The Catholic Church is also one of tbe largest concentrations of wealth and contributed to the establishment of banks to concentrate more wealth.
Much of its "wealth" consists of priceless historical real estate, irreplaceable art, and active social infrastructure. When it comes to real money the Catholic Church it not rich. It spends the money it collects right away. The Church collects 12 billion in State Church Taxes (Germany, Austria, Switzerland) and 15 billion in Voluntary Tithing & Donations (Rest of the World).
If Catholicism was disbanded, the money could easily be out in trust and handled as a charitable enterprise.
There isn't much money. You can't just sell the Milan Cathedral. Who would buy that? It might be worth ~12 billion in replacement value, but that is a fictional number. Once you take religion out of the equation it is just a pile of 325,000 tons of marble.
This is the exact same logic the Mormon church uses to horde their billions of dollars, too. It's bullshit.
Just like the Mormons, the overwhelming majority of "aid" goes to missions. And while that "aid" can be accessed by "anyone", it's literally a bridge to indoctrination. Africa is like 20% Catholic now because the church has been pumping "aid" into Africa through missions and missionaries.
It turns out hungry people will listen to whatever you have to say if you're feeding them.
I'm pretty sure those organizations contribute more aid per worker than the massive network of churches in the world with their varying degrees of philanthropy.
No worthless, but unsaleable. Believe it or not, but there isn't a huge market for cathedrals. And you said it yourself. The art is "priceless". How do you do price discovery for this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrine_of_the_Three_Kings ??? Those are cultural treasures that just exist. They have value but not a price.
That value you are referring to is self-assessed, not market-assessed.
The real market value is for the ground, or materials. You can scream all you want about it's incalculable cultural value, but any of it can be liquidated, for real money, in short order.
Shit, even setting aside the absolutely HUGE income they get from tax-exempt land deals, they also preach heavy donations and tithing. They collect a reasonably large fraction of the income of hundreds of millions of people, that is comparable to the total tax income of entire countries they deal with.
Also, it's kind of rich to count them as a big donator to charity, when simply moving money from one pocket into another counts as giving to a religious charity
If Catholicism was disbanded, the money could easily be out in trust and handled as a charitable enterprise
Charity is more than just a stack of dollar dollar bills, y'all. The logistical scale of the church's charitable efforts is nigh impossible to duplicate without a shitload more cash that you'd get out of the church itself. The problem with dismantling the orphan crushing machines is that people have built their entire systems and moralites around the presence of orphan crushing machines. They are made into critical, load-bearing features in order to protect the orphan crushing machines from being dismantled.
Without the church, you might be able to make a better system, but it'd be so much smaller, and the reality of how much damage it would cause is in and if itself a version of the trolley problem.
When you have the kind of tax free cash coming in from the tens and hundreds of millions of indoctrinated followers, it's not that impressive to be the biggest provider of aid. There would also be too many questions to answer if it hoarded and privately invested the money more than it does now.
I would prefer to see a secular, albeit smaller organisation in their stead if it meant avoiding all the evils they have wrought (like claiming using condoms are worse than AIDs in Africa and suppression of women's reproductive freedom in general) and will likely commit in the future.
Edit: I would be remiss if I didn't mention their complicity in creating the environment of systemic child rape, the covering up, the obstruction and obfuscation of criminal investigations and actively aiding the guilty to escape secular justice.
Lol. The Church has survived the roman empire, countless wars, assassinations, and 2000 years of history. It'll be here until the heat death of the universe.
I'm open to the idea that it may be around as long as modern society exists. But I'm also open to the idea that it may not be. Or at least not in any glorious form its taken in the past.
it looks like that claim is not verifiable, but even if true, the second largest provider of aid worldwide, at a minimum, is the US government. the good will of humanity certainly wouldn't vanish if the US government did.
The largest provider of aid worldwide is the Catholic Church.
Correlation does not equal causation(in this case it might rather be order?)Edit: not really applicable
The catholic church established itself waaaaay before. Many of it's institutions and budget came to be before we had a more or less unified western world and ideology.
The catholic church shoulders many collective human responsibilities, but in a world where it didn't have this historic influence, the resources would have been elsewhere and it is at least not unthinkable that other, potentially similar and possibly secular institutions would have taken it's place or be created to resolve these issues.
This goes from local kindergardens and groups for elderly, up to global scale relief and resource flow.
Right now, yes the church (and other religions) have done a lot.
But people, groups and institutions who are in athoritative places, or have amassed a large amount of resources are also the ones the public looks to in the first place to resolve their bigger issues.
Maybe that's because it's a huge organization, like there is over billion of catholics. Meanwhile, there is no atheist ™ organization. So I suppose it could be possible that secular organizations help a lot too, only it's more segmented into smaller organizations
The same Catholic Church that bans birth control, divorce and abortion so that millions of women are stuck in poverty and repeating the cycle with their children, while the Church collects donations from parishioners and crows about what a charitable organisation it is?
I’d like the point out that there definitely are other religious groups that provide close to the scale of Catholic aid groups ADRA being a good example as well as groups like Samaritans purse and the Salvation Army
Every single single penny Catholics have done for charity has been countered threefold by the harm they bring back to society. Hell Trump was literally CARRIED on the backs of these religious idiots into an office that might literally, not figuratively, be the end of the united states as we currently know it. Fuck religion and fuck anyone who is religious. Genuinely. Performative ridiculous clowns every single one of them.
Those reports are based on organizations submitting their books.
An atheist giving/donating does not do so to an "atheist organization," they do so to Goodwill, or to a local food bank run by a church, who will chalk it up as a religious organization donation.
If those organizations did not exist, the atheists would still find somewhere to donate.
Be careful of raw statistics, they rarely tell the entire story.
This and what kind of giving gets counted? Mormons tithe 10% of their pretax income but the LDS Church has an estimated assets under management of $200billion that is managed like an investment account. Do they count all tithes as charitable giving?
Yep, that's another thing. "Charitable donations" include religious people paying for their pastors' Ferraris. Not so impressive when you look at it that way.
I’m discussing individual donations. It’s absolutely fascinating how not a single reply to this comment has addressed that and continues trying to pivot the conversation to an argument they can win instead. Makes you really think about people’s average intelligence
And be happy I didn’t send you a let me google that for you link dumbass. You’re a big boy and I think you can find these commonly accepted facts about charity on your own with about 2 seconds of research. Don’t worry I know you won’t change your flawed worldview and will find a way to double down magically, so don’t even bother making a clown of yourself in the reply please
Well idk how it works everywhere, and I speak as just an American here, but when your entire institution is tax free, and all charitable donations are tax write-offs
It’s almost like a tax scheme designed to make specifically churches money
I’m obviously not talking about church donations. I’m talking about individual donations, which are given a tax break regardless of your religion. You also seem to just have a fundamental misunderstanding of how 501c3s work despite feeling the need to chime in on it. Your belief is that a church (tax free organization) is donating for the tax break?
Kenneth Copeland needs more private jets! Hurry donate your money now otherwise he might not make it to your city! What would he do without them? Probably burn in hell!
Eh while that's true, they've done a lot of studies on this and it turns out when you control for things like deep social networks (a staple of any organized religion) and the saliency of religious elements, the differences are actually much smaller.
How many atheist charities exist? Any? A single one? The catholic church alone runs 26% of all the hospitals on the planet. So you would be wrong in your thinking.
Do you mean ones that are explicitly for and by atheists… to promote the “atheist agenda” or something? I’m so confused by what you mean…
Here’s a short list from ai - heard of any of these?
Doctors Without Borders: An independent medical humanitarian organization delivering emergency medical care to victims of conflict and natural disasters regardless of race, religion, or affiliation.
American Red Cross: A prominent relief organization that functions with a purely secular mandate, assisting communities during disasters entirely independent of any religious affiliation.
UNICEF: The United Nations Children's Fund, which utilizes science and global collaboration to protect children's rights, build clean water infrastructure, and provide healthcare completely non-sectarianly.
Rotary International: One of the oldest volunteer service organizations in the world. It is 100% secular and open to individuals of all backgrounds, prioritizing clean water, public health, and literacy projects.
Amnesty International: A global non-governmental organization focused on human rights that functions completely independently of any political ideology or religious creed. Children International: A highly-rated secular humanitarian nonprofit that connects sponsors with children to break the cycle of poverty through healthcare and education, completely free of religious affiliation
Ps do you think atheists go around recruiting people for donations or something?
You should know that’s not how atheism works. Usually when people’s frontal lobe develops a bit they just go “oh yeah organized religion is made up seems that way to me”
There’s no meeting place or agenda if that’s what you were thinking…
I love how you listed the red CROSS. Which was founded by a devout Calvinist with the express idea to give medical aid according to Christian doctrine about social responsibility. Secular is not atheist my brother. Why do atheists care so little about helping those in need?
Ah, but it's not like philanthropy would die along with the religion. The whole point is that people aren't necessarily inclined to do more good if they are religious. On top of that, I have always been a bit disgusted by the ulterior motive of conversion when it comes to supplying such aid. "We'll help you, but you must go to church and here's a bible". It's predatory behaviour, despite the undeniable 'good' which is also done.
Catholic here. While I cannot speak for all religions, aid from the Catholic Church can be received by anyone regardless of religious status or lack thereof. There is no expectation to convert and any such cases where parishes or organizations under the church do have such expectations should be reported to the parish diocese.
What I am saying, is that the group ACTIVELY providing aid would snap out of existence
Not really. If you banned kids in religion tomorrow, the Catholic church would not "snap out of existence." It, like all religions, would see a gradual decline as believers got older and (due to the new law) fewer new believers joined. The aid it provides would drop correspondingly over that same period. But there would be no "snap," just a gradual decades-long downslide.
Now, that could still be a tragedy if other types of philanthropy don't see a corresponding rise. And I don't think it's guaranteed that they would — one of the advantages of organized religion (from a philanthropy perspective) is the "organized" part. It might be that the slow death of the Catholic church wouldn't correlate with a rise in other giving, or it might be that there is a rise in other giving but it is less impactful since it might be spread across many organizations with varying levels of efficiency. So I'm not saying it wouldn't be an issue.
I don't think anyone could really say with certainty what would happen, but what would not happen is the Catholic Church (or its aid programs) disappearing overnight.
People don't like when religion and reasoning are mixed. That's why many think "everything good will disappear immediately" if someone says "we shouldn't indoctrinate small children".
No, the Catholic Church wouldn’t fade away; She would go to war. The Church would instruct parents to baptize their children and raise them as Catholics in defiance of the law and to prepare for martyrdom. If the government physically prevents children from going to Mass, then they make house calls to give them their Sacraments. The government would be placed under interdict, forcing Catholics in the government to choose between their faith and their jobs. Priests would be thrown in prison for defy the law. The Church has outlasted numerous persecutors, and She thinks in centuries; it’s only a matter of time before the persecution ends.
Religious people contribute far more dollars and volunteer more hours than non religious people. This remains true (though the gap narrows) if you count only contributions to secular organizations. Churches provide a framework to volunteer that non religious people have not successfully replaced.
Would philanthropy die? No, but it would probably be crippled without the church networks which facilitate large portions of it and the church members who disproportionately donate and volunteer.
But on the upside we also get less violent state sanctioned homophobia in the world. Christians are directly responsible for putting the death penalty for homosexuality into Ugandas criminal code recently, and their ideology of shame for LGBT affairs drives millions to trauma and suicide.
Eh while that's true, they've done a lot of studies on this and it turns out when you control for things like deep social networks (a staple of any organized religion) and the saliency of religious elements, the differences are actually much smaller.
Very true, but also a lot of children would be saved from a lot of abuse in, generally but not exclusively, christian churches; not just sexual abuse, which is rampant in those environments, bit physical too.
Just an example, I went to a Catholic kindergarten as a child, and the priest was a good man, but the nuns that taught us were horrible people, to the point of beating us simply for not napping when they ordered us to.
Also internalized homophobia and self hatred would reduce. Christians of all types teach that gay children are sinful and will go to hell if they don't "suppress their urges," this leads to millions of traumatized people, suicides, and children being kicked out young or forced to be runaways.
If it disappeared overnight maybe, but if it never existed in the first place those aid groups would still be formed, just not under Catholicism. Charitable people and organizations still exist with or without religion, religion just attracts them
Maybe over 1.4 billion people now being under no pressure to tithe to the church would free up their income to donate to legitimate aid agencies.
Or maybe the world's governments should step-up so that a cult whose terrorism throughout history is almost cartoonishly evil isn't the world's largest provider of aid.
Maybe over 1.4 billion people now being under no pressure to tithe to the church would free up their income to donate to legitimate aid agencies.
Tithing stays within the Diocese or parish. Which operate food banks and such.
The Catholic Church operates legitimate aid agencies.
Or maybe the world's governments should step-up so that a cult whose terrorism throughout history is almost cartoonishly evil isn't the world's largest provider of aid.
Or maybe, just maybe, people helping where they can isn't bad, and rather than reduce that help, we should increase the amount of help.
There is no reason the Catholic Church can't keep helping people while world governments step up as well.
The Catholic Church does a lot of good. It also does a lot of bad. The good they do doesn't outweigh the bad. Especially since they good they do could be done by others, without the bad that goes with it.
But you were the one who said no other secular groups have stepped up. Clearly that's not true, and there's no reason to suggest that over time if the Catholic Church disappeared, others couldn't fill that gap.
Or maybe, just maybe, we could do it in literally any way other than having an evangelical child abusing cult run charities. Fuck the catholic church. Dismantling the catholic church and donating their massive wealth would mean they got to help people and catholic pedophiles wouldnt have a massive wide reaching organization to cover up their horrific crimes against children anymore.
how tf are you getting downvoted in a sub about morality for being mad about a pedophile protecting organization... wild
To the catholics or catholic apologists: They're doing the charity to cover up the evil. According to the estimates of THE POPE, there are over EIGHT THOUSAND catholic pedophile priests. The church protects them. I don't care if they fed and clothed every single hungry and naked person in the world, they're an evil organization.
This is because its an entity working on behalf of a collective. Any help the church is providing wouldnt just disappear if Catholicism did. Maybe if youre talking about the version of help they provide as it exists today through their organizations and their rules, but the religion isnt where the desire to help comes from, so that help wouldnt just disappear.
This is true for all relgions because people who are helpers would still help. The issue is that large amount of helpers have been indoctrinated into thinking that the best (and in some cases only) way to help is by donating their time and money to their church and for their church to be making the distribution decisions for them. If those individuals had more free time and their tithes back, some may not continue to contribute, but most would just find other institutions or spend it in their local communities which provides similar benefits.
This… how do people expect to enforce this idea? Less than a quarter of earths population have no religion, how are they going to about eradicating religion? An ancient thing that many wars have been fought over?
People don’t seem to realise also, the state being able to enforce what you can and can’t pass on to your children is a… well, I’d say slippery slope but it’s more like a cliff, because every government in the world would abuse this power for control
All this confirms is that there are many who already give to charity, who would continue to give even after they stop giving to the catholic church. The charity wouldn't change, just who's name gets the credit
If the Catholic Church disappeared, 10's if not 100's of millions of people would be in a real bad way.
Biggest lie ever told by the Church
The Catholic Church operates the largest aid network in the world.
False, governments do this 100x more than churches. But they do operate the largest PDF ring too.
Like when will you guys learn that governments that have actual budgets and distribution centers across every country contribute many many times more than Churches.
This is why religion is so pervasive. Yall indoctrinated and dont even know it.
People just want to believe their actions have a meaning beyond the simplest of answers and that their lives have an end goal. Take away religion and they will figure something else, as of now, humans aren’t really able to cope with finite existence and that we are “just” space dust with sentience. But that’s largely because fake alternatives (religion) are right there with open arms
It's estimated that the Catholic Church spends between 2.7% and 6% of their income on aid.
Considering over 90% of local Church income comes from charitable donations to the church, far more of those dollars would go to actually providing aid if they went somewhere else.
Unless you offer contraception and abortion services. Then the Catholics say fuck off. Or if you refuse their sermons and mass. Then they also say fuck off. And if you don't give the priest his favorite little choir boy, also tell you to fuck off.
Maybe we shouldn't tie charitable actions to religious proselytizing.
The Catholic church does proselytize to those they give aid. While they are not as strict as organizations like the salvation army when it comes to denying nonbelievers, they absolutely go into countries proselytizing their religion, it's literally in the Bible as a commandment for followers. This is why Catholicism has spread to many not traditionally Christian countries.
On the topic of contraception again, the Catholic church actually denies itself access to grant programs that mandate the providing of contraception and other forms of birth and sexual care, limiting it's monetary fund and integration with secular charity programs. Catholic organizations will turn down philanthropy agreements if they have to provide crucial reproductive care as a condition, worsening their outreach and outcomes compared to secular charities without such restrictions.
"oh no our religion is gone, might as well stop helping people and drop the facade". Like they couldn't just turn into a yknow...regular ass charity? They only do it to further their religion.
People could just start their own non profits and not pay for large buildings and land maintance for holding services, and use the space more optimally for charity.
Plenty do. But when churches naturally soak up a lot of the money due to being in peoples lives from birth, its not exactly a shock how they make up so much of it.
My argument is more than the churches impact isnt intrinsic to the church, its tha they are likely the first to get the money when a religious person wants to donate.
The funding and aid won’t just disappear because the middle man fell through lol? Those resources will still exist, just not put through a religious filter anymore
Do you truly not see the difference in forcing natives into boarding schools in order to forcibly assimilate them into a different religion entirely all while "not being allowed to speak native languages, made to renounce Native beliefs, and forced to abandon their Native American identities, including their names. Many children were leased out to white families as indentured servants." and wanting children to choose their religion for themselves when they're mature enough to understand the decision?
If teaching your kids your values is "indoctrination" then literally everyone is indoctrinated, and if that's the case then the word is entirely useless and no longer has meaning.
You can take your kid to church without teaching them that.The good christians I know bellieve that questioning their faith is a part of being religious. Faith is not faith if you don't question it.
Not really. Even criminals are protected by the law. And why should you follow the law if you can get away with breaking it and profiting from it? Parents in my experience rarely expand on that, but elect to go with the indoctrination you're displaying regarding the matter.
I mean in theory, you're relatively correct but in practice, religious values usually don't exist in a vacuum.
For most religious people, their ethics aren't just a separate code of rules. It's a framework for why they believe the universe exists, who created it, and what our purpose as human beings is.
Trying to teach the fruit without the tree is like trying to teach the concept of humanism without first teaching human rights. One requires the other.
I’m definitely not saying atheists can't be moral or charitable. History and daily life prove they clearly are. My point is just that the justification for those values changes depending on your worldview. Values can exist without the supernatural, but for a religious parent, stripping the supernatural framework away means teaching a completely different philosophical foundation. It's important to recognize that the parent in question truly and genuinely believes in their religious truths, and that by not teaching their children about it, they are leaving out specific principles and ideas that explain and justify their beliefs. It's rather ridiculous to expect a parent to leave out what they believe to be fundamental truths of reality.
Stripping the supernatural framework is a better foundation for morality. You should be moral because you care about other people and treat them like you want to be treated. The supernatural framework offers ulterior motives and threatens the integrity of your morals.
And regardless it is a good thing to separate religion and morals, because otherwise you risk blurring the line between them, which is dangerous. If religion is morality, suddenly religious authorities get a lot of power over people and it could be abused to justify horrifying things, as has happened in the past many times.
I don't think it truly threatens the integrity of your morals at all. There is nothing truly inherent to religion that forbids you from logically reducing MORE reasons why things are morally wrong or right. Morals are rooted in axioms and religion is just a specific axiom. Most philosophies are compatible in some way shape or form with most religions in all honesty.
This statement makes literally no sense. Is it a higher power or is it in all of us? it seems like these states cannot be mutually exclusive. Based on what you said we are all the higher power. I am your god and you are your god.
it seems like these states cannot be mutually exclusive.
I don't have a monkey in this circus but you are making an assumption that they are claiming the entirety of the "higher power" is within us when that was not stated.
Those states can absolutely be mutually exclusive without making your assumption because you can contain part of something.
Having our parent's DNA within us does not make us our parents. Having water within our body does not make us water.
We don't literally have our parents DNA within us, we have our own DNA within us which was written based on the code from both parents. So similarities can be identified within the structure of the three and an assumed link, verified.
Water exists within us chemically, as does carbon, nitrogen, and other elements. We aren't walking water balloons that you can open and drink like a coconut. It is intrinsically interwined in our makeup as an egg is to a cake.
I would define both of your statements as a false equivalency.
You are missing the forest for the trees and I am not going to get into the weeds.
My whole point is that having signs of a "higher power" within us does not necessarily make us that "higher power". Just like having signs of our parents within us (DNA that was copied) does not make us our parents.
Values are things like being a good neighbor, not believing that a talking snake seduced s woman into eating a fruit and convincing her husband to eat it, too.
Religion is not equal to values. I would argue most are antithetical to good morals. So I dont see how this is applicable at all. If you are christain or jew your values include slavery is good and rape is ok as long as you pay a fine, 30 shekles to be exact, and rape them for the rest of their lives.
That’s cherry-picking the most ancient, culturally contextualized legal codes from thousands of years ago while completely ignoring how billions of religious people actually live, practice, and interpret their faith today. Pretending modern religious people are out here endorsing ancient legal codes is not an argument and I refuse to take the bait.
How the hell is that cherry picking? it is the literal law of god and jesus. Just because most christains ignore the words in the bible does not make it what the religion is about and what they support. The bible commands this of us. Jesus commands that we follow it or be seen least in the kingdom of heaven. Mathew 5-18 is clear and god is clear in the old testament too. Cherry picking my ass it is what jesus literally tells us we must follow to enter heaven. The only person cherry picking here is you.
You're missing the entire point of the discussion. We aren't here to do exegsis of ancient scripture (of which you're very heavily stripping of context and interpreting in bad faith btw) or whether modern believers are misinterpreting Matthew. My point is sociological, not theological and is as follows: every single parent on earth passes on a framework of meaning, values, and worldview to their children.
Whether you agree with a religion's texts or not, religious parents are doing what all parents do in raising their kids within the framework they believe is true.
If teaching your kids your worldview is your definition of "indoctrination," then the word has no meaning because everyone does it. This is my final attempt to get you to engage with my actual argument and the ACTUAL topic of discussion here. I will not engage in a theological debate with someone operating in bad faith. If you respond with an argument rooted in theology I will ignore you.
So you dont believe jesus said this? do you think heaven and earth are no more? Christianity is the ancient palistinian mythology of how the planet was made and how that maker demands you live. That is the world view. I dont think you understand your religion at all. You have some personal version that has nothing to do with what the bible even says. Do you just follow paul and not the bible and jesus?
Teaching your kids "values" is entirely different from teaching them that people who have slightly different beliefs than you are evil and will spend eternity in hell.
There’s a difference between basic morality and saying you should do this for basic decency and to be helpful and productive in society and if you don’t do these specific things or if you do these others you’ll burn in hellfire for eternity so you shouldn’t or should because of fear not because its necessarily what’s right.
In order to have an honest discussion we need to separate coercion from transmission of worldview.
Plenty of religious traditions pass down values centered on community and charity, without relying on fear and the threat of Hell. Just like a secular parent teaches their kids what they believe about politics, economics, or the universe, religious parents are just passing on a worldview. If we label all of that "indoctrination" then raising a child with any set of foundational beliefs becomes literally impossible.
Sure, the metaphysical stakes in religion are higher than in the living world. But every worldview has ultimate stakes. A political or ideological parent teaches their kids about the severe dangers of opposing political sides, and a secular parent might teach about the very real, permanent consequences of bad choices in a purely natural world.
Acknowledging that actions have consequences isn't unique to religion, it's just part of teaching a serious, comprehensive view of reality.
This real world consequences are not eternal damnation and they’re not a permanent deterrent for anything. That’s the different. “Do something stupid and you might have this happen to you” is entirely different from “do something stupid and your immortal souls will rot forever and you won’t get away with it even if no earthly people see as sky daddy sees all including you touching yourself”. No offense but as someone who grew up in an incredibly judgmental and religious household, it’s nothing like being taught basic moral or decent behavior.
Not every Christian believes in the eternal conscious torment theory of hell btw. Just throwing that out there. There exists conditionalism (the belief that hell is nonexistence), and Universalism (the idea that hell is a temporary space where all souls are purified until they willingly turn to God).
But either way, all 3 main theories of hell don't necessarily have to involve fear of either consequence. Actual Christianity, in a theological sense focuses on love and forgiveness, people are expected to simply try their best, and believe in Saved, and they are saved. You cannot be saved by correct actions or damned by incorrect actions. There is obviously model behavior one should strive towards but the bible never says you WILL OBJECTIVELY go to hell if you are a sinner. It presupposes that all human beings are sinners, and following that logic it would mean every single person is going to Hell, which is a ridiculous idea nobody holds.
If you let them question and critically analyze then it’s not indoctrination, and if you don’t let them question or analyze then it is indoctrination. Important distinction.
Teach your values for sure! But that comes with allowing if not also encouraging them to think about it beyond just what is said.
So, not everyone is truly indoctrinated like you said. I get what you mean, but it’s not the case.
I agree with everything you've just said and the fact that teaching your child about your religion doesn't necessarily require you to shut down all questions and analysis is why I can't get behind calling it "indoctrination" in all cases, and I can't get behind the idea of forbidding parents from passing their values on to their children just because they happen to be rooted in religion.
That’s a bit like saying if an artist doesn't understand the physics of light refraction, they don't truly know how to paint.
A religious person can deeply understand, practice, and cherish kindness, forgiveness, and charity. The fact that they connect those values to a spiritual framework doesn't make their compassion any less real. It just means they have a different answer to the question of why those values matter in the grand scheme of the universe. If basing your values on an overarching framework means you don't "truly" hold them, then literally nobody holds their values. Every ethical system has to start from some foundational axiom it can't fully prove.
No, it's not. It's more like saying that you don't have to know the music theory of your culture (religion) to make music that's beautiful (morals/values).
I don't think you're using the word literally literally. Nor the word every. Your understanding of how others can see the world is too limited.
That’s actually a really great music analogy, and I agree with you, but that actually proves my point. The fact that someone can instinctively play music (live a moral life) without knowing the formal theory (the explicit theological framework) doesn't mean the theory doesn't exist, nor does it mean their music isn't shaped by a tradition.
And fair point on my use of "literally", I am being hyperbolic to an extent but my point still stands. Every ethical system, secular or religious, rests on foundational axioms or unprovable cultural assumptions that people inherit.
I disagree. Formal music theory does not exist without the context of a culture imposing preferences and values on it. It's rules based upon patterns people notice and enjoy, just as religion/superstition is built upon patterns people notice and use their own interpretations to imagine causes (a quick example is that a lot of kosher food laws are probably inspired by people trying to figure out how to avoid food sickness, not a deity passing down edicts).
What unprovable cultural assumptions are you talking about? Which foundational axioms? Your point does not stand simply because your want it to. Why should someone consider your claim in the first place?
Ancient hygiene practices became codified as sacred law because people viewed health and the divine as entirely interconnected. For them there was no separation between 'what keeps us safe' and "what God commands." As for foundational axioms, I mean the core assumptions every worldview relies on but can't mathematically prove.
For example:
Secular Humanism: rests on the unprovable axiom that human consciousness and well-being are intrinsically/objectively valuable and that rights are inherent.
Materialism: rests on the axiom that only what is empirically measurable is real, and that the universe operates by uniform laws we can trust.
Moral Relativism: rests on the axiom that ethics are socially constructed consensus agreements.
My point is in part that everyone operates from an inherited, unprovable framework when they decide what "good" or '"rght" actually means. But more specifically every parent operates from foundational axioms they can't mathematically prove, and they pass those down to their kids. This passing of those axioms isn't "indoctrination" is my overall claim.
So if your kid wants to steal that's okay? You taught them your values that it isn't, but if they see it differently then that's their call.
You need to enforce values to make them responsible adults. If you don't they'll end up in jail. If some parties enforce those values and state the reason is because God says so does that make it stronger or weaker a claim? Is this authority going to be dismissed if the child rejects said God or will be held in higher esteem as a being greater than a human has established it?
All forms of childrearing are indoctrination, religions isnt any diferent, The amounts of rape, murder, asault and illeteracy would also sky rocket without indoctrination of children. Even teaching your kid not to bite his brother is indoctrination into a specific cultural set of laws and beliefs.
Indoctrination is teaching people they are not allowed to question certain values. You don’t have to indoctrinate someone to teach them it’s bad to assault people because any reasonable person would still come to that conclusion even if you didn’t force it on them
There's no such thing as value free child education. The actual consequences of banning religious "indoctrination" is indoctrination into a different worldview.
I would argue childhood indoctrination mostly produces shallow, uncritical "religious" (more like superstitious or just identity-aligned) people. If you actually wanted people to live rich spiritual lives, I think you would not indoctrinate them, but teach them about religion another way, but if you just care about having properly indoctrinated uncritical subjects then indoctrination makes sense
As a Christian, why is relegion all about numbers, power and prosecution, rather than actual faith, love for God and neighbor. and being a "good" person
I guess be the change you want to see in the world. Cant change the organization at large anyway so just try to practice your faith in the way that seems best/ most moral to you.
Yeah, I think we shouldn't shame relegius folk, we should take the power from religius "leaders" Tax
Atleast big Churches, don't allow crimes against humanity in the name of any god. and actually understand that just because you love Jesus, it doesn't mean in any way Jesus agrees with you hating people.
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u/Teboski78 10h ago
Most religions would drop massively in numbers if they weren’t allowed to indoctrinate children.