Children must be taught religions

I dont think that would be healthy. Children have only 2 jobs - learning and growing - even survival itself is dependant on parents. Children will eat anything that can taste good and the same goes for ideas. The relentless questions are for a purpose - to know, understand, develop and become a successful social animal within a decade of speech. In the formative times, its not good to give the child diametric views - we can only try and be fair and unbaised and agnostic about uncertains and be consistent about the certainities until they are conscious, reasoning little persons - say age 5-8, maybe 9-10 for the pampered ones. Then we can give them the opposing views, educate them about rational, critical thinking, and then teach them all the things I suggested in the OP, then let them be what they wanna be.

 

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You might say this was me! Jewish family with scientific/ academic parents, practiced some traditions and also read a lot of science magazines. I never believed in God, although I was agnostic until adulthood. I never believed that Santa Clause was real, but some of my peers did, and I realized that God was probably the same thing for adults.

 

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I think it's more along the lines of parents not wanting their children to be an experiment. Don't care how open minded they are.

Having said that, I think my parents did a good job with me. I was raised in a Christian household. My interest in science was also encouraged. I remember being approx 7 years old and asking my mom, "How do we know there is a God?" Her response was to get down at eye level with me and tell me that it is something I was going to have to decide for myself. She then explained her understanding of the terms agnostic & atheist.

Friends have told me that they would've been told to get down on their knees and pray that they didn't burn in hell for asking such questions.

 

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On principle, all parents are like that, theists, atheists, agnostics, humanists, whichever.

No matter how loudly a parent may claim that one should "live and let live," they don't allow their children to live and let live.

 

I agree that parents shouldnt impose on their children, but they do have an obligation to educate and tell them about things, you cant just let a child live and let live!

 

Thats the second time you have pulled that on me! Come on, without modern science, you or I might not be alive today, what with the infant mortalities in the non-advanced cultures being so high and all. We would not be having this conversation, you would not have had a large part of your knowledge, no ease or comfort in your daily life - a struggle to survive - its only by science and technology have we become any different from animals, ironic that some may oppose the very thing that got them there.
I know there are bad things on science's tab, but the benefits far outweigh the problems. Why dont you just own up to the fact that without science, we simply couldnt have got where we are? Why is a theist's opposition to science any different from a militant atheist's [which I am not] opposition to religion?

Ps. I know you well enough to know that you would debate on my supposedly militant atheism, but I have phased out the hostility to religion that I had in my early days as an atheist. I am now an agnostic atheistic apatheist.

 

Yup, knowledge is amoral - neither good nor evil. It can be used for either one. You don't curse the man who invented the hammer just because you smashed your thumb.

 

i never said i rejected god.
i said it's highly improbable that the god that is described in the bible exists.

so, god lets his only son die on a cross, and for what?
he loves humanity so much?
bullshit.
tell that to steven hawking.
a prime example of "gods love" at work.
yes steve, god loves you, this is his idea of justice.

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Children should be taught faith.

 

Um hi. Son of God here. You ask so many questions but you have so little understanding. How can you even know if you are even asking the correct questions.

 

Children are incapable of the intellectual sophistication required to understand anything about religion. That's why there is no such thing as a "Christian child", or a "Muslim child", etc...

 

Spider, that's aother Dawkins peice of rubbish. Although Yaz thigk now that I am obsessed with him, I will ventuee to say Dawkins is being stupid here. For oen thign Children do often display at least rudimentary udnerstandign of Religoous ideas, and for another, Relgiion also includes Culture, and sayign someone is a Christian Child or a Muslim Child indicates what Culture the Child belongs to. Dawkisn dictums are really just shallow nonsense that cannot be applied realistically.

 

Leo-

You are makign the asame mistake again... if you impose a opurely materialistic understanding onto a completley alein beleif that came out of an understanding that is not materialistic, then of ocurse it won't make sense. And if I apply Star Wars logic to Star trek it woudln't make sense.

You can't combine incompatable Ohilosophical ideas ansd think you have made a valid obj4ction. You can't prove the God of the Bible doens't exist by saying "Steven Haawking is in a Wheelchair and can barly move so Gpd can't be compassionate", it a nonsequiter argument.

 

There are two distinct things, knowledge and human nature. Human nature has an impact on how one uses or perceives knowledge. The hammer is based on knowledge and is morally neutral, while projecting evil onto the hammer is connected to an irrational side of human nature. Religion is geared around the needs of human nature, while science is more geared to the needs of knowledge. Religion and science often don't do as well the other way around.

The small child experiment was designed to differentiate human nature at a time when knowledge is minor and only human nature is active. The natural affinity would tell us what is natural to human nature. The control for the experiment needed the parents not to poison the experimental well with their knowledge, which might be biased by their human nature, in the light of herd cultural bias.

If you compare atheism to religion, atheism has better knowledge based on science. However, relative to human nature, atheism tends to be more primitive as reflected by being negative and angry. The human nature aspect of atheism is not exactly progressive, because science does not have the type of knowledge needed to help regulate this.

Religion is often the opposite of the atheist, with good development of human nature. But sometimes scientific knowledge is a little off. Ideally you would have system in place to develop human nature, young, while also having access to useful knowledge's the child gets older.

 

children should be taught a lot of things about religion.
i question whether an invisible, unknowable, intelligence should be one of them.

 

I'm sure they will believe all sorts of things you tell them, they are programmed to, but it takes life experience and a sound historical background to understand what religion is all about. We don't teach children about philosophy until high school or college, and the same goes for religion. The culture of various peoples could be taught, but only on the most superficial level.

 

In some ways I agree with this. I don't look to science for answers to the philosophical questions of life.

On the other hand, I don't see that religion has a monopoly on philosophical answers either.

 

AAQ-

the problem I see is this. If you are a Christian, then you accept Christianity as True. I don’t buy into the scare word “Indoctrinate’ as if its some sort of Brainwashing, just like I don’t think Atheist Parents are as Neutral as some believe. All Parents teach their Children what they believe to be True. Yaz thinks that a Baptist is a Hypocrite for believing in adult Baptism whilst “Indoctrinating” their Children for example, but didn’t Dan Barker and Anne his wife “Indoctrinate” their own Daughter into their own Atheistic beliefs? The reason a Baptist teaches their Children the Baptist Faith is because, unlike many posters here, they don’t think of their Religion as some special, separate realm of Knowledge apart from everything else. Jesus Christ is the Saviour of the world and you gain Salvation by Faith Alone in Christ by accepting his Sacrifice, and that is as True as Gravity pulling us to Earth or Napoleon Bonaparte becoming Emperor of France. To the Baptist, it’s the Truth, materially and objectively about the Real World, and is not “just there Religion”. Asking them to remain Agnostic about it is therefore foolish as to them, it’s a vitally important aspect of the real world they live in.

The same is True of Secular Humanist Parents who impart Humanist values on their Children, yet who are not blast as “Indoctrinating “them.


Asking parents to not teach what they believe about the word to their Children is just foolish though since Religion is how people navigate the world. This includes the supposedly Non-Religious, for all they do is swap one Religion for another.

In the end, you are asking the Baptist Parent to not teach their Children how they understand the world, and, ultimately asking the Baptist parent to not be a Baptist. After all, the only way the Baptist can actually approach the situation is via the means of his own beliefs. The same is True of us all.

 

I actually agree with most of this. Parents can't help but try to pass their worldview on to their kids - it's inherent in being a parent.

Only question I have is, what religion do the non-religious follow? Sounds like an oxymoron to me.