The problem I see is that very few children are educated sufficiently to balance the childhood indoctrination of sitting in a pew at a young age listening to sermons or singing hymns and being told that a cup of wine is now the blood of Christ. Children often believe in Santa Claus in a sleigh pulled by flying reindeer simply because their parents tell them. Things we believe from childhood become a part of our psyche at a very deep level and are not easily changed. We learn our values from childhood mostly, and many of those values come from watching parents trying to be good Christians.
... so, by the pedagogical formula you're intuiting here, it seems that something like teaching our children through rote lessons anything----even the concept of 1 + 1 = 2----without competing voices in the mix to tell them otherwise, isn't a good thing.
As for the Santa analogy, I think it fails for the simple reason that there is more than enough incursion from outside 'voices' who tell children to re-think the Santa Proposition, and if not early on, then at some later point in their lives. Moreover, it remains that the outside voices themselves don't always account for the full reality of that which they discount and dismiss, such as they do with Santa. For instance, in my own case, I believed in Santa for a long time as a child. I believed ardently in Santa because not only did my parents tell me that Santa was on his way each Christmas eve, but at the age of 3(?), I woke in the middle of the night, and while all was silent and still, I heard the faint jingle of a jingel-bell. And I looked out my window to see what was the matter, and what to my wondering eyes did appear, but a little red dot in the sky, flying along on a night that was distinctly clear ... But then several years later, my 5th grade friend, Chuck, told me on one crisp December morning, while we milled around during recess near the chain-link swings, ".... Nah, there's no Santa, that's just your parents putting those gifts out under the tree!" And I cried.
So, in my case, two things happened: 1) I perpetuated my belief in Santa because I thought I had additional corroborating evidence, and 2) an alternate voice told me about a competing FRAMEWORK by which I reinterpreted the entire Santa scheme.
Even so, ironically, I found out later that both options (1) & (2) were both wrong and/or incomplete in their explanatory power .................................
In atheist forums there is a category called "non-theist" which is a sub-category of "atheist". These are the people who were raised in atheist families and escaped indoctrination. Usually non-theists are much more tolerant of religion than atheist converts such as ex-Christians. So it DOES make a difference whether a person is exposed to religion as a child.
Are you sure atheistic children who are raised in atheistic households are 'escaping' indoctrination altogether? Is this the case in China? Is this a 'good' thing? I don't see how it is.
Yep, but I guess there are a lot of other sources of wisdom outside the Bible. A Christian might put these few Jewish wisdom books on a pedestal and neglect other books of wisdom. IDK
I'm sure they could, but there is no guarantee that any Christian WILL ignore all of the other competing voices in the world.....................................and there's no guarantee that what the Jewish people have handed off to us in regard to Jesus ISN'T somehow the most cogent religious insight that exists.
That's a million dollar question, isn't it?
