Today’s post is from Robert Kunzman, author of Write These Laws on Your Children: Inside the World of Conservative Christian Homeschooling. Kunzman spent ten years as a high school teacher, coach, and administrator and is currently an associate professor in the Indiana University School of Education. He is also the author of Grappling with the Good: Talking about Religion and Morality in Public Schools.

Quick—who are the only two nations who haven’t ratified the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child?

Somalia is one of them—no bonus points for that guess. Who else stands against the 193 nations who’ve ratified the treaty? None other than the United States of America. This may change under the Obama administration; U.N. ambassador Susan Rice recently proclaimed the situation a disgrace and indicated that U.S. ratification of the treaty was under active discussion.

But not if the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) has their way. Calling the UNCRC “anti-family” and “anti-American,” they have urged their 80,000 members—as well as those who’ve joined ParentalRights.org, a “grassroots” organization founded by HSLDA—to voice their opposition. To further their cause, they have been a driving force in promoting a Parental Rights Amendment, which now has more than 110 co-sponsors in the House of Representatives.

Why does the most powerful and prominent homeschool advocacy organization in the world see the UNCRC as such a threat? Ultimately, it’s an argument about who should have a say in the raising and educating of children.

Related posts:

1. Children’s Rights and the Parental Authority to Instill a Specific Value System Essays in Philosophy Volume 7 Issue 1 Liberalism, Feminism, Multiculturalism...

Reblog from YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RkbDUc9HBA&NR=1

Hit REPLAY to watch To All Religious Teenagers

Would you believe in Giraffism if only one person believed in it? Of course not!

No related posts.

Image via Wikipedia

KATY Perry says she left her strict religious upbringing behind after her evangelical minister parents left her without a childhood.

The pop singer is on the cover of the June issue of Vanity Fair magazine, where she revealed the differences between hers and her parents’ way of thinking in an interview.

“I didn’t have a childhood,” she told the magazine. She said she was not allowed to use terms like “deviled eggs” or “Dirt Devil,” to listen to secular music or to read any books but the Bible.

In March, Perry’s mother revealed that she was shopping a book about the impact of her daughter’s career on her ministry. She said she was proud of Katy but disagreed with “a lot of choices she makes.”

“I think sometimes when children grow up, their parents grow up,” Katy Perry told Vanity Fair.

“Mine grew up with me. We co-exist. I don’t try to change them anymore, and I don’t think they try to change me. We agree to disagree. They’re excited about [my success]. They’re happy that things are going well for their three children and that they’re not on drugs. Or in prison.”

Perry credited her husband, actor Russell Brand, with opening her mind even more.

“I come from a very non-accepting family, but I’m very accepting,” Perry said of her current religious beliefs.

“Russell is into Hinduism, and I’m not [really] involved in it. He meditates in the morning and the evening; I’m starting to do it more because it really centres me. [But] I just let him be him, and he lets me be me.”

Related articles

• Katy Perry: “My Career Is Like An Artichoke” (wlte.radio.com)
• Katy Perry On Strict Christian Upbringing: ‘I Didn’t Have A Childhood’ (huffingtonpost.com)
• Katy Perry Covers Vanity Fair June 2011 (bittenandbound.com)
• Katy Perry: Yes, I really kissed a girl (via The Marquee Blog) (thespiritportal.wordpress.com)

Related posts:

1. How powerful is childhood religious indoctrination? Mormonism would cease to exist in just a few generations...

Image via Wikipedia

Throughout history organized religion has been co-opted by truly warped power mad men who left destruction and horror in their wake. Osama Bin Laden and his crazed Islamic followers were such men. In a way we have him to thank for the remarkable strides Humanists, atheists and anti-theists have made in the last 10 years. He made millions of people think hard about the danger of consciously and deliberately releasing their grip on reality. Worse yet, foisting their madness on vulnerable children.

The attacks on 9/11 roused me from complacency and turned me into a dedicated foe of organized religion, for life. Whatever positive elements people find believing in fantasy are far outweighed by the danger such unquestioned belief imposes. Like Christopher Hitchens has written, religion poisons everything.

How many times must humans learn this lesson? Over and over we have had to put religion back in chains, only for this curse to break out again and be commandeered by madmen. The problem is faith and let us vow that the end of Osama Bin Laden will be the final chapter.

End the unethical practice of forcing faith on vulnerable children. End the betrayal of children by their misguided parents and guardians.

Related articles

• Do we cheer the death of Osama Bin Laden? (quixoticutopia.wordpress.com)

No related posts.

Image via Wikipedia

Mormonism would cease to exist in just a few generations if it were not for the indoctrination of hapless gulible children. The foundation of the LDS faith rests on the Mormon Bible, which is a transparent rip off of the St James bible, as Mark Twain recounts in his book Roughing It. Not even a modest skeptic could swallow the imagineerings of the Mormon bible. Yet there are millions of true believers and that is undeniable fact.

Mark Twain Meets The Mormons

Copied from “Roughing It – A Personal Narrative” as he tried to figure out the Mormons during his two day stop over in Great Salt Lake City on his way to silver mines of Nevada.

All men have heard of the Mormon Bible, but few, except the elect have seen it or at least taken the trouble to read it. I brought away a copy from Salt Lake. The book is a curiosity to me. It is such a pretentious affair and yet so slow, so sleepy, such an insipid mess of inspiration. It is chloroform in print.

If Joseph Smith composed this book, the act was a miracle. Keeping awake while he did it, was at any rate. If he, according to tradtion, merely translated it from certain ancient and myteriously engraved plates of copper, which he declares he found under a stone, in an out of the way locality, the work of translating it was equally a miracle for the same reason.

The book seems to be merely a prosey detail of imaginary history with the Old Testament for a model followed by a tedious plegiarism of the New Testament. The author labored to give his words and phrases the quaint old fashioned sound and structure of our King James translation of the scriptures. The result is a mongrel, half modern glibbness and half ancient simplicity and gravity. The latter is awkward and constrained, the former natural, but grotesque by the contrast. Whenever he found his speech growing too modern, which was about every sentence or two, he ladeled in a few such scriptural phrases as, “exceeding sore,” “and it came to pass,” etc. and made things satisfactory again. “And it came to pass,” was his pet. If he had left that out, his bible would have been only a pamphlet.

The title page goes as follows: “The Book of Mormon, an account written by the hand of Mormon upon plates taken from the plates of Nephi. Wherefore, it is an abridgement of the record of the people of Nephi, and also of the Lamanites – Written to the Lamanites, who are a remnan of the house of Israel; and also to Jew and Gentile. Written by way of commandment and also by the spirit of prophecy and of revelation – written and sealed up and hid up unto the Lord that they might not be destroyed, to come forth by the gift and power of God unto the interpretation thereof – sealed by the hand of Moroni and hid up unto the Lord, to come forth in due time by way of the Gentile – the interpretation thereof by the gift of God.

An abridgement taken from the Book of Ether, also, which is a record of the people of Jared, who were scattered at the time the Lord confounded the language of the people, when they were building a tower to get to heaven – (hid up is good, and so is wherefore, though why, wherefore? Any other word would have answered as well, though in truth it would not have sounded so scriptural.)”

Next comes the testimony of three witnesses. “Be it know unto all nations, kindreds, tongues and people unto whom this work shall come, that we, through the grace of God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, have seen the plates which contain this record which is a record of the people of Nephi and also of the Lamanites, their brethren and also of the people of Jared, who came from the tower of which hath been spoken. And we also know that they have been translated by the gift and power of God, for His voice hath declared it unto us. Wherefore we know of a surety that the work it true. And we also testify that we have seen the engravings which are upon the plates and they have been shown unto us by the power of God and not of man. And we declare with words of soberness that an angel of God came down from heaven and he brought and laid before our eyes that we beheld and saw the plates and the engravings thereon. And we know that it by the grace of God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ that we beheld and bear record that these things are true. And it is marvelous in our eyes. Nevertheless, the voice of the Lord commanded us that we should bear record of it. Wherefore to be obedient unto the commandments of God we bear testimony to these things. And we know that if we are faithful in Christ we shall rid our garments of the blood of all men and be found spotless before the judgement seat of Christ and shall dwell with Him eternally in the heavens. And the honor be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost, which is one god, Amen. Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer and Martin Harris.”

Some people have to have a world of evidence before they can come anywhere in the neighborhood of believing anything, but for me when a man tells me that he has seen the engravings which are upon the plates and not only that, but an angel was there at the time and saw them see him and probably took his receipt for it, I am very far on the road to conviction no matter whether I have ever heard of that man before or not, and even if I do not know the name of the angel or his nationality either.

Related articles

• The LDS church is embarrassed by its own book (dwindlinginunbelief.blogspot.com)
• 2 Nephi 6: Someday God will force non-Mormons to eat their own flesh and get drunk on own blood. (dwindlinginunbelief.blogspot.com)
• 2 Nephi 4-5: Because of their unbelief, the Lamanites are cursed, receive a skin of blackness (dwindlinginunbelief.blogspot.com)
• 1 Nephi 19: Zenos’ Paradox (dwindlinginunbelief.blogspot.com)
• 2 Nephi 1-3:A tale of four Josephs and loads of loin fruit (dwindlinginunbelief.blogspot.com)
• Introduction to the Book of Mormon (bomcommentary.wordpress.com)

Related posts:

1. i-am-a-post-mormon – Dustin Patzer speaks about leaving the LDS Justin found his way out of the LDS trap. The...

Volume 7
Issue 1 Liberalism, Feminism, Multiculturalism Article 10

January 2006

Jeffrey Morgan
University College of the Fraser Valley

http://commons.pacificu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1226&context=eip

The following is an excerpt of the Jeffrey Morgan paper.

Further, whether or not a child is initiated into a specific value system, it is possible to encourage him to be reasonable regarding his values. This is part of the work of Rawls’ concept of “burdens  of judgment” (1993). The Muslim child could be raised with specific Islamic values—rejecting the  consumption of pork and alcohol, accepting the values of modesty in dress, and the importance of  Zakat and Hajj—but nevertheless be aware that other, equally reflective, people live differently.11  Supporting such reflective open-mindedness effectively puts limits on the degree to which the  parent can indoctrinate her children.

Finally, it should be noted that children develop gradually, and that it is possible to be sensitive to  the emerging identity of one’s child, while steering the child in one direction rather than others. For  example, a parent may wish for his son a career in professional ice hockey, and may scaffold his  son’s experiences to attain this end. He enrolls his son in minor hockey leagues, skating lessons,  and other physical development activities. The father may attempt to instill in his son a love for the  game, and the sense that playing hockey represents a worthwhile form of life with the potential for  fame, glory and wealth. Nevertheless, such a program need not be so heavy handed that the father  is insensitive to his son’s growing interest in other activities, such as philosophy, painting or  poetry.12

My view is that the parent who holds a specific worldview or value system is wrong to instill that  value system in her child. However, children who are raised to accept value pluralism, who are  taught the importance of reasonableness and of burdens of judgment, and whose parents are  sensitive to their child’s developing identity, are unlikely to become so close-minded as to be at risk  of losing their future autonomy. This still allows the parent ample opportunity to encourage the  child to acquire many values, both moral and otherwise, including some of the values implicit in  specific religious or cultural traditions.

Noggle may be correct that children have a right to be taught values, but they do not have a right to  be taught a doctrinaire system of values that is morally controversial and difficult to reject. Indeed,  it is plausible to suggest that children have a right not to be indoctrinated, and that children have an  interest in being protected from value systems, especially from value systems that are reinforced by  relationships of love and dependence. We must, consequently, reject the alleged rights of cultural or  religious groups to perpetuate themselves through direct initiation of children.

Conclusion

In general, Noggle’s general approach to clarifying parent-child relationships is imaginative, clever,  persuasive and promising. His argument is that parent-child relationships are a special class of  fiduciary relationships, but differ from the standard case inasmuch as the standard case has no  analogue to parental authority.

I have not challenged this assertion, nor have I challenged Noggle’s  claim that parental authority can be justified under the model of fiduciary relationships. Further, I  have not challenged Noggle’s application of Rawlsian ideas to parent-child relationships; implicitly,  I have accepted both his metaphor of a parental veil of ignorance and his development of the  hierarchy of goods based on the centrality of primary goods. Moreover, I have not even challenged  Noggle’s claim that membership in cultural or religious traditions may well be a secondary good,  although I have reservations about the generality of this claim, since it appears that many—perhaps  all—cultural or religious traditions have serious costs associated with them. However, I have  challenged Noggle’s claim that his model of parental authority supports a parental right to instill  parochial values in children.

So if cultural and religious membership is a secondary good, and thereby worth passing on to  children, and if there is no parental right to instill the values of specific religious or cultural  tradition, then we must pass on these values in less direct ways. Archard’s approach to transmitting  cultural and religious values indirectly does provide at least one possible approach to parental  authority that allows some transmission but does not permit the direct approach favored by Noggle.  However, Archard’s approach will seem rather weak to many parents who want to promote their  cultural values in their children.

Where does this leave us with respect to the question of liberalism and multiculturalism with which  we began? My view is that there are serious costs of allowing that parents have the legitimate  authority to pass on their worldviews to their child. My objections are that moral agency does not  presuppose anything as strong as the acquisition of a worldview, and that there are serious costs to  the acquisition of most traditional worldviews. Multiculturalism, then, must survive without the  parental authority to instill value systems or worldviews in their child. That said, I think that  parents can—and should—instill values in their child, but that these values: (a) ought not to  constitute a system, (b) ought to be presented in the context of a thorough value pluralism, (c)  ought to include values of reasonableness and the burdens of judgment, and (d) ought to be  presented with awareness of the child’s emerging identity. I believe that these conditions can be  met, but that they put strong limits on the degree to which the child can be subject to value systems  or worldviews constitutive of distinctive cultures.

Jeffrey Morgan

University College of the Fraser Valley

Related articles

• Children’s right to secular, liberal education (endhereditaryreligion.com)
• Religions use cult indoctrination techniques (endhereditaryreligion.com)
• You cannot end the religious indoctrination of vunerable children (endhereditaryreligion.com)
• Salvation is not a legitimate argument for indoctrinating children (endhereditaryreligion.com)

No related posts.

The effects of early religious training: Implications for…

Authors:

Hanna, Fred J.
Myer, Rick A.

Source:

Counseling & Values; Oct94, Vol. 39 Issue 1, p32, 10p

Document Type:

Article

Subject Terms:

*CHILDREN
RELIGION
RELIGIOUS life

Abstract:

Examines the impact of teaching children religion at an early age. Comparison of the concept of god taught to children to the God of theology and philosophy; Analysis of the God of childhood; Conceptualization of God by children.

Full Text Word Count:

4208

ISSN:

01607960

Accession Number:

9705070609

Persistent link to this record (Permalink):

Cut and Paste:

<A href=”http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org.public.phoenixpubliclibrary.org:2048/webcheck.jsp?atz=http://search.ebscohost.com.public.phoenixpubliclibrary.org:2048/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=9705070609&site=ehost-live&scope=site”>The effects of early religious training: Implications for…</A>

Database:

Education Research Complete

---

Section: PRACTICE

THE EFFECTS OF EARLY RELIGIOUS

TRAINING: IMPLICATIONS FOR

COUNSELING AND DEVELOPMENT

The simplistic conception of god commonly taught to children is distinguished from the God of theology and philosophy. There is evidence that children feel a considerable amount of anxiety in connection with their deity. A thorough analysis of the god of childhood reveals that many children believe in and internalize an authoritative being who is both good and evil, kind and abusive. Modeling of this being can continue into adulthood and may have a continuing effect on cognition and behavior. Implications for counseling and development are discussed.

Religious development across the life span is an important issue in counseling (Worthington, 1989) and one’s conception of God is an important aspect of that development. When this development becomes stalled at the childhood level, however, it may have negative effects that continue into adulthood. Caught between trying to explain the goodness of God and the concept of judgment, teachers use simplistic representations rather than theological works to teach children about God. The nature of childhood cognition (Piaget & Inhelder, 1969) further limits understanding to these simplistic interpretations (Nye & Carlson, 1984; O’Neil & Donovan, 1970).

“The religion of childhood is of a very special order” (Allport, 1950, p. 31) both cognitively and developmentally. Nelsen and Kroliczak (1984) found that “children continue to associate right and wrong behavior with God” (p. 267). Difficulties with respect to authority, contradictory behaviors, and control issues may arise for adults dependent on a simplistic conception of God. An investigation of this issue might explain much in the way of the cognition and behavior of adults who have not passed through more sophisficated stages of development (see Loevinger, 1976, 1985).

This article is divided into three sections: (a) analysis of the child’s conception of God, (b) cognitive, emotional, and developmental effects, and (c) implications for counseling. For the sake of clarity, God will be referred to in the masculine because that is how it has been commonly presented. Also, because the conception of God presented is not that of classical theology or the philosophy of religion, it will be referred to in small letters to differentiate this article from such treatises. We will use a time-honored method of philosophical analysis called reductio ad absurdurn (Angeles, 1981) to follow the logical progression of applying a simplistic concept of God to an adult framework of understanding. In using this method, we encourage a close examination of the traditional teaching methods used when instructing children about the concept of God. Our goal is to promote healthy and mature religious development. <more on line>

Read the entire article on line via your public library or university library research facilities.  Many children remain stuck in the infantile understanding of religion they were taught as children. Some children develop mental pathologies because of this teaching. The indoctrination process has been worked on and refined over centuries and is extremely effective.

http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/detail?accno=EJ497261

Related articles

• You cannot end the religious indoctrination of vunerable children (endhereditaryreligion.com)
• The god gene – or is it a meme? (openparachute.wordpress.com)
• My deconversion and my father (new.exchristian.net)
• Worship has no place in schools | Jacob Huckle (guardian.co.uk)

No related posts.

People argue that parents and religious entities will not cease the practice of preying on vulnerable children to maintain their tribes. Religious indoctrination of children has been going on for centuries and is a universal phenomenon. Like child battering, it is a syndrome protected by an extensive protective meme complex. Parents were most likely indoctrinated, making them excellent practitioners of childhood religious grooming. They know all the techniques and evasions to use on their own kids. Likewise, adults who were physically punished will strenuously defend this cruel treatment and turn around and physically punish their own children.

Related articles

• Salvation is not a legitimate argument for indoctrinating children (endhereditaryreligion.com)
• Who Cares About Atheists? (camelswithhammers.com)
• Quiverfull Atheists (dangeroustalk.net)
• Questions for Those Raising Their Kids Without Religion (atheistrev.com)
• Indoctrinating Children In a Religious Faith is Abusive (atheistrev.com)
• “Aha!” Moments (new.exchristian.net)

No related posts.

For centuries parents have been persuaded to consign their children to their personal faith because they believed the marketing pitch that raising their children in their faith was necessary. Leaving aside the purported benefits of moral training, the goal was to provide a guaranteed shot at heaven. Prior to Ignatius Loyola there didn’t seem to be any concentrated effort to groom children. Perhaps they were just assumed to follow their parents into heaven because in the middle ages children were actually considered to be part of their parents. Supposedly the path to hell was likewise the kids destiny depending on where the parents wound up. That would be interesting to research. Questions like this are what makes dogma so absurd and full of contradictions and inconsistencies.

Opinion makers working for marketers serving religious institutions, long ago learned that families with children make the best financial supporters. They are more apt to be faithful in their attendance and generous with their wallets. After all, what parent is going to be a cheapskate when the goal is eternal salvation of their children? They must think of it as an investment.

If this sounds cynical, it is because it is cynical, but the cynicism is on the part of the institutions who manipulate parents. Promises of eternal life are without any kind of substantiation. No one knows what happens when you die and anyone who says they know is either deluded or a liar. Don’t let them near your money.

Mormons carry this family togetherness thing to ridiculous lengths going so far as posthumous baptism. They hold “sealing” ceremonies for dead family members they have never met or known. Such family members are simply an entry in a genealogy record and many had extremely brief lives in the old days. Nonetheless, they get a shot at heaven they might otherwise not have had.

When challenged over the act of grooming their children, the Christians seem to believe they have an ironclad argument. To wit: I am simply insuring my child is eligible for salvation and we intend to keep the family intact after death. If the children were not raised in the faith of their parents who knows how they might end up in heaven or if they would even be saved. Suppose the child wants to be a Buddhist? How do you explain that to the grandparents?

On the surface all this concern with salvation sounds noble enough, but on closer inspection, the argument fails because the parents are using religious dogma about salvation to support a temporal scheme that has temporal ramifications. In our law you cannot justify harmful personal actions based on theology, no matter the motive. If you stop and think about this the reason why becomes abundantly clear. The most serious temporal ramification can be a lifetime of mental stress and anxiety that is directly the result of the fear mongering and guilt heaped on children. Christine O’Donnell and her amusing, but sad concepts about masturbation is a bizarre manifestation of sexual ignorance combined with guilt resulting from her Christian upbringing.

Suppose parents have a child that is gravely ill with an incurable illness. They are heartbroken that the child is going to die so they decide to put them out of their misery and hide the body. The fact they attempt to cover up the crime is an admission they know what they did was a crime. Yet when the crime is discovered and they are hauled into court they defend themselves claiming they wanted to send the child to a better place, heaven. Many of their co-religionists might agree they acted humanely and in the child’s best interests. Does the court agree?

No, most assuredly not. The parents may get a lenient sentence, but they will do some time. Their defense fails because religious dogma has no place in a court of law. Likewise, consigning non consenting immature children to a program of religious child grooming that has risks to their mental health should fail for the same reason a mercy killing fails. Temporal acts have temporal consequences and that is all the law is permitted to evaluate.

An adult can examine all the prospects and responsibilities of becoming this or that religious follower. If fully informed and of sound mind they are free to embark on a supernatural quest for eternal life if that is their desire. Because, when you boil it all down, the advantages of fellowship and the opportunity to do charitable works are worthy, albeit side benefits of being a Christian. The ultimate goal is to cheat death. Lacking the salvation feature it is hard to see Christianity surviving in the modern age.

Related articles

• Indoctrinating Children In a Religious Faith is Abusive (atheistrev.com)
• The Case for Salvation (new.exchristian.net)

No related posts.

Have you stopped believing your parent’s religion? Many kids are questioning the religion of their parents. Some have stopped believing and don’t know how to tell their parents. This video is a guide to kids and teenagers in opening up to their parents.

In many respects, the advice in this video tracks the advice given to GLBT kids who want to be honest with their families and friends.

Related articles

• Hope For Young Atheists (anatheist.net)

No related posts.