(Christian) Quebec parents protest new religion course

[SebC]

In the great CP tradition of debating the place of religion in society, here's some more fuel for the debate.

http://www.thestar.com/News/Canada/article/518908

Concerned the course exposes his children to world religions at a tender age while threatening their Christian faith, Lamontagne pulls his daughters from school out of fear the subject matter will cause confusion and push his kids towards atheism.

He refers to the new course as religious fast-food.


"We can't do this to children. It will only confuse them," says Lamontagne, who hails from the small Eastern Townships community of Valcourt. "Religion isn't a Chinese buffet. You can't just pick one and then another however you want."

Well, except that's exactly what people do when they aren't brainwashed in childhood. They choose a religion, or no religion.

[Azure]

They teach 6 year old kids that stuff?

[Daradon]

We had a similar course in high school at Bishop Carroll years ago. I thought it was a great idea. I learned so much.

By grade nine students are old enough to be able to decide want makes sense to them and what beliefs are important in their own life. There are also old enough to seek out and learn about other viewpoints.

EDIT: Sorry it said all grades BUT nine. I would like to know how much they teach the younger kids. But I would think that ages 14 and up it's a very good idea.

[Azure]

I took a World Religions course in high school too....but I was old enough to actually understand it. Pretty interesting too.

But, the article implies that they teach 6 year old kids this stuff, which IMO, makes no sense at all.

[RougeUnderoos]

"How can a child, six years old, have an opinion on a religion when he doesn't even know his own religion? He has to have a base before he can make an opinion," Polcaro said.
"I've got a problem with that. First let's teach the child his own religion and then we can go from there."

What constitutes "his own religion"?


Obviously small children don't have "their own religion". They get the one their parents have.



Why not tell 'em about what other people believe? If the one mom and dad have picked for the kid is the "right" one, it will win out in the end.


If it doesn't win out then maybe it wasn't so strong in the first place.

[Thor]

Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos

What constitutes "his own religion"?


Obviously small children don't have "their own religion". They get the one their parents have.



Why not tell 'em about what other people believe? If the one mom and dad have picked for the kid is the "right" one, it will win out in the end.


If it doesn't win out then maybe it wasn't so strong in the first place.

Haha you took the quote I was gonna post.

This is exactly the irony of religion, indoctrination of your children is totally acceptable to others, long as its their religion your talking about.

I cringe when I hear people call children, muslim, jew, christian, racist, or anything else where parents decide what their children should believe.

I think deep down parents fear that kids having choices mean they might actually think for themselves and end up another religion, as is clear in this story.

But the fun part of it is that a lot of the parents know how weak the story is, its hard to teach a kid at 18yrs old these stories of the bible and other holy books and expect them to believe in any of it.

I think religious study even in secular school as part of history or social studies is a great thing, exposing people to understanding of others beliefs is a great idea.

Bring up children as children, tell them what you believe, tell them about other religions, other non belief, etc.. But obviously very few religious parents would do this, they know its a good risk that the kid might grow up with different ideology, gasp!

Theres no shock why religion tries to get them while they are young, easy to indoctrinate children, not so much late teens when they start to think for themselves.

In Iceland at age of 13 they do confirmation, which is a huge deal in Iceland; which is ironically quite atheist and those religious are definitely 'softly' so. But its done because its always been done, the kids receive many thousands of dollars in gifts and cash to do this, so obviously no sane kid says 'no thanks.'

Bribery at 13 to keep em in the flock