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Ask Lemmy @lemmy.world
compostgoblin @slrpnk.net

Is it ethical for a parent to raise their children in their faith tradition?

For many religious people, raising their children in their faith is an important part of their religious practice. They might see getting their kids into heaven as one of the most important things they can do as parent. And certainly, adults should have the right to practice their religion freely, but children are impressionable and unlikely to realize that they are being indoctrinated into one religion out of the thousands that humans practice.

And many faith traditions have beliefs that are at odds with science or support bigoted worldviews. For example, a queer person being raised in the Catholic Church would be taught that they are inherently disordered and would likely be discouraged from being involved in LGBTQ support groups.

Where do you think the line is between practicing your own religion faithfully and unethically forcing your beliefs on someone else?

80 comments

  • It depends on how you view the parent/child relationship. In most countries parents have a sort of "ownership" role of their child. A right to raise them in their own way, religion and traditions. It is THEIR child to teach, and raise.

    This has become pretty contentious in Norway, and Norway has lost cases child protection cases regarding this in international courts. Our child protection services has taken children from their parents and that has ended up in international courts in some cases. This is due to a difference in opinion in what is acceptable and OK ways to raise a child, and what constitutes the rights of the parents and the rights of the child. In some of these cases Norway have rightfully been convicted. But you won't lose the ability to raise your child in Norway over nothing, as some people will have you believe. The child protective services can't explain why to the public, and the parents can pretend to be innocent.

    Personally I believe parents do not own their child. I believe parents are in a privileged position and lucky to be allowed to raise a human (yes, also biological), and that the privilege should be revoked if the parents are not sufficiently fit to raise the child.

    The perspective of ownership is harmful in my opinion and does often conflict with the interests of the child in my opinion.

    Should the child get vaccinated? Yes, exceptions are only allergies.

    Should the child be home schooled? No.

    Should the child interact with peers at the kindergarten and school and get the social skills they need? Yes

    What sorts of punishments are acceptable?

    Should the child be heavily involved in religion? No, but should learn about it, and can in a limited degree practice it. But no religious schools, or religious camps. Genital mutilation should not be allowed for boys either. If they want to, they can do it as adults. Doing unnecessary surgery on a defenseless child due to religion is in no way acceptable.

    If the parents are neglecting their child, how much neglect is okay before the right/privilege is revoked?

    If the parents are addicts, what then?

    Etc.

  • The fundamental difference between religion/spirituality and science/reason, as far as I'm concerned is this: religion demands that you accept something as an indisputable truth and that questioning it is not only discouraged but forbidden and will be met with an arbitrarily horrific punishment (eternal damnation, etc), with what the specific something is dependent on the teacher, their interpretations and their intentions. As a mental framework, I don't think it's healthy for either individuals or societies to unquestioningly accept - or be made to accept - that any ideas are defacto sacred.

  • Where do you think the line is between practicing your own religion faithfully and unethically forcing your beliefs on someone else?

    That's not just someone that's a child, their child. So, the question should be: where do you think a parent should stop being a parent who has authority over their child? And where a child stop being a child (someone being taken care of and who is subject to the authority of their parents) to become a person (someone responsible for themselves).

    Parents are responsible for their kids up until the child is reaching the 'age of reason' (sorry, not sure how to say that in English: when the is (legally) able to live and decide by themselves). How would anyone be able to raise (be responsible for) a child and make decision without pushing their own values on the kid? I mean, for me it's almost impossible. You can give options, a lot of options, but there will still be limits. Heck, even the simplest 'eat your veggies', 'brush your teeth', or 'you must do your homework before you can play your video game' (or their exact opposites, aka 'do whatever you want, I don't care about you') is already telling a lot about what values the parents are pushing onto their children.

    My parents raised me as the atheists they were. That too is an ethical/philosophical/moral personal choice they pushed onto me without me being able to object anything, right? They never asked me if I was an atheist, or not.

    The funny thing is that them being hardcore atheists did not prevent them to tweak the system so I could be send to a private catholic school because my father knew it was the best school. Another (unethical?) choice of them on which I had little to say as a child. And to be frank with you, now aged 50+ this is probably the second of only two reasons I feel gratitude towards my parents (the first one being that I had a roof and I was fed up until I was able to leave): the teaching there was demanding but it was also amazingly good.

    Like mentioned already I would say: it's the parent's call. Because if christian or whatever else parents should not be allowed to share their faith with their own child, then logic mandates that no parent at all should be allowed to share no personal value at all with their child. Then, no parent should be allowed to raise their own child.

    That may not be bad, though: Plato considered the idea in his Republic, suggesting kids should not be raised by parents but by city (the Ancient Greek ancestor of our modern States and Nations) operated and controlled institutions. But then, the question instantly becomes: who will decide what this city/state/nation controlled education should be about?

    Real great question, with no simple answer I'm afraid.

    • My parents raised me as the atheists they were. That too is an ethical/philosophical/moral personal choice they pushed onto me without me being able to object anything, right? They never asked me if I was an atheist, or not.

      How do you raise a kid to be atheist? Not teaching them faith based topics is not the same as teaching them to be religious. It's just the default setting.

      That's the fundamental problem with your post, regardless of your personal experience with "hardcore atheists" which sounds to me as if they were likely to lean into the "anti religious" angle.

      • That’s the fundamental problem with your post,

        If you say so. Thx for the useful insight.

    • The difference between raising a child explicitly by religious doctrine and explicitly by scientific understanding of the world is, in fact, a huge difference. Yes, religious parents forcing their kid to believe in divine transmutation of water into wine and bread into the body of christ is detrimental to that child regardless of their parents dedication to their beliefs. That child is being lied to. The line is drawn where a child is being guided by falsehoods instead of factual, evidence based reality. Outsourcing your children's supervision to a self imposed panopticon is child abuse.

      Your parents did the opposite. Your parents not only raised you without imposing a religion on you but gave you access to religious schooling because of its benefits. Your parents not only recognized the benefits but were willing to risk the potential psychological harms that could come from subjecting you to a religious schools curriculum. That is something that you only get from thoughtful and capable parents, which Christians by and large tend not to be. I say this from experience with every single Christian family I've ever known.

      You said you're 50 years old. Imagine being 50 years old having spent every day of your life believing that an unknown deity you can never see or hear is aware of your every action and every thought in your head and that, if a single one of your thoughts or actions displeased that diety, you were going to be forced into an eternity of unknowable torment and punishment for offending your god. That is the life that Christian parents impose on their children. Convincing them, from babies, that everything they do and think is heard and judged. Fundamentally, that is wrong. Raising children in that way is not just wrong but psychologically traumatic. Even for those who "choose" to leave their faith this anxiety around being watched and judged is a permanent impediment. That's wrong, and parents should not be allowed to impose that on a child simply because they were convinced of it in their childhood.

      Your story unironically proves that atheist parents are far and away better parents than religious ones. Idk how you take that and say who's to say if one's better than the other. My parents were "religious" but didn't force me into any of it. I chose to go to church with neighbors and decided it was lame so my parents never brought it up. That's what good parents who are religious should be doing. Not teaching their children to do exactly as they do.

      • Idk how you take that and say who’s to say if one’s better than the other. (...) hat’s what good parents who are religious should be doing.

        On a more general note, may I advise you to be more cautious with your use of certain words. I mean, 'good parents' is a very strong expression nobody should use solely based on a first impression, a few words read, and certainly not as a way to demonstrate a point in a discussion because... doing so you're only projecting your own personal values and ideals regarding what good parents should do (which could be 100% correct, or not, that’s not the point) and, well, in that specific case I can assure you you do not know who my parents were. Or if they were any good.

        I will tell you they looked real nice people and most people meeting them liked them a lot. I will also tell you they're long gone and that I did not shed a single tear when they passed away. What does that say about them and what does that say about me? Maybe that's telling what an ungrateful asshole I'm, and I may very well be that. Or maybe it's telling how appearance can be misleading and how much better and how much more intimately I knew my parents than anybody else. Who am I to tell?

        Your story unironically proves that atheist parents are far and away better parents than religious ones. Idk how you take that and say who’s to say if one’s better than the other. (...) hat’s what good parents who are religious should be doing. Not teaching their children to do exactly as they do.

        I think it unironically shows what you believe in, which is fine by me and which is something I may even 100% agree with. That’s not the point.

        My point was only this: my atheist parents (so you know: they both were sent to a religious school as kids too. Therefore, they did with me exactly like their parents did with them save that their own parents did not call themselves atheists) forced their own personal opinions onto me, without me being given any real choice.

        My point was that the question should not be limited to spiritual or religious matters. And also being religious does not make someone an asshole more nor less than being an atheist would make them an asshole. It’s the person that’s the issue.

        Then, I went back to the OP question, saying this was an interesting and very old question with no simple answer, referring to that Plato dude writing about raising children somewhere in the 4th or 3rd century before that other dude, Jesus, was even born. Why mentioning Plato? Maybe because that bearded Greek dude wearing a dress and sandals realized that families in his time were already pushing what he considered way too much personal values and crap, not just religious craps, onto their own child and that the only crap a child should be fed is the crap that the city (aka the Nation) has deemed good for… the city? I would encourage anyone to go read Plato.

        So, where does that leave us?

        We will all agree that thinking they hold onto some indisputable truth will concern many religious persons, right? Where I seemingly disagree with a few around here, is that I also think it concerns way too many so-called atheists who I think would be much more accurately described as 'anti-religious' (because 'a-theism' is the idea that there is no god, not that one should hate on god or religion). So, unlike those anti-religious persons, I don't consider what they call atheism as a de facto smarter/better choice than being 'theist', or religious. That’s way too simple… like I was saying.

    • Age of majority would be the English term for it.

    • That was an excellent and well-thought out response, thank you for sharing it! It’s a thorny question for sure, and I appreciate your nuanced view

      • Glad to know. Like I said, it's a complex question but a very interesting one. Do not hesitate, if you want to discuss it further. I don't know about you, but I've always considered it a huge boost, I was about to write 'a blessing' but that would certainly not have been a smart choice of words ;), the ability to have articulated discussions about even the most... delicate questions.

    • This was an enjoyable read in a sea of militant atheist cringe lords. Thank you!

      • You're welcome.

        I wanted to bring a different point of view as I'm not a huge fan of over-simplification with such a complex question (no matter what I may or may not think about religions)

        +1 because I see no reason for the downvotes, beside some people not liking what you say or think? To those persons: feel free to downvote me to oblivion if it helps you feel better and much 'righter' persons but do keep in mind that it may also not be the most efficient way to help me understand in what way you think I'm mistaken. Obviously, this matter only if you want to help me understand, not if you want to 'punish' me for disagreeing with you. But then, I would wonder in what way that is supposed to punish me? Have a nice day, whatever you decide.

  • I think the ethics mostly come into how you raise them, religion or not. It's ethical to teach kindness and empathy. It's ethical to allow your kids to explore while asking them questions that help that exploration. You can do those kinds of things no matter what faith (or non-faith) you practice.

    Speaking as someone who was raised in an environment that gave lip service to kindness and empathy but was really very harsh, judgmental, and rigid, only one of my siblings kept something reasonably approximating my parents' faith. The rest of us are mostly some variety of pagan. Each of us had a painful journey out of our parents' faith to something. No matter how you raise your kids, they are their own people and will come to their own conclusions. You can make the path much more difficult than it needs to be or you can set them up for a much less traumatic journey.

  • Definitely think that kids should be explained different beliefs early on.. plus they should be respected if they don't want to follow the same beliefs, and be able to opt out of any traditions.. though I suppose the faith I follow tends to be a lot less "damned to hecc" than some others, so to some parents if breaking a tradition means making their kid go to hell that's probably a lot tougher of a thing than im imagining it to be

  • Ethically, depending on the religion, it is absolutely mandatory for parents to teach their children their religious views.

    For example, let's make up a cult. "Pireneists" are devout religious cultists that genuinely believe in their god, Kundo. Kundo's holy book says that any who partake in the evil plant, the peanut, have been led astray by evil and will suffer for all eternity in the dark chasm of the lost.

    For parents who legitimately believe this it would be completely unethical for them to let their children eat peanuts, their mental state has everything to do with their ethical mandates. The only ethical thing to do is to teach their children about their beliefs in such a way that the children will follow the same beliefs for their whole life. Indoctrination is indeed within the bounds of ethics.

    To you it may seem silly. In fact to most of us this is peak idiocy and if the leaders of the pireneists have been known to take money from people to pay for their lavish lifestyles you could say that the organization itself is evil. However the mental state and beliefs of the parents override the fundamental veracity of the claims of the cult/religion. True or not, the parents believe and their inaction would be unethical.

  • I'm not sure this is a question of ethics. It's a question of whether you agree with a particular parent's world view. A good parent tries to set their child on a positive path in life, and they are going to pick a path based their personal knowledge and beliefs.

    Even if you try hard not to "indoctrinate" your child with any particular world view, they will still see you as a model for what to believe and how to behave. You will tend to be your child's baseline for what "normal" is, at least early in their life. Your beliefs and behaviors will affect your kids whether you want them to or not.

  • Each teaching has to be evaluated on its own merits, its basis in reality, and its effect on the child and how they relate to others. Whether it's religious in origin is ultimately beside the point.

  • I think it can be done if the parents are tolerant, flexible, and understand that people are naturally curious about other worldviews. Unfortunately, that’s a stratospherically high bar for a lot of people. When the parents sincerely believe that their child’s eternal soul is in danger, ethics come second.

    Ironically, I think the people best suited to give religious guidance are agnostics, who readily admit that they don’t know squat about the afterlife or other supernatural topics. Ideally, they won’t pass on hate or bigotry whose only basis is ancient hearsay or hallucinations.

  • Ideally when properly understood each religion usually means well and enhances oneself in some way, from my little studying into a couple popular ones they seem to be aiming for similar things so I'm less and less convinced of inherently biased religious practices and more and more convinced of sucky people.

    I think spirituality goes hand in hand with mental health and when we understand it badly we dig ourselves into deeper holes or when we understand it rightly we keep ourselves from falling in holes.

    If what you teach someone helps them, that is good, otherwise just leave them alone.

80 comments