Forum Topic

Atheist Bus Campaign - Religions brainwashing kids?

I had some sympathy with the first Atheist bus campaign - There's Probably No God - as it was a useful counterweight to the 'Jesus is Lord' type posters that used to appear.However, am I alone in finding the latest campaign a bit sinister? They are saying that children should not be thought of as Hindu, Buddhist, Catholic or Muslim but should make up their own mind. On the surface this sounds quite sensible and liberal but thinking through the practicalities of it suggest to me that is actually quite daft and illiberal. The implication is that children are being brainwashed by their religious parents and the state needs to step in and ensure they grow up thinking in an appropriate way.I'm not religious but I hope to instill my values into my children. They may well reject them later but when they are younger they will be taught them as moral absolutes. If we are saying that religious people can't do the same with their children is that not a dangerous step towards the loss of a very important liberty - the freedom to influence the moral development of your child. People may have daft, deluded and archaic views but to say that an outside authority should have a degree of control of this important interaction between parent and child is wrong.

Karen Cooper ● 5640d4 Comments

There is also a cultural aspect to this. To say you shouldn't categorise a child as Hindu, Sikh, Muslim or Christian ignores that these designations are not simply a matter of religion but also community and tradition. You are basically saying to people to fit in your kids will have to be like us - surely not the right message for a multi-cultural society.

Ellen Kearney ● 5638d

The flaw in the argument is that it is possible to brainwash kids. They are preprogrammed to question everything their parents and teachers tell them which is why we are so successful as a species.Having attended what would now be described as a faith school I left uninterested in religion and if anything an agnostic. The same could be said for most of my peers. When I meet them now a large proportion have started attending Church again citing parenthood, bereavement and a better understanding of life as a reason for reconsidering what they were taught as children.What I find interesting is how when you try to inculcate ideas into a child how often they kick against it. I'm often astonished how homophobic children are these days and it is hard not to notice how many homophobic attacks are made by teenagers at the moment. I'm totally in favour of children being taught to respect and cherish all gender orientations, races, creeds etc. but if you sit them in a classroom and tell them that's what they have to do, you won't always get the result you want.

Paul Corcoran ● 5640d

Who’s to say that the outside authority has a ‘better’ moral code than the parent. There are enough despotic regimes around now, as well as in the past, to give us all pause - There have been enough appalling individuals/parents brought into the light to again give us pause. It’s true to say that all children are brainwashed. It’s the type of brainwashing that we argue over - my brainwashing is better than yours - There Probably is a God - for some - Nanny State, Nanny Local Authority, we see enough of their misguided lopsided decisions every week to look with some justified degree of scepticism.Letting children make up their own mind will not please the neighbours over the fence for cursedly the children will not make up their minds in the way that the neighbours think they should.A base line would seem to be a moral code that says - Do unto others that which you would have done to thy self. A problem - sure theirs a problem -  Who instilled what moral code into the child? No child is an island and we all like our own twopenceworth of input. However, the major religions of the world seem to have good working central systems and by and large I’ll go along with them, even if my system is only from one of them. 

Stephen Hill ● 5640d

Who’s to say that the outside authority has a ‘better’ moral code than the parent. There are enough despotic regimes around now, as well as in the past, to give us all pause - There have been enough appalling individuals/parents brought into the light to again give us pause. It’s true to say that all children are brainwashed. It’s the type of brainwashing that we argue over - my brainwashing is better than yours - There Probably is a God - for some - Nanny State, Nanny Local Authority, we see enough of their misguided lopsided decisions every week to look with some justified degree of scepticism.Letting children make up their own mind will not please the neighbours over the fence for cussedly the children will not make up their minds in the way that the neighbours think they should.A base line would seem to be a moral code that says - Do unto others that which you would have done to thy self. A problem - sure theirs a problem -  Who instilled what moral code into the child? No child is an island and we all like our own twopenceworth of input. However, the major religions of the world seem to have good working central systems and by and large I’ll go along with them, even if my system is only from one of them. 

Stephen Hill ● 5640d