Isn´t this a proof of deliberate religious indoctrination?

Question

"The Jesuits boast that if they could have a child for the first few years of his life, it would remain a catholic forever."

Doesn´t this demonstrate that religious teachings take advantage of the ingenuous and formative early years of a child to guarantee "membership"?

Isn´t that an unethical practice?

Do religious teachers fear that with an adult open mind criteria, fewer people would fall for their "a la Santa Claus" story?

Answer 1

It certainly is indoctrination of people before they are old enough to have a defense against silly nonsense, but that is nothing new. If all religions do this to some extent, perhaps the Jesuits are taking it a bit further, and the "shake my head" part of this is that they re PROUD of it.

Like growing up with your head full of sand is a good thing. It isn't, it then takes the indoctrinated person forever to empty out all the grains of sand, and as with sand, you can never get all of it out.

Answer 2

(Disclaimer ... I am not a Jesuit, but I am a Catholic ... so the order of the Jesuits is very familiar to me.)

Don't be so quick to condemn the Jesuits.

Specifically, Jesuits are known for very high-level emphasis on *education* and rationality.

In other words, this "boast" stems from exactly the *opposite* of what you are implying. Rather than "indoctrinate" children with a blind, irrational faith ... Jesuit teaching incorporates rationality, and allows students to question articles of faith and wrestle with them logically. This is a good thing.

So the boast would be that a Catholic student, raised in a Jesuit educational system, would not be vulnerable to feeling (as they matured) that reason and faith are in conflict. A Jesuit-educated Catholic knows how to embrace *both* faith and science without conflict.

If anything, the Jesuits are often attacked by religious fundamentalists, and many Catholics, as being too "liberal".

Jesuits do NOT emphasize Biblical literalism. They recognize that literalism produces an inevitable conflict between science and faith ... and that reading the Bible as a text of spiritual truths makes it much more powerful and applicable across not just generations, but millenia, than if it is treated as a literal science book, which both weakens the Bible, and dooms it to being short-lived, and eventually "disproved" and discarded.

Jesuits have also made great scientists. For example, the Big Bang theory was first proposed by a Jesuit priest Georges LeMaitre ... which illustrates that the fundamentalist attempts to paint science and the Big Bang theory (or other scientific tenets such as evolution) as the work of atheists is just a monumental LIE.

If anything, if more Christians in this country were given a *decent* religious education, instead of the childlike, CARTOON version issued by literalist fundamentalists ... (basically mistaking worship of a Book, as worship of God) ... then more Christians would be having a *deeper* discussions of faith than just a broad WAR on science! This absurd conflict would die the death it deserves ... and we Christians would learn that faith and science can *both* be embraced.

So don't be dissing the Jesuits. They actually *get it*!

Answer 3

They were certainly right - the time to indoctrinate people is when their minds are still soft, and they have no other data.

Which is why the disgusting movement to introduce 'creationism' to school kids is so dangerous - as is the disingenuous notion that this constitutes 'teaching the controversy'. There is no controversy, unless you consider the disparity between gynaecology and the 'stork theory' controversial.

But they don't have it all their own way. I was delighted to hear that some friends in Portugal have recently made pro-choice, pro-gay atheists out of a pair of their neighbour's teenage and formerly devoutly Catholic children.

A luta continua.

CD

Answer 4

Q: what's the version between a Christian evangelical street preacher and a prostitute? A: The prostitute is familiar with while its time to leave. right this is yet another...A Jewish boy comes homestead from college and tells his mom he has an element interior the play. She asks, "What section is it? The boy says, "I play the element of the Jewish husband." the mummy scowls and says, "circulate returned and tell the instructor you like a speaking section." properly, considering the fact which you look to easily be doing JW jokes, and that i'm an atheist, right this is one... Q: What do you get once you bypass an atheist with a Jehovah’s Witness? A: a individual who knocks on your door for no reason

Answer 5

Hey, sort of like the public schools do with humanism! I guess the Jesuits aren't alone.

Answer 6

Religion is part of culture.

You can't not pass this down from parent to child, it becomes a part of who you are and what you do. Culture is the sum of attitudes, customs, and beliefs that distinguishes one group of people from another. Culture is transmitted, through language, material objects, ritual, institutions, and art, from one generation to the next.

Answer 7

Most parents do the best they can with what knowledge they have to pass those ideas onto their children along with other things like good manners, good hygiene, good values, etc. I know of very few parents that simply leave their kids in the gutter.

Who gave you the job of judging what people teach their kids? Are you going to teach your kids to reject God and simply shoot for their self-interest? Can we put you in jail for life for being a bad parent if your kid turns into a school shooter?

Answer 8

Yes for we can all change our minds.

Answer 9

I was raised Methodist. Am now LDS (Mormon).