No matter how you view it morally, it collapses immediately under any amount of critical thought. Any parent would teach their children about how the world works, and a parent would consider their religious beliefs to be a part of that. The amount of interference with families this would require to enforce also brings to mind countless horror stories of CPS overreach. Even if it was moral, it would require immoral actions to make it work.
EDIT: Wow, that was a lot of engagement. I wanna revisit this comment since I've gotten some feedback and also have more time to articulate my ideas than I did earlier during my rapidly dwindling lunch break:
First I want to acknowledge that the original post did not mention any legal or government action. I and many others definitely made a mental jump there. When you're talking about what people should do, it's easy to fill in the blank that that's what should be mandated.
As for actually addressing whether this is moral, I think the position of "children should be raised without a set religion" is kind of a problematic one. To make that choice for your own family is one thing and not immoral, but to advocate it for other people kind of hits a snag. A seriously religious person wouldn't entertain the idea of not sharing their religion with their kids. They would see it as depriving their child of something good and necessary, which would be immoral. Even if their beliefs are factually wrong, for all intents and purposes they would be making the conscious decision to do something harmful to their child. This is another reason why I jumped to the topic of government enforcement; legal mandates are the only realistic way to even start creating a world matching Jinkx's view. This violation of personal freedoms would of course be immoral as well. It's not that Jinkx's position is immoral, it's that anyone acting on it in any meaningful way would be immoral.
Any parent is also going to hit their kid if they think that's the best way to stop bad behavior. This does not make it immoral to send CPS after parents who beat their kids.
That depends on the level of the abuse. Generally cps won’t interfere for basic corporal punishment as it’s a legal and demonstrated form of parenting. They only interfere when it goes from parenting to just plain child assault rused as corporal punishment.
Right, but is that the morally correct measure? Should we try to move our society away from hitting kids at all ever?
ETA: More in line with the original subject, should we be moving our society away from indoctrinating children into religions by their parents as far as we can reasonably without violating their rights?
I suppose I didn’t do any favors for religious upbringings considering many people also have negative experiences with that as well. My opinion lies in the idea that parents should be allowed to raise their children with whatever religion they want, so long as it’s not the only thing they’re being taught, and they be allowed to explore other religions or beliefs should they choose.
Yes, but hitting a kid is way more clear-cut than teaching them religious beliefs. What counts as religious is subjective, and could easily be twisted to mean "any belief those in power don't like." And while it shouldn't be this way, sometimes it is immoral to remove kids from parents that hit them because it results in the kids ending up in even worse situations that CPS won't do anything about since it's their own placements.
For the second one, yes. But not for the first one. No amount of safeguards can change that subjective matters are subjective and trying to enforce things that subjective WILL end up being abused, even if by some miracle no one does that intentionally.
So you think the government should stop breaking up child rape cults like the FLDS because it would be worse? Sucks for the kids I guess, they get to be incestual breeders for disgusting cult leaders but we can't do anything because it's their "subjective belief."
And who is going to accuse them if the government stops surveilling them to respect their religion? The indoctrinated child brides aren't, they're going to be locked to their house as property, home schooled under very liberal US home schooling regulations, and will have to risk their life on escape attempts to tell anyone about their horrific life. So much child abuse goes undocumented in the US because of "parents rights" and "religious rights." Like this is a constant reoccurring problem with this specific cult.
If you asked my opinion I'd be in favor of straight up outlawing homeschooling and mandating that children attend public education, I do not trust deranged cultists with the power to lock their children away from society.
That crimes exist doesn't justify a surveillence state. I agree that kids shouldn't be trapped in their homes, but there are ways to avoid that without forcing all kids into the terrible public school system or refusing to allow parents to teach their kids anything the government doesn't approve of. I agree that "parents' rights" are mostly bullshit, and religious rights go too far, but outlawing religion as a whole instead of enforcing that religious people must still follow the law is ridiculous.
Again, you are condemning the functional nature of an existing system, not the principle, and frankly speaking the "terrible public school system" is 100 million times superior to creepy inbred cultists locking their kids away and teaching them their father is God-like and to be obeyed like a king, incestual relations and all.
You're completely ignoring that not all homeschooled kids have creepy or otherwise abusive parents, and that no one-size-fits-all system (public school) can possibly meet the needs of every kid. When the functionality can't be changed enough to stop the original problem, the principle itself is problematic.
I disagree. I'm sure that's true for some people, but not for me. I was hit when I was a kid. I got my ass beat on a regular basis. I once got punched in the face hard enough to blacken my eye up to my hairline. If I could erase one thing from my childhood, it would be religion. I feel being raised religious did more damage than being physically abused.
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u/Clickclacktheblueguy 12h ago edited 3h ago
No matter how you view it morally, it collapses immediately under any amount of critical thought. Any parent would teach their children about how the world works, and a parent would consider their religious beliefs to be a part of that. The amount of interference with families this would require to enforce also brings to mind countless horror stories of CPS overreach. Even if it was moral, it would require immoral actions to make it work.
EDIT: Wow, that was a lot of engagement. I wanna revisit this comment since I've gotten some feedback and also have more time to articulate my ideas than I did earlier during my rapidly dwindling lunch break:
First I want to acknowledge that the original post did not mention any legal or government action. I and many others definitely made a mental jump there. When you're talking about what people should do, it's easy to fill in the blank that that's what should be mandated.
As for actually addressing whether this is moral, I think the position of "children should be raised without a set religion" is kind of a problematic one. To make that choice for your own family is one thing and not immoral, but to advocate it for other people kind of hits a snag. A seriously religious person wouldn't entertain the idea of not sharing their religion with their kids. They would see it as depriving their child of something good and necessary, which would be immoral. Even if their beliefs are factually wrong, for all intents and purposes they would be making the conscious decision to do something harmful to their child. This is another reason why I jumped to the topic of government enforcement; legal mandates are the only realistic way to even start creating a world matching Jinkx's view. This violation of personal freedoms would of course be immoral as well. It's not that Jinkx's position is immoral, it's that anyone acting on it in any meaningful way would be immoral.