[smudgie]

Originally Posted by Toy Soldier

I agree, children simply shouldn't be introduced to religion at all until they're old enough to understand some of the concepts for themselves - and that there are alternatives.

The vast majority of "religious" people have never given it any unbiased philosophical thought at all, they follow blindly because it was drummed into them from birth. It's a con. Even if there was any truth in organised religion, belief isn't real unless it's been developed individually... It's simple indoctrination.

Personally I'm not entirely un-spiritual (I think it's all but certain that there's more to existence than we can perceive or understand) but I think ORGANISED religion - every organised religion - is a sham. I've never seen anything that distinguishes a large "organised religion" like Christianity or Islam from a "cult" like scientology or even a tiny group of individuals claiming to have found Jesus in a farm in Alabama. The only difference is that they have hundreds of millions of followers* and that's... sort of terrifying.


*(statistics say billions of followers but that's census data, most of these people are non-religious)


Early introduction to a religion only achieves one of two things, usually. Blind, empty faith or a complete rejection of ANY spirituality in favour of pure WYSIWYG atheism. It just stifles, either way.

Totally agree.

As parents we taught "good" rather than God.
When our son was 8 he wanted to go to Sunday school, this being because his best friend went. We arranged for him to go with his fiends family, he lasted about 6 weeks.
They did do nativity etc at primary school, we also bought them a colourful pictured bible that resembled a story book (which in my mind is just what the bible is) .
They have both grown up with open minds, not really believing but not really sure.