Is it selfish of a parent to force their religion onto their child

Zombrex

PDN wrote: »

So you say you are bothered at a dad saying to his own child, "Well, son, since you ask, the reason why I turned the other cheek was because my Christian faith teaches me that is the right thing to do."

No I'm not, which you would know IF YOU HAD READ THE THREAD :rolleyes:

At least you are nothing if not predictable ... anyway, this would be a Fail

Shenshen

JimiTime wrote: »

Thankfully.


Not necessarily. Some of you don't get the notion of 'motive'. 'If' a parent decided not to tell a child about something, and was motivated by the welfare of the 'schild' then that is the complete opposite of selfish. Of course, you can disagree if its best for the child or not, but you can't accuse them of selfishness.

I'm sorry, I don't think that there is any situation in which withholding information serves the welfare of a child better than providing that information.

It's this kind of logic that leaves children defenseless against sexual predators and the like.

JimiTime

Shenshen wrote: »

I'm sorry, I don't think that there is any situation in which withholding information serves the welfare of a child better than providing that information.

Fine, thats your view. It does not deal with the point made though. As I said, you can disagree with what is best for the child and think your wisdom thrumps every other parents if you like. However you can't accuse the parent of 'selfishness' unless you know the motive is selfish.

JimiTime

Wicknight wrote: »

No I'm not, which you would know IF YOU HAD READ THE THREAD :rolleyes:

At least you are nothing if not predictable ... anyway, this would be a Fail

Sorry WN, I'm a little confused here. Below is what PDN responded to. I bolded the relevant bit.

In fairness a lot do, judging by the huge industry grown up around Bibles and Bible guides for children.

I don't think anyone here is objecting to a parent say setting an example for their child by turning the other check when someone does something nasty to them.

The issue gets complicated when the parent explains to the child why they did that.


Is PDN not just asking why anyone would be bothered about a parent explaining why they behave certain ways? It seems by your above statement, that you are saying that 'Giving the example is fine, but then explaining the example causes a problem'.

Zombrex

JimiTime wrote: »

It seems by your above statement, that you are saying that 'Giving the example is fine, but then explaining the example causes a problem'.

No I'm saying it gets complicated

I was objecting to PDN boiling down me saying it "gets complicated" to a simple sound bite that I'm object to his straw man simply to attack me.

My position has been expressed over a number of posts in this thread and while complicated should be clear if someone has taken the time to read the thread. If anyone has a genuine interest in further clarification I'm happy to do this, but (and call my cynical) I don't think that was PDN's goal here...

owenc

VERY selfish you should be aloud to choose your own beliefs and not be forced into believing what your parents believe, my mother is trying to get me to believe what she believes but i will just join whatever religion i want i don't care if her bitter mother attacks me its my choice!

JimiTime

Wicknight wrote: »

No I'm saying it gets complicated

I was objecting to PDN boiling down me saying it "gets complicated" to a simple sound bite that I'm object to his straw man simply to attack me.

..

Could you explain the complication that could arise in the anecdoe you gave, just to find out at which point you say 'no, you've over stepped the mark'.

MikeC101

PDN wrote: »

So you say you are bothered at a dad saying to his own child, "Well, son, since you ask, the reason why I turned the other cheek was because my Christian faith teaches me that is the right thing to do."

But if I ask you about why you get bothered then that suggests that I have not a genuine interest in discussing the topic,and merits a bit of eye rolling?

Ok then. I'll leave you to it so.

Sorry for intruding.

Quelle surprise!

strobe

JimiTime wrote: »

Fine, thats your view. It does not deal with the point made though. As I said, you can disagree with what is best for the child and think your wisdom thrumps every other parents if you like. However you can't accuse the parent of 'selfishness' unless you know the motive is selfish.

Although it pains me to say it I completely agree with what Jimitime says there. If someone does something completely believing it to be in someone elses best interest then the word selfish simply doesn't apply to their actions. They may be wrong, I might disagree with their actions but I can't possibly see how I could call them selfish for doing what they did. It doesn't make any sense to.

Ickle Magoo

strobe wrote: »

Although it pains me to say it I completely agree with what Jimitime says there. If someone does something completely believing it to be in someone elses best interest then the word selfish simply doesn't apply to their actions. They may be wrong, I might disagree with their actions but I can't possibly see how I could call them selfish for doing what they did. It doesn't make any sense to.

I think it depends on what definition of selfishness you are using.

If it's being concerned only with oneself then I don't think the term does apply here - many theists would certainly consider themselves wholly altruistic when it comes to child-rearing but if you take the definition that it's putting ones own desires and interests above those of others then it's a different story - it's universally known that there are many faiths and personal beliefs regarding faith and spirituality - to try to coerce a child into following just one without giving them the option of or encouraging the child to find their own spirituality would certainly fall under the "selfish" umbrella in that instance.

strobe

Ickle Magoo wrote: »

I think it depends on what definition of selfishness you are using.

This one :concerned chiefly or only with yourself and your advantage to the exclusion of others.

I don't doubt that some parents do have selfish motives when coercing a child to follow thier own religion. But I'm also sure that others do not. The reason I singled Jimis post out to agree with is because he made the remark that wether something comes down to being selfish or not is all about the underlying motive and I haven't seen anything said in the thread that refutes that.

Ickle Magoo

strobe wrote: »

This one :concerned chiefly or only with yourself and your advantage to the exclusion of others.

I don't doubt that some parents do have selfish motives when coercing a child to follow thier own religion. But I'm also sure that others do not. The reason I singled Jimis post out to agree with is because he made the remark that wether something comes down to being selfish or not is all about the underlying motive and I haven't seen anything said in the thread that refutes that.

I'm not convinced. All theists know that not everyone follows their parents religion, that there are multiple religions and beliefs and that as an adult, following a specific branch of spirituality is an entirely personal choice.

To bring up a child without that choice is no different to bringing them up without a varied political education in order that they support a particular political party because it's the one the parent always votes. Theism is intrinsically selfish in many respects - it's very survival depends on being passed on down the generations and so the protectionism it gets from parents imparting very limited spiritual options is one of those. That's not to say theists are themselves selfish people, it's an inherent part of organised religion not to encourage free thinking and individuality regarding theistic issues, dictating a fixed code of behaviour, morality, instilling fear, guilt - even suggesting certain sexual orientations are sinful, etc, etc.

There are many children entirely unthankful for their parents religious interventions and projections, I don't think being ignorant that it is selfish nor being blinkered to selfishness under the guise of "well meaning" actually changes what it fundamentally is.

Zombrex

JimiTime wrote: »

Could you explain the complication that could arise in the anecdoe you gave, just to find out at which point you say 'no, you've over stepped the mark'.

Ok, but first to clarify there is no single "mark". That was the central issue I took with PDN's posts, he was straw manning my position into being along the lines of "A Christian did X, I'm outraged" simply so he could rant about how intolerant us atheists are.

How I think a parent should deal with the situation in the anecdote given depends on what their goals are for their child. This is a separate question to how out of line I think they are, which in turn is a seperate question to where I think the term "abuse" starts to apply.

Like I said, complicated.

Children at a young age are basically sponges, egger to sock up information. They view parents as high ranking authority figures (for evolutionary reasons) and thus accept what they say to a large degree.

You can't ignore this (as some seem to want to) when approaching the education of your child. This is true no matter what you are attempting to education your child about, be it religion or history or the best football team.

So say for example a parent is out with their child and for some reason a person starts shouting at the parent. The parent simply walks away, telling the child to come on.

The parent did this because they are a Christian who doesn't believe in engaging in conflict with people. By simply doing this they have demonstrated an example to the child.

Now they decide to explain to the child what just happened. There are a large number of ways they could do this, and which way they choose to do it depends on what the ultimately purpose of the explanation is.

For example they could say "You shouldn't engage in conflict", never mentioning God at all. They could say "I believe that you shouldn't engage in conflict", again never mentioning religion. They could appeal to the authority of God "God says you should not engage in conflict".

How this will effect the child is complicated, and it would be needlessly pedantic to say these set of words are the "correct" way and these sets of words are the "incorrect" way. There is no single "line", where if you say this it is ok and if you say that it isn't. Everything you say to your child has an effect on your child to various degrees, the issue is attempting to understand that in the context of the goals you want for you child.

Erren Music

JimiTime wrote: »

Fine, thats your view. It does not deal with the point made though. As I said, you can disagree with what is best for the child and think your wisdom thrumps every other parents if you like. However you can't accuse the parent of 'selfishness' unless you know the motive is selfish.

Of course the motive is selfish. God will love them more if they feed their kids minds to this insanity

mehfesto

I it's anything like a show I JUST watched on EWTN, I'm totally against it. But I'm cool with the relaxed way it's usually done.

But seriously, a 30minute show of repition - the same phrase AND scenes repeated at least twenty times. Jesus gettig lashed and being forced up he hill, cut to a nun who asks lots of multicultural children a question and then back to the scene you saw two minutes ago. Repeat ad nauseum.

That's just not normal for any child!

JimiTime

Erren Music wrote: »

Of course the motive is selfish. God will love them more if they feed their kids minds to this insanity

TBH, you offer little more than rant, rant, rant. As long as you get to shoot down what you hate, reasoning doesn't matter.

Sandvich

PDN wrote: »

I would say it horrifies them more because it would be an unwarranted Soviet-style intrusion by the State into families, and a denial of a basic human right as recognised by the United Nations.

So; children deserve no rights or protection?

"You can't tell me how to raise my kid!"

I can if you insist of bathing it in the washing machine.

Of course, schools are the big problem, and we can make "unwarranted" Soviet-style intrusion into those.

Erren Music

JimiTime wrote: »

TBH, you offer little more than rant, rant, rant. As long as you get to shoot down what you hate, reasoning doesn't matter.

I cannot reason with someone who is brainwashed.

Whatever religion you are you only have a 17% chance of being in the right one (there is no god).

Hows that for odds, and how selfish is it for you to think that yours is the right one and the other 6 billion people are wrong.

Originally Posted by Irlandese


"This is the same faith that believes a cosmic Jew who was his own father by a virgin can enable you to live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh, drink his blood and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from something invisible called your soul that is present because a woman made from a rib was convinced by a talking snake to eat an apple from a magical tree." Lovely, I think Steven Spielbarg is the director we want for this one and maybe David Bowie in the lead role??

Erren Music

Sandvich wrote: »

So; children deserve no rights or protection?

"You can't tell me how to raise my kid!"

I can if you insist of bathing it in the washing machine.

Of course, schools are the big problem, and we can make "unwarranted" Soviet-style intrusion into those.

What they really mean is that children have the right to be brainwashed. Christians definitely do not want their kids learning about ALL the other religions because it weakens the hold they have.

Dades

Erren Music wrote: »

I cannot reason with someone who is brainwashed.

Hi Erren Music!

Welcome to the Last Chance Saloon. It appears your recent temp bans haven't really taught you anything about decorum.

Adjust your attitude or begone forever.

Erren Music

JimiTime wrote: »

TBH, you offer little more than rant, rant, rant. As long as you get to shoot down what you hate, reasoning doesn't matter.

I do not hate religion, religion is an abstract idea given power by delusional people, it does not exist in reality, I hate what it does to people.

Back on topic.

You and your like have destroyed peoples ability to think logically, the rcc here wanted women to be cattle, to breed 8 kids or more, and then sit back and wait for the indoctrination process to begin at 2 or 3 months old, which is why they are so successful in uneducated poverty stricken areas today.

How can a 2 month old child make the baptism decision. How can anyone be so stupid to believe that this is the right thing to do.

The rcc are the original inventors of the pyramid scheme. Keep people uneducated and stupid and rcc and all other religions have a reason for existing.