Shouldn't it be a crime to teach children...?

Question

something that has no scientific basis in truth? No one would accept an engineer designing a car based on faith. No one would accept a doctor who considered your illness a test from God. No one would accept a judge who left punishment up to God in the afterlife. It seems we are crippling our children by teaching them this fantasy which the leaders of our society do not, and cannot, follow when it really counts. Maybe people should have to be 18 years old and show proof of age to get religion.

Jack, science is an ever changing creature, but not an ever changing philosophy. The philosophy is "discover the truth, whatever it may be" and our concept of the truth changes with our power to explore it. That is why you can trust it.

Answer 1

I agree with what you are saying to an extent. Parents shouldn't force their children to believe a certain religion, and children should be a certain age/maturity before proclaiming to follow a certain religion....but as parents it is their responsiblity to teach children things they can't learn any where else. I think parents should teach children about all the worlds religions, and not force your own beliefs. But parents do have to provide the guidance, parents have to given them an example. Parents have to teach their children common sense, and right and wrong.They learn about science and math and whatever else in school, they learn about life and the world through their environment, including parents. Don't you think it would be more crippling to a child to grow up not having any spiritual guidance at all? To be completely ignorant to religion and spirituality?

Answer 2

Honestly I think that whatever people want to instill into their children at a young age is their choice. If the child has a strong mind and a willingness to learn, they will choose to seek the truth regardless. I was born into a catholic home and now I am not directly affiliated with any specific doctrine.

There are a few places that I feel religion has no place. The first is in a school. The right to your religion is your personal right and has no place in a classroom for children of various belief backgrounds. 2nd: Public places. Just because you believe in your god doesn't mean that other people want to hear about it all the time. If someone was to walk around sporting a shirt with an upside down cross or a pentacle they would feel, to quote another post on here, much like "the jews, and what happened with Hitler". And yet a Cross necklace or sticker, or shirt, is perfectly acceptable. Imagine how that makes people of other religions feel...

Religion can be a very good thing and a very bad thing. A weaker person is going to cling desperately to theirs due to the fact that they cannot accept the fact that there are no definates. If you take the major religions of the world and reduce them beyond the corruption they have become, they all preach very close to the same message. The thing people need to get past is assuming the bible is a literal text used to transcend time. That line of thinking will get you nowhere. To think that what worked 2000 years ago will still work today is naive to say the least. The major religious texts of this world are meant as a moral code of values, designed to show people how to be a good person. The god is not the focus point. You are. If you are living a good life and being kind to your fellow man you will reap the benefits and be happy with your life in the end. Its not about who buys the most Jesus fish vs darwin fish stickers, or who spends more time at church. Your relationship with your god is a personal one that should be developed individually.

Now to get back on track, Since there is no proof of any religion being 100% accurate, I do not think it should be a crime, but I do think that religious freedom should include not having to choose a faith until you are old enough to understand the ideology behind it. No religion can say without a doubt that they have it 100% correct. Until then I agree that we shouldn't teach children religious beliefs, and should focus more on morals and values that are true to today's society. If we took that route it may even help with things like religious extremists, who are obviously people who are blinded by their faith into thinking their god would like them to hurt others. I am pretty sure that no religious text on earth states that you should kill someone because they are not like you. (original text only, revisions not included.)

Answer 3

You are making the supreme error of assuming that science is always right, and infallible, and that science can teach moralistic principles.

We were given the ability to design cars, treat illness and make civil laws and pass judgements. We were given the ability to manipulate our physical world to our benefit. Nobody ever said one should endanger our lives and well being by blind faith.

Science is an ever-changing philosophy, with its truths based on the observable, the measurable, the imaginable and the thinkable. Take for instance, physical constants. With the advent of string theory, the concept that physical constants may not actually be constants has become a distinct possibility. Yet the Lubavitcher Rebbe, z"tl, wrote an essay on this in the early 1970's before string theory became widely known, to explain that what we accept as physical constants today probably have changed over time. How did he know this? Through a deep knowledge of Jewish writings from time immemorial.

Please don't be so smug about science. I was trained as a geologist. It is not the be-all end-all in any way. It has brought us untold benefits, but also untold suffering. It has no implicit moral guiding principles to help people live just and fulfilling lives.

BTW, children in Orthodox Jewish schools (yeshivahs) certainly don't seem crippled to me. These schools successfully integrate modern science and Torah. Because Jewish children trained in these schools know that solely depending of the faculty of our five senses can be deceiving, they can do this.

Answer 4

You wrote: "No one would accept an engineer designing a car based on faith." You are absolutely correct, Sir. That's why God gave us free-will and a mind, a brain, with which to think and create ideas with the knowledge of how to best apply those ideas in engineering.

Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. Don't you have faith that your parents love you? Don't you have faith that the sun will rise tomorrow? Do you hope for anything? Can you hold love in your hand? Does love's intangibility prove fantasy?

How are we crippling children by teaching them to believe they are loved? Are we crippling them to believe they can love others and that love will be returned? NO. Are we crippling our children to believe in compassion and emotion? Both are intangible, but very real---and certainly not fantasy.

When so much of our lives encompasses faith, hope, and love, how can you possibly determine that these intangibles are fantasy. Don't believe everything you see!!! But please believe some of the things you don't see.

I have cited below a website of The Association of Christian Engineers. I forwarded your email to a colleague of ours--(civil engineer/architectural design). Maybe he will answer your post, as well.

Answer 5

you are totally right.

many followers of religion admit that they believe "what my parents taught me."

Children are not experienced enough to make difficult decisions. This is why they are not allowed to live alone, manage their own money, or even choose to pierce their ears without their guardians' permission.

It is time now to apply this obvious truth to religion. Choosing between religions and choosing to adopt a faith at all is probably one of the hardest and most important decisions a person will have to make. It should not be taken so lightly as it is today.

I personally believe that we should adopt a system in which children are encouraged to commit to a religion only AFTER they have been neutrally exposed to ALL of the options.

imposing a belief on a young mind is good for nobody, not for the ones that believe, not for the ones that don't believe, and especially not for the young mind that has been biased.

Answer 6

i think that depends on the extent to which you emphasize the legitimacy of it all. if you live in an extremely religious environment then yes all of those things apply, but there are people that do leave it up to god whether someone survives an illness or not, yes i think doing that to a child should be a crime because as parents you are obligated to care for them. exposing them to many different ideas and beliefs is a good way to raise an open minded child though, letting them know there are other ways to see things is overall a good idea, fanaticism in anything is bad. in children i think religion can give them hope, a sense that the world is bigger than just them and an understanding of right and wrong, also a good church can give a strong sense of community and caring what happens to that community and the people in it, now none of that is about god but i think they are good qualities to teach a child.

Answer 7

Shouldn't it be illegal to teach children about evolution in school, you don't know for sure that it actually happened...you have no scientific proof. Nobody was there to film it. If you don't want children to be taught something home school them...Then you control what they learn. A lot of the times illnesses are test from God...Isn't it wrong to teach our children that if you work hard in school and study and blah blah blah that they will be rich some day...who says...it's not a gaurantee...it's going on hopes and dreams...Religion is for all ages, if you don't want your children to hear it..then don't, that's your choice...but it can't be illegal to teach children about God, for seperation of Church and state. and I just graduated from high school, and I never once heard anything about God in school.

Answer 8

Children should be taught "faith" so that they have something to believe in. When I was little, I was terrified, absolutely terrified of the concept of death. I could not imagine dying, being buried in the ground, and the world continuing on without me. The concept of life ending was just horrific to me.

As I matured and found faith (notice I did not say religion), I learned so much about inner-strength, peace, afterlife, etc... I wish my parents had taught me about faith earlier.

Answer 9

I guess that an illness can be a test from God. He let Satan test Job, and Job still stuck to his guns and still served the Lord. And people don't 'get religion'. Why do you have to get proof for what you believe. That's sorta like what is happening in Iran and what Hitler did to the Jews. It's wrong.

Answer 10

I think it's ok to teach children about religion, but they should also be taught religious acceptance (i.e. respecting other people's beliefs). Also, each individual has a right to find the source of spiritual health that best suits them, be it Christianity, Satanism, or atheism, without fear of oppression, so children should be allowed to question religion as well, which many religious individuals (equally as narrow-minded as some have said you are) do not allow.