Faith or indoctrination?

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.

What is truth? As someone famously said.

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.

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.

A little (((hug))) for you Atqui, as you are feeling a bit Blue.

I wonder what 'turned' your father GA

Many of you seem to have received more instruction in religion at school than at home. Perhaps that is what makes the difference as to how much sticks. I am sure we are more influenced by what our parents believe if they are particularly devout, although as Ana says many people react the other way. I can't help,wishing that my parents beliefs had been ' washy washy' so that I might have made a decision for myself as did Grannyactivist, without their strong influence .
At the moment I am feeling very down, and hence rather introspective. It's very interesting to read all your views.

It was quite the opposite for me Atqui. When I was a girl my father was a communist and thought the church and religion were human constructs for feeble people - he thought of himself as an intelligent man and believed that ultimately reason and logic, coupled with scientific advances, would see off religion. He was really committed to his ideals and did his best to indoctrinate atheism into us children (successfully so in the case of my two brothers), so I was completely shocked and my brothers were dumbfounded when in his later years he became a church-going Roman Catholic.
Mishap's contention that Faith does not arise spontaneously is disproved in me as I came to faith after reading a New Testament at the age of nineteen and didn't even join with any other Christians for a further two years.

Is it possible to be honest with our children about religion? Surely the fact is that nobody knows the truth, therefore honesty is not possible.
I honestly do not know if god exists, but I do know I do not believe in him. However, I do not tell my grandson that, as he will take it as fact, having ASD. Some of his friends, including the vicar's son, are very religious, and we cannot tell him that they are wrong, because we do not know.
He does go around saying to people that his parents and his gran do not believe in god and asks if they do.

Faith and fact are two different things - both valuable and important.

To be taught faith as fact is wrong, and that is where the indoctrination comes in. Ideas are taught in an honest way: Aristotle thought.....; some people think that capitalism is a good way of organising society etc. We would be appalled if it were taught in any other way.

But religion tends to be taught as fact, rather than saying "This is what Christians believe", children are told that god made the world, Christ rose from the dead etc.; and religions other than christianity are studied as interesting information, as general knowledge.

We must be honest with our children - anything less is quite wrong.

At my secondary school, which was part of the Church Schools Company, RE was called Divinity. C of E was the only religion that got a look in and it certainly was not up for discussion.
I went to Sunday school at both C of E and methodist churches before that, but I would not say my parents were particularly religious. My mother had uncles and cousins who were vicars, but I never really met them. I think the fact that the high school was religious was an accident; I got a scholarship to it. It put me off formal religion, in fact any religion.
However, I know more hymns than anyone else I know.
I've learnt more about religion since I taught at a catholic school. Much religious education goes in by osmosis, rather than on purpose, I find.

You can't take a leap of faith with maths...

Maths?

No, I don't think I was indoctrinated. We did go to church regularly and assemblies and RE were taken seriously at school but we were encouraged to discuss and question. I stopped going to church and considered myself an agnostic humanist for a number of years and then I went back. What's the difference between education and indoctrination? The last word is often used about religion and politics but never about science or Eng lit. And if you think indoctrination relates to ideas and beliefs, rather than facts I would suggest that it's very hard to remove ideas and beliefs from any part of the curriculum.

I guess it just depends on people's personalities....how impressionable each of us is.

I wasn't an only child Pen, and often wonder about the different outcomes in my siblings.One is a strident atheist, one a devout Christian.

(Not that Catholicism isn't Christian - you know what I meant!)

No, I wasn't indoctrinated. My parents were vaguely C of E, so was my school, I loved the hymns and the Christmas carols.

I'm still vaguely Christian, although I have read quite extensively about other faiths.

It does seem to be often the case that many adamant atheists were brought up/educated in a strictly Catholic or Christian environment.

I agree with jingl I was indoctrinated, even boarded at a Catholic school run by nuns, well past the age of 7 as suggested by the Jesuits.

I made up my own mind and have no religion, nor do I seek one.

I think you can feel 'indoctrinated' and limited by your upbringing and it can last all your life. It does depend of so many different factors. Were you an only child atqui?

I don't agree Jingle, but I wish I could.
"Give me the child until he is seven and I will give you the man" is often quoted ( or misquoted)!to explain how easy it is to shape a young mind. I was brought up by loving but very straight laced parents, whose morals were informed by the Baptist / Methodist church.it was considered a sin to drink alcohol, to have sex before marriage etc etc.In my teenage years I embraced this way of thinking , despite or because of the 60 s...no swinging for me. I continued to believe in the Christian faith ,almost unable to shake it off. I feel that my youth although reasonably happy was not what it could have been!!

I was brought up in a 'Christian' environment and went to church each week/ Sunday School and stayed with C/E until I was about 17/18. I did A level RE. I got married in church. I loved all the biblical stories, hymns and sense of community in churches but I find it hard to believe in a deity. I have family and friends who are active /practising Christians and others who are Muslims and Hindu. I now define myself as an atheist/humanist.

So my answer to Atquis question is 'No I have not followed what I was taught as a child spiritually/religiously but it has defined a set of values.'

I used to walk round to the local church with my brother as a small child. My brother being 18 months older than me. My brother reached the age to be confirmed and was. I was not confirmed into the C of E allegedly because the rector told my parents that I was not suitable! His reasoning, as far as I knew, was that I was disruptive. This was just one year after my older brother, age 23, was killed in a plane crash. This stopped my church attendance dead although 'faith' is very important to me.
I have known too many one day a week religious people rather than seven day a week people who live a life that all religions would recognise as good.
On a side note my father in law was educated by the Christian Brothers in Ireland, and abused by one of them. When he told his parents he was forced to apologise for making such an accusation.

No way can what we were taught as children influence our feelings today! We've had enough years to sort it out for ourselves.

On a lovely morning walk in town today I had to 'run' the gauntlet of JWs who were seated along the main path with their display of leaflets etc on a stand opposite them. Have never seen this before, it's usually them or their children repeating parrot fashion their ideas and faith.