Is it right to brainwash children?

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My younger brother has become an outcast in my family.
Not because his personality is different or he doesn't socialize. He's the baby in the family and we all love him. He's quite badly autistic too, being a 9 year old with a mind of a 5 year old.
We were told by him a 'man' was coming into the school to speak to the class. There wasn't much we could do about it, and we weren't given any information as to who this man might be. The family basically shrugged our shoulders and wondered who he might of been.
The next day he came back, and he had changed. He prayed non-stop, and when asked he said the man had taught him to do that. Also, through a conversation with him about a television program (walking with dinosaurs), he told us we were stupid for believing in dinosaurs as they weren't made by god.
Now, even though we have approached the subject calmly and fairly, still allowing him to pursue this interest in religion but introducing him to other theories (even from other religions) he has refused to listen to us each time. He said god created the world, period. He says he wants to go to church or he will go to hell. Our whole family are atheists, and church isn't the sort of place we look forward to going.
What really annoys me is that our family wsn't allowed the option of the choice of how we want our family members raised. My brother has now turned into an argumentitive child who calls his own mother stupid.
Is it right to do this? I'm not saying that no child should be taught religion, but that one man has now ruined our family life. We don't know what to do!

I don't think he should talk back or anything however he is a person and you must treat him as such. If he wishes to go to church then I think you need to put up with it because it will only hurt him if you force your beliefs on him, because he has to make the choice to believe or not himself. So while you may not like him being influenced by what sounds like a priest, your doing the same thing if you deny him access to a church.

Oh my God, that's messed up. If I were you, I'd be paying this "man" a little visit. People can't be allowed to preach any old ridiculous dogma to children, that's just plain wrong.

Then we should return to old secular dogmae, but which ones? Euro-centric history in science and politics that marginalizes and/or ignores the scientific achievements of other cultures? The alleged "superiority" of whites over native Africans and native Americans? A Socialist entitlement mindset that allowed labor unions to ruin American's manufacturing sector? A political system that offers a once every four years vote for its citizens to feel enfranchized as part of the "Democratic" process? An "America First" policy that has now cause global economic turmoil? Or maybe we should just turn a blind eye to the last 500 years of western history and pretend that things have always been the way they are today?

Whatever ...

What does any of that have to do with whether or not it is acceptable for religious nutters to brainwash kids?

with what we know today, fossils we can SEE, space we can MEASURE

it should be illegal to go into a SCHOOL setting, and tell kids that there are no dinoaurs, and that space ends at the stars, cus behind that wall, is heaven and whatnot.

there should be jailsentences.

There isn't a neutral stance that does not brainwash kids. Fnord is pointing out all sorts of secular dogmas that could be considered just as bad as religious dogmas.

I mean, really, if you were to teach a child, would you teach the absolute truth? No, you likely don't even know it. So, when you teach a child about the political system, you are very likely to dogmatize your own beliefs. When you teach a child about the economic system, you are likely to teach your own notions of what is wrong, but possibly none with any full truth to them(you aren't an economist, right?). When you teach a child about other cultures, there will be all sorts of other assumptions(other cultures are equal, ours is better, etc) that will likely have no perfect foundations.

So basically, in order to argue against brainwashing kids, you have to prove that some teachings are not equal to other teachings, when a child, being as dumb as a child, will only accept teachings upon authority, not be able to reason them out or anything like that.

I hear that. Just cos they say it's their religion, the government lets them do whatever the hell they want, it's sickening.

Let him seek the truth on his own. Don't interfere. Give your opinions, but don't force it on him. Tell the same to him.

I too went from being a pot-smoking, chain-smoking, heavy-drinking atheist to a fanatical Muslim, and finally, a peace-loving Baha'i. All extremes. I love the position I'm in now, because of independent search for the truth.

Most importantly, don't argue. The only way out of an argument is by avoiding one. You can't win an argument (at least, not without damaging someone's ego), especially religious arguments.

Draw a Bright Line between raising one's children to conform to the culture and society into which they were born and brainwashing.

ruveyn

A bright and very thin line.

Religionists should receive the same treatment that peodophiles do, with respect to how close they can approach a public school, playground, or other child-oriented facility. Only a purely secular curriculum should be taught in public schools, and if the religionists are so all-fired determined to impose their beliefs on other people's children, then let them do it inside their churches, synagogues, temples, mosques, and reading rooms.

The only problem would then become whose version of secular history will be taught, and how far should multiculturalism be allowed to pervade the curriculum.

And let's start paying teachers something a little better than a living wage, shall we?

Whose secular curriculum. The left wing secular curriculum beloved of the left-wing, pro-socialist, pinko stinko liberals or the secular curriculum of the muscular right wing types. Shall we have a Culture War to decide? The fact of the matter is that there is no universally accepted secular world view in the United States and it is probably the same for Europe.

Should the secular curriculum teach genetic determinism or should it emphasize social conditioning? Should the curriculum teach that each man owes his neighbor a living or should it teach each person should do the best he can for him/her self their family? Will it be an individualist view that is taught or a collective bleeding heart altruism? Shall we turn our children in to left-wing robo-clones who are environmentalist tree huggers as well? Shall we emphasize reason and Appolonian calm-headedness or shall be become Dionesians heading for a rave party? Which will have the higher status -- logic and science or postmodern truth-is-relative crapdoodle?

If you can sort this mess out, you are ahead of your time.

ruveyn

kids that age have very shallow beliefs. they believe what they are told. I think your brother will come to his senses OP. hopefully the autistic delight for logic and rationality will win one day.

when I was his age I was scared s**tless of hell too.

but I agree that the guy should be banned from school visits. you should take some action, I bet you can find other parents/families who don't like what he's doing to the kids.

I think that what the man did is tantamount to assault or abuse in a very insidious way. The kid could be mentally scared for life if he has absorbed all that religious crap.

That's why you should teach critical thinking from the very beginning of school: how to deconstruct an argument, how to form a coherent counter arguement, how to recognise logical fallacies, all that jazz. And teach teachers that if kids challenge them they have to prove themselves right, not appeal to their own authority.

Two of the most useful courses I did in School were critical thinking, and a small part of Active Citizenship that showed how media can hide a bias in something as invisible as a camera angle, I nearly always read controversial news stories actively looking for bias these days. IMO its a crime that stuff like that isn't given the same importance as Reading Writing and Maths.


Don't underestimate kids. By age nine I wouldn't expect them to stand up to a priest in a debate on the existence of God, but I would expect them to comprehend that there is such as thing as a "bad argument" and that adults might give one.

Last edited by TheKingsRaven on 15 Mar 2009, 4:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.

They really should teach kids important stuff like that, but sadly they probably won't go for that idea, because then they'd be raising a generation of people who will actually question the BS the authorities feed us.