- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

I did not say "religious point of view". I said "two opinions inside religion". What is unclear in my words?

Er - what? So there are two religious points of view instead of one? Or five? Or fifteen million?

And that changes the argument how?

you are so very sure that your rights will survive.

It's precisely because I'd like some vestige of my remaining rights to survive that I want to keep authoritarianisms of all kinds as far away from politics as possible.

Because when that doesn't happen, that always works out so well for everyone.

I'm finding it hard to think of any situation from history where an established church has acted progressively in opposition to the state without prior prompting from secular philosophies.

There have been occasional contributions from radical dissenters (e.g. Quaker abolitionists). But even then, there's state precedence - in that instance from Spanish law in the 16th century.

And I insist: raising children in a religion (or any other coherent system of dogmas) means pre-empting them in making up their own minds and denying them choices, and that based on a coherent set of dogmas held by a wider community rather than one of several individuals influencing the child's education.

We don't agree on your definition of religion, Dodo. For me it is more basic: acknowledging the existence of God. The rest is secondary. And that makes it a dichotomy of belief in the existence of God or belief that there is no God. Religious freedom for me means that neither is enforced.

DoDo:

But "raising people without religion" is just that: raising them with things not including any religion. You can't "make them practice none" if they don't have one and don't first know the practices of any one. The parent doesn't even have to make any reference to religions, though the child may force her to say something if asked.

Which child would not ask? Very theoretically you are right, but practically not: children in a certain age are little machines emitting at high speed questions that are hard to answer. So realistically you will make statements about your position on religion. It's inevitable. And if you are an important attachment figure for the child, your answer will carry weight. And if the child knows you as someone who practises rites OR as someone who does not practise the rites it sees other people practise, that is more information about your position that you can't avoid giving, but which will lead to more questions. And all the answers you give can be sorted along the dichotomy if there is a God or not.

I am curious: why was it important for your parents to pretend religion?

For example, the doctrinal Catholic attitude to sex?

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

A parent might answer to the best of their capabilities, and hopefully not troll to much, but in the end the answers are bound to reflect both their knowledge of facts and their spiritual beliefs. While god-in-the-holes (of knowledge) is a weak (and shrinking) argument for the existence of god, that is different form the existence of holes and these are filled up by extrapolation/belief.

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That depends whether you believe 'practice' automatically includes the right to force your religion on your kids in ways that will cripple their ability to make free adult choices about spirituality later in life.

I haven't given you the slightest reason to assume I wanted to force or cripple children or their abilities, and I resent that you insinuate I did.

No, that's actually quite straightforward. If somebody decides where your bed is, what you eat, when you sleep, how much money you have to spend, what you can spend it on, where you spend the majority of your waking hours, and even to some extent who you am allowed to socialize with in your free time, then they wield power over you

If, yes. In reality children aren't THAT weak-willed, and your parental options to enforce all that are limited, with good reason. And these limits enforce a more democratic education style than what was usual when I was a child. So, parental power depends to a certain extent on negotiation skills on both sides.

JakeS:

No, the school and penal systems should be neutral because they wield power over its inmates. The fact that they are state institutions (in most of the first world) is neither here nor there - the fixation on protecting citizens from the state, rather than from abuse of asymmetric power relationships in general - is a pernicious Libertarian obsession.

Ha, THAT can of worms probably deserves a better place than somewhere in this long thread. You probably don't deny how quickly democratic control of a state can break down, and how totalitarian the immense power of the state then becomes. I am quite fixated on protecting citizens from the state, and not shy about it.

No, institutions of the state should be neutral, because they are for all citizens, not only the religious ones. In a (theoretical) state of 100% voluntary adherents of the same religion it wouldn't matter.

JakeS:

That is not true for sexual or racial harassment. Why should we expect it to be for religious?

Because efficient proselytising implies persuasion, not harassment. I find it unlikely (or extremely rare), not impossible. But I really find the example of the doctor is where you can illustrate your point best, and I agree that the abuse of power is a problem. You cited this as an argument to limit parents' right to raise their children in a religion though. You asked how to deal with the combination of position of power and proselytising.

This is from the text you quote:

in the end to me it's all about the patient and I'm not about to do anything that makes the patient feel uncomfortable or lose confidence in me,

If you want an analogy to parents raising their children, you must look at what we expect as responsible behaviour there. I have no issue with rules to prevent abuse of power under the heading of what is (ir-)responsible behaviour for a defined group. I object to rules under the heading of limiting freedom of religion. This difference sounds perhaps academic, but I think it enables drawing the border between tolerable and intolerable behaviour accurately. The rules (and sanctions!) for a doctor must be different from those for parents.  

I am afraid, I have an issue with your differentiation between legality and propriety. Propriety or moral are not political. Do you want to legally ban and sanction a certain behaviour? Or do you want to ape the politicians who lamented the use of "financial instruments" as improper that they had legalised? Well, if next they declare bicycle theft legal but improper, everyone is free to steal bicycles and that is all that counts. So the only question is what parents can do before you send out child welfare officers.

JakeS:

In principle. In practice, I am having some difficulty coming up with a realistic example of not-belief imposing on believers

At last. I am quite content with "in principle" and I have no issue with your lack of imagination. ;)  I guess any thoughts what you are going to teach your own children are a bit premature, right? Only then you need to determine what is proper more than what is legal, of course.

The only significant non-religious belief systems I can think of which fit the bill are nationalisms and Marxist-Leninist communism

I'd add mock-heroic free-market capitalism to that. I suspect a lot of the hatred of 'socialism' you see in the US is exactly from an equivalent level of indoctrination.

In fact free-market capitalism is the state ideology of the west, and increasingly also other parts of the world. Instead of a catechism, you have advertising and state propaganda. Instead of priests, you have talking heads and dumb headlines.

Even so - it's all-pervasive, and it's almost impossible to shield a child from it. (I suspect in the UK it actually is impossible, and parents who try will have their children removed by our Social Services.)

The older religions are largely misdirections which keep people distracted an unaware of the extent of official indoctrination.

A further issue you don't seem to be taking into account is that a lot of personal views expressed here aren't inspired by the viewpoint of an atheist teacher but the viewpoint of a one-time child who suffered through the 'teaching' of theist parents or school teachers.

"Inspired" is beautifully put. How am I to deal with views expressed on religion that in reality are views on abuse? Is it really asked too much of the authors to make clear what statement is inspired by what? I reject the notion that religion, not persons enforcing dogma or exploiting positions of trust, is abusive. And I reject the notion that embracing religion is the same (or related to) child abuse, forcing children, and what other insiuations have been made.

DoDo:

Now, what is your opinion about the political parallel? Would you approve of Free Democrat schools, Sunday instruction of six-year-olds in the basic tenets of Social Democracy at the local party headquarters, and the same children wearing party insignia to school? Should voting age be eliminated? Why should parties be more constrained than religion?

I think beliefs can be sorted by how close they are to the core of one's personality. Some political beliefs are overarching mere party politics, for instance the importance human rights have (or property rights). We all probably radiate our deeply held political beliefs anyway. I would recommend a bit of restraint in the case of party politics, but I don't think it is vital or should be enforced. Can you really object if some members of a party meet in order to organise something and take their little children? Probably not, but where is (realistically!) the difference between that and "Sunday instruction of six-year-olds in the basic tenets of Social Democracy at the local party headquarters"? By the way, I used to wear a SPD jacket (gift of my mother) to school, although there was (and is) a ban on party insignia in school. They couldn't very well undress me, so they rang up my parents who promised to remind me not to wear the thing to school. Which they did, and I ignored. The more hysterical the reactions became, the more I enjoyed it. And the sky did not fall down. I would even have joined the SPD if they had allowed under 16 year olds. By the time I was sixteen I had acquired enough political wisdom and no longer wanted to, so perhaps having such a minimum age makes sense (but not much).

When Merkel wanted to get out of the exit from nuclear power (before Fukushima), I took part in many protests. My daughter, then 10, asked me to explain what I did and why and then declared she wanted to accompany me. What would you have told her?