For many religious people, raising their children in their faith is an important part of their religious practice. They might see getting their kids into heaven as one of the most important things they can do as parent. And certainly, adults should have the right to practice their religion freely, but children are impressionable and unlikely to realize that they are being indoctrinated into one religion out of the thousands that humans practice.
And many faith traditions have beliefs that are at odds with science or support bigoted worldviews. For example, a queer person being raised in the Catholic Church would be taught that they are inherently disordered and would likely be discouraged from being involved in LGBTQ support groups.
Where do you think the line is between practicing your own religion faithfully and unethically forcing your beliefs on someone else?
Each teaching has to be evaluated on its own merits, its basis in reality, and its effect on the child and how they relate to others. Whether it’s religious in origin is ultimately beside the point.
I’d say yes, as long as they’re tolerant of their children questioning those beliefs and developing their own later on in life. Parents will always make an impression on their kids, that’s just what being a parent is. It can get more nuanced of course. Teaching your kids homophobia is unethical, but that’s regardless of whether it’s for religious or other reasons.
I think it’s important to teach children the cultural traditions of their family and religion can be a good tool to teach children the social contracts of ethical behavior. The abstract metaphysical elements of faith can be a good substitute until they’re old enough to understand the usefulness of moral behavior from a social contract perspective.
The line is crossed when religion is used as a tool to teach bigotry. But the world is made richer by cultural traditions and those should be carried on.
This would be true if religion were not so often used to suppress and hurt people.
It’s true that it’s unethical to raise children in a way that suppresses or hurts them or tells them to do that to others, but that isn’t a requirement of religion, even if it’s a trend of some. There exists an entire globe of different faiths and practitioners of varying levels of orthodoxy, to malign every last one of them as abusive and harmful isn’t just a gross over generalization, it simply isn’t a truthful representation of many many faith practitioners.
The history books are full of religions’ heinous crimes against humanity. Maybe there is some religion out there that is purely benevolent but I have never heard of it in the sea of counterexamples.
If you are currently trapped in a religion, I am here to tell you that you can escape. Once you do, a lot becomes much more clear.
It is also important to remember that religions are human organizational structures, but their basis of authority is “because I said so.” We see this structure arise over and over until it is eventually removed for something more based in reality.
I think this kinda gets closer to my point. Humans create these kinds of social organizational structures and have made various kinds throughout history. Both religious and non-religious structures get used in horrendously abusive ways. But to decry all religion as a harmful structure is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I think it’s possible to maintain the cultural aspects of faith while removing the abuse and bigotry that often comes with it. And I think you can see that in many of the lives of practitioners that don’t make the history book and news. Though I’d never deny that religion frequently gets used as a tool of control, I just think it requires a lack of imagination to say that it always is. Or to say that removing religion from the world would create a world without communal tools of control and abuse.
You are like a younger me who refused to see the 10,000 year history of abuse and realize that any system based on “because I told you so” us unethical and harmful to human life.
I’m not arguing to say we should be basing any society on any religion, but rather that it isn’t unethical to teach children religion because it’s part of culture and culture should be carried on as long as it doesn’t teach intolerance or abuse. Those aren’t inherent to religion and any religion that does feature those can probably have them be removed without harming the cultural aspects.
Edit: I feel like your last sentence implies a huge misunderstanding of my point. I think religion has value as a cultural and communal institution, and absolutely not as a replacement for ethics and science
History is full of heinous things that should never be repeated and we have a moral imperative to teach younger generations about them, why they happened and why they must never be allowed to happen again and how to do your best to prevent them. A lot of them can be traced back to religion, but absolutely not all of them.
Religion is not the single source of bigotry and bigotry is the issue. There probably isn’t any faith that is purely benevolent, but there doesn’t need to be, it’s the actions of those who practice it that matter.
I can easily see the appeal to look at the past and say “we must end religion to prevent the horrors that arise from it” but I think it’s a lazy solution. Those horrors happen outside of religion as well and will continue to happen in an atheistic world if the issues causing them (e.g. inequality, injustice, bigotry, abuse of authority, etc.) continue. But by removing religion, you remove part of the many beautiful cultural traditions that make up who all the varied people on this planet are. And I don’t think it’s useful to destroy cultures.
Edit: of course, religion can’t be used as a replacement for a scientific understanding of the world and I think at some point it must be taught that the metaphysics of religion are based in myth, but I think there’s a great deal of value in the way religion is part of a culture and fosters community. The threat of religion comes in how that culture and community is used.
Lmao another edit because I thought a lot about this during the pandemic: I also used to think the world would be better off with no religion, but I think that’s an easier point to make when looking at the largest religions in the world and the terrible things they’ve been (and continue to be) weaponized to do. As a thought experiment, ask yourself if it would be ethical to gather every Catholic in the world and re-educate them to deny their faith. Now try again with the First Nation’s people, or smaller local faiths in Africa or South America. I won’t speak for you, but I think at some point it crosses a line where it stops being a call for rational thought and an end to the opiate of the masses but a vehicle through which cultures are irreparably harmed or erased.
No it’s not ethical. I say this as a queer man indoctrinated in Christianity. I was lucky to make it through childhood without killing myself. I tried several times. Religion is a cancer that should be exterminated.
I am a trans woman who was raised Catholic, so I feel similarly. I’ve had to do so much work in therapy just to get to a place where I can accept myself for who I am. A lot of those old beliefs were baked in deeper than I realized.
I carry a lot of resentment towards my (very devout) parents for raising me in the church, but I also recognize my experience is not emblematic of every person’s experience being raised in a religious household.
I think we have a responsibility to teach our children to be ethical to the best of our ability.
I was raised in Reform Jewish household. I keep kosher (mostly heheh), I light candles and drink wine on Friday night, I observe most of the holidays.
We were taught to be accepting of LGBTQ people, two of my aunts are lesbians, two of my cousins are gay men, I’m bisexual and in a long term relationship with a Catholic-raised transgender man. We were taught to abhor bigotry against others. I doubt we’ll have children (for a myriad of personal reasons) but I’ve thought a lot about if we did and decided I would absolutely teach them about their Jewish ancestry. I think it would be important for them to know about the history and culture of the people that came before them that resulted in them being here. I would not teach them my grandmother’s Zionist beliefs, and my parents decided they wouldn’t teach them to me, but rather teach me about them and why they exist and why they are abhorrent. But that’s because I feel those would be important things for them to know and I think I could do it in a way that sets them up to be ethical people.I’m not sure if you plan on having children, but if you do, it’s really up to you to figure out what you you want to pass on and what you want to leave in the past. That could be atheism, it could be a very light form of Christianity that only includes “love thy neighbor” and Christmas. But, ultimately, I don’t think it is black and white whether or not it is ethical to teach children religion, rather there’s a moral imperative to teach our children ethically.
I’m not sure this is a question of ethics. It’s a question of whether you agree with a particular parent’s world view. A good parent tries to set their child on a positive path in life, and they are going to pick a path based their personal knowledge and beliefs.
Even if you try hard not to “indoctrinate” your child with any particular world view, they will still see you as a model for what to believe and how to behave. You will tend to be your child’s baseline for what “normal” is, at least early in their life. Your beliefs and behaviors will affect your kids whether you want them to or not.
Imagine how different society would be if people weren’t introduced to religion until they were 18.
Same place america is with safe sex: it doesn’t solve any problems, just defers the issue of ignorance and learning until adulthood
What? Safe sex solves a significant amount of issues like sexually transmitted diseases and underage pregnancy. What In the world are you trying to say?
Yes, but people learn about it late (if at all), and we end up with lots of adolescents getting STIs/pregnant/etc.
What In the world are you trying to say?
America has a problem with sex ed because people don’t learn about safe sex; many still learn abstinence only. This doesn’t stop STIs nor teen pregnancies, it doesn’t stop SA, it doesn’t stop myths about men and womens reproductive systems from proliferating, it just defers the problem of educating people until later. Basically, America’s sex ed is to avoid teaching people about sex, then hope they suddenly know how to have safe sex when they’re 18 because they’re 18.
Likewise, deferring learning about cults until they’re 18 doesn’t stop people from getting indoctrinated, it just expects 18 year olds unfamiliar with cult tactics to suddenly be immune to cult tactics because they’re 18.
Their kid, their call up until the point the child’s safety is in danger.
I have no more right to tell them how to raise their kids than they have about my entirely hypothetical and undesired kids. I may not agree with their choices and they may not agree with mine, I may think they are raising their kids to be less moral, they may think the same with the added bonus that I’m condemning mine to an eternity of torment.
That’s life in a pluralistic society.
Their kid, their call up until the point the child’s safety is in danger.
You’re answering the legal question instead of OP’s ethical question. You’re not wrong in your legal answer, but that wasn’t what OP was asking.
I think that’s the ethical answer too.
We can’t know who is right, so I don’t see any ethical way to intervene.
I hate when I see parents giving their kids a screen instead of interacting with them or worse, ignoring their kid im favour of their phone. But again, I don’t feel it is ethical to interfere.
If a child is homosexual, I would argue its unethical to teach them they are freak of nature and they are wrong or broken. However, its not illegal.
It’s act vs rule ethics, what is ethical in a particular situation may not be broadly applicable to society.
Edit: And from the religious parents perspective, letting your beloved child suffer an eternity of torment is probably not super moral. I may disagree but that’s their perspective and there’s no arbiter make the call.
You’re citing Bentham Utilitarianism but you could make a stronger argument for your side if you cited Kant I would think.
it’s nice to have culture or whatever, but practicing a religion is inherently unethical as it is giving legitimacy to a scam and perpetuating objectively bad ideas
Definitely think that kids should be explained different beliefs early on… plus they should be respected if they don’t want to follow the same beliefs, and be able to opt out of any traditions… though I suppose the faith I follow tends to be a lot less “damned to hecc” than some others, so to some parents if breaking a tradition means making their kid go to hell that’s probably a lot tougher of a thing than im imagining it to be
Regardless is it our business? You are free to raise your kids how you want. Theyll be just fine. If religion is taught and leads to a more happy or moral lifestyle that isnt so bad.
Nothing personal but i find it facinating with people make other peoples business their own. Let other people live how they want and in turn they wont tell you how to live. Itll all be over in a flash.
Except your own children are “other people.” They may not “be just fine.” Some religions are abusive and traumatizing. Why should adults have to deprogram themselves and recover from trauma later because their parents decided it was fine to indoctrinate their own kids? “Mind your own business” applies to parents too.
Some parents are abusive and traumatizing, religion or not.
What this really comes down to is “Why are bad people allowed to raise their children how they want?”
Unless you’re trying to make the argument that all religions are abusive and traumatizing.
That wasnt the title. Im not for Nazis raising othrr Nazis but once YOU decide what is the right snd wrong relgions then where will that lead us? As you can see in governement. They make moves till eventually you dont control your own children. Also if you dont have kids then you shouldnt be discussing this. Do you know how strong the parental instinct is?
Friendly argument but yall gotta think this through. You want freedom or you want someone deciding your relgion is “wrong” one.
Im done discussing. This one is a no brainer.
No. It is literal grooming. All religions are sex cults.
It’s a crime up to put that on a kid.
Stop giving religions a pass to abuse children.
What a bad take.
It’s not ethical to train your child’s brain to believe fairytales. It’s like foot binding, forcing an unnatural form on their growth. They grow up handicapped.
No. Simply put no.
If it impacts someone else besides yourself.
Yes, it’s their familial culture and it’s up to the kid to decide whether to break out from that or not later
