Maybe it's just a stilted impression I'm getting on here, but it seems to me that the surest way to ensure your children grow up HATING religion is to send them to a religious school.
2007-11-01 16:48:28 · 12 answers · asked by David M 6 in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
Don't get me wrong I'm a christian. I intend to raise my own children as christian. I am also a fairly educated (post graduate degree holder person as well. I think you make a mistake to dismiss 70-80%(according to most surveys on religion in the U.S.) of the U.S. population as mentally deficient for what they believe. I also think that from what most of you have said the problem is not religion, but rather one very narrow perspective on religion being shoved down your throats.
Even now I would argue that most of you still have only a very narrow idea of what "christianity" really looks like. It isn't one narrow view, but an extremely wide array of views from the most extreme lefts and rights of the political spectrum and everything in between.
Isn't the problem not "religion" per se, but rather extremism and the inability to entertain the possibility of compromise? That's a huge problem regarless of which belief system it comes from.
2007-11-01 17:42:19 · update #1
you just answered your own question
2007-11-01 16:52:49 · answer #1 · answered by zhao rong augustinus 2 · 7⤊ 1⤋
I am Catholic and I teach catechism. I will tell you why most agnostics, atheists and followers of odd religions were once Catholic. Because as Catholics we do an absolutely horrible job explaining faith to our kids. As shepherd of the flock , the Catholic church has for centuries simply assumed that the sheep believe and will follow blindly. They never had to convince anyone before and they have no idea how to do it now in the age of reasoning. Most Catholics never open a bible, never even know what it takes to be a believer. They just assume that they are going to heaven because they have done their sacraments. Sacraments without faith at its core is empty. Now this is official Catholic thought but in practice..... Like I said I teach kids, eight graders mainly, you would stunned by their ignorance and I am absolutely sure if I had their parents in my class they would know little more.
2007-11-02 00:02:40 · answer #2 · answered by mike w 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I went to Catholic school. Not because my parents were religious but because they didn't like the Grade 4,5 and 6 teachers at the public school. I don't hate religion. I just don't understand it. The main thing I remember questioning and disbelieving from my elementary school days are the stories that the priest would tell. It was like I read the paper, if that had happened in this area I would have read about it.
Also one time when my brother was 6 he went to confession, and not knowing any better told the priest that my family didn't go to church (he wasn't very good at evasive answers at this point) and the priest described how my family would burn in hell for that and made my six year old brother cry. My sister and I were very mad about this (we were 8 and 9) and got in trouble.
2007-11-02 00:14:48 · answer #3 · answered by Grendel 2 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Growing up, I never questioned my parents because I never knew it was an option. One day my dad said something I didn't agree with, and immediately I realized my obedience had been misguided. What my dad says is not right because my dad says it, it's right because it is actually right.
So growing up with religion and following it unquestioningly, the day will come when you realize you can think as well. When that day comes, some find the Bible to be too incorrect to stand by any longer. Others pick their beliefs based on their morals.
Anyways, you see the parallels. That's my explanation.
2007-11-01 23:55:39 · answer #4 · answered by Uh-oh 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I attended Catholic schools, I'm now attending a Catholic University, majoring in Theology. Maybe there was just bad post-vatican II catechesis at your schools that really turned ya'll off to religion. Maybe, as adults, you should give it another shot.
2007-11-01 23:56:50 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
I never went to a religious school and may parents never forced it upon me and I'm still an atheist. But my mother is a prime example of your theory, she went to a Catholic school and to mass 3 times a week, after she married she never went back.
2007-11-01 23:53:35 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
Have you ever been to catholic school. It could be the #1 reason that they turned away from God. I went one yr during a "im going to straighten your life out" phase my mom went through. Im still a believer because i think jesus pulled me out of there. The teachers are nuns they never get laid so you could imagine how they act.
2007-11-02 00:00:54 · answer #7 · answered by Heath H 3 · 1⤊ 1⤋
Most people have some sort of exposure to religion of one type or another.
Thinking people, with half a brain, will read the baloney and realize quickly that it is simply fairytales. They will reject the mythology and magic potions......
Most of us outgrow Santa, Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy, fairy stories and others.......others simply don't.
2007-11-02 00:06:30 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋
they are very intellectually inclined and the higher educated tend to become atheists because they see the factual basis of religion is not as it should be .
2007-11-01 23:58:42 · answer #9 · answered by dogpatch USA 7 · 2⤊ 0⤋
lol!
add one more to your list, i dont believe in religion, and i currently am a senior at a catholic school
2007-11-01 23:54:08 · answer #10 · answered by It's a lamp! 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Nothing like a good dose of god to turn someone off religion altogether.
2007-11-01 23:53:51 · answer #11 · answered by Molten Orange 5 · 2⤊ 1⤋