) deserves an intelligent answer.

    BTW what does it mean to say someone has an "associatin with truth" ?
     
  19. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    Your particular social circle is to blame - I've met about as many atheists who have read substantial amounts of the Quran (in English) as Muslims who have.

    It's a slog, though. The only book harder to focus my eyes on that I've actually read much of is the Book Of Mormon.

    Have you met many Christians who have read the Quran ?
    Watch TV for few hours. Go to horror movies. Consider that a non-trivial proportion of Catholic priests are atheist - is that going to be taken into account, in your information gathering ?

    I think you are denying the exposure to theism common in atheists, and the frequency of atheism in the theistically raised. Fun fact: the children of monotheistic clerics - ministers, priests, rabbis, etc, - I don't know about imams, but given the penalties involved no accurate info is to be expected - are probably more likely to be atheistic in adulthood than the average child of a given culture. Reason ? Maybe it's because they are more and better educated, on average.
    So: truth hurts, kids are mean, or you were around when these stories were being told ?
    Traditionally, you go in pairs, dress very "clean", and leave little tracts if they aren't home. Or you show up as if for a party, and when you can get the children off by themselves you steer the conversation around to your concerns about their parents's souls etc. Or you grill the parents about their childraising in front of their children. Stuff like that. There's tradition here, SAM, and I know you respect tradition.
    The "it" in that sentence has no referent. It's one of those strange usages in English, like "it's raining".
    And most non-belief in most Gods is very easily falsifiable - mine in the Calvinist fundie Christian monodeity, for example, would be falsified simply by the appearance of exact, accurate information about next year's weather delivered in God's voice for me to transcribe into a notebook and verify.
    That's not visible here. The religious leanings of the atheists here are varied, and no doubt they each want their children brought up in the different ones, but atheism itself is not a religious leaning.
    Yes, actually. But you weren't sincere - just dodging a question that is directly relevant to your apparent viewpoint. And without apparent shame:
    One way is simply to insist on the simple stuff (the earth goes around the sun, living beings evolve, supernatural beings have no natural existence) and wait for people to either come around or not. Attempts to teach what no one wants to know don't fly well, in practice. Bad things happen.
    Hiding your theism behind the wonders and benefits of fantasy and storytelling and ritual now, is it ? And taking credit for the great benefits of them, for your theism so sheltered.
    If you want to justify the worst of the suspicions others have about the abuses inherent in fundie theism, go ahead: nobody will stop you, fire you from your teaching position, deny you employment or membership in influential groups, etc etc etc.for doing so. You will instead be praised by your fellow fundies, for something that makes very little sense.
    A better start, if that were really SAM's purpose, would be to acquire a more accurate and recognizable comprehension of what exactly the "militant" (i.e. "identifiable") atheists are each saying, instead of telling them all what their common "belief system" involves in language that betrays lack of such comprehension.
    Your parents are not all parents. It definitely sounds like an unusual hostility - was it by any chance directed at a particular denomination, such as the one you joined (or your mother's) ?

    When, or if, you de-convert, that will not make your parents right all along. Meanwhile, attack on theism is not part and parcel of atheism, of course - not even in the US or Middle East, which have become fundie battlegrounds. The existence of atheistic Catholic priests is only the clearest of many examples.
     
  20. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    iceaura:

    you do realise I was responding tongue-in-cheek?

    As a theist who was well and closely exposed to all kinds of religious beliefs since babyhood, I am well aware of how impossible it is to conceal them from children.

    we need a sarcasm enoticon.

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!



    Oh and btw, you should publish your falsification experiment. <sarcasm>
     
  21. GeoffP Caput gerat lupinum Valued Senior Member

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    Fair enough.

    Does it?

    Just this: that a pantomime of intolerance presented in a mirror offends only those who have no understanding of the actual state of that which the mirror is meant to illustrate.

    Or, more directly: yes, I see what you're trying to do, and I already know all about the errors of religion too, thanks.

    Or: this truth that hurts only hurts if I'm not already aware of it.

    Not my mother's, but primarily Catholicism, naturally. I think the distribution of extremity in the presentation of religion by theist parents closely resembles that among atheist parents, and for the same reason, ranging from tacit disapproval and mockery to outright explosive intolerance.

    Or, also in short:

    If it's indoctrination, it's about the same all around.

    Geoff
     
  22. GeoffP Caput gerat lupinum Valued Senior Member

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    Oh, <Unspecified Deity>, this is all very silly. Look, I'm going to answer the question of the OP categorically and once-and-for-all:

    Yes, to about the same extent as theists.

    End. Done.
     
  23. BigBlueHead Great Tealnoggin! Registered Senior Member

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    Well, that's a relief! Now all of our beliefs can become convention! It'll be like a big... thing... where people get together. Uh, convention.

    I mean, it's one thing to say that people are going to burn in hell if they don't believe your story. And then, saying that they're not going to burn in hell if they don't believe your story, that's totally the same! Except for the not part, but what's important is that they're notionally equivalent from the point of view of, you know, religious types.

    So, religious types have conventional belief control of the eternal? Well, good luck with that. When we all go to whatever afterlife you happen to believe in - or as the case may be, not that one but some other morally equivalent one - you can tell us about your stuff, whichever of you happens to be right.

    But, in the meanwhile the atheist can claim supremacy in the material realm you so despise! But that's OK because you don't want it anyway. So, remember, when an atheist calls you a retard, or perhaps a loser, just grit your teeth and remember - don't let it bother you! You're waiting for death, which is much more important.
     

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