Faith or indoctrination?

I do not think faith arises spontaneously - although it did not come from your parents grannya you live in a society where the Christian church is institutionalised. You cannot have missed it, either in school or in society in general.

I do think that we can be honest with children about religion. We can say that there are many religions and different people believe different things; that the predominant religion in our culture is christianity. That they are free to make up their own minds about these things. We can stress the importance of love and caring as the basic tenets of all lives, whether religiously inclined or not. I do not see any difficulty in that at all. It is the truth, and we owe them that.

An interesting thread with many different experiences. Like Lilygran I counted myself as a humanist - if anything at all - for many years, and returned to Christianity as an adult having made the effort to study some theology seriously and realising that a child's understanding is very different from that of an adult. But principally it was my experience overseas and seeing Liberation Theology in action which was the catalyst.

I certainly don't remember being told that that God made the world and so on. The big ideas of Christianity were explained as the way in which we should love our neighbour and we were very clear that many other people did not share the beliefs of our family - indeed many family members did not. It was always 'we believe' in the same way as 'we vote Labour' because it was considered that that was the right thing to do.

The overriding mantra in my childhood was 'It's not what you say that matters, it's what you do and how you live up to those beliefs and ideals that matters.

I think that even in very traditional settings many years ago it was clear that adherence to a set of beliefs was what a particular family or community thought.

After all every family passes on its views to the children be it sharing toys, good manners or political views.

What is truth? As someone famously said.

Of course religion is a matter of indoctrination - how else would so many come to adopt the very same superstitious ideas?

As a (vulnerabler) teenager - we called them 'adolescents' in those days - I was sucked in by the Billy Graham campaign of 1954. It lasted two years, and then reason began to reassert itself... but it did give me an insight into the strangeness of the religious mind, which cheerfully accepts cognitive dissonance with a shrug of the shoulders.

We are all, in this country, free to believe what we will, as a right.

And we need to tell our children that feetle.

MiceElf - please do not fall into the trap of thinking that those who reject religion for themselves have a "child's understanding" of it. I know that you did not say that, but it is a view held by many religious believers. Some of us know what we have rejected. We have looked into it and found it wanting.

Above all else we should be honest with our children; and I have great difficulty with the way religion is presented to primary school children. There is a thread of indoctrination and this is wrong. They say grace and thank god for their food - I am all for taking a moment to be thankful for what we have and to think about those less fortunate and what we might be able to offer - but the taking of god as read is not honest.

At our local primary the vicar visits, and I have talked with her about the need to be clear that she is presenting what christians believe and not universal belief. She agrees with this - but I do not know what she says when she visits.

My father was Church of Scotland and he went his way to church on a Sunday. My mother was a strict Catholic so she went to that church with me in tow. I hated it. I went to a boarding school at a very early age until aged 17 and was taught by nuns. There was a break of around 4 years at the local primary school. By the time I left I had had a bellyful of religion. I have not entered a church since except for weddings and funerals and never intend to do so.

The swinging sixties passed me by for the same reasons as a previous poster.

Atqui A neice of my husband was brought up in a distinctly non religious home but got involved with the evangelical wing of the C of E as a teenager.

Her mother has been told if she doesn't believe she won't go to heaven.
My sister in law is sensible enough not to fall out over this.

I am not falling into any traps. And I do not need to be instructed on what I believe by Feedlebaum or anyone else for that matter.

Or, and I am / was honest with my children.

I believe children can be taught the Christian religion without becoming "indoctrinated".

Feetlebaum as a thirteen year old adolescent I was taught that most of the vitamins in a potato are just under skin. Have I been indoctrinated?

I never went for the Billy Graham stuff. Was obviously mass hysteria.

feetlebaum argues that indoctrination is proved by the number of believers. It didn't work with him nor with many people who post on GN who describe exposure to faith presented in a quite rigid and inflexible way but also describe how they gave up on it. 'Indoctrination' is one of those words we use to describe the transmission of facts, ideas or beliefs we don't think are true. In former communist countries where religious faith was suppressed for nearly 100 years and Marxism-Leninism was aggressively taught and heresies punished, religion bounced back. And a lot of people abandoned communism.

The dictionary definition of indoctrination is to teach someone to accept a doctrine uncritically. I do think that this is what happens in school at primary level. I think that we should always encourage children's critical faculties and that they should be given the opportunity to ask questions, just as they do in any other school subject.

This is not what happens - they are told that they should thank god for their dinner (or whatever) and that Jesus is the son of god and they sing christian hymns etc. - no-one says that this is the belief of a particular religion. I think that they should say this. I would have no problem with that at all.

I am sure you were honest with your children MiceElf - no-one is suggesting otherwise. I am simply commenting on what goes on in many primary schools (I have seen it and heard it - and it certainly went on when I was at school), and saying that I do not agree with it. Schools should distinguish belief from fact and help children to understand the role and value of both.

@Jingles "as a thirteen year old adolescent I was taught that most of the vitamins in a potato are just under skin. Have I been indoctrinated?"

Not really, no - the fact can be demonstrated,and the demonstration can be repeated. My point is that no child would come up with the beliefs of a given religion other than being taught them.

What do you mean by 'mass hysteria'?

Can anyone really say, hand on heart, that, as a child, they believed that Jesus, as a man, rose again from the dead? I remember thinking of it as a lovely story that it was nice to go along with. It Wasn't until much later in life that I started to think about it and consider how it might have happened.

We sang a hymn, "There's a home for little children, above the bright blue sky".It was a lovely thought but I did n't believe there were any buildings up there.

Books told me there were fairies in the woods. I so wanted to believe that, but I couldn't. The only difference is, I still don't believe in fairies.

Children are not so easily indoctrinated.

feetlebaum you must know what I mean by that.

Not quite sure how you teach someone to accept anything uncritically! Two DS and all their friends questioned everything all the time when growing up. And three DGS started arguing as soon as they could string two words together. I never found any of the students I taught in forty plus years of teaching were very easy to brainwash either.

You mean you tried, Lilygran?

I know of someone who was brought up in a staunch humanist household, whose mother, to everyone's astonishment, became a Christian in her 60s. Her husband of more than 40 years couldn't cope with this and walked out. It's not just the religious who indoctrinate, or show intolerance.

I think most primary school teachers do teach. 'this is what Christians believe'
'This is what Muslims believe' etc unless of course the school is a C of E school, and perhaps they do teach it as dogma. I agree that it should be presented as a set of beliefs for children to think about. If ones parents are evangelical Christians they usually give the impression that this is the only way, in my experience ( unfortunately), and for some of us took it as gospel , excuse the pun. Didn't help having a crush on the minister either.

Ana of course I did! We don't eat the pot plant. Dirty clothes go in the hamper. We don't drink milk out of the bottle. Sprouts are good for you. If you don't clean your teeth you will get cavities. And many more essential doctrines.

I meant your students, Lilygran, but the moment's passed...

Those examples are of information, Lilygran and can be supported empirically. They aren't doctrines which cannot be proved but have to be taken on trust through faith.

The students too, Ana. We don't put our feet on the chairs, we clear up after making a mess, we do not say F* you to our teacher........it's a joke, anno. They might as well be articles of faith judging by how readily the young accept them.

Mine was a joke, too (brainwashing...)

Heavens! - there is nothing lovely about the Easter story. It is gruesome and grotesque and so wrong that little children should be burdened with a tale of people being nailed to crosses. We would not sit 4 and 5 year olds down and talk to them about electric chairs, lethal injections, executions by firing squad.

Children are indeed not uncritical - the important thing is that they are not presented with religion as being in the same category as for instance maths. They are qualitatively different. In the one, you ask questions to learn the proofs, in the other you ask questions and are simply told it is the "truth."

I think education is an ongoing process of discovering there is rather more to what you have already learned than you knew and that applies to maths as well. I don't think you get away with saying, 'Just believe this' even with quite young children. You can stop them from discussing things with you, because they will understand particular topics are not open to debate but you can't stop them from speculating and talking to other people. That's why I reject the idea of genuine indoctrination. Yes, the story of the crucifixion is horrific but the horrific aspects are not, in my experience, presented to young children in a horrific way. The Easter story is one of hope, surely?