Is it POOR PARENTING to raise a child into a religious faith? (page 4)

nvrgnbk

Thank you for those thoughts, LT.

What do you think of the work of Joseph Campbell?

Terry

What does a child need from a parent if not a workable solution, a way, a method, an approach to solving their problems?

Worst parenting does the solving. Best parenting gives tools for self-solving.

Worst parenting hides the bad and the hurt from sight and pretends it away.

Best parenting clearly points to it and warns in a way that is less fear than strategy and confidence it can be overcome or avoided.

Critical thinking and a skeptical stance will go a long way.

Belief and hope and fantasy have no road map other than what others say.

Having a purpose in this life takes you somewhere.

Making your purpose the next life leaves you at the bustop shielding your eyes looking for your ride.

Knowing how to make friends who share your values and goals is key.

Helping your child live with open eyes is a wonderful gift. Some things they will see are mere magic tricks. Help them appreciate the art of the illusion without having to invest belief as well.

When people tell them things to fill them with either fear or wonder; help your child to see it is often so that they can, then, control them using fear or wonder.

How can they find out what they need to know? What is the difference between mere opinion, consensus and fact? How do subjective and objective worldviews differ?

Today's parents seem intent on entertaining and distracting their children. These grow up into young adults who only crave distraction and entertainment with no appetite for reality at all.

Teach your kids how to deal with real pain and disappointment by facing the source of pain and disappointment: poor choice.

Self-medication and consciousness alteration and sexual stimulation can be an escape from a poor life only in the mind of someone who cannot find their way.

Show them that the "way" is toward a long life well-lived.

Rules come from boundries. Boundries are for a reason. Know the reasons! Teach reasons. Teach facts.

Be the best example.

LittleToe

Nvr:

Joseph Campbell

This one?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Campbell

I don't think I've come across him before, though his ideas are similar to ones that have fascinated me for years.

Terry:

Best parenting clearly points to it and warns in a way that is less fear than strategy and confidence it can be overcome or avoided.
Critical thinking and a skeptical stance will go a long way.

Most children won't meet those terms before their age reaches double figures. Is there any room in what you've described for a child to be a child for a wee while?

Belief and hope and fantasy have no road map other than what others say.

But they do help children think out of the box. I can't imagine a childhood without a little fantasy.

I have no issue with the concept of teaching children critical thinking but it has its place in the education pathway much later than the stages where a child needs to be given concrete and abstract ideas in an environment of trust. Evidence from educational researchers suggests that stories are the best way to teach such lessons. Its a crapshoot as to how reliable the parents will be that a child inherits, but they usually muddle through. If the education is progressive they will likely eventually weed out some chaff in their own time.

Simple tools built into more complex tools. Isn't that the way it works?

IT Support

Richard Dawkins made a two-part documentary for Channel 4 TV, entitled "Root of All Evil?" in which he argued that religion was a virus that subverts reason. In part two, "The Virus of Faith," Dawkins attacks the teaching of religion to children, calling it child abuse.

"Innocent children are being saddled with demonstrable falsehoods," he says. "It's time to question the abuse of childhood innocence with superstitious ideas of hellfire and damnation. Isn't it weird the way we automatically label a tiny child with its parents' religion?"

(http://richarddawkins.net/article,118,Religions-Real-Child-Abuse,Richard-Dawkins)

I agree with Dawkins.

LittleToe

My parents read me the story of "Jack and the Beanstalk" as a child. Damn them for teaching me that geese can lay golden eggs, it has scarred me for life!!!

Homerovah the Almighty

Isn't bringing up children with religion the same as bringing them up with ancient ignorance,

deluding their personal advance intellectually, and therefore damaging humanity as a result.

Shawn10538

Atheism is the default position on God. You shouldn't believe in God until you have proof that he exists. He/she/it should be required to make themselves known to each individual without any influence from parents or other adults or so called "holy books". Any interference by a fellow human I consider to be inerfering with a person's right to have unadulterated contact with a divine being. In my opinion any and all interference by people or "holy books" is a violent act against the child. Even the IDEA or CONCEPT of gods should be avopided. If they can't develop a sense of god on their own without societal interference, then this proves that the idea of Gods is a man made contrived proposition and is therefore categorically false, an invention from someone's imagination. Personally, I'll never forgive my parents for introducing me to the god concept. It ruined my life. "Knowing" god kills.

moshe

Kids want to fit in with their peers and belonging to a religion that is accepted by local society is not all bad. They can figure out what part of religion to believe when they are teenagers.

LittleToe

HtE:

Isn't bringing up children with religion the same as bringing them up with ancient ignorance,
deluding their personally advance intellectually, and therefore damaging humanity as a result.

Lets take that objection to its natural conclusion:

You were raised with religion therefore your thinking must be intrinsically flawed. You were programmed with delusions, including the idea that all religion is false except one, only you came to find that the one religion you held to be true was actually wrong. You cannot trust your thinking because it has been compromised. On that basis none of us can impartially discuss the topic and arrive at an accurate conclusion.

Every hypothesis on this thread demonstrates a number of assumptions (some apriory). To believe otherwise, in the face of the evidence, is potentially demonstrating childlike trust of your current level of intelligence. Education opens the mind to how little we actually know. We've all got a lot of education to go yet, haven't we?

LittleToe

Shawn:They tried to prove that concept in Communist Russia and China. It failed miserably. People still believed in god[s].

Is it POOR PARENTING to raise a child into a religious faith?

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