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Dear George, (continued)

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I am sorry for the delay in sending this. It got blocked by the OLO 24 hour time limit.

"Freedom of thought and opinion" goes hand-in hand with freedom to give your child education in the world-view that you prefer (hoping that in his/her adulthood he/she will preserve and expand it, but also leaving it to him/her if he/she wants to adjust it to his/her own liking, or reject it and replace it with something else)."

That sounds like the first car salesman you meet saying "buy this car now! If you find one you like better down the road you can always modify it or sell it and buy the one you like better or decide not to buy a car".

Does that sound like a good deal to you George? Would you buy it immediately or wait until you are in a postion to make a decision on whether to buy a car or not and if so which one? Should we all buy cars from that salesman?

"... there are many things ... understanding and outlooks associated with mathematics, music, foreign languages etc. - that I am grateful for having been instructed in before I was "in full possession of my intellectual faculties."

Yes but the acquisition of those "understandings and outlooks" is progressive and usually adapted to the rhythm of development of your intellectual faculties.

As a child, at whatever stage of development, you lack the intellectual and psychological maturity as well as the experience that enables an adult not only to differentiate clearly and accurately between fact and fiction, but also to regard all beliefs, whatever they may be, with a certain amount of prudence and scepticism.

PS: I just noticed your new post and will come back soonest. I am sorry that my "world view" shocks you but it is a sincere, honest and considered opinion. Perhaps I should have kept it to myself and not posted it here on OLO. Please forgive me for not being sufficently attentive to your sensitivity and perhaps that of others.

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AJ Philips,

>>When you say “religious education”, what you’re actually referring to is - in every sense of the word - “indoctrination”<<
Do you really want to claim that the 1.147 billion (Roman) Catholics in this world were ALL "indoctrinated"? In a couple of posts above pelican objected to the Pope "equating" Nazism with atheism. Of course, her objection would be justified had the Pope really said something like that. The same with calling ALL religious (or ALL Catholic) education "indoctrination".

I do not remember when in my childhood I was told about hell and its meaning; apparently in different ways at different stages of my growing up. I agree that in some (too many?) cases this was presented in a way scaring the hell out of the child (pun unintended), however, claiming that this is how Catholic educatioin is being offered TODAY in ALL cases borders on paranoia.

>>link me to some information in regards to Dawkins saying this<<
http://www.thedubliner.ie/the_dubliner_magazine/2007/04/the_god_shaped_.html.

Or Chapter 9 in his book about (his?) God delusion. (I do not have the book only access to its online version, not in English: if you have the book, read the couple of sentences starting with "Once at a lecture I was asked …". There is no mention of hell in these two sentences only of "education in Catholic faith".

And finally, you will probably find something along those lines also in http://richarddawkins.net/videos/520894-richard-dawkins-at-protest-the-pope-rally-in-london-sept-2010.

Dear Banjo,

>>That sounds like the … car salesman<<
Maybe, but car salesmen don't sell cars to children, and many parents - theists or atheist - would object to having their choice of a proper education for their child compared to the approach of a car salesman: ditto for the rest of your post, where you keep on repeating yourself and I could only react by repeaing myself as well.

I am certainly not shocked; or do you think I am hearing these things for the first time? I am not a psychologist, so I am not going to speculate.

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Dear George,

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I am pleased to hear that I did not shock you. Thank you for your reassurances. I appreciate it.

I am sure you understood my metaphor about buying a car. Many parents buy cars for their children. There is quite a wide range available on the market these days to suit all budgets and all ages, even for toddlers.

But never mind, apparently it is an image that displeases you. I have noted that and hope to find something more agreeable if an occasion should arise some time in the future.

Thank you for your road map to God in three steps. I read that with interest and have taken the liberty of downloading a copy on my computer for future reference.

However with regard to your "religious insights into reality" I can understand your difficulty in providing any sort of concrete example that your father may have imparted to you when you were a child.

I browsed through a half a dozen articles on the web link you indicated on "philosophy, religion" but the closest I could get to "religious insights into reality" was what I would describe as "a philosophical approach to the question of the existence of God" and "a religious explanation of reality".

Unless I am missing something, I have the feeling your father was simply giving you the sort of religious instruction you would normally have received from a Catholic priest if it had been authorised. But having said that, I am sure it must have had a very special value coming from your father, particularly in those special circumstances which you described.

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George,

<<Do you really want to claim that the 1.147 billion (Roman) Catholics in this world were ALL "indoctrinated"?>>

Considering you and Banjo were just discussing childhood indoctrination with you even saying, “I already tried to answer your description of religious education as "child abuse"”, I figured it was safe to assume that you’d realise that I wasn’t talking about every Catholic (or theist). Especially since the childhood education/indoctrination bit has come up before in our discussions recently...

“Do you think the “religious education” (as you would prefer I call it) that you received from your parents...”
(http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=10496#178916)

<<In a couple of posts above pelican objected to the Pope "equating" Nazism with atheism. Of course, her objection would be justified had the Pope really said something like that.>>

I fail to see how what the pope said was much better than “equating” Nazism with atheism.

<<The same with calling ALL religious (or ALL Catholic) education "indoctrination".>>

Now that you mention it, I guess all religious education (done from the perspective that it’s the truth) is actually indoctrination.

Even as I look back to the Bible study classes I attended as a young adult - they fit the definition of indoctrination since the methods used to study the bible were described in that link I referred you to. We were indoctrinating each other with the help of the pastor who’d sit in with us and lead the study. But we were adults, so it wasn’t such an issue.

<<I do not remember when in my childhood I was told about hell and its meaning; apparently in different ways at different stages of my growing up.>>

Neither do I actually. No specific memories anyway. But I think you’re starting to confuse indoctrination in general with the claims of child abuse (mental I mean, not sexual). Indoctrination can occur at any age.

I wouldn’t get too caught up in the teaching/threatening little children about/with hell though. From what I’ve observed, that doesn’t happen too often, and as you’ve said...

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...Continued

<<... claiming that this is how Catholic educatioin is being offered TODAY in ALL cases borders on paranoia.>>

There’s also the point Dawkins makes about labeling a child. We’d never label a child a “Marxist child“ or a “Keynesian child”, yet we afford religion this luxury without give the child a chance to decide for themselves what they will actually consider themselves to be.

<<...read the couple of sentences starting with "Once at a lecture I was asked …". There is no mention of hell in these two sentences only of "education in Catholic faith".>>

Here it is:

“Once, in the question time after a lecture in Dublin, I was asked what I thought about the widely publicized cases of sexual abuse by Catholic priests in Ireland. I replied that, horrible as sexual abuse no doubt was, the damage was arguably less than the long-term psychological damage inflicted by bringing the child up Catholic in the first place. It was an off-the-cuff remark made in the heat of the moment, and I was surprised that it earned a round of enthusiastic applause from that Irish audience. But I was reminded of the incident later when I received a letter from an American woman in her forties who had been brought up Roman Catholic. At the age of seven, she told me, two unpleasant things had happened to her. She was sexually abused by her parish priest in his car. And, around the same time, a little schoolfriend of hers, who had tragically died, went to hell because she was a Protestant ... Her view, as a mature adult was that, of these two examples of Roman Catholic child abuse, the one physical and the mental, the second was by far the worst. She wrote:

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...Continued

Being fondled by the priest simply left the impression (from the mind of a 7 year old) as ‘yucky’ while the memory of my friend going to hell was one of cold immeasurable fear. I never lost sleep because of the priest – but I spent many a night terrified that the people I loved would go to Hell. It gave me nightmares.

Admittedly, the sexual fondling she suffered in the priest’s car was relatively mild compared with, say, the pain and disgust of a sodomized alter boy. And nowadays the Catholic Church is said not to make so much of hell as it once did. But the example at least possible for psychological abuse of children to outclass physical”

[End quote]

Not quite the same when you read what he actually said, is it? Note particularly the last paragraph. Especially the last sentence with operative words being “at least possible”.

It paints quite a different picture to your very blunt and inaccurate representation: “Dawkins keeps on expressing similar sentiments -seeing Catholic education worse than sexual abuse of minors, a claim so absurd that not even Stalinist propagandists would have dared to make explicitly.”

In regards to Stalinists though, it’s worth pointing out that we’re generally a lot more enlightened and aware about the problems with religion then people were back in those days. So it’s unfair to imply that Dawkins is worse than Stalinists here.

Speaking of unfairly demonizing Dawkins...

<<And finally, you will probably find something along those lines also in http://richarddawkins.net/videos/520894-richard-dawkins-at-protest-the-pope-rally-in-london-sept-2010.>>

Yes, I’ve seen his speech at the protest and no, I don’t think he says anything about Catholic teachings being worse than sexual abuse.

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