Religion
Related: About this forumNew Study Shows That Children Exposed to Religion Have a Hard Time Distinguishing Fact from Fiction
But what if you told them this story?
God warned Noah about a flood that was going to cover the Earth. Noah and his wife built a giant boat and gathered two of every kind of animal before the flood came. They were very worried but Noah, his family, and all the animals drifted for days until they reached new land.
Real or pretend?
A new study published in the journal Cognitive Science explored that very question. Without going into too much detail, researchers gathered 5- and 6-year-olds and divided them up into four groups:
Kids who attend public school and go to church
Kids who attend public school and don’t go to church
Kids who attend parochial school and go to church
Kids who attend parochial school and don’t go to church
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2014/07/18/new-study-shows-that-children-exposed-to-religion-have-a-hard-time-distinguishing-fact-from-fiction/
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cleanhippie
(19,705 posts)This should come as no surprise. 
napi21
(45,806 posts)but even at 6 year old (first grade) I questioned how it was possible to gt two of EVERY animal on one boat and keep them there.
To me, it just didn't make sense. Still doesn't and I'm 71 now. I'm a bit surprised that children of today are that gullible. They always seem to me to be much more intelligent at a younger age than I was.
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)
PM Martin
(2,660 posts)Some here won't like this. Too bad.
KurtNYC
(14,549 posts)kids who have been praised by adults when they seem to accept fantastical stories and disciplined when they don't?
It looks like the design of the study was all oral -- an adult reading a story and asking a question. So the dynamics of the study mimic Sunday school. It may be measuring an expected behavior (the suppression of doubt) more than measuring what any of the children actually believe.
Religion is more a framework of hierarchy than a framework for spiritual development. In other words, it is a system of tribal identification in which the group defines itself by their collective ability to codify and ritualize spirituality. So by design it seeks to stop dissension from what someone higher in the hierarchy tells you.
mr blur
(7,753 posts)But that means that you could make them believe any old shi..
Oh.
Response to SecularMotion (Original post)
hrmjustin This message was self-deleted by its author.
Htom Sirveaux
(1,242 posts)that religious indoctrination is a form of mental child abuse." That raises some questions for me:
*should the free exercise clause of the Constitution be ruled not to apply to teaching your children your religion, on the grounds that the constitution does not grant rights to abuse children?
*if the free exercise clause of the Constitution is ruled to protect the right to teach your children your religion, should it be repealed and replaced? If so, what would be the wording of the new amendment?
*what should the legal penalties be for teaching your child your religion? Fines? Jail (and for how long)? Loss of parental rights?
If the claim that "religious indoctrination is a form of mental child abuse" is a serious one and not overheated rhetoric, then these are the kinds of practical questions that should be answered by those who make it.
SecularMotion
(7,981 posts)Can religion be taught to children without requiring the child to accept fiction as fact?
Htom Sirveaux
(1,242 posts)Both the ones you posed, and the ones I asked first.
cleanhippie
(19,705 posts)And teaching them WHAT to believe.
Unfortunately, most children are taught WHAT to believe, which directly leads to the problems being discussed.
Htom Sirveaux
(1,242 posts)beliefs, as long as they don't teach that their beliefs are true and should be adopted as true by the child? Are you adopting the claim that teaching that parental religious beliefs are true is "a form of mental child abuse"?
If so, what are your thoughts on my three questions?
cleanhippie
(19,705 posts)And that said beliefs don't run contrary to the natural laws of the universe is a form of abuse. YMMV.
Instead if getting into this, again, might I suggest that you go through and read the many conversations this group has had on the subject? I think you will find that your questions have already been answered.
Htom Sirveaux
(1,242 posts)you have addressed the same questions I'm asking, or to someone else's answers that you are willing to adopt as your own?
cleanhippie
(19,705 posts)Or maybe find someone else willing to do that. Maybe just start a new thread and ask for links to it. Many here have serious Kung-fu when it comes to DU searches. I, unfortunately, do not.
Good luck!
Htom Sirveaux
(1,242 posts)You're willing to use the label of "child abuse", but that doesn't make the matter serious enough to take the time to expand on the consequences of using that label, or even find places where others have?
This is kind of my whole original point. People are throwing around the label of "child abuse" too casually, as an epithet for use against ideological opponents rather than an actual crime, which is what child abuse really is.
cleanhippie
(19,705 posts)But I'm not in the mood to rehash this, again, with you today.
I've explained how you can get all of the answers you're looking for. If the matter is that serious to you, you should have no problem doing the legwork needed to get them. If you have follow up questions, I'll be happy to try and answer.
Htom Sirveaux
(1,242 posts)That's the kind of accusation you only make if you're willing to defend it, regardless of what mood you are in.
cleanhippie
(19,705 posts)That you won't even consider the minimum of work needed to get all the answers you seek speaks volumes about your agenda.
I'll likely not engage you again if this is to be your usual tactic.
rug
(82,333 posts)Htom Sirveaux
(1,242 posts)I didn't make you have that opinion, I didn't make you decide to air it in public, and I sure as heck didn't make you decide to avoid any effort to defend it (not even a solitary link, which I would have been satisfied with).
I already told you what my "agenda" is:
This conversation just reinforces that point, but that is the result of your choices.
johnnypneumatic
(599 posts)and decide if teaching children things that are not true should be considered child abuse.
-is teaching a child that the earth is about 6000 years old child abuse?
-is teaching a child that the earth is flat child abuse?
-is teaching a child that natural selection is not true child abuse?
-is teaching a child that 2+2=5 child abuse?
etc etc
or is it only child abuse if the teacher knowingly teaches a falsehood? if they sincerely believe the earth is flat, is it still child abuse?
then it can get murky...
in America, television news can knowingly tell lies, while in Canada that is illegal. A recent study about Fox news found 60% of their news to be false
http://americablog.com/2014/07/punditfact-fox-news-wins-battle-false-cable-network.html
-is letting a child watch Fox news child abuse?
cleanhippie
(19,705 posts)
ZombieHorde
(29,047 posts)Especially on the subject of real things versus social/rhetorical constructs, such as human rights, borders, laws, inherent value, immigration, etc.
edhopper
(33,573 posts)or money or constitutional rights, in the same category as fables and ghost stories?
ZombieHorde
(29,047 posts)I love the concept of human rights, but since they're not real, we have to constantly defend them, as opposed to rocks, which we don't need to defend. Almost all of us agree that there are rocks on the ground.
I think believing human rights (etc.) are an actual "thing" is a lot like believing in ghosts and elves, and can actually weaken the social construct of human rights. If we want to defend something, then I believe we would do well to know what we are defending.
edhopper
(33,573 posts)I guess I haven't had the same discussions as you.
cleanhippie
(19,705 posts)For skeptics? Like who?
I think that it would be believers who would have a problem with that. Many would call it blasphemy.
ZombieHorde
(29,047 posts)I am talking about laws, rights, inherent value, etc.
Manifest Destiny immediately comes to mind.
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)First two historical examples of the term:
""our manifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions"
"And that claim is by the right of our manifest destiny to overspread and to possess the whole of the continent which Providence has given us for the development of the great experiment of liberty and federated self-government entrusted to us."
Nice choice of words there.
rug
(82,333 posts)Here's his full quote, three years after the Alamo, six years before the annexation of Texas, and seven years before the Mexican-American War.
The American people having derived their origin from many other nations, and the Declaration of National Independence being entirely based on the great principle of human equality, these facts demonstrate at once our disconnected position as regards any other nation; that we have, in reality, but little connection with the past history of any of them, and still less with all antiquity, its glories, or its crimes. On the contrary, our national birth was the beginning of a new history, the formation and progress of an untried political system, which separates us from the past and connects us with the future only; and so far as regards the entire development of the natural rights of man, in moral, political, and national life, we may confidently assume that our country is destined to be the great nation of futurity.
It is so destined, because the principle upon which a nation is organized fixes its destiny, and that of equality is perfect, is universal. It presides in all the operations of the physical world, and it is also the conscious law of the soul -- the self-evident dictates of morality, which accurately defines the duty of man to man, and consequently man's rights as man. Besides, the truthful annals of any nation furnish abundant evidence, that its happiness, its greatness, its duration, were always proportionate to the democratic equality in its system of government. . . .
What friend of human liberty, civilization, and refinement, can cast his view over the past history of the monarchies and aristocracies of antiquity, and not deplore that they ever existed? What philanthropist can contemplate the oppressions, the cruelties, and injustice inflicted by them on the masses of mankind, and not turn with moral horror from the retrospect?
America is destined for better deeds. It is our unparalleled glory that we have no reminiscences of battle fields, but in defence of humanity, of the oppressed of all nations, of the rights of conscience, the rights of personal enfranchisement. Our annals describe no scenes of horrid carnage, where men were led on by hundreds of thousands to slay one another, dupes and victims to emperors, kings, nobles, demons in the human form called heroes. We have had patriots to defend our homes, our liberties, but no aspirants to crowns or thrones; nor have the American people ever suffered themselves to be led on by wicked ambition to depopulate the land, to spread desolation far and wide, that a human being might be placed on a seat of supremacy.
We have no interest in the scenes of antiquity, only as lessons of avoidance of nearly all their examples. The expansive future is our arena, and for our history. We are entering on its untrodden space, with the truths of God in our minds, beneficent objects in our hearts, and with a clear conscience unsullied by the past. We are the nation of human progress, and who will, what can, set limits to our onward march? Providence is with us, and no earthly power can. We point to the everlasting truth on the first page of our national declaration, and we proclaim to the millions of other lands, that "the gates of hell" -- the powers of aristocracy and monarchy -- "shall not prevail against it."
The far-reaching, the boundless future will be the era of American greatness. In its magnificent domain of space and time, the nation of many nations is destined to manifest to mankind the excellence of divine principles; to establish on earth the noblest temple ever dedicated to the worship of the Most High -- the Sacred and the True. Its floor shall be a hemisphere -- its roof the firmament of the star-studded heavens, and its congregation an Union of many Republics, comprising hundreds of happy millions, calling, owning no man master, but governed by God's natural and moral law of equality, the law of brotherhood -- of "peace and good will amongst men.". . .
Yes, we are the nation of progress, of individual freedom, of universal enfranchisement. Equality of rights is the cynosure of our union of States, the grand exemplar of the correlative equality of individuals; and while truth sheds its effulgence, we cannot retrograde, without dissolving the one and subverting the other. We must onward to the fulfilment of our mission -- to the entire development of the principle of our organization -- freedom of conscience, freedom of person, freedom of trade and business pursuits, universality of freedom and equality. This is our high destiny, and in nature's eternal, inevitable decree of cause and effect we must accomplish it. All this will be our future history, to establish on earth the moral dignity and salvation of man -- the immutable truth and beneficence of God. For this blessed mission to the nations of the world, which are shut out from the life-giving light of truth, has America been chosen; and her high example shall smite unto death the tyranny of kings, hierarchs, and oligarchs, and carry the glad tidings of peace and good will where myriads now endure an existence scarcely more enviable than that of beasts of the field. Who, then, can doubt that our country is destined to be the great nation of futurity?
There is far more jingoism in there than religion, and far more civic platitudes than facts.
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)Your hand-waving disgusts me.
rug
(82,333 posts)AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)So uh, pretend blinders then?
ZombieHorde
(29,047 posts)
littlemissmartypants
(22,632 posts)
msongs
(67,395 posts)edhopper
(33,573 posts)exposed to religion.
hrmjustin
(71,265 posts)BlueJazz
(25,348 posts)After I saw the great apes, I remembered thinking, "they look an lot like us"
That pretty much set up my mind to find out things for myself.
On Edit: spelling
rug
(82,333 posts)
okasha
(11,573 posts)when they post statements like "Jesus was just like Osiris, Dionysos, Mithras, etc."
mr blur
(7,753 posts)
rexcat
(3,622 posts)The truth is the light!
cbayer
(146,218 posts)One might see more depth from a 5 or 6 year old, no matter what their religious affiliation.
okasha
(11,573 posts)
I do know.
edhopper
(33,573 posts)one myth might have it's origins in others is exactly like believing that the Flood actually happened.
You want to stick with that?
goldent
(1,582 posts)For example, would there be a difference observed for high school aged kids?
cbayer
(146,218 posts)AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)rug
(82,333 posts)There is help available.
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)cbayer
(146,218 posts)at 5 or 6 years old.
What does this mean really? Do we want very young children to not indulge in fantasy and fiction? At what age do we expect them to stop believing in fairy tales?
I think that this would be much more meaningful if the group studied were older. Personally, I think children should be children.
Warren Stupidity
(48,181 posts)Those are not mutually exclusive. And yes it is an important life skill, this "distinguishing fact from fiction" thing, and it is important even in a five year old.
