The Liberal Agnostic Secular Humanist Four-Year Old

[1holycatholic]

Calling a newborn baby a member of your family would not be meaningless.
Calling a newborn baby a member of Christ’s family is also not meaningless.

Exactly. The child can later run away from home and disown his/her parents - that changes nothing.

 

[Leela]

Calling a newborn baby a member of your family would not be meaningless.
Calling a newborn baby a member of Christ’s family is also not meaningless.

It is so sad to me that you guys want to insist on calling your children Christians. I say, let children be children rather than unwitting participants in our holy wars and legitimizing them as targets in such conflicts.

 

[PRmerger]

It is so sad to me that you guys want to insist on calling your children Christians. I say, let children be children rather than unwitting participants in our holy wars and legitimizing them as targets in such conflicts.

I say let children be children too! Amen!

Could you elaborate a bit on what you mean by allowing our children to be “unwitting participants in our holy wars and legitimizing them as targets in such conflicts”? Do you mean that if I did not call my children Christians they would be immune to religious conflict?

 

[Leela]

I say let children be children too! Amen!

Could you elaborate a bit on what you mean by allowing our children to be “unwitting participants in our holy wars and legitimizing them as targets in such conflicts”? Do you mean that if I did not call my children Christians they would be immune to religious conflict?

Thankfully, in the US our children are not on the front lines of any religious conflict (other than imaginary ones between God and Satan). But instead of arguing that all children around the world should be off-limits as targets in religious conflicts because they do not hold any religious beliefs, religious people want to say that these children are Catholic and these are Protestant, these are Hindu and these are Muslim. It is no wonder that children become victims in such conflicts when we label them as having taken a side even though they have not. Your outrage at such collateral damage would have more moral standing if you viewed children simply as children instead of as little Sikhs or little Christians.

Best,
Leela

 

[tomarin]

Thankfully, in the US our children are not on the front lines of any religious conflict (other than imaginary ones between God and Satan). But instead of arguing that all children around the world should be off-limits as targets in religious conflicts because they do not hold any religious beliefs, religious people want to say that these children are Catholic and these are Protestant, these are Hindu and these are Muslim. It is no wonder that children become victims in such conflicts when we label them as having taken a side even though they have not. Your outrage at such collateral damage would have more moral standing if you viewed children simply as children instead of as little Sikhs or little Christians.

Best,
Leela

If children don’t have or shouldn’t have the religious affiliation of their families, whose should they have? Can you suggest a better way of handling it?

Children are not autonomous entities; they don’t have the abililty yet to discriminate and discern complex realities. If they’re going to have a spiritual life at all they need to start somewhere, don’t they?

 

[PRmerger]

But instead of arguing that all children around the world should be off-limits as targets in religious conflicts **because they do not hold any religious beliefs, **religious people want to say that these children are Catholic and these are Protestant, these are Hindu and these are Muslim…

Religious people want to say that these children are Catholic…and these are Muslim…and it’s okay to kill them because of their professed belief? Really? Do you have any evidence for this?

I think most rational people, religious and irrelgious, argue that children around the world should be off-limits as targets in religious conflicts because they are children. Not because they do not hold any religious beliefs.

 

[Leela]

If children don’t have or shouldn’t have the religious affiliation of their families, whose should they have?

None, of course. They do not hold any beliefs, and they should not be labelled as having a religion. Of course you should teach your children about your beliefs and values, but in doing so, you would never consider your children Democrats just because you are a Democrat. You may hope that they will grow to share your beliefs and values, but they will have to make up their own minds. Teach them how to do that. Teach them to think.

 

[Leela]

Religious people want to say that these children are Catholic…and these are Muslim…and it’s okay to kill them because of their professed belief?

Of course, the intention is not to say that children should be fair game in religious conflicts, but that is the effect. Who could ever be against children? What reason could a child ever give for others to be against her? Whoever is not against our children is for them, right? It’s true up until the point when their own parents give other people reason to be against them. No one could oppose children until you give them a label such as “Christian” that can be opposed. Why play into the in group/out group mentality that is so destructive by imposing it on our unwitting children?

Best,
Leela

 

[tomarin]

None, of course. They do not hold any beliefs, and they should not be labelled as having a religion. Of course you should teach your children about your beliefs and values, but in doing so, you would never consider your children Democrats just because you are a Democrat. You may hope that they will grow to share your beliefs and values, but they will have to make up their own minds. Teach them how to do that. Teach them to think.

I’m all in favor of teaching them to think. But as far as your model of how children’s minds operate, I think that children are very perceptive and they tend to pick up whatever they hear their parents saying (which is why it’s important to be careful what you say around them). They will tend to pick up Democratic or religious ideas by osmosis if those are the beliefs their parents subscribe to. So in that sense they are Christian or Muslim or whatever.

When they are older and more independent-minded and coming into contact with people who have different belief systems then the child will subject the beliefs he inherits from his family to scrutiny and alter them if necessary. That’s when the critical thinking part comes in; not when they’re 3 or 4.

 

[Contarini]

None, of course. They do not hold any beliefs, and they should not be labelled as having a religion.

But you persist in identifying religious affiliation primarily with belief. That is your mistake. It has been pointed out to you, and you don’t defend it–you just continue making it because apparently you think it’s self-evident. It isn’t.

Of course you should teach your children about your beliefs and values, but in doing so, you would never consider your children Democrats just because you are a Democrat.

The children of American parents are generally considered American, however. And this is beyond just official citizenship–it’s a matter of culture. What you don’t seem to get is that religions are (to use Clifford Geertz’s phrase) cultural systems, not just intellectual ones. Of course the two go together–a Christian or Muslim child is going to grow up with certain ideas. But the cultural identification is primary.

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

So what? Okay, but I would think it belittles Christianity to call a child a Christian who has only a “child’s understanding of what that might mean.”

No. It doesn’t. And I don’t know why you think Christians should be impressed by your idea of what “belittles” Christianity.

Edwin

 

[tomarin]

None, of course. They do not hold any beliefs, and they should not be labelled as having a religion …

Leela, the more I consider what you’re saying, the more I think yours is an argument against religious pluralism. You don’t want children to be identified as having a religious affiliation because they don’t have fully formed religious views due to their age (and for that reason you equate them, in what I think is a sleight-of-hand manoeuvre, with atheists such as yourself). You seem to want everyone to share your religious views – or at least the metaphysical presumptions about the universe that you hold – which to me is a kind of secular fundamentalism that is inimical to pluralism.

 

[Leela]

But you persist in identifying religious affiliation primarily with belief. That is your mistake. It has been pointed out to you, and you don’t defend it–you just continue making it because apparently you think it’s self-evident. It isn’t.

I understand that you don’t think of religion to be primarily about belief, but I believe that religion is generally taken to mean adherents to certain statements of fact. This is why religious people are distinguished from non religious people as “people of faith,” a term that could not possibly apply to children.

The children of American parents are generally considered American, however. And this is beyond just official citizenship–it’s a matter of culture. What you don’t seem to get is that religions are (to use Clifford Geertz’s phrase) cultural systems, not just intellectual ones. Of course the two go together–a Christian or Muslim child is going to grow up with certain ideas. But the cultural identification is primary.

And the more we apply such labels, the more we emphasize the differences rather than the similarities of our fellow humans. Labels are ways of dehumanizing and marginalizing. It may be natural for adults to do this with one another, but we shouldn’t allow it to be done to our children.

Best,
Leela

 

[PRmerger]

I understand that you don’t think of religion to be primarily about belief, but I believe that **religion is generally taken to mean adherents to certain statements of fact. **

I think it’s been made quite clear in this thread that our religion, Catholicism, is more than adherence to statements of fact.

 

[Leela]

I think it’s been made quite clear in this thread that our religion, Catholicism, is more than adherence to statements of fact.

If you wish to include children as Catholics then it seems to me that Catholicism is less than adherence to statement of fact. It is merely having Catholic parents.

 

[tomarin]

If you wish to include children as Catholics then it seems to me that Catholicism is less than adherence to statement of fact. It is merely having Catholic parents.

Nope, it’s more. That’s where the cultural aspect Edwin was talking about comes in.

 

[miguel]

Leela, the more I consider what you’re saying, the more I think yours is an argument against religious pluralism. You don’t want children to be identified as having a religious affiliation because they don’t have fully formed religious views due to their age (and for that reason you equate them, in what I think is a sleight-of-hand manoeuvre, with atheists such as yourself). You seem to want everyone to share your religious views – or at least the metaphysical presumptions about the universe that you hold – which to me is a kind of secular fundamentalism that is inimical to pluralism.

You got that right. It’s self-serving in favor of secular fundamentalism.

 

[greggy53]

None, of course. They do not hold any beliefs, and they should not be labelled as having a religion. Of course you should teach your children about your beliefs and values, but in doing so, you would never consider your children Democrats just because you are a Democrat. You may hope that they will grow to share your beliefs and values, but they will have to make up their own minds. Teach them how to do that. Teach them to think.

We have an obligation to teach our children what they aught to think, and why. My children are Catholic until they get old enough to accept or reject it as adults. Until then there is nothing wrong with us teaching our children what they should believe, and there is nothing to ba ashamed about so-called “lables”

 

[Contarini]

I understand that you don’t think of religion to be primarily about belief, but I believe that religion is generally taken to mean adherents to certain statements of fact.

What does “generally” mean? And what authority does this “generally” have? I won’t dispute that some people think about religion that way. But obviously the very linguistic usage you’re arguing against shows that clearly religion is “generally” regarded as something to which children can belong, in spite of the obvious fact that children don’t have well-formed, sophisticated theological or philosophical beliefs. So I don’t think you will get very far arguing from general usage in order to debunk general usage. That seems self-defeating. Perhaps we can both agree that general usage is somewhat incoherent in this as in many other things, no doubt in this case largely because “religion” is so hard to define.

This is why religious people are distinguished from non religious people as “people of faith,” a term that could not possibly apply to children.

I disagree. In fact, some atheists would admit that children are naturally believers and would use that as an argument *against *religion (didn’t you say elsewhere that your daughter believes in both Jesus and Santa Claus?). Furthermore, one can be shaped by faith without having a lot of detailed, explicit beliefs.

And I don’t much like the “people of faith” moniker anyway.

And the more we apply such labels, the more we emphasize the differences rather than the similarities of our fellow humans. Labels are ways of dehumanizing and marginalizing.

Labels applied polemically and stereotypically, yes. Not “labels” when embraced as a statement of identity (whether for oneself or for one’s children). Escape from particularity is escape from our humanity. Clearly we differ in our basic presuppositions here.

Edwin

 

[Charlemagne_II]

At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” He called a little child and had him stand among them. And he said: “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 18:1-4