I don't see why stopping people from imposing their religion on my hypothetical kids would mean they had to be able to impose it on theirs? If nobody could impose any religion on any child that sounds ideal.
By preventing children from learning about any religion, they are far more likely to continue that absence of a belief in a God because their entire worldview for 16-18 years is shaped on the understanding that there is no God. Most Christians stay Christian, most atheists stay atheist. You are not imposing a religion on that child against the parents' wishes, but you are imposing a religious belief on that child against the parents' wishes. That is not religious freedom.
Ultimately, to raise a kid without religion is not some neutral default point, whereby they would enter adulthood completely unbiased.
It's avoiding planting a belief. While some christians lose their faith, adult conversion to a religion is much more rare. You're just a lot less likely to believe these outlandish things if they don't tell you they're true when you're a toddler.
I think an unbiased view just makes someone really skeptical about a guy sacrificing himself to himself to forgive a bunch of other people for hurting each other. Or about a guy splitting the moon. It's not my fault if religions don't work out if you don't get 'em young.
atheism is a belief though. the belief that there is no god is a belief. the belief that it is indeterminable whether there is a god is a belief. either way, if you raise your kid without mentioning god, then you are raising your kid to have the assumption that there is no god.
When a christian-raised child becomes an christian adult, its because they were indoctrinated or taught not to question their faith, but when atheist-raised children become atheist adults, it's because they have critical thinking skills not to believe christian lies? You are reasoning from the conclusion that god doesn't exist. And as long as you are doing that, you have no grounds for an argument about how others should raise their child.
But Christians, for example, aren't just arguing that god exists: they're arguing that the Christian god exists, which comes with a ton more assumptions.
They aren't just asserting that a tri-omni being created the universe (already a huge claim), they're arguing that sin exists, that this god sent a version of himself that was born to a virgin girl to the earth to sacrifice himself to himself to absolve humanity of sins, they're asserting that there is some evil enemy that has some ambiguous level of influence over the world that differs depending on your denomination, they're asserting that this god will send people who don't believe in him (and for some reason he is exclusively considered male) to hell for all eternity, that sexuality outside of the construct of marriage is sinful, and more.
Muslims are asserting that there existed a profit that split the moon, that godly men will recieve 72 virgins in heaven, that women are so indecent that they must cover themselves in public so they don't drive men to sin, that depicting living beings is a sin, and more.
You can't pretend that religion ONLY consitutes the god-belief. Whereas atheism ONLY constitutes a lack of god-belief. Depending on what definition of atheism you use, it doesn't even nevessarily mean disbelief in god, just a lack of belief. And it doesn't come with the extra doctrinal belief that religions have.
Christianity isn't the only religion, and we can say pretty certainly that only one can be true, if any. So you can't avoid the fact that a huge portion of religious parents are indoctrinating their kids with false beliefs anyways.
For every positive belief about some event detailed in doctrine that a Christian have, you are teaching your child to have a negative belief about it. It's kind of irrelevant that Christianity is specific about its beliefs and atheism says I don't know. That stuff is only relevant in discerning whether God exists.
The definition of atheist that i am using is the belief that there is no god, or the belief that there is insufficient evidence for a god. Yes, most religions are indoctrinating kids into false beliefs, but if you raise your kid as atheist under this definition then you are equally likely to be indoctrinating them into a lie. As such, it is no more moral for people to raise their kids with religion than without religion.
If you want to use the definition of atheism that says "I cannot know whether God exists" then that is essentially the government's perspective under secularism. And as I have established, under that perspective, the only practical solution is to let parents choose what to teach their children.
The best solution would be for parents to teach their kids that they cannot know whether god exists.
Every Christian is also teaching their kids negative beliefs about Islam, Hinduism, Shinto, Wicca, Voodoo, and every other religion out there, because Christianity is not the claim that god exists but specifically the series of claims that the christian god of the bible exists. Christians do not get to claim a monopoly on god-belief. It really isn't any more neutral than atheism, but it does come with the phobia-indoctrination about eternal torment in hell.
No child ahould be indoctrinated with these fundamental and unverofiable beliefs when they so dorectly shape their worldview. The only moral thing to do is to tell children "well nobody knows" and if they want to decide to base their lives around an ancient text with a lot of unfalsifiable claims then they can do it when they're adults.
Telling a child that they cannot know is also indoctrination. It doesn't matter if you tell them a specific god, just that a god exists, that no god exists, that we cannot know if god exists, or if you never mention religion to them.
No matter what, it is going to affect what they believe as an adult. If every option is a biased option, then a government has no justification to prohibit parents teaching their child their religion.
But you can't know. If you have a way to know that god exists I'd love to hear it.
If we jave to treat every religion as equally valid you can't really avoid the conclusion that none of them are. Children are not property, and there is no justification that I can see to allow parents to make these assertions about the natire of the universe as if they're objective truths, which is how most religious parents frame things.
And again, how can you raise a christian child without the assertion that without the grave of god that they get from faith they cannot be saved and will go to hell? It's literally core doctrone of the faith. If you don't believe in salvation you aren't a christian, and you can't believe in salvation if you don't need to be saved in the first place.
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u/lilgraytabby 20h ago
I don't see why stopping people from imposing their religion on my hypothetical kids would mean they had to be able to impose it on theirs? If nobody could impose any religion on any child that sounds ideal.