Martian:

lmao, I knew someone was going to come up with a verse from the holy book.
The verse is right of course, the way is definietely wrong though. You do not need to instill the fear of the invincible boogey man called "god" and the heaven/hell reward to train a child.
You teach ethical behaviour, morality that doesn't inconvenience other individuals, reality, science and the likelihood that this is the only chance you get at life and it will be wise if you don't mess it up. Life is hard and has it's ups and downs but the decisions we make can make the good times great and relieve the pain of the hard times. Nature can't be controlled or placated so just respect it.
Introduce the child to philosophy like Kant's categorical imperative and mill's utilitarianism. The former stresses acting how you would want others to act in similar situations and the former can be used for more ambiguous situations where the right and ethical thing to do might not be so clear.
That's just a start and it doesn't even involve threats of hell or reward of heaven, just treat others with respect, appreciate life and nature, never be ignorant and realise there is no pie in the sky.
Now, kids are going to be kids but at least they won't become irrational, gullible adults with imaginary friends.

We preach the love of Jesus and rather than instill fear into their hearts, they are taught boldness and courage from the Lord Jesus.
There are no threats of hell or heaven, but they are taught about the eternal life

mabell:

We preach the love of Jesus and rather than instill fear into their hearts, they are taught boldness and courage from the Lord Jesus.
There are no threats of hell or heaven, but they are taught about the eternal life

Yes, you preach the love of jesus as the cure after telling them they are inherently evil and sinners because of a tale about one man's disobedience.  There are no threats of hell or heaven? So what does eternal life connote?
Teaching them about the horrors of judgement day, rapture and tribulation is really about love. Teaching them that, "he who is not for me is against me and my father" is teaching them courage.
Teaching them discrimination against other people based on what some intolerant people thought and wrote thousands of years ago is love.
If the results of the love of jesus you teach doesn't help them become more tolerant and knowledgeable, I don't see how indoctrination is beneficial to them or society in general.

You're a CE member and your pastor has even further corrupted christianity with his church. The little girl's video you posted shows that your religion is now nothing but a cult of personality. You think she was preaching because  "holy spirit" was speaking through her? "Out of the mouth of babies, I will ordain praise"? No, the kid was just parroting what she sees you and other members do and say on a daily basis. That's why she said, "like pastor chris" multiple times.
You fail to see the sham your pastor and religion are because biblical directives like, "touch not my anointed and do my prophet no harm" have been drilled into you so long and often that you can't see past his rhapsody of realities.
The other day your fellow member Azibulua claimed that the path to economic development is the "preaching of the gospel", I'm sure that's how developed countries did it.
Only indoctrination can make someone deviate from logic whenever their religion is put under a spot light or when someone uses it to their detriment.
Indoctrination and willful ignorance is the reason blacks in the united states who were denied their civil rights will vote to deny other people their rights because the "bible said so" . The same bible that was used to discriminate against them because they are  descedants of Ham and we all know about the curse of Ham. (maybe the noah flood story and Ham's curse are true because ham's "descedants" happen to live in the most naturally endowed continent on the planet but still manage to live in perpetually f_cked up conditions)  (ONLY God can help us)

A Swiss Psychologist called Kohlberg came up with a study about moral development and divided it into three levels and six stages.

Level 1: Pre Moral
              Stage 1 you do things to avoid punishment. (like pascal's wager christians like to use. Accept jesus so you don't go to hell!)
              Stage 2 You only do it when they serve your immediate interest ( Innercity mission giving the school a bore hole for propaganda reasons)

Level 2: Conventional
              Stage 3 is when you do the "right" things to live up to people's expectation. (sort of like the categorical imperative)
               Stage 4 is when you do moral things to conform with the laws and expectations of society(religious laws sometimes conflict with civil laws but we can't question the laws in leviticus now, can we?)

Level 3: Universal
              Stage 5 is when you act ethically and morally based on the priciples of justice, fairness and doing what's right.
               Stage 6 Self selected ethical principles that ensures that you give as much liberty as you take.

Religious indoctrination can never get past level one because if you disobey you"ll be punished now and for eternity. That's not fear mongering at all. Right Mabell?

@ Martian


Just saw a programm on Tv in which the indoctrination of children was addressed. It was mentioned that as well as good morality is passed on to the children, prejudice I.e Homophobia and others, is also passed on to this children.

In that respect, I agree with some of your views.

aletheia:

@OP: what a pretentious rant!
^You need to read the bible more. Your claims are wrong. What questions has science answered?

Water being made up of two elements hydrogen and oxygen.
The sun being powered by nuclear fusion.
I could go on.

mabell:

We preach the love of Jesus and rather than instill fear into their hearts, they are taught boldness and courage from the Lord Jesus.
There are no threats of hell or heaven, but they are taught about the eternal life

You do not teach children about hell? That is interesting. By the way, where are they to have this eternal life?

dare2think:

@ Martian


Just saw a programm on Tv in which the indoctrination of children was addressed. [b]It was mentioned that as well as good morality is passed on to the children, prejudice I.e Homophobia and others, is also passed on to this children.[/b]In that respect, I agree with some of your views.

Indoctrination becomes abusive to developing minds when it teaches prejudice and homophobia has "absolute morality" that can't be questioned. Is that really passing down good ethics to the kids?
The other morality that is taught is basically teach others with respect ie love your neighbour as yourself. Religious folks, particularly the ones who  rely on their church and pastors, don't understand that they don't have the patent on morality. They think good morals can only be derived from their particular faith or at least someone with some kind of faith while ignoring the fact that people without faith also exhibit good morals. People who don't rely on religious institutions and dogma to determine morality often have better morals than religious people.
Christians often say "love your neighbor as yourself" then turn around and do the exact opposite by hating gays, indigenous cultures ( there is a topic right now where a christian is berating native african culture and blaming it for Africa's "backwardness", liberals and anybody who doesn't drink the koolaid or tolerate their endless proselytizing. Muslims will say, "we are a religion of peace" while simultaneously flying planes into buildings and refusing to acknowledge the state of Israeal ( the Israelis need to go back to a modified version of the 67 borders btw).  Talk about enacted values being the opposite of their espoused values. Then they wonder why they are called hypocrites.

mazaje:

Here is what I once wrote before on another thread here on NL. . . .This is just a brief explanation as to why people believe their religion is true and stick to their religious beliefs even when every other person outside their religion believes otherwise. . . . .As you can see Joagbaje calls other religions false when in reality no such thing exist. . .There is no such thing as a false religion just as there is no such things as a true religion because all religions are equally valid and invalid. . . . . Anyone modern man that is educated, becomes experienced with the falsehoods of politicians, advertising agencies,  untrustworthy friends and colleagues, he/she learns to sort out lies and tall tales most of the time. However, the religion of their culture surrounds them before they've developed this critical thinking ability, people are mostly indoctrinated at very tender ages and they are also kept in line to keep this religious culture by constantly warning them against the consequences of not believing the religion which comes with a very nasty price, most of the time leaving it means being excluded from a significant part of how they interact with the community, particularly related to events like funerals, weddings, and births etc. So they can very easily notice lies, fables and myth, but not the one they are immersed in. Religions is mostly the background noise of their culture or the culture they have borrowed and nothing else. . . . . ,

Like he said above, their whole lives ofen revolve around their religion and it gives them a sense of belonging and purpose.  They need to develop their ways of thinking and come to terms with modern reality.  Keep your religion/ culture but that doesn't mean you can't at least give it some new perspectives and discard the things that obviously make no sense. Some of our ancestors stopped their practice of killing twins, the descedants of south americans no longer perform human sacrifices, christians no longer torture people to convert and  they don't burn "witches" anymore ( except for Nigeria?)  and most muslims would frown up child marriages so why can't we drop superstitions and let common sense reign.  Is it because if they adjust their way of thinking they will be admitting their they holy book/ beliefs are fallible and hence can't be the words of a god and if it isn't that means men wrote them and hence wrote gods into existence?

j

The OP has a point once you separate the strong anti-religionism. Children learn the religion of their parents by rote such that by the time they are old enough to start thinking, it is the only reality they know. Where it is a majority religion like Christianity or Islam, the child’s view of reality is reinforced by people he interacts with in the community, at school and everywhere. Where it is a minority religion like the Yoruba Orisa, the Esan Oguese or the Izon Egbesu, it is subjected to relentless erosion once the child steps outside the house. That is why many Nigerian kids raised in families devoted to these worldviews end up adopting Christianity or Islam. In my view, there is something deeply troubling about this, the way religion is taught to children.

I would not support the idea that no one be taught religion till they are age 18 since that would not work. Religion is so ingrained into the family life that it would be impractical to shut kids out of it by legislation. Ask the Soviets and the Eastern Europeans who taught official atheism in schools. Besides, a study would be needed to confirm that separating children from religion will minimize religious hatred this since some of the baddest Islamic fundamentalists are converts to the religion. A more attainable (and preferable, to me) world would be one where kids are introduced to many religions at the same time and taught philosophy and critical thinking to enable them process what they are being introduced to. (I would think that Yoga and Confucianism will do Nigerian kids tones of good.) They would then be able to think critically about these things.

Mazaje “hit the nail on the head” by situating religion within culture. That is why it would be impossible to hatch a world where children are insulated from religion. Thus, there is little or nothing anyone can do about this problem. But it is an important issue worth talking about.

MyJoe:

The OP has a point once you separate the strong anti-religionism. Children learn the religion of their parents by rote such that by the time they are old enough to start thinking, it is the only reality they know. Where it is a majority religion like Christianity or Islam, the child’s view of reality is reinforced by people he interacts with in the community, at school and everywhere. Where it is a minority religion like the Yoruba Orisa, the Esan Oguese or the Izon Egbesu, it is subjected to relentless erosion once the child steps outside the house. That is why many Nigerian kids raised in families devoted to these worldviews end up adopting Christianity or Islam. In my view, there is something deeply troubling about this, the way religion is taught to children.

I would not support the idea that no one be taught religion till they are age 18 since that would not work. Religion is so ingrained into the family life that it would be impractical to shut kids out of it by legislation. Ask the Soviets and the Eastern Europeans who taught official atheism in schools. Besides, a study would be needed to confirm that separating children from religion will minimize religious hatred this since some of the baddest Islamic fundamentalists are converts to the religion. A more attainable (and preferable, to me) world would be one where kids are introduced to many religions at the same time and taught philosophy and critical thinking to enable them process what they are being introduced to. (I would think that Yoga and Confucianism will do Nigerian kids tones of good.) They would then be able to think critically about these things.

Mazaje “hit the nail on the head” by situating religion within culture. That is why it would be impossible to hatch a world where children are insulated from religion. Thus, there is little or nothing anyone can do about this problem. But it is an important issue worth talking about.

I can't help but to be anti- religion when I live in the buckle of the bible belt (the most ignorant collection of people in the western hemsiphere) and grew up in the  religious ( and astoundingly corrupt) country on the planet. Mazaje called religion the background noise of culture, I just feel that the ignorant aspect of it is has become more than background noise and it's more like listening to heavy metal backwards at high volumes.  If I sound anti religion, its because of that and I constantly see them brainwashing the next generation of annoying people.

The old soviet bloc got a lot of things wrong, teaching atheism being one of them. Atheism cannot be taught or need to be taught because we are all born atheists(without gods)  anyway and indoctrination and teaching is what leads to the various beliefs in god.  What you said in the bolded part is a great idea, teaching them all of these things and more will pique their curiosity and encourage research, which should lead to critical thinking and ultimately a better society.  Even if the parents beat them over the head with mythology, they can go to school and be exposed to reality without threats of eternal damnation and the likes.

If kids are taught the history of religions and exposed to science early (not creationism type of science of course), they'll have to have some mental handicap to want to turn into the next Osama Bin Laden. Those who convert and become more extremist already show symptoms of mental issues or stress.
Great reply though.

Martian:

The old soviet bloc got a lot of things wrong, teaching atheism being one of them. Atheism cannot be taught or need to be taught because we are all born atheists(without gods)  anyway and indoctrination and teaching is what leads to the various beliefs in god.

Some studies have been conducted on this and there is no consensus. There are psychologists who believe we are wired to believe in God, while there are others who say there is no such thing. What we can be sure of is that we are wired to ask questions, and surrounded as we are by things we can’t comprehend it was only a matter of time before we put it all down to a higher “force” or “forces”. (That is, of course, a long way from believing that Forces have human attributes, sends prophets, orders animal sacrifices and demands 10% of people’s income.) Even today there is still far too much that science cannot provide answers to, so we are not done with questioning. It is very farfetched, therefore, to say we are born to reject belief in the existence of God. I think we are born not really knowing but contemplating the boundless universe and wondering how it all came about and thinking something must be behind it.

We are either born agnostic or agnostic-deistic or deistic-agnostic or deistic.

My Joe, nice to see you around. . .How are you doing out there?. . . .

I'm good. Good to see you back and kicking. I see you've crossed over to Denmark. You must love these blond-haired Scandinavian women!