Go back
Religious ban for children

Religious ban for children

Debates

Clock
1 edit
Vote Up
Vote Down

I think that parents (well everyone actually) should be banned from indoctrinating children with religious beliefs.
Bringing children up with certain beliefs is brainwashing, they should be allowed to make their own informed choices as an adult, without the skewed nonsense parents (and others) usually bring into the equation.

I'd ban

1. All religious schools, no exceptions.

2. Parents taking children to Church, Mosque, Synagogue, etc: any religious hub you could say; until the age of 16.
Two exceptions I would allow would be funerals and weddings (I can't think of anything else)
Beyond this, well, I would hope that they would have formed strong opinions on their own (I'll explain how they can do this later).

3. Religious camps of any sort - you know those camps where the parents send the kids to get brainwashed, I think it has mentioned here before.

4. Home-schooling, this is currently used by many Christian fundamentalist in the USA to brainwash their kids to believe the things they want them to believe. By using skewed, biased, even unbelievably inaccurate science text books (think evolution).
No exceptions - schools are essential in my plan, as is explained later.

5. All religious clothing, again for those under 16, I think this is again because of the religion indoctrinating what should and should not be worn on children.
This will also include children under 16-year-olds wearing crosses (as in the Christian cross) and other religious symbols.
Anyone 16 or over can wear whatever they want.



Clearly this will take a lot of effort to enforce, it would take time, schools would have to be replaced because many are religious; many people will not except this and will try to enforce beliefs on their children regardless - laws and punishments need to be developed; and so on, I'll try to explain these now.

1. Religious schools, if these schools cannot be converted into secular, irreligious schools, they need to be shut down.
If this were to be done straight away, a massive amount of children would be displaced from the education system.
Therefore I think this system should be phased in, with religious schools only shutting down when a new (secular) one is built to replace it (of course if this were to happen appropriate funding would be allocated).

2. The religious schools, throughout the education system, from primary to secondary, should have have their religious education curriculum expanded, including philosophy and expanding the religions taught to include 'The Flying Spaghetti Monster', 'The Cosmic Teapot' and 'Muffy' (clearly the primary school students would have a far more basic level taught).

This will help them make a much more informed choice, religiously, when they reach 16.

3. I don't think religious camps needs much explaining, these things don't need replacing; we can just shut them down.

4. I am undecided on how parents should be punished for not following this though, perhaps a fine, perhaps jail time, perhaps we can discuss it in this thread.


So what do people think of my idea? 🙂



(I figured it would be best to put this in the debates forum, not spirituality, because it is an argument about banning religion, but not really talking about religion itself)

Clock
Vote Up
Vote Down

I believe you have a good idea.

Clock
Vote Up
Vote Down

Originally posted by Bad wolf

So what do people think of my idea? 🙂
Wouldn't your version of the truth (ie:- one free of religious dogma) also constitute some form of brainwashing? If it is true that God could neither be proved or disproved, then by converse, the existence or non existence of God could not be disproved either, then how confident could you be in your God free instruction universe that you were not also conducting the same form of 'brainwashing?

Clock
Vote Up
Vote Down

Originally posted by Bad wolf
I think that parents (well everyone actually) should be banned from indoctrinating children with religious beliefs.
Bringing children up with certain beliefs is brainwashing, they should be allowed to make their own informed choices as an adult, without the skewed nonsense parents (and others) usually bring into the equation.

[b]I'd ban

1. All re ...[text shortened]... is an argument about banning religion, but not really talking about religion itself)[/b]
What's the point of allowing them to go to funerals or weddings then? There would be no real, religious meaning behind the experience for the kid therefore no point for them to actually do it.

Where do you draw the line? Religion is so entangled with culture that by trying to eradicate religion from the lives of young children you would also be killing an essential part of that child's heritage. For example, what would happen to Christmas? Are you going to eliminate Christmas from the lives of the children who attach little meaning to it beyond getting presents for themselves? Are you going to make them pay for the fact that Christmas is in fact, a religious holiday?

And the billions of tax dollars that would be needed to achieve such a change? Many religious schools are at least partly funded by private institutions, creating even greater costs for the public system that would have to pick up the slack.

Clock
Vote Up
Vote Down

I dont think you guys are understanding him... maybe if we could get together and talk about it... maybe a book we could use to help us learn the ideas.

Clock
1 edit
Vote Up
Vote Down

Originally posted by prosoccer
What's the point of allowing them to go to funerals or weddings then? There would be no real, religious meaning behind the experience for the kid therefore no point for them to actually do it.

Where do you draw the line? Religion is so entangled with culture that by trying to eradicate religion from the lives of young children you would also be killing tions, creating even greater costs for the public system that would have to pick up the slack.
What's the point of allowing them to go to funerals or weddings then? There would be no real, religious meaning behind the experience for the kid therefore no point for them to actually do it.
- No religious meaning, yes, but why is it important?
Weddings are just an official recognition of the love between two people, I would hope that children would recognise this.
Whilst funerals are a sign of respect.
I think it is important to recognise these two things.


Where do you draw the line? Religion is so entangled with culture that by trying to eradicate religion from the lives of young children you would also be killing an essential part of that child's heritage. For example, what would happen to Christmas? Are you going to eliminate Christmas from the lives of the children who attach little meaning to it beyond getting presents for themselves? Are you going to make them pay for the fact that Christmas is in fact, a religious holiday?
- Why should I? For many people Christmas has little meaning,yes, it is just an exchange of presents, so what? Keep it as such I say.
Why muddy the waters with Jesus? Just don't mention it.

Or better yet, explain to the children the reasons why some people attach religious meaning to Christmas at schools. But leave it there.


And the billions of tax dollars that would be needed to achieve such a change? Many religious schools are at least partly funded by private institutions, creating even greater costs for the public system that would have to pick up the slack.
- The money can be siphoned off from other things.
The ratio of money spent on education compared to the USA military budget is pretty shocking.

Clock
2 edits
Vote Up
Vote Down

Originally posted by Bad wolf
I think that parents (well everyone actually) should be banned from indoctrinating children with religious beliefs.
Bringing children up with certain beliefs is brainwashing, they should be allowed to make their own informed choices as an adult, without the skewed nonsense parents (and others) usually bring into the equation.

[b]I'd ban

1. All re is an argument about banning religion, but not really talking about religion itself)[/b]
As an atheist, I say you are pathetic.

Shouldn't the goal be to examine all issues and to be open to all ideas, then to judge each on the weight it can muster in the world of logic and reason and enlightenment?

A liberal is one who fears no idea. A pseudo-lib is one who's first instinct is to attack, smear and ban anything that they don't agree with.

Which do you want to be? I am a liberal in the true sense of the word. I will fight for the right of every religious person on earth to feel free to engage in their religion.

This is why I feel no compunction at all in condemning Islam in the light of todays world. Having studied... I know that they are using their religion to promote a POLITICAL agenda... not a religion. As an atheist, and a liberal, I am not bound to defend the indefensible. How many pseudo-libs on this site alone... defend the nut-case muslims and actually cheer for them in their war against civilization!

That kind of thinking originates with efforts to "ban" ideas. Think about that before you get too serious in your book burning -- or "religion banning".. which is tantamount, in my opinion.

Clock
Vote Up
Vote Down

Originally posted by Bad wolf
[b]What's the point of allowing them to go to funerals or weddings then? There would be no real, religious meaning behind the experience for the kid therefore no point for them to actually do it.
- No religious meaning, yes, but why is it important?
Weddings are just an official recognition of the love between two people, I would hope that children wo ...[text shortened]... The ratio of money spent on education compared to the USA military budget is pretty shocking.[/b]
Weddings aren't just "an official recognition of the love between two people," they are religious ceremonies that have been around for ages. Maybe the modern version of weddings is deviod of much religion (for some people) but the truth is that a wedding has its origins in religion, so how can you keep around something that is so obviously a byproduct of religious tradition? Regardless of whether you want it or not, religion is going to permeate culture simply because it has played such a big part in the past history of the world.

What do you mean "why should I [draw the line]?" You are going to destroy a person's heritage for the sake of control of religion? You say "that some people attach religious meaning to Christmas" as if they are attaching something to what somebody else has started and they are just adding their own take on it to the holiday. It is clear that WE are the ones that stole the holiday and made it our own (that's not to say that Christmas itself wasn't stolen by Christians, but it was stolen from another religion).

So if you have all this wasted money you should use it to strengthen the school system instead of demolishing it and starting anew.

When you take away the rights of parents to teach their children religion you also take away their rights to teach the children values because religious values are often linked with family values. What's next? Not letting a parent teach a child to read because the child might ready liberal or conservative minded newspapers and base their opinions off those ideals?

Clock
1 edit
Vote Up
Vote Down

Originally posted by kmax87
Wouldn't your version of the truth (ie:- one free of religious dogma) also constitute some form of brainwashing? If it is true that God could neither be proved or disproved, then by converse, the existence or non existence of God could not be disproved either, then how confident could you be in your God free instruction universe that you were not also conducting the same form of 'brainwashing?
Ideally the institution would make no claim to whether god existed or not, it would teach about all the religions and philosophies. I do see how this can be twisted a certain way though, so we'd have to think of some ways to prevent this before we went forward with the idea.

Clock
1 edit
Vote Up
Vote Down

Originally posted by StarValleyWy
As an atheist, I say you are pathetic.

Shouldn't the goal be to examine all issues and to be open to all ideas, then to judge each on the weight it can muster in the world of logic and reason and enlightenment?

A liberal is one who fears no idea. A pseudo-lib is one who's first instinct is to attack, smear and ban anything that they don't agree wi rious in your book burning -- or "religion banning".. which is tantamount, in my opinion.
As an atheist, I say you are pathetic.
- You're welcome to your opinion. 🙂


Shouldn't the goal be to examine all issues and to be open to all ideas, then to judge each on the weight it can muster in the world of logic and reason and enlightenment?
- what else am i doing here other than considering an idea?

Which do you want to be? I am a liberal in the true sense of the word. I will fight for the right of every religious person on earth to feel free to engage in their religion.
- The debate here is not that people (as in adults) shouldn't be allowed to follow their religion (I'm thinking of them independently here), but whether or not they should be allowed to indoctrinate their religion onto their children; I am trying to make the point that they shouldn't.


This is why I feel no compunction at all in condemning Islam in the light of todays world. Having studied... I know that they are using their religion to promote a POLITICAL agenda... not a religion. As an atheist, and a liberal, I am not bound to defend the indefensible. How many pseudo-libs on this site alone... defend the nut-case muslims and actually cheer for them in their war against civilization!

That kind of thinking originates with efforts to "ban" ideas. Think about that before you get too serious in your book burning -- or "religion banning".. which is tantamount, in my opinion.

- I admit both my idea and Islam seem to be very 'ban this and that' in attitude, but equating the two seem pretty silly, I am no way saying that adults cannot do certain things, except when it comes to pressing their religion onto their children - who will accept what they are told and so need protecting.

Clock
Vote Up
Vote Down

Originally posted by Bad wolf
So what do people think of my idea? 🙂
Not much. I don't see anything wrong with parents talking about their own beliefs with their children, taking them to church etc., as long as the children also learn about other world views and are free to make their own choices. It would be dishonest of the parents to deny their beliefs and exclude their children from an important part of their life. I don't think participating in activities based on religion (e.g. going to church or praying at the beginning of a meal) will hinder the children to form their own opinions once they are old enough. In fact, it will give them the opportunity to experience life in a religious community rather than just having theoretical knowledge, so they'll have more to base their decisions on.

I didn't grow up in a religious family, but we usually went to church on Christmas, and some of our musical activities were connected to a church (e.g. a children's choir). That was part of our social and cultural life, and I can't see any reason whatsoever why we should have been forbidden to take part in these activities. As a teenager I decided myself to try out Christianity and went through a Christian phase, getting quite attached to a very conservative congregation. My parents were not too happy about it, but let me make my own decisions. I find it a bit embarrassing to look back at that time, but I believe it was an important experience for me, and I certainly wouldn't have wanted my parents, the government or anyone else to forbid me to go to church because it was against their beliefs or I wasn't old enough. Of course I would expect religious parents to respect their children's decisions in the same way, i.e. not forcing them to take part in their religious activities if they don't want to and allowing them to try out other religions if they want.

I like your idea to teach about Muffy in school, though. Faith Whalism should also be included in the curriculum.

Clock
1 edit
Vote Up
Vote Down

Originally posted by Bad wolf
[b]As an atheist, I say you are pathetic.
- You're welcome to your opinion. 🙂


Shouldn't the goal be to examine all issues and to be open to all ideas, then to judge each on the weight it can muster in the world of logic and reason and enlightenment?
- what else am i doing here other than considering an idea?

Which do you want to be? gion onto their children - who will accept what they are told and so need protecting.
[/b]
You are saying that you want the children brainwashed in YOUR fashion. You are saying it is the job of adults to so brainwash them.

I was brainwashed as a child into mormonism. It isn't a fatal thing. When I was old enough to think on my own, I did. And had I had a nazi parent like you... who didn't allow all of life to come at me, I would probably be a mindless pseudo-lib like you.

Until you have thought your way out of trouble, you are just a Democrat with all the entitlements in the universe.

Clock
Vote Up
Vote Down

Originally posted by Bad wolf
I think that parents (well everyone actually) should be banned from indoctrinating children with religious beliefs.
Bringing children up with certain beliefs is brainwashing, they should be allowed to make their own informed choices as an adult, without the skewed nonsense parents (and others) usually bring into the equation.

[b]I'd ban

1. All re ...[text shortened]... is an argument about banning religion, but not really talking about religion itself)[/b]
I think, as a parent, I'll opt to ban my children from you, thanks.

Clock
Vote Up
Vote Down

Originally posted by Bad wolf
I think that parents (well everyone actually) should be banned from indoctrinating children with religious beliefs.
Bringing children up with certain beliefs is brainwashing, they should be allowed to make their own informed choices as an adult, without the skewed nonsense parents (and others) usually bring into the equation.

[b]I'd ban

1. All re ...[text shortened]... is an argument about banning religion, but not really talking about religion itself)[/b]
Ummm... What the h@ll are you talking about? I'm no fan of any religion, but you can't ban something that's private. Religious schools, home schooling, religious clothing, etc, none of that crap is paid for with my tax dollars.

So while this mass banning may be on your "wish list" it's nothing but a fantasy. And thankfully an impossible one to fulfill. At least in the US.

Here's an introspective question you should be asking yourself - why do you want to control other people's private lives?

Clock
1 edit
Vote Up
Vote Down

Originally posted by Bad wolf
I think that parents (well everyone actually) should be banned from indoctrinating children with religious beliefs.
Bringing children up with certain beliefs is brainwashing, they should be allowed to make their own informed choices as an adult, without the skewed nonsense parents (and others) usually bring into the equation.

[b]I'd ban

1. All re is an argument about banning religion, but not really talking about religion itself)[/b]
Honey, instead of worrying about what's wrong with the United States, please clean up your own backyard. You use the United States as an example in every one of your posts where you want to ban something, where England has the exact same "problems." Plus, you know nothing about life in the United States, so how on Earth can you possibly make huge assumptions about us?

And it seems to me like you've been raised with no religious background, and I doubt you've done any of the things you've banned, which is just intolerance for something different. How on earth do you know these things are brainwashing if they didn't brainwash you?

Religious schools are there for parents to have the choice of letting their child receive extra spiritual education. If they would like their child to learn more about Christianity than what's taught in public schools, that should be perfectly reasonable, especially if they are a member of this faith. What's wrong with learning what you are or what your parents believe in?

My parents raised me religiously from a very early age. I went to Church almost every Sunday and Wednesday, and I can tell you that Wednesday night choir practice is not brainwashing - if anything it's developing skills you can use later in life (I owe my voice to a religious singing competition). Plus, Sunday services do not beat Jesus into a little kids brain. If anything, it explained my faith to me more so I knew what I could be a part of when I was older, and what it meant to be a Christian.

I also went to Christian Camp pretty much every summer since I was 7. This is not brainwashing either. Basically at all the camps you either played sports all day or did charity work all day. You'd usually have a few hours to go to a "spiritual warfare" class, during which you'd learn about what the Bible teaches about angels, Hell, Heaven, etc. Nothing brainwashing, just informative. Then at night you'd have a worship service, where you'd basically sing and listen to a counselor's testimony of how they came to walk with God. And the way my counselor explained what his faith meant really hit home with me, which is how I became a Christian.

Home-schooling is often used when public schools fail to meet a parent's educational standards. If your child is in a class with 35 other people, they're probably not going to get the individual attention they need. So will you ban those parents from keeping their kids home? Plus, if parents don't want their kids to be taught something that goes against their morals, that's their choice. You cannot believe that children who are home-schooled will never hear about evolution in their life. Their parents probably explain it to them, but then explain why they believe it's wrong. When the kid is older the parents will probably let them learn about it if they're curious, or they will find out from T.V., the internet, friend, college, etc.

When it comes to religious clothing, it's just saying what part of a faith you are. I sometimes wear a cross to say that I'm a Christian. It doesn't brainwash or brand me though.

And you think that it's not brainwashing if you say that if you do this when you're a kid, your parents will be taken away? Or are you just trying to scare kids away from religion so they won't participate in it when they're older? If you're really concerned about the child's wellbeing, think how much trauma seeing your parents put in jail could cause. Plus, more children being introduced into the foster system would mean they could get lost in the system more easily, and would be more likely to be subject to abuse.

If you really want to stop children from developing unhealthy habits, you should make children take tolerance classes, so they're not soley taught hate in some extreme cases. But again, it's not fair to punish every religious community for the actions of the Westboro Baptist Church (which consists of about 80 members).

Edit: I forgot to mention that after all this religious background, I still lost my faith a few years ago. So that proves it hasn't brainwashed me.

Cookies help us deliver our Services. By using our Services or clicking I agree, you agree to our use of cookies. Learn More.