christian teachings for children

[aabbcc]

[...]not smeared by any ideological rubbishes at all.

The problematic thing about this is that it is impossible to raise somebody outside of ideology of any kind. Some might wish to be more 'correct' than the others in that aspect, but it is impossible to live or educate somebody in ideology-free circumstances, if you take the word "ideology" to the extreme.

Religion is a form of ideology per se; so were totalitarian societies lead by certain national ideologies; however, why do you believe that our current way of organising the society and the way it works is not an ideology in itself? Democracy, for example, is a kind of ideology, whether you wish to accept that or not, for it does proclaim for itself that it is the best way of organising property, relations between people, ecc. Paneuropeism, a trend which took over Europe some decades ago and is continuing today with the spreading of EU, is an ideology as well... Any set of organised ideas used to prescribe the relations between people, behaviour, moral norms, is an ideology, whether or not it is backed up by irrational belief in higher being and formal religion. You do not even have to look at political systems, you can look around yourself, and you will see plethora of examples of ideology; perhaps the current trends of global ecology are the best example of how ideology is 'masqued' in our time. All of that is ideology, and you inevitably belong to some of them, and you will likewise inevitably raise up your children in the spirit of some of the ideologies, in the spirit of your values and set of beliefs (for, even the lack of belief will be backed up by some kind of belief - for example in absolute supremacy of science, despite it, in the end, being axiomatic system as well).

Passing onto your children what you think is good is natural, and of course that you are first going to offer your children that which you have and then, if they refuse and if you are a normal person and not a fanatic, let them find their truths somewhere else. But you inevitably will pass onto them something, if nothing else than at least the spirit of non-violence, tolerance, blah blah. One has to interpret a world around them in some way, and interpretation is always going away from the positive facts, is necessarily speculation and necessarily just one of the possible ones, which you will inevitably wish to offer your children.

However, thinking that you are absolutely ideology-free, that one can be ideology-free, and bashing different ideological and religious systems as "biased" as opposed to your supposed neutrality, is in my opinion, not good.
I am not judging off this post alone, blaze; you certainly seem to be peaceful, seem promoting ideas similar to my own, one can see that you have thought about those things intensively, maybe, after all, you are just not taking the word "ideology" as literally as I do and do not apply it to all sets of phenomena as I do, so maybe in the end we do agree; but I have to stress that I think that thinking one is or can be pure of any ideology is extremely wrong and, even moreso, extremely dangerous.

[blazeofglory]

Children are defenseless beings and we kind of stuff their minds with our belief and disbelief and corrupt them. They judge things from our minds, see beauty from our eyes, and build a fort dogmas and superstitions. They become constricted.

We with our religions, beliefs and learning have not been able to vanquish our brutal natures. We simply assail or attack their inborn sense of freedom and dunk them in a dungeon of our beleifs.

Let them fly and do not cut their wings of imagination, molding them into a decrepit, dilapidating their capacities for flight.

Do not smear their minds with the rubbishes of Christianity and in doing so you are being unjust.

[DooRag]

The mind of a child is not blank. In fact, there is a lot more going on in their mind than ours. They can interpret more sounds than us, have more sensations, and, physically, have many more neurons than us.

[blazeofglory]

The mind of a child is not blank. In fact, there is a lot more going on in their mind than ours. They can interpret more sounds than us, have more sensations, and, physically, have many more neurons than us.

At least theirs is empty of the stuff, the dirty stuff our minds are stuffed with.

[blp]

I was brought up by atheists who read me the Bible and the Chronicles of Narnia, as well as the Greek myths, The Oz books, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory etc. and explained the theory of evolution and the mysteries of human reproduction early.

Among all the things I was read as a child, I think the Bible was, in many ways, the worst and I'm not joking. The King James version is beautiful literature, but bible morality is something I found extremely confusing, troubling and frightening. Punishments, which are often violent, are meted out not on the basis of people's actions but their circumstances and, of course, the whole thing culminates in a bloody crucifixion. This kind of thing is not easy for a six year old to take on board, to put it mildly. If a parent read stories like this to a child outside of a religious context, they'd rightly be called irresponsible. Not an easy choice to make, however, given that it's also virtually impossible to understand European culture without these stories, but I think, if I was going to do the same with a child today, I'd take a lot of care to ensure they understood that this was an inhumane and primitive belief system that was worth knowing about, but from which right thinking people were trying to move on.

Or, well, anyway, I'd take a little more time to ask them what they thought and, if they said they thought it was horrible or upsetting, I'd tell them I agreed.

[blazeofglory]

Let children live the way they like it. But it is a pity they can not do so, for we indoctrinate them from the time of their birth.

We can not clear them of the tangles of religions.

[blp]

Let children live the way they like it. But it is a pity they can not do so, for we indoctrinate them from the time of their birth.

We can not clear them of the tangles of religions.

I don't see why not. I'm not very tangled in religion. I was just perturbed by the horrible story book when I was little'un.

[blazeofglory]

I don't see why not. I'm not very tangled in religion. I was just perturbed by the horrible story book when I was little'un.

It i s a big challenge to be out of it.