Would the world be a better place without religion?

[koti]

When children learn about many religions, you create children with an open mind...

Right...because thats what they learn in catholic schools. Or muslim schools. Or jewish schools.

[zapatos]

I wouldn't want to deny you your rights, If you want a specific/religious education for your children, teach them yourself or pay a tutor/school, but since your society purports to be secular, why should the public pay for it?

I did pay myself. Not all schools are public schools.

My society does not purport to be secular. The government and a subset of the society purports to be secular.

As I said, I agree that no public funding should be used. What I objected to was the suggestion that religion should not be taught in school regardless of whether or not it was publicly funded.

 

What is wrong with your children learning about other religions? In what way does it infringe on your rights?

You'll have to remind me where I said there is something wrong with my children learning about other religions, or that it infringed on my rights.

What I said infringed on my rights was you trying to keep the teaching of a single religion out of schools if no public funding is used.

 

I can only speak for myself, not for my children. My position is that religion should be taught outside of public schools and certainly not out of tax payers money.

That is my position too, unless it is a secular view of religions (history, basic tenets, etc.).

 

I'm an atheist so my children will be taught critical thinking, curiosity for nature around them, respect for elders, empathy towards other beings, they will find out from me about their roots and traditions of their ancestors. They will also receive from me the values which I, my Father and his Father before him held dear.

You know, by starting off your sentence with "I am an atheist so..." you make it sound like you think all atheists, and only atheists, do those things you followed up with.

If that is what you think, I can assure you, you are mistaken.

 

I do have the right to tell you this though because it's an undeniable fact - don't kid yourself that you gave your children any choice.

You've got balls the size of watermelons to think you have any idea at all whether or not I gave my children any choice. You don't know me or how my children were raised.

When children learn about many religions, you create children with an open mind...

It probably helps.

 

Right...because thats what they learn in catholic schools. Or muslim schools. Or jewish schools.

I think you are getting dangerously close to violating rules regarding the denigration of entire groups. Do you think your attitude about entire groups would fly here if you were talking about, say, historically black universities?

[koti]

 

You've got balls the size of watermelons to think you have any idea at all whether or not I gave my children any choice. You don't know me or how my children were raised.

 

Neither the size of my balls nor my complete lack of information on yourself or how you raised your children have anything to do with my statement because you stated yourself that:

 

"As someone who attended and sent my children to Catholic schools"

 

and that speaks for itself. Whether you like it or not, you have not given your children a choice of faith, type of it or lack of it by a simple fact that you put them through catholic school.

 

Edited May 15, 2017 by koti

[dimreepr]

I did pay myself. Not all schools are public schools.

My society does not purport to be secular. The government and a subset of the society purports to be secular.

As I said, I agree that no public funding should be used. What I objected to was the suggestion that religion should not be taught in school regardless of whether or not it was publicly funded.

 

Then we are in agreement, sorry I missed that.

Specifically "I agree that no public funding should be used", my bad...

[zapatos]

Neither the size of my balls nor my complete lack of information on yourself or how you raised your children have anything to do with my statement because you stated yourself that:

 

"As someone who attended and sent my children to Catholic schools"

 

 

and that speaks for itself. Whether you like it or not, you have not given your children a choice of faith or lack of it by a simple fact that you put them through catholic school.

Bullshit. That's no different than saying that by sending kids to a secular school you've given them no choice but to be secular.

You are giving entirely too much credit to the impact school has on people. How many people on this site went to religious schools but CHOSE not to be religious?

Then we are in agreement, sorry I missed that.

 

Specifically "I agree that no public funding should be used", my bad...

No problem, it was probably my fault. After getting three quick responses I guessed that I didn't communicate clearly enough.

[koti]

Bullshit. That's no different than saying that by sending kids to a secular school you've given them no choice but to be secular.

 

 

According to your above logic there is equal indoctrination and equal lack of choice in feeding a child bullshit for years and not feeding a child bullshit for years. This approach is as ridiculous as is dangerous.

Edited May 15, 2017 by koti

[zapatos]

According to your above logic there is equal indoctrination and equal lack of choice in feeding a child bullshit for years and not feeding a child bullshit for years. This is ridiculous.

So according to your logic, as I gave my children no choice, they must be Catholic today. Gee, I wonder if that is true.

[dimreepr]

 

According to your above logic there is equal indoctrination and equal lack of choice in feeding a child bullshit for years and not feeding a child bullshit for years. This is ridiculous.

 

That depends on your definition of bullshit.

[iNow]

Please breathe, people. Zapatos is a long-time and rather rational intelligent member of this site who is more than capable of defending his stance without us needing to read between the lines.

 

The issue here seems to be conflation of public schools and private schools.

Within reason, private schools can teach anything they want, but public schools cannot.

 

If, however, religion were to be a subject introduced into public schools, then it should be as a Comparative Religion or even a History of Religion class, but not something akin to bible study or memorization of the Qu'ran.

 

Is this fair? Perhaps all of us can agree on that and proceed without all the heat and fury?

 

 

Here's Dan Dennett many years ago on the TED stage suggesting largely the same thing:

 

[zapatos]

If, however, religion were to be a subject introduced into public schools, then it should be as a Comparative Religion or even a History of Religion class, but not something akin to bible study or memorization of the Qu'ran.

 

Is this fair? Perhaps all of us can agree on that and proceed without all the heat and fury?

Completely agree.

 

What is getting my hackles up is the suggestion that religious schooling is nothing more than fairy tales, bullshit, and a sign of poor parenting skills.

It is an incredibly biased and shallow view of what my children were taught in Catholic school with regard to service, empathy, integrity, respect, and responsibility, among many other attributes.

One of the nice things about being a parent is the role we play in helping our children separate the good from the bad, the truth from the fiction, and helping them to become good human beings.

While there is much of religion that I find objectionable and even immoral, I think it is foolish to throw out the baby with the bath water.

 

An open mind includes the ability to recognize the good that can come from religion, as well as the bad.

[koti]

I was typing in an answer to zapatos' post but decided to withdraw - iNow disarmed me. I don't see a point in fighting about religion between the regulars. Although I stand by everything I said, I will gladely withdraw from further picking on Zapatos. I'm surrounded by dimreepr and itoero anyway so I'm outnumbered by the dark side of the force. A true jedi weighs his chances accordingly to the situation.

[Raider5678]

I do have the right to tell you this though because it's an undeniable fact - don't kid yourself that you gave your children any choice.

That's an undeniable lie.

[koti]

That's an undeniable lie.

You Raider have a way of marching in a middle of a post in the most annoying way. Don't you have any homework to do?

[dimreepr]

Completely agree.

 

What is getting my hackles up is the suggestion that religious schooling is nothing more than fairy tales, bullshit, and a sign of poor parenting skills.

It is an incredibly biased and shallow view of what my children were taught in Catholic school with regard to service, empathy, integrity, respect, and responsibility, among many other attributes.

One of the nice things about being a parent is the role we play in helping our children separate the good from the bad, the truth from the fiction, and helping them to become good human beings.

While there is much of religion that I find objectionable and even immoral, I think it is foolish to throw out the baby with the bath water.

 

An open mind includes the ability to recognize the good that can come from religion, as well as the bad.

 

An ally is always welcome.

[koti]

Zapatos, just to clarify, I did not intend to attack your parenting skills - I attacked the argument and I stand by it.

[zapatos]

Zapatos, just to clarify, I did not intend to attack your parenting skills - I attacked the argument and I stand by it.

You can stand by it all you want, but you are mistaken about whether or not they had any choice in what to believe, and you are not in a position to know otherwise.

 

Hoping to put the debate on this particular matter to rest, both my sons are atheists, with my blessing.

[Code42]

I've been reading this thread, and the solution is very simple in my view. Religion in public schools is okay as long as it is not taught as fact, one religion is not favored over another, and there is no indoctrination. Private schools can do as they wish. Boom, that was easy!

[koti]

Hoping to put the debate on this particular matter to rest

Agreed.

[Raider5678]

You Raider have a way of marching in a middle of a post in the most annoying way. Don't you have any homework to do?

Freewill is something that's inside of the majority of people.

Whether a child is raised in a religious school or not doesn't depict their religion for the rest of their life.

There are many cases of this.

You created a lump statement that summed every child up into one big group and said that 100% of them would turn out one way, and then proceeded to claim it was undeniable.

I simply told you you were wrong, but didn't bother supplying why as somebody else had told you first.

As for having homework to do, no. I finished it last month.

[koti]

Freewill is something that's inside of the majority of people.

Whether a child is raised in a religious school or not doesn't depict their religion for the rest of their life.

There are many cases of this.

You created a lump statement that summed every child up into one big group and said that 100% of them would turn out one way, and then proceeded to claim it was undeniable.

I simply told you you were wrong, but didn't bother supplying why as somebody else had told you first.

As for having homework to do, no. I finished it last month.

Free will is impared by indoctrination. If children are raised in religious schools it biases them in far more cases than in a case which zapatos represents. I have not stated that 100% of children would turn out one way - stop putting words into my mouth. You seem a smart kid for your age but your arrogance diminishes your intellect.

Thats it, Im done with this thread.

Edited May 15, 2017 by koti

[Bender]

Private schools can do as they wish.

I guess what I disagree with is this. Private schools shouldn't be able to do as they wish. In fact, everyone would be better off if there were no private schools at all.

 

Btw, my children are baptised and go to a Catholic school. Where I live, it is mostly a sign of quality. They usually tell the fairy tales as fairy tales, with little risk of indoctrination. I consider it a "vaccination" against religious extremism and I want them to know what religion is before they can properly make up their mind.

[zapatos]

I guess what I disagree with is this. Private schools shouldn't be able to do as they wish. In fact, everyone would be better off if there were no private schools at all.

 

Btw, my children are baptised and go to a Catholic school. Where I live, it is mostly a sign of quality. They usually tell the fairy tales as fairy tales, with little risk of indoctrination. I consider it a "vaccination" against religious extremism and I want them to know what religion is before they can properly make up their mind.

 

Interesting. Why shouldn't private schools be able to do as they wish?

 

I agree that Catholic school is pretty mild. I was never asked to read the Bible, and remember fondly the vast quantities of beer consumed at every imaginable school event.

[Code42]

The question of this forum should be "do we really need religion anymore?" I mean, we've got all their messages written down and noted. We've already effectively applied the ones and filtered out (most of) the bad ones in our western societies. The atheist is in the only position to really cherry pick the best of all of them.

[iNow]

Except, atheism is not a position of belief. Your statement is equivalent to, "not believing that the farts of pink unicorns cause erections in leprechauns is the only position to cherry pick the best of all beliefs."

 

Perhaps you mean something closer to secular humanism?

[Raider5678]

The question of this forum should be "do we really need religion anymore?" I mean, we've got all their messages written down and noted. We've already effectively applied the ones and filtered out (most of) the bad ones in our western societies. The atheist is in the only position to really cherry pick the best of all of them.

Eh.

Depends on what you think is the best.