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For many religious people, raising their children in their faith is an important part of their religious practice. They might see getting their kids into heaven as one of the most important things they can do as parent. And certainly, adults should have the right to practice their religion freely, but children are impressionable and unlikely to realize that they are being indoctrinated into one religion out of the thousands that humans practice.

And many faith traditions have beliefs that are at odds with science or support bigoted worldviews. For example, a queer person being raised in the Catholic Church would be taught that they are inherently disordered and would likely be discouraged from being involved in LGBTQ support groups.

Where do you think the line is between practicing your own religion faithfully and unethically forcing your beliefs on someone else?

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[–] peregrin5@lemm.ee 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

No it's not ethical. I say this as a queer man indoctrinated in Christianity. I was lucky to make it through childhood without killing myself. I tried several times. Religion is a cancer that should be exterminated.

[–] compostgoblin@slrpnk.net 1 points 8 months ago

I am a trans woman who was raised Catholic, so I feel similarly. I’ve had to do so much work in therapy just to get to a place where I can accept myself for who I am. A lot of those old beliefs were baked in deeper than I realized.

I carry a lot of resentment towards my (very devout) parents for raising me in the church, but I also recognize my experience is not emblematic of every person’s experience being raised in a religious household.

[–] rmuk@feddit.uk 0 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

The fundamental difference between religion/spirituality and science/reason, as far as I'm concerned is this: religion demands that you accept something as an indisputable truth and that questioning it is not only discouraged but forbidden and will be met with an arbitrarily horrific punishment (eternal damnation, etc), with what the specific something is dependent on the teacher, their interpretations and their intentions. As a mental framework, I don't think it's healthy for either individuals or societies to unquestioningly accept - or be made to accept - that any ideas are defacto sacred.

[–] Kellamity@sh.itjust.works -1 points 8 months ago

I think that's a very narrow view of religion though, albeit one that is true of a lot and I agree is toxic. Ironically since you're a UK person, it's a type of religion I associate with the US and the American right (though I also know through friends growing up that it can be fairly common in some Muslim and Hindi groups)

I think a lot of times religion is used as a kind of cultural link: 'this is why we have these traditions, this is a moral we have that we can explain with this story' etc. And with that context I think it can be fine, even helpful to raise someone within a religious tradition

I guess I broadly agree with you mostly, but I would say that religion can be coherent with critical thinking and open-mindedness: it's cultural as much as its about fundamental belief

(and when it is about fundamental belief then yeah it's often awful)