Why do parents "indoctrinate" their children to their own religion?

Question

Don't they trust them to choose their own beliefs on their own?

Jesus loves me, this I know
'Cuz the bible tells me so

This is what they teach their children. It's an admission that faith can't be explained . . . all you can do is quote scripture. Drilling this into young minds that are too immature to understand the concepts they're being taught, helps to ensure that the concepts get internalized before they're understood. This is brainwashing. It helps continue the lie of religion.

Look at Christian answers. It's all based on a closed system of scripture. It's starts with, "God said it -- I believe it". Then it's all self-referential, circular logic from there.

Oh . . . and the fact is they don't really mean it when they say "God said it -- I believe it" -- they're SELECTIVE believers: every last one of them. Always have been. Always will be.

"No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says: He is always convinced that it says what he means." ~George Bernard Shaw

To Diary of Chris:

The VAST majority of "believers" inherited their beliefs from their parents or culture. This is reflected by the GEOGRAPHIC distribution of religions.

If you're from the U.S. you're likely to be Protestant. If you're from the Philippines, you're like to be Catholic. If you're from Viet Nam, you're likely to be Buddhist. If you're from Saudi Arabia, you're likely to be Muslim, if you're from India, you're likely to be Hindu. If you're from Israel, you're likely to be Jewish.

This doesn't mean it's unusual to have a different or "minority" belief . . . only that most people did NOT examine or compare religions and beliefs before choosing their religion. It's FAR more likely to inherited your religion than to choose it by conviction.

Even religions chosen because of "spiritual experience" are apt to be the religion dominant in your region. There's growing evidence that the "spiritual experience" is electro-chemically induced in the "God Module" of your brain.

By the way, I'm not an atheist. I'm an agnostic and I'm very much anti-religion (as if you couldn't tell).

I think God might exist but I'm convinced that NO religion is valid.

If God exists, He must be a cosmic God not a personal one. A creator not a meddler.

In the paraphrased words of Stephen Roberts:

I contend that we are both anti-religion. I just believe in one fewer religion than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible religions, you will understand why I dismiss yours.

Religion: A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable. ~Ambrose Bierce

I am treated as evil by people who claim that they are being oppressed because they are not allowed to force me to practice what they do. ~D. Dale Gulledge

In religion and politics, people's beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination. ~Mark Twain

Impiety, n.: Your irreverence toward my deity. ~Ambrose Bierce

Those of you who’ve chosen your religion based on independent examination of the options are rare and I salute you. But if you find that, locally or regionally, your choice puts you in the majority – isn’t there a good chance that, despite your independent examination, you were still influenced or biased like most of us?

Obviously, ALL these competing religions can’t be right. However, they can all be wrong. At BEST, only one can be right!! How can the faithful of these competing religions know their choice is right? They can’t. They can wish and hope it. They CAN'T know it. Yet many of them will take their kids to church or religious school or teach them religion at home. They teach it as a truth, when in fact it’s a hope.

Be honest and open minded when teaching your children. Inform them – don’t indoctrinate them. With all the other pressure they have to conform, they need you for balance.

Answer 1

I think sects or religions (there is no clear line) know very well that children tend to follow their parents. That is why they commit this massive intellectual-emotional rape on children.
If children would really be educated in a religion critical environment, the sects would be out of business in one generation. That is why they always fight for the schools. They want their own symbols in the classes, the veil, the cross, the bible. They want their own teachers teaching religion, then biology, physical education etc. Why would an academically and educationally trained philosopher not be capable of teaching about religions? Would parents accept if maths and other subjects would be given by dilettants?

From the parents point of view, I see two reasons.
ONE: They are so endoctrinated themselves that they do not even realise they endoctrinate their children.

TWO: They are under social pressure.

Have a nice day.

Answer 2

I don't have answers, i don't know if its real brainwashing or fake. No matter how hard I try to leave christianity, i always get pulled back in from small or big reasons. I believe religion is a mental trap to make you a good or bad person. Sometimes I wish I can understand what it feels like to be an atheist or atleast to pick my own religion, not my parents religion.

Even if my parents did say religion taught to me is fake, i still believe i would have trouble denouncing my religion.

On the other hand, science has never proved where life came from. The big bang is complete garbage and provides no detail about life BEFORE the big bang. I think science is somewhat fake like religion is. My humble opinion. Sorry i didnt mean to offend anyone, i hope i didn't. thanks

Answer 3

I have news for you - all children/people are indoctrinated. It just comes down to what doctrine your going to give them - your cynicism or Christian hope, your secular humanism or the Christian faith.
If you care to know, there is no "closed system of scripture" as the Christian canon (That would be the Bible) has never been officially closed by anybody, except maybe the fundies who seem to have gotten your panties in a wad.
Instead of displaying the ignorance of the fundamentalists you so despise why not do a bit of research. You might find a whole other type of Christian out there.

Answer 4

I'm not sure this is a question but I will share my experience. I have weird parents. My father is Catholic and my mother is a black belt Atheist or to be more exact she is an Anti Christ Humanist. So my mother used to take me to all sorts of Catholic schools and to mass on Sunday. Then after a few years she had an argument with the nuns and sat me down and told me that GOD was like the Easter Bunny and Santa Clause and took me out of the Church. My current beliefs are the result of 40 years of spiritual seeking and discovery. I will pass that on to my children. If they want to go another way then that is fine by me. It would be criminal to not offer them the core of my joy and the base of a life finally worth living.

Answer 5

I truly believe that the only Christians who you are talking about are the only ones you've heard. You haven't heard all Christians. Neither do you seem to know the basis for faith.

Atheists can be seen as having a closed system of Faith as well. Yes, faith.

They have faith that they are right about there being no God. They haven't based anything about what they believe in 'proof', but they do think that hey based their opinion upon 'common sense'.

But what is the Atheist missing, if anything? I would say that the Atheist is missing THE key element of the Christian experience. The Spirit of God. Yes they can say that it doesn't exist. But us Christians who have had that unique experience would no longer be honest, no longer would be operating in the realm of common sense, if we denied it.

So there is your missing piece of the puzzle, why Christian parents would teach their children what they believe. Partially because they love their children, and partially because they know someone you cannot know; the Spirit of the living God.

Answer 6

I didn't start out teaching my children through the Bible. However, it's what I believe, so when they asked all the normal questions like who made us? Who made the trees? Birds? whatever, I answered "God did." I'm not going to tell my children or grandchildren to go seek answers from an atheist or agnostic if that's not what I believe. When they became of an age to decide and had heard all explanations, they still came back to believing in my God. Know you don't want to hear it, but "Raise a child up in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it." I suppose that could apply to a non-believer's teachings, too, but am happy mine chose God.

Answer 7

I try to be polite. I really do. But "questions" like yours really push my buttons. I walked into a shop to buy my child some clothes and saw a t-shirt that had "dinosaurs 65 million years ago" and many that were far more specific. This "scientific" indoctrination is just as distructive, if not more distructive than what your spouting on about. Do you realise how many people still believe that Darwin's origional theory is "scientifically proven"? Do you know how many people don't realise that we are onto the 3rd resurection of this theory? Try getting Atheists on the same page before spouting stupid statements at religious people.

Answer 8

I agree 100% My family sent me to CCD, Church, bible scool, all of that...one day I woke up and saw my classmates being brainwashed. I am now an atheist. But that's not even the point here. The point is that kids should have education available to them at a young age about ALL religion, philosophy, etc. No one should be allowed to pass on religion to their kids automatically without the kids true consent, meaning tthey FULLY understand what they're agreeing to.

Answer 9

Hmm. obviously not very effective, by reason of a recent questioner asked why (or how) did you becme atheist? and the majority of atheists answered, "I was raised religious".
Of course, the fact that mny people abandon the religion of their parents, may well have to do with the prophecy in the book of Revelation, where the great "harlot" is made destitute.
Of course the great harlot, is the world empire of false religion, and I can totally understand why people would leave in droves, the religions that have been fleecing their flocks for centuries, adn not feeding them their spiritual food.
I can totally understand why so many are becoming atheists.

Answer 10

Parents have been taught by their parents and parents teach their children. It is only natural. I may not totally believe in religion, but I do believe that it is good for a child to get some religious background when they are young, I do believe that it is right for parents to send their children to some kind of religious school to get some kind of background in religion, whether they follow it or not, but it gives them some stabilization in what is right and what is wrong as basics in life. You don't have to follow the religion as you grow up, you can go anyway you chose, but you have some kind of a basis to start life off with. As you grow you ideals may change and usually do, and religion may leave your life, but a lot of what you learned , hopefully not the ideal of original sin, but other things, will stay with you.