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Faith or indoctrination?

(204 Posts)
annodomini Wed 23-Apr-14 19:05:32

Parents were churchgoers - Dad an elder of the Kirk - but we were excused Sunday School because it was so boring. RE was a non-examinable subject in Scotland, though all teachers were expected to teach it for one period a week - that was a joke! I was a member of the Church of Scotland until my late 20s when I decided I could do without the Church and now call myself a Humanist.

Mishap Wed 23-Apr-14 18:57:22

Faith does not arise spontaneously - it is a combination of upbringing and culture. One might possibly see that as indoctrination.

I had a bellyful of it when I was small, not from my parents, who were "don't knows" for most of their lives, but from my first school which was run by anglican nuns. I do not have the words to tell you the terror that I felt when confronted with life size pictures of the crucifixion around the walls of the chapel when I was 4. How can we sully the minds of children with these gruesome tales?

sunseeker Wed 23-Apr-14 18:46:23

No, I went to church until I was 16 when my parents said it was up to me from then on. I flirted with Buddhism and some of the eastern religions and looked at Islam but made the conscious decision to return to Christianity

Atqui Wed 23-Apr-14 18:26:32

Does anyone else feel that they were indoctrinated in the Christian religion as children by their parents, and are unable to rationally define their own beliefs now? I haven't put this in a very articulate way, but hope you know what I mean!