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As an ex-catholic, all I can say is: if your kids grow up with enough common sense and pragmatism, they might resent the early indoctrination. Their brains have
by ASalazarMX 5y ago
As an ex-catholic, all I can say is: if your kids grow up with enough common sense and pragmatism, they might resent the early indoctrination. Their brains have not matured enough to develop common sense until their teens, and everything the adults say will be taken as absolute truth. The humane thing would be raising them atheist, explain about agnosticism and religion, and accept their choice. All the rituals can be done at any age.
Just like religious parents can have atheists kids, atheist parents can have agnostic or religious children. Indoctrinating them from childhood is taking their freedom of choice and choosing for them.
- nefitty 5y agoHey that's an amazing point. Thank you for mentioning it. I definitely value freedom of thought above ritual. That's an aspect of the decision I had set aside as a conceit in order to allow myself to entertain it at all. I too was raised (loosely) Catholic, and a lot of my initial pain around morality and life stemmed from my literal interpretation of those teachings. I hope that some sort of ongoing comparative discussion of religion and the purpose it can serve would help a child make their own best conclusions. The way I've been thinking of it at the moment is, the tension at the heart of this, is "Would 'depriving' someone of those rituals be more harmful than helpful?" I'm leaning toward it being negligible, but exposing them to ritual might bring an individual closer to a healthy path of spirituality on their own terms. I would definitely keep the aspect of autonomy front and center if I did introduce my child to religion. "They talked about Jesus today. Do you want to sit with me and find out what other people think of him?"