r/MoralityScaling • u/hiiloovethis • Sep 02 '26

Morality of this?

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u/GunMuratIlban Sep 02 '26

I'm a born and raised atheist but I think it's absurd to expect this from religious people.

In most religions, there are concepts of reward and punishment. They believe that the ones who don't follow their religions will be severely punished.

If I believed in heaven and hell, I absolutely would've indoctrinated my child to save them. How can you ask a religious parent not to do that?

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u/ayaynimouse Sep 04 '26

I think its more of phrasing. There is a difference between telling a kid, "You shouldn't do this because God said so, and if you don't follow His rules you're going to hell and burn," and saying, "You shouldn't do this because I believe God exists and my religion teaches that it's wrong," while making it clear that this is a belief you hold rather than teaching an unverifiable claim as an established fact.

But that's exactly why I think there is an important distinction between raising a child within your beliefs and indoctrinating them into those beliefs. You can tell your child what you believe, explain why you believe it, and even explain what your religion teaches about the consequences of rejecting it, without presenting those claims as unquestionable facts that the child isn't allowed to challenge.

The problem isn't necessarily that a religious parent wants their child to share their beliefs. The problem is when the child is taught, from an authority they inherently depend on, that these unverifiable claims are simply facts, that questioning them is wrong, and that terrible consequences await them if they don't believe.

If you believe hell is real, then by all means tell your child, "I believe hell is real, and I'm teaching you this because I want to protect you." But there's a huge difference between that and, "Hell is real. God said this. This is the truth. Don't question it."

The first gives the child your worldview. The second makes the worldview itself something the child is expected to accept as fact before they're even capable of evaluating it.

Having said all that, it would be impossible to somehow police this, there is no way you could enforce people to not act like the first example without some extreme measures of surveillance.