Do atheists indocrinate their children into their belief system?

[spidergoat]

All parents use fear in some way to bring up their children.

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

By your decree reading fairy tales with witches and goblins should be banned.

I have no problem with them, as long as kids know they are fiction.

 

[S.A.M.]

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

Sometimes. It works both ways. Sometimes children have imaginary friends too, that parents go along with.

I have no problem with them, as long as kids know they are fiction.

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.

 

[spidergoat]

Sometimes children have imaginary friends too, that parents go along with.

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.

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.

Again, fantasy is harmless, but not knowing it's a fantasy, while the parents support that view, cannot be mentally healthy.

 

[(Q)]

1. Some religious parents will do their best to insist their kids think like them.

3. Some non-religious parents will insist their kids avoid religion.

Unless there is a significant in depth poll on the subject I do not see we can reach any conclusions about who is likely to be indoctrinating or not.

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?

 

[S.A.M.]

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.

Do you know anyone who believes that?

Again, fantasy is harmless, but not knowing it's a fantasy, while the parents support that view, cannot be mentally healthy.

That begs the question of what reality is.

 

[spidergoat]

Do you know anyone who believes that?

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

That begs the question of what reality is.

I'm sure that's a problem for you and the non-reality based community.

 

[S.A.M.]

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

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

I'm sure that's a problem for you and the non-reality based community.

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.

 

[spidergoat]

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

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

Another example of the problems that religion can cause.

 

[Cris]

Q,

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?

Unlikely. People should be free to do as they wish.

 

[S.A.M.]

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 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.

Another example of the problems that religion can cause.

Its a secular state, bite your tongue, made up mostly of Nobel Prize winners. Besides, the religious were firmly against it.

Q,

Unlikely. People should be free to do as they wish.

Not sure if I agree with that. If they are overtly abusive, there should be some intervention.

 

[GeoffP]

You know what they say: the truth often hurts.

Only those who have no association with it.

 

[(Q)]

Q,

Unlikely. People should be free to do as they wish.

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.

 

[GeoffP]

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?

 

[(Q)]

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?

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.

 

[Myles]

Only those who have no association with it.

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" ?

 

[iceaura]

I would say Quran, but I have yet to meet an athiest who has read it himself,

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 ?

I'm still collecting information on exposure to theism in athiests, that is all.

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.

No, when the children asked them about religion, mine including, they told them sick and macabre stories and everything had an extremely negative and degrading tone

So: truth hurts, kids are mean, or you were around when these stories were being told ?

You've given me an idea. I'm going to visit some athiests at home and ask their children about religion.

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.

Its unfalsifiable and hence categorised as a belief.

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.

As anyone can see from reading this thread, they do expect their children to learn their religious leanings.

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.

Do you think it's child abuse if some child in India isn't introduced to Slavic paganism or Aztec blood rituals? ”
I'm a delusional theist with 5000 years worth of indoctrination, you'll have to ask some intellectual athiest's opinion on this profound matter.

Yes, actually. But you weren't sincere - just dodging a question that is directly relevant to your apparent viewpoint. And without apparent shame:

How many Muslims are abusing their children by denying them the knowledge of Baltic paganism, Maori rituals and Japanese animism? ”
Clearly all of them, since all theistic parents are child abusers.

“ So you're asking atheist parents to know all the world mythologies and philosophies and introduce them to their children, while theists are free to indoctrinate only their one true faith in their children and don't have to know any other mythology? ”
They have to teach us delsuional theists how its done.

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.

It would be preferable to not offer faith based belief systems to children at all. What we are doing is offering our children choices in imaginary sky daddies and asking them to choose between them, antithetical to everything else we teach them. ”
Maybe they should just ban everything that has no empirical basis or contains any elements of fantasy. Books, movies, cartoons, the like.

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.

Can I tell them that atheists have a tendency to turn into genocidal mass murderers?

Due to a lack of moral values and any creed to guide them?

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.

I am afraid those militant atheists mostly see them as the ravings of a religious fundamentalist, and not as a call to the militant atheists to actually believe and do as they claim.

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.

The converse argument is used against the continued prevalence of theism, and one can hardly imagine atheism without the nearly obligatory involvement of argumentative pressure on theism; which is to say, attack on theism, which is part and parcel of atheism, it must be admitted by all parties.

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.

 

[S.A.M.]

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.

Oh and btw, you should publish your falsification experiment. <sarcasm>

 

[GeoffP]

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.

Fair enough.

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

Does it?

BTW what does it mean to say someone has an "associatin with truth" ?

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.

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) ?

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

 

[GeoffP]

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.

 

[BigBlueHead]

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.