[LemonJam]

Originally Posted by Stu

Surely you can teach kids the same basic principals anyway without the quasi spiritual rubbish attached? I always thought the Ten Commandments were a pathetic moral code. A good few of them are purely to do with God's ego.

A heavy religious institutionalization from childhood can lead to people becoming ignorant sheep when they grow older if they decide not to grow out of the fairy tale mom and dad happily spun them. In America right now so called 'Jesus Camps' are hugely popular and those children are not going to grow up to be shining beacons of morality and acceptance. They are being brainwashed from an early age when they don't know any better. It's mental child abuse.

Religion, IMO, should never be an acceptable substitute for good parenting. Leave it until they are older. It just shouldn't come into a childs life.

Certainly they can learn to be a good person from other ways. All depends on the parenting and what they grow up around. In general, the Church is a loving community where people do care for each other [in most cases]

I see religion almost like alcohol, it has to be taken into moderation. Most people I know who have been bought up in a specific faith take it as a guideline rather than the whole 'believe or die' kind of thing. And alike with alcohol, if you intake too much of it, you just become a social mess.