Children and Religion/ The Issue of Tolerance

I watch with a certain chagrin as my girlfriend's kids go to church. I come home to my apartment to see a door hanger advertising an afterschool program at the local church. Fundies and atheists fight over public school curricula.

Everyone wants to brainwash the kids, and churches are especially guilty in this regard. I received my own brainwashing from just such efforts and was a theist until the age of 30. 30 years is a long time to be a shithead. Needless to say, I think churches should leave kids alone. But they won't.

Religion persists because parents pass these beliefs down to their children. Even parents that don't go to church are more than willing to let their kids go because they see some inculcation of values into their kids but also because it is free childcare. There isn't a parent alive who doesn't love pawning their brats off on someone else for a few hours. This is why public school is so damn popular even though it is a joke. Church allows parents to extend the child neglect to six days a week (and you can make it seven if you double dip into Judaism or Seventh Day Adventism.)

The deal for folks who offer the free childcare is a chance to indoctrinate the next generation. Clever atheists can get in on the act by offering math and science tutoring for free and then leavening the instruction with healthy doses of Charles Darwin. Unfortunately, Karl Marx gets thrown into the mix because most atheists I know are pinko commies. So, I tend to not go along with these efforts.

I have this crazy idea that kids should think for themselves. This is a dangerous concept I know. But I am wired like this. Too much Karl Popper in my mental diet. If I ran a school, I would let everyone teach--fundies, atheists, commies, libertarians, etc. It isn't because I think all ideas are equal because they aren't. I am smart, and the rest of the world is pitifully stupid. But innovative thinking is often the product of the combinations of previous ideas. I think the Bible is horrible science, but it is first rate literature. On this basis, I think everyone should read it, and unlike most Christians, I have read the entire Bible. I quote from it a lot because it is rich in metaphors and what have you.

The problem I have is not so much with wrong ideas so much as the exclusion of ideas. This is why I can despise political correctness and campus speech codes as much as Christian book burning. This is where I part company with many atheists and also why I left Godless Columbia. I am quite offensive to other people, but I am also quite tolerant. I don't see how one should exclude the other. I believe in the freedom of expression for all people, but I also practice it. Tolerance does not mean being non-offensive to people. All it means is not using force against people we disagree with. It means letting them have the freedom to express themselves but also calling them idiots, shitheads, or what have you. The Gillian Peiffer approach is to exclude outspoken atheists in an effort to not piss off her new friends. Needless to say, this pissed me off. But I am stirring up some old shit.

It is a truth that those who preach tolerance the most are usually the most intolerant. This is how leftards are able to exclude opinions they disagree with. They label them as "intolerant" and move to have the "intolerant" forcibly removed, censured, or what have you. If this strikes you as Orwellian, you are correct. In the end, you will love Big Brother, or we will make you. You may disagree with fundies, but they are absolutely correct when they claim that atheists want to force their agenda on others. As a secular individualist, I am caught in the middle. This is the price for being enlightened. You have few friends.

Sundays are for religion here at the C-Blog, and I will continue to write on the topic unless inebriated, incarcerated, or otherwise, indisposed. God bless you, and God bless America.

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