THE CHILDREN ARE OUR FUTURE!

                Children are not slaves to their parents and society can make decisions about how to better educate and treat these future politicians, professors, doctors and maybe even pastors.  It is only when we encourage curiosity, nurture open-mindedness and strive for intelligence in all children that humanity will evolve to solve the world’s problems.  Survival requires adaptation and change, not conservatism and stubbornness.

The biologist Richard Dawkins often expresses concern for the children of religious people. These children are indoctrinated from the beginning to believe everything that their parents tell them about the world and about how god wants them to behave.  Children grow up blindly converting to the religion of their parents with no choice and often with no outside influence to other explanations of the world.  Many children are taught that god is always watching and judging them; that they were born sinners and are condemned unless they abide their parents interpretation of ‘god’s will’; and taught that those who are not a part of the in-group are outsiders and are to be judged accordingly.  When children begin to think for themselves and challenge their parent’s authority (which is normal) they are often ostracized, abused, ridiculed, excommunicated, or otherwise tormented by their own families. It is not always extreme but children in these families are not encouraged to be curious about the world or about other ways of thinking.  They are shielded from outside influences to ensure total brain washing and speaking out about family problems is often discouraged and punished. 

                Daniel Dennett, the brilliant philosopher, has one simple, yet powerful solution to this issue and I’m inclined to agree with his plan.  His solution is to create a mandatory curriculum of religion education in public schools. Schools would teach only the uncontroversial beliefs of as many religions as possible and I think they should through in some philosophy and history as well. This would allow students to think about religion from a more secular point of view and make better decisions about how to live their life as well as how to examine claims about the world. Why would a religion be afraid of this informative curriculum if they are so sure of the righteousness of their prescribed dogma?