Why is it OK to indoctrinate children?
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Nihilist Virus
When parents indoctrinate their children, are they satisfied with the child merely possessing an academic understanding of the faith or do the parents insist on controlling the personal beliefs of their children?
RDKirk
The former. That's all they can discern.
Utterly false. I have an academic understanding of the Bible and I'm quite capable of explaining why I don't believe it. So that is definitely distinguishable from belief, genuine or otherwise.
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Wonder why it's considered indoctrination? If we teach them in every area, we consider it great parenting except in the area of religion? The most important area
"Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it." Prov 22:6
"One generation shall praise thy works to another, and shall declare thy mighty acts." Psa 145:4
" I rejoiced greatly that I found of thy children walking in truth, as we have received a commandment from the Father." II John 1
"Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it." Prov 22:6
"One generation shall praise thy works to another, and shall declare thy mighty acts." Psa 145:4
" I rejoiced greatly that I found of thy children walking in truth, as we have received a commandment from the Father." II John 1
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My point is that I don't think you know atheists in real life since you don't seem to know what an atheist is. My position is solidified by your selective response which avoided a careful dissection of what atheism is.
Thank you for characterizing me as someone who wants to sexualize the language with which I describe children. If you wanted to shut conversation down between the two of us, there were classier routes to take.
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Constantine the Sinner
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"Doctrine" is just Greek for "teaching", "indoctrinate" just means to drill a teaching into someone. Morality is indoctrination, are we to not drill it into children?
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So far it seems to me that the most frequently cited justification for indoctrination is Proverbs 22:6, which says,
Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.
I do not think this is referring to religion. The author, King Solomon, was a polytheist (1 Kings 11:1-10), or at least he was in his older and wiser years, so I consider it to be quite a stretch that the verse is suggesting that parents reinforce a monotheistic loyalty to Jehovah.
Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.
I do not think this is referring to religion. The author, King Solomon, was a polytheist (1 Kings 11:1-10), or at least he was in his older and wiser years, so I consider it to be quite a stretch that the verse is suggesting that parents reinforce a monotheistic loyalty to Jehovah.
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Constantine the Sinner
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Yes, that's what education is unless you get to things that are extremely contentious in academics. You might consider reading Hume on that.I don't care about Greek. I'm speaking English.
You did not answer my question, are you against indoctrinating children with morality?
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I don't know why you expect me to answer your question when you didn't answer any of mine. You only played semantic games.
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Constantine the Sinner
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The issue is that you are analyzing Proverbs purely from a secular perspective. From a Christian perspective, Proverbs is inspired writing.
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Constantine the Sinner
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No, I answered yours by indicating it would be impossible to raise children or for society to function without massive indoctrination. What I want to ask is why you object to religious indoctrination, but have no qualms (presumably) about secular indoctrination such as public school and secular morality.
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I also am curious as to why this practice is necessary, since, if we suppose that Christianity is the one true religion, there should be no dire need to perpetuate the religion by means of indoctrinating young minds. Christianity, supposing it is true, will withstand the furious scrutiny of any academic nonbeliever, so there is nothreat of extinction looming over it.
No answer.
Furthermore, indoctrination should be unnecessary simply because either 1.) apologetics suffices to convince any rational person, or 2.) the Holy Spirit will reach out to everyone, or at least to those who are called, and since this comes from God it will be more effective than human means (indoctrination, apologetics, etc).
No answer.
but indoctrination is only successful if it stamps out the freedom of choice in the child. This, to me, seems to be a way of telling God that he is doing it wrong because, apart from Calvanists, free will is more or less a staple doctrine. But even the Calvanists must admit that indoctrination is pointless since indoctrination of a child who is not chosen by God will not result in the child being saved whereas failure to indoctrinate a chosen child will do no harm to the child's salvation.
No answer.
Why are you advancing the conversation with random, unfounded presumptions when we apparently don't even agree on the definition of indoctrination yet?
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Constantine the Sinner
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No answer to your first question because it's a non sequitur.
No answer to your second question because it's as absurd as saying we shouldn't use modern medicine, since if God wants to heal someone, he doesn't need a doctor.
It stamps out freedom only to the extent that secular indoctrination does.
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Catherineanne
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Wrong term.
The word you are actually looking for is enculturation. None of us can bring our children up in a bubble, without any input about faith, belief, country, family history, political viewpoints, music, art etc; all of these make up who we are as people.
If any of us attempted to bring up a child without any of this knowledge then we would be behaving as something other than human beings; who we are as parents is a role model for who our children will be. They can choose for themselves whether to accept and adopt our values, or to discard them, but it is plain daft to suggest that we withhold knowledge of these values from them as children. If we did then we would be behaving abusively.
Clearly your version of culture will differ from mine; some will be benign and some plain nasty, but none of us can help sharing who we are with our children. The word for that is not indoctrination because we do not expect anything to be accepted just because we say so. We expect our children to learn from us and then decide for themselves. Few of us would expect our children to adopt our taste in music no matter how hard we try and the same applies to every other area of life; people are not so easily manipulated as you seem to think they are.
Meanwhile Christianity is a faith which affects every area of life and every part of our being. It would not be possible for a Christian parent to behave as a non Christian when parenting because that is simply not who we are.
I suggest you buy a dictionary.
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If that's a nonsequitur, then the moon is made of cheese.
Again, you find this to be absurd because of your twisted definition of indoctrination. I provided the correct definition above for you. Definitions are not up for debate.
On Christianity, it is necessary to educate your child on the faith. It is not necessary to brainwash the child unless you believe that the Holy Spirit is useless. What is absurd about this argument?
Defecate on liberalism, secularism, humanism, and all other -isms as much as you like. Attacking what you randomly assume to be my worldview only shows desperation and does nothing to validate your own worldview.
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RedPonyDriver
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OH thank all that is holy my parents didn't force us into "religion". They taught us morals and values and how to properly relate to other people, how to not look down at others...
Then the real world hit and I discovered that there are people who wish to indoctrinate an entire country into their cult. I am so glad I saw the light and jettisoned all that dogma and baloney.
Then the real world hit and I discovered that there are people who wish to indoctrinate an entire country into their cult. I am so glad I saw the light and jettisoned all that dogma and baloney.
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Catherineanne
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I suggest you fly out here to America and attend Sunday school before you try to correct me on what I lived through from ages 0 to 18.
So what you lived through is exactly the same as the experience of every single other child with Christian parents?
Interesting attitude.
Meanwhile if you take another look you will see I corrected you on your semantics, not on your Sunday school memories.
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And your correction was incorrect. Children are taught to accept the Bible uncritically. That is indoctrination. It is not up for debate. Also, debate is not even allowed on this forum. If you agree that it is wrong to teach the Bible to youngsters without allowing them to evaluate it critically, then maybe lead with that thought and then slip in the incorrect correction.
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Constantine the Sinner
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That likewise is, which I'm assuming is intentional here.
Your definition and mine are not mutually exclusive. All teaching, except maybe a handful of methods (Socratic method, for instance), are indoctrination. When we tell children in school that Columbus sailed in 1492, we don't prove it or ask the children if they agree, we just indoctrinate them. We do this with just about all that we teach children, and adults too, for that matter. Critical argument is managed almost entirely by highly specialized experts for each field, not be the students.
I think its crux is a buzzword (brainwash). Virtually no truths we teach children are done by trying to convince them through argument.
This is a strawman. I'm not attacking liberalism, secularism, humanism, or anything else here. When I say "secular indoctrination," I just mean all indoctrination that does not pertain directly to religion, of which there is quite a bit of. Even if you don't adhere to a religion, chances are you will indoctrinate your children with a morality.
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