NationStates

Atheists such as Richard Dawkins in his book, the God Delusion often say that it is, and many atheists tend to point this out to the religious people they debate.

Now as a theist and Muslim, I agree with this; yes, religion is a form of indoctrination and a biased view on life. That is one thing I accept of my views: Everyone has a bias, and I agree with atheists to an extent religion is indoctrination because we accept preconceived views from our respective holy books. The problem is in everyday language, the word, indoctrination is used too much in the negative and that's the same with the word, bias.

For example, whether people like it or not, we do indoctrinate our children. Everybody indoctrinates a child by telling them murder is wrong, stealing is wrong, and lying is wrong. The child accepts these without question. Then later on, he uses his reason to understand them. That's the same with religion.

With that said, let's begin discussing.

Murder, lying and other things like that are universally accepted as wrong. A religion is not universally accepted. That is the difference, and that means that religious indoctrination is negative.

Life is indoctrination.

Indoctrination is form of abuse when the message is something questionable.

Like how people make kids believe that the religious leader and god are always right, and if you think they aren't you'll go to hell where the same god that loves you will let you be tortured forever.

There are videos that describe this better, but I hope you get the idea.

But then again, we do indoctrinate, as you said.
Player3 is next

I would consider so. Family, education, and church are three main forms of natural indoctrination. Whether the religion and preacher teaches positive values varies.

Ethel mermania wrote:Life is indoctrination.

Indeed. Society indoctrinates, family's indoctrinate, schools, government, religion, and even peers indoctrinate.

What if people just taught people about most beliefs, and let them decide. And instead of saying "don't steal or die" say "stealing is bad because this item doesn't belong to you" or something.

I'm not a psycologist, but I wish I was.

If you're raised in it and given no real choice on if you wish to be a member of the religion or not, yes it is.

Yes.

Theism should be taught only once TV he child can contemplate metaphysics. Not really feasible but oh well.

Trollgaard wrote:

Ethel mermania wrote:Life is indoctrination.

Indeed. Society indoctrinates, family's indoctrinate, schools, government, religion, and even peers indoctrinate.

Sadly, you can't get rid of indoctrination as it is the only way to build philia/asabiyyah because people are just not going to magically agree on social issues unless indoctrinated.

I would not prefer to live in such a world but this is our world.

It is indoctrination, but if you acknowledge that and you don't try to force it on everyone else through theocratic government or whatever, you can still practice your religion.

I have 4 kids. I have been raised religious, but am a atheist now.
I have taught my kids there is no Santa, no Easter bunny, and I do not believe in a God. But I have always told my kids, since there are parents who don't believe what we believe and do let their children believe in above mentioned; we don't tell them "what you believe is wrong"
My kids did receive presents when other kids received presents "from Santa" . But again, I let them be present when I bought the present and wrapped it. I also bought presents without the kids so some would be a surprise.

I try to let my kids think for themselves.

Will Change Name Later wrote:What if people just taught people about most beliefs, and let them decide. And instead of saying "don't steal or die" say "stealing is bad because this item doesn't belong to you" or something.

Because that's not the purpose of religion. Religion was designed as a way to control people, not teach them to think critically.

-Ocelot- wrote:

Will Change Name Later wrote:What if people just taught people about most beliefs, and let them decide. And instead of saying "don't steal or die" say "stealing is bad because this item doesn't belong to you" or something.

Because that's not the purpose of religion. Religion was designed as a way to control people, not teach them to think critically.

Exactly and it also boosts asabiyyah so religion is pretty useful in warfare when the tech levels of both sides are fairly close to each other. Moreover religion boosts fertility rates so a Darwinist universe ironically selects for disbelief in Darwinism.

Mzeusia wrote:Murder, lying and other things like that are universally accepted as wrong. A religion is not universally accepted. That is the difference, and that means that religious indoctrination is negative.

what a ridiculous argument, firstly Murder, lying etc arent universally accepted as wrong, as can be attested by Trump (and most politicians and lawyers for whom lying is an art) and in the case of murder by the practice of Headhunting in the South East Asia and elsewhere. While the practice is largely historic it persisted into the 20th and the point though is killing people without the motivation of war was acceptable in some societies. As someone with cannibal ancestors the religious indoctrination that condemned those practices was probably a net positive for our society.

Religion, Culture and Family all rely on indoctrination to be effective .

It is but it doesn't really matter. So long as people are free to practice their faith and not forcing anyone to stay in the faith it's all good.

-Ocelot- wrote:

Will Change Name Later wrote:What if people just taught people about most beliefs, and let them decide. And instead of saying "don't steal or die" say "stealing is bad because this item doesn't belong to you" or something.

Because that's not the purpose of religion. Religion was designed as a way to control people, not teach them to think critically.

Religion came about as explanations for the way the world worked before we had any clue how to even find out how the world worked. A group of people agree on which unexplained thing made all these other unexplained things happen then bam, you got yourself a religion.

Yes. All forms of education religious or otherwise, are indoctrination into one percieved social order or another.

Mostly we tend not to notice nowerdays as broadly speaking across the world we have all been raised to share roughly similar social values, so when you're raised to believe them, you don't tend to question them.

However, there are always exceptions. If you plucked a child out of north Korea, and then snagged one from the USA, I imagine they'd disagree wildly about society and their role in it. [And the role of individuals in authority!]

Is that because they came to those conclusions naturally? I'd argue no, those were indoctrinated into them, because both sides believe they're right. As for who is 'right' and what is 'good' I'm sure we'd all defend it's obviously our system, where our is relative to whatever society indoctrinated you.

Is it a bad thing? Well. Only if someone else thinks it is. If we all agreed on something, whatever it was, murder, cakes, no Sundays, we'd all thing it was great, because we all agreed. If we didn't agree, you have desent, and the degree it's viewed as bad tends to be the vairable depending not on the act, but the size of the minority that disagrees. The less people who defend it, the more villified those who support it become.

Yes.

With the morality argument being brought up, I pose Christopher Hitchens' challenge again: name me one good that only a theist could do. It's pretty difficult, isn't it? Now name me one evil. Your head has 2 in mind already.

Not an excuse to mistreat anyone though.

Cetacea wrote:

Mzeusia wrote:Murder, lying and other things like that are universally accepted as wrong. A religion is not universally accepted. That is the difference, and that means that religious indoctrination is negative.

what a ridiculous argument, firstly Murder, lying etc arent universally accepted as wrong, as can be attested by Trump (and most politicians and lawyers for whom lying is an art) and in the case of murder by the practice of Headhunting in the South East Asia and elsewhere. While the practice is largely historic it persisted into the 20th and the point though is killing people without the motivation of war was acceptable in some societies. As someone with cannibal ancestors the religious indoctrination that condemned those practices was probably a net positive for our society.

Religion, Culture and Family all rely on indoctrination to be effective .

Politicians lie as do others, but they would always agree that lying is wrong.

Cetacea wrote:

Mzeusia wrote:Murder, lying and other things like that are universally accepted as wrong. A religion is not universally accepted. That is the difference, and that means that religious indoctrination is negative.

what a ridiculous argument, firstly Murder, lying etc arent universally accepted as wrong, as can be attested by Trump (and most politicians and lawyers for whom lying is an art) and in the case of murder by the practice of Headhunting in the South East Asia and elsewhere. While the practice is largely historic it persisted into the 20th and the point though is killing people without the motivation of war was acceptable in some societies. As someone with cannibal ancestors the religious indoctrination that condemned those practices was probably a net positive for our society.

Religion, Culture and Family all rely on indoctrination to be effective .

Exactly. Familism is itself an unchallenged belief. After all in humid tropical societies matrilocality and matrilineality is or was the norm. Guys chase random ladies and seldom work. Ladies bring up the kids of who knows which men. Of course I strongly oppose such norms and such societies because I realize how disastrous they are to the future of humanity. However it is really just a matter of personal preference.

EastKekistan wrote:

Cetacea wrote:
what a ridiculous argument, firstly Murder, lying etc arent universally accepted as wrong, as can be attested by Trump (and most politicians and lawyers for whom lying is an art) and in the case of murder by the practice of Headhunting in the South East Asia and elsewhere. While the practice is largely historic it persisted into the 20th and the point though is killing people without the motivation of war was acceptable in some societies. As someone with cannibal ancestors the religious indoctrination that condemned those practices was probably a net positive for our society.

Religion, Culture and Family all rely on indoctrination to be effective .

Exactly. Familism is itself an unchallenged belief. After all in humid tropical societies matrilocality and matrilineality is or was the norm. Guys chase random ladies and seldom work. Ladies bring up the kids of who knows which men. Of course I strongly oppose such norms and such societies because I realize how disastrous they are to the future of humanity. However it is really just a matter of personal preference.

Cute, another incel.

Heloin wrote:

EastKekistan wrote:Exactly. Familism is itself an unchallenged belief. After all in humid tropical societies matrilocality and matrilineality is or was the norm. Guys chase random ladies and seldom work. Ladies bring up the kids of who knows which men. Of course I strongly oppose such norms and such societies because I realize how disastrous they are to the future of humanity. However it is really just a matter of personal preference.

Cute, another incel.

So you like tropical values? Do you find Zimbabwe more enjoyable than Rhodesia? What about the United States? Why or why not?

I consider tropical values to be a trainwreck. It lowers production, increases the STD rates and encourages violence.

Anyway let's return to the topic. I think religion is a form of indoctrination that is replaced in a secular world by things such as ethnonationalism and SJ.

P.S. I'm not actually an ethnonationalist. However I'm a Singaporist or Temperatist, that is, I vehemently oppose tropical values.

We in the USSR also had an indoctrination, and a stepped one. It included the organization "October" (for schoolchildren 7-10 years old), the organization "pioneers" (for schoolchildren 11-17 years old), and then the Komsomol (for youth over 17), after which a number of people could join the Communist Party , but most people remained outside the party.

Admission to the pioneers and the activities of the pioneers was accompanied by solemn rituals: a public oath, the construction of a military type in the line, the music of the trumpet and drum, the study of the history of the pioneering movement, and so on. These were secular rituals, not religious and even anti-religious — members of these organizations were obliged to be atheists and promote atheism. Hence the conclusion: religion is not the only form of youth indoctrination. Secular forms of indoctrination are possible.

The negative attitude towards religion in the USSR was due to two reasons:
1. Religion hinders technical progress (the pursuit of scientists by the Inquisition, the rejection of the transformation of the earthly world for the sake of hope of heavenly reward, the curbing of earthly desires instead of searching for technical ways to satisfy them).
2. Religion serves the ruling class (divides the poor according to confession, teaches the poor humility, gives them the illusory hope of heavenly heaven instead of fighting to improve their earthly position).

I believe that this criticism was quite reasonable.

Dawkins is certainly a wise and courageous man, he opposes religious delusions. But, unfortunately, in exchange for religion, Dawkins is not able to offer an attractive earthly secular purpose, for the sake of which you can unite and go through indoctrination. In the atheistic USSR such a goal was.

EastKekistan wrote:

Heloin wrote:Cute, another incel.

So you like tropical values? Do you find Zimbabwe more enjoyable than Rhodesia? What about the United States? Why or why not?

Do you really just ask whether Zimbabwe more enjoyable than Rhodesia? Where people have state-mandated curfew because of their skin?

Heloin wrote:It is but it doesn't really matter. So long as people are free to practice their faith and not forcing anyone to stay in the faith it's all good.

-Ocelot- wrote:
Because that's not the purpose of religion. Religion was designed as a way to control people, not teach them to think critically.

Religion came about as explanations for the way the world worked before we had any clue how to even find out how the world worked. A group of people agree on which unexplained thing made all these other unexplained things happen then bam, you got yourself a religion.

My bad. I was talking about "modern" religion, before people were merely trying to understand how the world works. Older religions are so different it just feels wrong to share the same name as abrahamic dogmas ruling over us today.