Is Teaching Religion To Children A Form Of Child Abuse?

Discussion in 'Agnosticism and Atheism' started by Okiefreak, Mar 20, 2017.

  1. Dejavu~

    Dejavu~ Members

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    Forgive them Carrie, for they know not what they do. [​IMG]
     
  2. Okiefreak

    Okiefreak Senior Member

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    I'm afraid there are lots of red state districts that have elected ignorant dogmatic religious zealots. My wife, God bless her, successfully ran for the school board to block a takeover by right wing fundamentalists. It was a close call. As for high school teachers being held to ethical intellectual, and legal standards, teachers are human, and so are the politicians who regulate them--to the extent that they do. How, for example, would they teach Islam? As a religion of peace, or war, or no comment? Any way they do it, they'll have irate parents on their back. What textbook would they use for this comparative religion course at the high school level? Would Huston Smith's World Religions be okay? Religion isn't like science, math, or English. It's inherently an area where there is intense disagreement. I'd probably disagree intensely with teaching about Christianity in terms of the creeds. But in principle, I think knowledge of the world's religions is an important part of a real education.
     
  3. MeAgain

    MeAgain Dazed & Confused Lifetime Supporter Super Moderator

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    Teachers must teach according to the curriculum. The curriculum may be written by one person or a committee, but either way it must be approved by the school board.
    Once the curriculum is approved daily lesson plans must be written, again by one person or a committee, then the teacher must adhere to the daily lesson plan. In some schools the lesson plan must be displayed on the teacher's desk. Deviation from the daily lesson plan is grounds for reprimand or dismissal.

    In my own case the daily lesson plans were written in advance and then had to be updated as to what was actually taught on a weekly bases. These plans were turned into the office weekly and placed on file. So there is a written overall curriculum, a written set of daily lesson plans, and a weekly update...all on record. In addition there are the written tests, visual aides, student reports and many times student portfolios. So what is taught is well known and recorded.

    Islam would be taught the same as any other religion, according to how it is described in the curriculum. Again the curriculum is approved by the school board.
    This is one argument for national standards....which many parents and politicians hate (big government) as it restricts them from injecting their own slant on certain issues.

    Huston Smith's book would be good, but I'm sure the reading level is too high for most high school students.
    I would think excerpts from original religious texts (translations) as well as excerpts from books like Smith's could be employed as well as talks by local religious leaders. For example in one school I taught at the teacher would invite a priest, rabbi, certain ministers, and a Buddhist monk into the class.

    A comparative religion class would require an enlightened school board, teaching staff, and religious and parental community. Not an easy combination to find these days.
     
  4. themnax

    themnax Senior Member

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    telling a child, or anyone, "if you don't pretend the same thing i pretend i'm going to make you suffer", yes that is very much a form of abuse and unambiguously an evil thing to do.

    and belief, at its core, whatever gods or anything else there might actually be at the same time, means pretending to know things that are not known.

    there may be good and wonderful reasons for doing so, it may be a way to get the attention of someone who otherwise has no regard for what they might hurt,
    but there is also something just as vital and moral that too literal a demand injures, and even eventually destroys, defeating its own purpose in the process of doing so.

    its wonderful to believe there is something big friendly and invisible we can all hug, and there's no reason there might not very well be,
    but teaching anyone to hate logic, to belittle, ignore and ultimately discard what is in front of their own eyes,
    makes no one a better person, and no world a better place.
     
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  5. Okiefreak

    Okiefreak Senior Member

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    And it's the last part that makes me leary of the whole enterprise. I think I could do a bangup job teaching comparative religion, and would even do it for free. But I'm sure there would be complaints. How would I teach Christianity, not to mention Islam or Buddhism? What is the Christian religion all about? Did Jesus really exist, or would I just skip that part? Surely I wouldn't teach them that He died for our sins, rose from the dead, walked on water, turned water into wine, and was the Son of God. Could I tell them some people believed all that , and why? And of course there's the matter of Hell. I think I might sign up to teach the course as a preemptive move to prevent somebody worse from teaching it. As you say, there is a prescribed curriculum, approved by the school board (which gets the government involved, whether it's federal, state or local. Teaching excerpts from scriptures could be problematic, because there are so many disputes over what the right interpretation of those is. If I had a free hand, I'd use a hermeneutic of suspicion. It would be really challenging. But if done properly, it could be a great course.
     
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  6. NoxiousGas

    NoxiousGas Old Fart

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    the only practical way would be to teach the religions based on the most commonly excepted and prevalent doctrines, no need to delve into the myriad factions/denominations and sub-groups of each religion, that can be for extra credit...LOL
     
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  7. Chodpa

    Chodpa Senior Member

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  8. Pieceofmyheart

    Pieceofmyheart Grumpy old bitch HipForums Supporter

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    I think it depends on the parents.Sending your children to public school in the USA could be considered a form of child abuse with the hogwash they teach them. Teaching them to hate through racism is a form of child abuse. We bring up children up in the ways of our beliefs, then allow them to go their own way. That's what I did. And the talk of going to hell...in my opinion that is not for kids.
     
  9. MeAgain

    MeAgain Dazed & Confused Lifetime Supporter Super Moderator

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    What hogwash are you referring to?
     
  10. Pieceofmyheart

    Pieceofmyheart Grumpy old bitch HipForums Supporter

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    Maybe hogwash wasn't the best word. DARE for one....Snitch on your parents and neighbors for another. I don't mean not snitching about being harmed by someone, that is not the same.
     
  11. Dejavu~

    Dejavu~ Members

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    But the most commonly excepted are never the most prevalent! :-D

    All I know is that agnostics will have to do the dirty work of teaching the shit. lol
     
  12. Dejavu~

    Dejavu~ Members

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    Teaching about it I mean. :-D
     
  13. Okiefreak

    Okiefreak Senior Member

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    Is that because you think agnostics are unbiased? Dawkins has fun with agnostics who hesitate to venture an opinion on whether or not there's a celestial teapot. The reality is that kids have always been dependent on adults for how they're raised and what they're taught--not only about religion, but about everything. Typically, the adults in charge are parents, supplemented in traditional societies by kin, at least in the earliest years, which psyhchologists tell us are the most important in personality development. In modern societies, formal education is eventually taken over primarily by agents of government which in this country means local or state entities that are politically controlled. In the U.S., this usually happens at around age six. There can be variation from one state and school district to another. Do the students say the pledge of allegiance? Do they have a required civics and/or American government course? etc.When Napoleon established a public school system in France, he wasn't primarily interested in giving the kiddies an unbiased education. Efforts to substitute the government for parents in education for the young, to the extent they've been tried, have been generally disastrous. I'm thinking Hitler Jungen, Soviet Kosomols, and state military academies in the Middle East and Latin America. A course on comparative religion in their teens might not be such a bad thing, but I don't think that's what Dawkins has in mind.The idea of taking children from their parents at a tender age, or criminalizing the teaching of certain beliefs and encouraging neighbors to snoop has obvious totalitarian implications.

    Equally unrealislitic would be the expectation that parents should not teach the kiddies anything about religion until they are old enough to think it through rationally. Parents should act like-- well, agnostics, even though they have their own beliefs. Does this mean that the parents won't share their beliefs and values with their children? Should they stay home from church, mosque or temple? Should they make arrangements to leave the kids behind? Do they pray in secret, lest the kids catch them in the act? And would that also apply in other areas, like parents teaching the kids their own ideas of right and wrong, which might be religious based? Of course, if the parents' beliefs are screwed up--if they're racists, sexists, etc.--that won't be good for the kiddies, bu I think the alternative is thought police. If the "political correctness' crown got control of this, the results could be intolerable. And I can think of nothing worse that a parent could do to a child than to give the kid no guidance in the area of right and wrong. Like it or not, I think human evolution is primarily cultural, dependent on imparting memes through socialization. Parents are important agents in that process and its not clear that's such a bad thing.
     
  14. Dejavu~

    Dejavu~ Members

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    God no! lol They've as much bias about them as anyone else! The difference is they think they're unbiased! They're perfect for the job!

    I can see it now, as clear, if not as beautiful as the day...

    Even the very strictest adherence to teaching 'about' religion wouldn't fail to produce that most beleaguering question to the teacher: "What do you believe?" Enter the parent teacher groups. The theist would be ousted no matter how non-denominational their faith, and the atheist, despite the heartiest belief that their heart is in the thing, would be left wishing they'd signed up to teach home economics. lol

    No, best to assume the semblance of impartiality for the position, however unwittingly contrived, if we're ever to look back on religion! :-D
     
  15. MeAgain

    MeAgain Dazed & Confused Lifetime Supporter Super Moderator

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    For those interested here's a sample curriculum:

    Howard County high school, Oregon I think
    This is a teacher's guide, which answers most of the questions asked here;
    Here's another.
    Lots of resources out there.
     
  16. BlackBillBlake

    BlackBillBlake resigned HipForums Supporter

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    I came across this quote recently - can't recall where now, but maybe it has some relevance here:

    "education is not to fill a bucket, education is to kindle a fire" - Herodotus.

    The 'stuff them full of our belief system' kind of approach would correlate to filling a bucket. Educating people about a wide range of belief systems might just help kindle some kind of small flame.
     
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  17. autophobe2e

    autophobe2e Senior Member

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    I'm not sure that I like the "teaching religion to our kids is child abuse" line, as it is so clearly a deliberately inflammatory, headline-grabbing statement. But I do have a lot of sympathy for the sentiment behind it. indoctrinating children into a set of beliefs without foundation in reason and empiricism is tantamount to teaching them not to engage critically with the world around them. And that's shitty.

    On the other hand, a person who grows up in, for example, England, and doesn't know about christianity is going to have a limited understanding of the society that they are surrounded by.

    A balance must be struck between teaching comparative religion whilst being careful to be obective about the faiths represented.
     
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  18. Emanresu

    Emanresu Member

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    Agreed. It is not likely that a deeply religious person is going to hear that and suddenly change the way they live. It's more of a rallying point for people who already believe it, or just for shock.

    I think your take on both the sentiment behind the claim and the implication are spot on. The best attitude is to make children aware of facts, and help build their critical thinking skills so that they can choose their own beliefs as they become sophisticated enough to understand them. And as you say, a person surrounded by Christians who doesn't know anything about Christianity is going to be at a disadvantage.

    The problem of course is that no one who believes that they worship the one true faith would dare to teach their children about all religions objectively, out of fear that they would choose the wrong one (which only matters if you follow one of those pathetic religions that says you'll be punished for not believing, how do people still fall for that?).
     
  19. Emanresu

    Emanresu Member

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    A good point and one of the reasons I shy from the child abuse claim. In many ways we cannot help but indoctrinate our children, and it is somewhat unfair to single out religion (though to be fair to the other side of the argument maybe religion is important enough to be singled out).

    There is also the point of not really being able to tell what effect a particular indoctrination might have. I was raised in a Catholic family and attended Catholic school from Pre-k until I graduated from highschool. Mass every week outside of school and a few times per month in school, as well as religion class 5 days a week ( and this was a very dogmatic no discussion no questions type of class). And really that doesn't seem to have harmed me in the least. In fact I don't even have any hard feelings about it. But it obviously isn't how children should be taught.
     
  20. Deidre

    Deidre Visitor

    I think indocttination can be abusive, but parents wouldn’t think of it like that. My parents obsessively raised me with Catholic teachings and it’s not surprising that I left it about five years ago. I’m not angry with them, they believe what they believe and feel that convincing me to believe is showing me love. I was an atheist for a few years and I’ve come back to belief but don’t follow religion. I’ve wondered what it might be like to have grown up with atheist parents who let me think for myself. I just think as a kid, I only followed the teachings out of fear and that isn’t why you should follow any belief system or faith.
     
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