READ: "Religous Education is not Brainwashing" Article here

The above linked article attempts to defend the BHA message "Please don't label me. Let me grow up and choose for myself" and in doing so proposes that children require a religous family in order to be brought up with any understanding of morals.

This is utterly ridiculous. I have never had to resort to "God says it's bad" or "You'll go to hell" to instill the concept of right and wrong, or good and bad in my child. And guess what, I very often recieve comments from other adults, parents and otherwise, praising my daughter for her good behaviour. It was simply "No! That's bad!" until she was old enough to understand reasoning as to why it was bad. At this point, I would simply explain, at first, that for example, "Would you like it if somebody were to do that to you?" and a little later, "It is good to be nice to people because then you can make friends and having friends and people being pleasant to each other makes this life a nice pleasant and enjoyable one. People who are nasty usually get left out and are sad and lonely".

As my daughter gets older, I hope to pass on a more complex concept of the impact we have upon society and others, and my own personal belief that we can all contribute to make the world a better place where we all show love and peace to one another.
However, if she chooses to believe something other than that, I will be proud that she is capable of making her own decisions. I do not want my daughter to blindly follow my opinions, I hope that she will be more intelligent than that!

To completely debunk the article in question, I finish with this;

Glad to see that the religious fanatics still practice selective reading (the bible is the prime example of this!!) given that the writer has blatantly ignored the "Let me grow up" part of the message.

GG

(In homage to a Supernatural episode)

So, Rowan Williams believes we should allow children to have a childhood and stop bestowing them with consumerist values? I wholeheartedly agree. I am not a fan of consumerism in the slightest.

You sense the huge "but" (forgive me) heading this way???

BUT, I can not help but think, in my cynical way, that this comes at a time when the Anglican Church has sworn to take it's ministries to the children? I read a blog post at The Freethinker detailing this (READ: Freethinker - Cradle Snatching) and can't help think that this is in the same vein.

For a start I don't think it's consumerism the Church are really against, I think it is the modern information culture to which we expose our children. This, I am all for! Under moderation of the parent, the child should be free to explore different ideas and learn more about the world. It is what is required to produce a sufficiently critical thinking yet open minded individual. It is this modern technical attitude towards communication and information which views the Church as outdated and frankly, laughable.

Secondly, the Church's attitude also, I feel, reflects a lack of confidence in children themselves and of modern parents. I can understand this to a point but do feel it to be a rather sad outlook to have. Surely, if exposed to modern "values" such as consumerism, in controlled doses, a child can be prepared for modern life, without necessarily taking on those values for themselves? I myself can be guilty of the odd consumerist splurge, however I would not consider myself to judge only upon that value. I can see that there are many things in life far more important than money and possessions, whilst understanding the pressure felt by some to own a certain car etc.

Why don't the Church have faith in mankind?

GG

Although I currently have no readership, my new year's resolution will be earn one! Happy New Year to any who may bother to look back at this post just in case.

GG

I thought I should start off with a justification, of sorts, as to why I am blogging! Over the last few years it seems there has been a mild uprising of Atheists in response to the encroachment of religion into secular life. As an example, one of my foremost concerns is that children are not indoctrinated in our schools with religious falsehoods as opposed to scientific learning. This, combined with my approaching (dreaded) 30th birthday, has lead to my feeling a need to contribute, stand up and be counted, before it's too late.

I want to remain annonymous in part, as no doubt some personal clues will emerge throughout my posts. This is, if I'm honest, due to a fear of being judged for my opinions by mainly colleagues, a lot of whom have some religious conviction. I do not wish for my personal objectives to impact upon those of my working life as I fear I would rarely get any work done if this were to happen!

So I hope you enjoy my posts, and I hope to have some intelligent debate and conversation with you in the future.

GG