"So Let's Make Sure They're Just Like Us!"
Perhaps I’ve been a bit hasty in judging religious culture.
There is really only one overarching issue posed by religion: indoctrination.
Young minds develop around the religion of their parents. Toddlers, knowing
nothing of the world, rely on the wisdom of their parents to guide them safely
through the unfamiliar world. Accordingly, young children have no choice but to
regard their parents’ words as fact.
The documentary Jesus
Camp is a prime example of this problematic indoctrination. Take the
following clip for example: Evangelical Christians home school their children
to shelter them from science and other beliefs outside their own.
Later in the film, Levi states that he could never befriend
or get along with anyone who wasn’t Christian. Perhaps had he gone to school
away from home, his closed-mindedness toward other beliefs would not be quite
so pervasive. But from a very young age, the children in Jesus Camp are trained to be members of “God’s Army”, and the issue
extends to politics. The Evangelical Christian voting block is 99.9%
Republican, solely for the right wing’s promise to keep God in government.
There are many political issues (beyond religion) that members of this voting
block may never acknowledge, and certainly won’t ever consider when casting
their ballot.
By keeping their children from experiencing the world freely
and making their own judgments, the parents of Jesus Camp are breeding an army of religious drones guided only by
the word of God and their overbearing parents.
Or overbearing preachers for that matter; take for instance
Becky Fischer, the pastor who runs the Jesus
Camp for the Evangelical children and their families. Undeniably a
passionate and powerful speaker, Fischer has kids in tears as she washes their
hands of sin and deems Harry Potter an enemy of God.
A colleague of Becky Fischer is Pastor Ted Haggard. Pastor
Ted is another fabulous Christian speaker, but is better known for his 2006 gay
prostitute scandal. Oh, and he admitted to purchasing some meth from time to
time.
Point being, no one is perfect. There is no reason to raise
children to believe that “our way is the only way”. Without exposing yourself
to opposing beliefs and ideas, there is no opportunity for progress. Dissent is
the precursor to discussion, which is the precursor to resolution.
For reasons they don’t understand, religious zealots hate
opposing religious zealots and start violent and political wars instead of just
accepting the inevitable and necessary impasse. Nearly every war in history began
with one religion’s disapproval of another. Everyone thinks their religion is
the “right” one, but even if this were the case, how does killing, hating, and
terrorizing members of other religions help anyone at all? If kids were brought
up to take pride in their religion without disrespecting the spirituality of
others, we’d have a much more peaceful world.
Take the war in Northern Ireland: decades of violent
conflict between the Protestant British majority and Catholic Irish minority.
The conflict didn’t begin to reach a resolution until the Protestants realized
that the Catholic prohibition of birth control would soon leave them
outnumbered. And to this day there is bad blood between the Catholics and
Protestants in the UK.
The resolution is simple. Let kids learn, let them explore,
and let them learn for themselves what is the right way to practice their
chosen religion. So much of an adult’s life is reflective of their upbringing.
This issue is not widely regarded as crucial, but in weeks to come I will
discuss the importance of childhood and proper parenting. But without a doubt,
the absolute worst thing for a child is indoctrination. Children should enjoy
the right to question, critique, and examine, for this is the beauty of higher
intelligence!
-Mendelssohn
-Mendelssohn
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