I have some friends who would never go to church themselves, and say “Whether there is a god or not, churches are just not connected to him, but agents of men.”
Yet they send their kids to Sunday school for the “civilizing influence, cultural background, and social moral lessons.”
Does this make sense to you?
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/special_packages/sunday_review/13263212.htmEssay from the Phily Inquirer that seems relevant.
Personally, I think it’s not a good idea. The message you’re sending to the kids is going to be something like ‘I think that these morals are good, but I personally don’t need to study them/hear them/etc.’ My parents sent me to ‘Jewish sunday school’ twice a week for eleven years, despite being a family that went to synagogue maybe once or twice a year, and was really only marginally religious. If I could change one thing about the way I was raised, that would be it. It’s hypocritical and disrespectful to those who do truly have faith.
I code pretty…Sorry about that. Link still works, just ugly.
No.
Sorry not to elaborate, but I’ve nothing to add. It just doesn’t make sense to me.
"civilizing influence, (snip) and social moral lessons."
I don’t see how it is going “work” unless the parents re-enforce the civilizing influence, and social moral lessons that the kids receive. It would take quite a two step – yes we believe this and you should too, it is just we don’t actually believe this within the confines of this church … but it is possible I suppose.
My WAG is that they are secretly or openly afraid that they aren’t capable of offering the kids these things (either consciously or subconsciously) so even though it won’t work without their constant effort – it makes “sense” and speaks well of them that they recognize the deficit in thier parenting and are trying to deal with it.
"cultural background"
Yes it makes ‘sense’ it is clearly how they view the religion & should be no problem.
Yes, it does make some sense. First of all, regardless if they decide to believe or not, learning the stories of the Bible can be beneficial. The Bible isn’t usually taught in K-12 American education. Regardless if one believes them or not, knowledge of them can be beneficial when studying literature, viewing art, or listening to secular music.
Also, they may enjoy it. My parents were far from religious, but I enjoyed my time in Sunday School as well as Vacation Bible Study.
Many Sunday School teachers are some of the best people in the church.
It sure can make sense. A lot of time the kids get invited by a friend and enjoy going. So it may be easier for the nonpracticing parents to say yes than to say no. Also, it can amount to essentially free babysitting and maybe a free meal for the kids. The downside would be kids maybe hassling you to attend and/or asking you some difficult questions. So weighing all that in the balance, a fair number of kids in Sunday School have nonpracticing parents.
My reasoning was that it would be hypocritical to expect my children to go to church school when I did not believe in what that church was teaching. When they were old enough to notice such things, they asked me if they were forbidden to go, and I told them that if they wanted to, it was fine with me. They each went once or twice with a friend, found it to be of little interest to them. Their grandmother would gladly have taken them to her church but I was not going to require it.
The one thing I regret is that they have little or no knowledge of the actual contents of the Bible or of the teachings of religion from a cultural or historical viewpoint. My older daughter asked me once when she was about 10 if she was allowed to read the Bible; I pulled my copy of the Revised Standard off the shelf and gave it to her. I also have the King James and the New English, but that one was at hand. She read it for about 10 minutes and then started pointing out one contradiction after another. “This doesn’t make any sense. First it says one thing, and then it says something else.” I explained that it was a collection of stories people told a long time ago in an effort to explain the world. “Sort of like mythology?” Yep. Exactly like.
My parents did that with me. My mother’s reasoning was that Sunday School would give me a chance to meet new people. For her it was a social thing. My father thought I should go because most of the country was some form of Christian, and it would benefit me later in life to have some basic knowledge of the Bible and its teachings.
When I was about 10, they took it one step further. They asked my friends’ parents if I might attend one week at their churches. In the course of several months I went with my Japanese friend, my Chinese friend, went with a Morman friend, Catholic friend, and a Jehovah’s Witness friend. We didn’t know anyone who was Jewish, or I am sure I would have gone there too. I found that to be a great experience and I am glad they set that up for me. They knew I would end up with my own beliefs, and I did. But I have also found it valuable to learn a bit about what others believe as well.
So I think it does make sense.
My parents sent me when I was a kid. They are not at all religious (I remember my mother telling me that she had more respect for people that worship the sun than people who believe in god(s)) but they never undermined what was taught there. I enjoyed it for a few years but when I chose to stop going they said OK.
Both of my sons became involved with church groups in their teens. Both times it seemed to be a combination of having a close friend who went and the fact that the activities were good fun. I don’t recall the churches involved but everyone I met from either organisation seemed like a positive role model, so I encouraged their involvement for as long as they wanted to go.
I think it’s pointless, as well as unethical. I went to Sunday School; I learned nothing, religious or otherwise. It was boring, and the teachers explained themselves poorly.
I remember one lesson where they said “a liar has a white heart, a sinner has a black heart, but a Christian has a golden heart”. Being a kid, I took it literally. White hearts sounded like pus ( eww ! ), and gold hearts would be really heavy and give you heavy metal poisoning ( and yes, I knew about that when I was a little kid; I read encyclopedias for fun ); black hearts sounded the healthiest. I did wonder how I was supposed to get a red heart, since I knew that was the right color.
Really, the only thing Sunday schools do is indoctrinate kids young, before the age of critical thinking. That’s the point - get 'em young, before they can protect themselves.
Wow.
I’m sure I’d spend time investigating the church before I sent children to Sunday School there.
Still, at many good Sunday Schools, they’re likely to learn about giving to the poor, respecting others, and working for peace.
Well, at the Jewish Sunday School, didn’t you at least get to learn Hebrew? Maybe that was one point in sending you there.
And it’s useful if you are appearing on Jeopardy!
But Sunday School won’t teach them bible stories without wrapping them in a religious message. So what your kids will learn, in addition to biblical history, is[ul][li]There is an invisible man in the sky who you can ask for things, but he doesn’t always give them to you[]Magic potions can work miracles and the laws of physics negated if only you believe[]Supernatural events happened in the past, but might not happen now[]If you don’t believe what the teacher tells you to, this kind, gentle, invisible being will allow you to go to a mythical place forever and be tortured perpetually[]This same being has human characteristics; He gets jealous, irrational and constantly requires attention or bad things will happen[*]Don’t ever doubt such things, just accept them on faith because we can’t prove anything…[/ul][/li]Is that really the message you want your kids to learn? Why not teach them that the basis of all morality is the Golden Rule, not the fear of God?
Which, God knows, they’re not learning at home. Or at day schools. :rolleyes:
Several reasons:
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Cultural pressures. If all of juniors friends go to the same church and Sunday school, let him stay with his friends.
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Habit. Parents went when they were young, so does junior.
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Morality. A child can get the positive messages that religion can bring even if the parents are not big on the God part.
I don’t think any of these are necessarily bad. I was in the Boy Scouts despite growing up in a fairly non-religious household and the troop I was in really played up the religious aspects of scouting and I was no worse for wear.
No. It was briefly touched upon in preparation for a students bar/bat mitzvah, but even then, it was only a fleeting introduction to classical Hebrew, which is nothing like modern spoken Hebrew.
IMO, religious education before a child specifically wants it is nothing but an unmasked attempt at indoctrinating kids into mindlessly believing something that has absolutely no rational basis, ignores logic, and scoffs in the face of modern science.
Doesn’t this in some way belittle those who truly do believe in whatever teachings are being taught? Saying ‘oh, it’s just something you do’, rather than something you should actually believe in?
Also, religion can teach hatred, bigotry, and intolerance, be it for a specific group (ie, Catholicism’s teachings that homosexuality is something evil that must be repressed and punished) or much more generalized (ie, people who believe differently than us are wrong and therefore going to burn in hell).
Homosexuality is not viewed as evil by the Catholic church. The Catholic church views homosexual acts as sin, but the church does not view being homosexual as a sin.
It may seem like that’s splitting hairs, but I do think it’s an important difference from your claim that “Catholicism teaches homosexuality is evil.”
As to the general point of the thread, I’ve always planned to send my children to catholic schools. Aside from that I don’t necessarily plan to actively indoctrinate them, I will want them to learn about the Church at an early age so that if they do decide to remain practicing Catholics throughout their life they will have started learning about the church and its rituals at an early age. When they’re old enough I’d tell them about the other religious options out there, and that most importantly faith in Christ should come from the heart and shouldn’t be something you feign just to please your family. Of course since I’m Catholic I will tell them that I feel following another religion would be a mistake.
[ul]
[li]Why not give them a chance to reject it? Nonbelief means a lot more if you know what you are rejecting. Alternatively, they may find meaning where you did not.[/li][li]One function of religious school is indeed belief in the religious precepts, but that is not the only one. Another is the feeling of group identity. I have little belief in a Biblical God; at points I was an atheist; yet I feel a group membership partly as a result of religious school training.[/li][/ul]