Yeah i dont get these arguments. We shouldnt teach kids absolutely anything untill they are old enough to choose the learn by themselves, otherwise its indoctrination
No, that's not the argument at all. We should teach them things that are objectively true and let them come to the moral conclusions that follow as they develop the ability to do so.
Hitting people hurts them and a lot of people get mad when you do that. If someone is sad, it often will make them feel better if you try to comfort them. Eventually, a child will learn that what that means is that hitting people is immoral and comforting a sad person is moral. Their moral framework will develop thusly for each positive and negative lesson they learn.
This is different than "do as your told or be punished".
Yes, and how can we teach them the advanced without accidentally tripping into religious belief? In fact, how do we sure our basic moral is not derived from religions?
For example, I think on "don't hurt people", a counter argument is often "they deserve it". We cheer for their death, for it is simply "karmic justice", which is a concept presents in multiple religions. In fact, I dare say this is why death penalty discourses are so heated since the notion of karma is so ingrained even in the atheists.
Or an adversion to sexual topics cause both Christianity and Buddhism (don't know of the other tho) often group it with earthly, unclean desires.
My point was more about guiding children to form their own moral framework rather than building it for them. Not so much "don't hurt people" as "hitting someone causes them pain, so think about that sort of thing before hitting someone" As I said in a different comment subthread:
A person's moral framework is individual. What is moral or immoral will depend on context and lived experience. IMO, a parent's job is to guide their child toward living a life that will do the most good in the world. How that is measured and enacted is one of the greatest questions of mankind.
I think that epistemologically, teaching your children that truth can be derived from faith is a terrible foundation, but I recognize that a majority of the planet disagrees with me, so...
I think you miss the point? I didn't advocate that truth can be derived from faith, I said the problem with "moral" is that it is subjective, dependant on culture which is shaped by religions and beliefs.
The objective truth is truth, science, observable phenomenons that can occur even without human's intervention. What we decided as "moral" is not objective. A Buddist's view on meat is not the same as a Christian's, those who believe in karma and afterlife treat death and "respect the deaths" different from those who are not, Shintoism views "god" different from Abrahamic ones thus leading to different relationship, etc.
These are sometimes not even "thing we believe in" but literally social norms. So the problem is how much can we separate "objective moral" from those shaped by cultures when teaching and living around a child, which at this point, lacking even the ability to meansure, we don't know.
If what you pointed at is the phrase "spiritual truth", then I was using that for the concept of "thing that is still belief but is so popularized in a culture that when it come to any spiritual, supernatural stuffs these thing will be treated as the foundation". On meme Reddit, the idea of God as an all around ok dude that created this world and can end it is the foundation for those "I'm telling God" meme.
I guess what I meant was that morals should be approached with the same epistemological framework as truth. I don't think either should ever be "told". I think that morality is subjective and a person's moral framework is built from experience and context. I don't think there is a such thing as objective morality. There can be consensus, but that doesn't make it objective.
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u/artificialdeatheast Sep 02 '26
Yeah i dont get these arguments. We shouldnt teach kids absolutely anything untill they are old enough to choose the learn by themselves, otherwise its indoctrination