Re: Bus driver refuses to drive "no god" bus

In MsgID<9634n4h0p592i6hhb5og4ujth3ma2p6rqe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> on Sat,
17 Jan 2009 17:02:18 +0000, in uk.philosophy.atheism, 'Mark Goodge' wrote:

I do not believe that children should be exposed to religious teachings at
all unless, or until, they have the age of reason ..... say around 11/13
years of age.

That's your opinion, and you have a right to hold it, but I don't see
why you should be in a position to impose that on other people.

Oh, that one's quite simple. There are some areas where a community has a
duty to all children. Trying to deter their brainwashing into believing in
sky wizards (or even worse and more commonly into believing in one
particular variety of sky wizard) is a form of abuse. The necessary
controls to prevent parents abusing their own children in this manner
would be too invasive, but educational establishments should be prevented
from such immoral actions.

I'm not saying that there should necessarily be an enforced statement that
it's all baloney, for a start because there are so many different sets of
superstitions that it would take too much lesson time, just that it's
obviously wrong to ram stuff that has no rational basis into children that
are to young to defend themselves. I wouldn't like to try to guess the age
at which children have developed the necessary analytical skills to
realise when something is based only on generatations of prior
brainwashing but it's certainly some time after they enter secondary
school.

Teach children facts, about things that can be touched seen or measured.
Then teach them about things that are based on facts, and the necessary
deductive logic to evaluate what cannot be directly measured. Polluting
the impartion of logical thought with the idea that something invisible
and unmeasurable might be true just because some (unscientific) people say
it is is nothing short of abuse of the open minded respect that's so vital
to the young.

Once they have a mind that's up to speed, then it's perhaps right to teach
them about superstitions that predate scientific reasoning and to describe
just how pervasive such mythologies are. Finally, explain that adults have
the freedom to join these primitive cults if they so wish and that up
until 'now' many did, because until the 'dawn of educational reason'
invisible sky wizards weren't discounted in the same breath as santa
claus.

Dave J.
.

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