Newsflash! Religious instruction is harmful.

[Agit8r]

"Children who went to church or were enrolled in a parochial school, or both, judged the protagonist in religious stories to be a real person, whereas secular children with no such exposure to religion judged the protagonist in religious stories to be fictional. Children's upbringing was also related to their judgment about the protagonist in fantastical stories that included ordinarily impossible events whether brought about by magic or without reference to magic... The results suggest that exposure to religious ideas has a powerful impact on children's differentiation between reality and fiction, not just for religious stories but also for fantastical stories."

Judgments About Fact and Fiction by Children From Religious and Nonreligious Backgrounds - Corriveau - 2014 - Cognitive Science - Wiley Online Library

 

[ScienceRocks]

Same as promoting pure capitlism or socialism.

We need regulations
We need education
We need science
We need infrastructure

Guess, who's against them all? The same bastards that want to teach about god in our schools!

 

[clarinemcCully]

I do not think religious information is harmful. Instead it gives a way to live our life happily and peacefully.

 

[Delta4Embassy]

"Children who went to church or were enrolled in a parochial school, or both, judged the protagonist in religious stories to be a real person, whereas secular children with no such exposure to religion judged the protagonist in religious stories to be fictional. Children's upbringing was also related to their judgment about the protagonist in fantastical stories that included ordinarily impossible events whether brought about by magic or without reference to magic... The results suggest that exposure to religious ideas has a powerful impact on children's differentiation between reality and fiction, not just for religious stories but also for fantastical stories."

Judgments About Fact and Fiction by Children From Religious and Nonreligious Backgrounds - Corriveau - 2014 - Cognitive Science - Wiley Online Library

Where's the harmful part? I grew up with religion, and would say that growing up with religion is actually the best way to raise an atheist.

 

[Old Rocks]

"Children who went to church or were enrolled in a parochial school, or both, judged the protagonist in religious stories to be a real person, whereas secular children with no such exposure to religion judged the protagonist in religious stories to be fictional. Children's upbringing was also related to their judgment about the protagonist in fantastical stories that included ordinarily impossible events whether brought about by magic or without reference to magic... The results suggest that exposure to religious ideas has a powerful impact on children's differentiation between reality and fiction, not just for religious stories but also for fantastical stories."

Judgments About Fact and Fiction by Children From Religious and Nonreligious Backgrounds - Corriveau - 2014 - Cognitive Science - Wiley Online Library

Where's the harmful part? I grew up with religion, and would say that growing up with religion is actually the best way to raise an atheist.

Or an agnostic.

Problem with religion is that most is that most seem unable to tell the differance between litterally true stories, and those that are allegorical. And most seem not to realize that a myth does not have to be true to address a truth.

 

[DriftingSand]

The Founding Fathers (who died and bled so that folks could reject religion by choice) were all raised with religion. See my signature line and follow the link. Early America was a Christian nation that brought with it freedom and liberty.

 

[Agit8r]

The Founding Fathers (who died and bled so that folks could reject religion by choice) were all raised with religion. See my signature line and follow the link. Early America was a Christian nation that brought with it freedom and liberty.

Unfortunately for Jefferson, Unitarianism is pretty rare even two centuries later...

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

Same as promoting pure capitlism or socialism.

We need regulations
We need education
We need science
We need infrastructure

Guess, who's against them all? The same bastards that want to teach about god in our schools!

We need to impose our worldview via regulations!
We need to impose our worldview in the state schools!
We need to impose our metaphysical naturalism posing as science!
We need the infrastructure of tyranny!

In other words, we need to abolish the Bill of Rights!

Guess who supports all of that: mindless bootlicking statist like you, and all the fascists and communists who came before you.

 

[Agit8r]

We need to impose our worldview via regulations!
We need to impose our worldview in the state schools!
We need to impose our metaphysical naturalism posing as science!
We need the infrastructure of tyranny!

In other words, we need to abolish the Bill of Rights!

Guess who supports all of that: mindless bootlicking statist like you, and all the fascists and communists who came before you.

I don't see how anyone could argue that public schools are antithetical to freedom or the Bill of Rights:

"It is better for the poorer classes to have the aid of the richer by a general tax on property, than that every parent should provide at his own expence for the education of his children"
-- James Madison; from letter to W.T. Barry (Aug. 4, 1822)

 

[Mr. H.]

Did me more harm than good.
If I could go back 50 years I'd beat those nuns with a claw hammer.

 

[Delta4Embassy]

Religious instruction has some merits. Stimulates thought about possibilities and concepts you wouldn't have exposure to otherwise. Learning how to leap beyond logic or the world you see imagining other possibilities is advantageous. Since no one plays Dungeons and Dragons anymore or other pen and paper games (exzcept the over 40 set who grew up with that) things that stimulate imagination and require thinking about things beyond the ordinary are few and far between if they exist at all in our culture anymore. Videogames now are able to depict everything and anything so there's no need to use your imagination as when we were stuck with postage stamp sized view areas and 16 color graphics or even wireframe. Handled properly, and presented neutrally, religious education can have very positive results.

 

[Mr. H.]

Religious instruction instilled in me fear, self-doubt, and paranoia.
Lovely "merits".
Fuck you.

 

[Mr. H.]

Religion itself is "beyond the ordinary".
After 8 years of brain-washing, I still saw it all as "fictional".

 

[initforme]

" Early America was a Christian nation that brought with it freedom and liberty.

If this is true then the US resembles nothing of a Christian nation now. The biggest fault is the greed factor. America is the land of greed and no longer about helping each other out.

 

[bripat9643]

"Children who went to church or were enrolled in a parochial school, or both, judged the protagonist in religious stories to be a real person, whereas secular children with no such exposure to religion judged the protagonist in religious stories to be fictional. Children's upbringing was also related to their judgment about the protagonist in fantastical stories that included ordinarily impossible events whether brought about by magic or without reference to magic... The results suggest that exposure to religious ideas has a powerful impact on children's differentiation between reality and fiction, not just for religious stories but also for fantastical stories."

Judgments About Fact and Fiction by Children From Religious and Nonreligious Backgrounds - Corriveau - 2014 - Cognitive Science - Wiley Online Library

The same can be said about children who receive and education in government schools. They also have trouble differentiating between fact and fiction. For instance, they actually believe that the government can solve their problems and that bureaucrats are angelic creatures incapable of bias or of placing their self-interest above the interests of others.