It's really more like a vaccination.   Teaching kids how to use their brains and think logically helps prevent them from contracting an awful mind disease.

    SteveMcEl  asks,    "the youth are the easiest to be indoctrined. Isn't that a bit hypocritical? "

 DO YOU NOT CARE ? I AM considering castrating you ?

WHAT WAS THE QUESTION again, regarding my kids ?

First of all the challenge is out there for people who are questioning their faith arleady, it is not forcing a biased education onto a child from prior to the point that they are aware of their surroundings as religion assumes to do.

Furthermore most atheists believe strongly in comparative religious education, something of which I am a very big supporter of.

It is also true that from this side of the fence there is a very strong push for "there is no reason to believe something that has no basis".  If the advertising that something else has no evidence or basis for it's message is considered "brain washing" then I'm not sure what would NOT be classified as brain washing.

Doctrine itself is associated with religion,so it is hard to indoctrinate someone without any doctrine.

What this is presenting is a way for people who already don't believe to "come out".  A lot of what is going on here is about the advertising of doubt, the acceptance of doubt, the message that it is okay to not believe.

We don't profess harm or come to people do or do not do it, it is 100% up to the person doing it.  There are no threats.  This is in dramatic contrast to what we see from religion. 

   Science says LOUDLY  , I don't know !

Someone record the date and time...I think this is the first time I have ever seen you make a post that I understood on first read. 

Nah... we don't want to target them to brainwash them.  We want to target them and not brainwash them.  I know for a theist it's hard to understand the difference (because they're brainwashed), but we don't want to tell them what to believe in.  We just know with as much certainty as is possible scientifically and philosophically that theism is harmful and that there is absolutely no evidence that there's a god.

 Its like this:  Suppose one day school officials all got together and said, "From now on, we're going to teach children that Santa Clause is real, and that there's a hidden continent under the North Pole that you can only see with special glasses while standing on the moon."

If you said, "Hey, that's really stupid.  Don't teach children that nonsense!"   you'd be doing the same thing we're doing. 

a better question for steve would be... 

  if someone suggested we do not teach santa claus in schools, would that be brainwashing the children into not believing in santa claus?

I remeber when I was in school, saint nicholas was part of a subject (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Nicholas).  This put more of a human sense on the supernatural figure.  We hade a birthdate, life story, and death of this person.  There was no story of a resurrection and ascention to become the santa claus we know today.  This de-mystified santa cluas.

 If jesus was taught in this way, along with other equivelant prophets in history, I think it would be appropriate.  I actually encourage it as a way to de-mystify jesus just as the story of saint nicholas de-mystifies santa.

Here's where we have failed.  Those who have not been taught to think think they know how to think.  (Sorry... that was too much fun.  I couldn't talk myself into rewording it.)

It's pretty hard to convince adults that they missed some basic education.  It comes across as haughty or condescending, even when you say it as nicely as possible.  

Even so, you're exactly right.  I think it would be much more beneficial to give kids three or four years of logic and critical thinking in grade school.  Then, they would be much better prepared for not only more advanced classes, but life in general.

From the perspective of an Atheist who has been an Atheist all of his life despite having been exposed to Christianity over the course of his early childhood while at school... I learned critical thinking at an early age.  I wasn't really taught this, I had a natural tendency to question things anyway and no matter how many times someone sais to me "God did it" or "Because I said so", I refused to leave it at that unless I was bullied or forcibly silenced.  That tendency to keep questioning everything around me has stayed with me and continues to be a major driving force in my life today.  I never accept anything at face value, I keep digging for answers if I'm not satisfied with something I'm told.

I think that's one of the main reasons why I've never even been remotely attracted to the idea of religion.  It discourages critical thinking and curiosity, and there's no more obvious an example of this than the "Jesus Camp" Kids On Fire evangelical camp that was recently shut down.

Parents shouldn't push any beliefs or opinions down their children's throats, the children should be allowed to think for themselves and make up their own mind. Parents shouldn't tell their kids that God does/doesn't exist.

And more, parents have the obligation to 'imprint' their kids, because if they do not, then the rest of the world and popular culture will. I may not agree with everything some parents choose to teach, but I am far more comfortable with the idea that parents should be the primary instructers of their children than I am with the idea of leaving it to the whim and chance of what they might pick up from a pop culture that's calibrated to adults, but aimed at children.

Yes. I understand. There can be a heavy handed, emotionally stifling environment and a warm, nurturing one. But automatically equating theistic homes with negative development of the child into an adult is unfair. I have personally met people raised in fundamentalist homes that were warm, caring individuals (ironically these tended to be people less inclined to proselytize and more concerned with my actual welfare) and have met "godless" people that were utterly abusive. My belief is that specific beliefs are less important than the environment that we create. Respect, thoughtfulness, empathy, self discipline, a good work ethic - these things are universal. Teach these things and our children would be far ahead.

   yeah HC Grindon who writes;  "Another question: assuming you have children, do you expose them (equally) to buddism, islam, hinduism, judaism, jainism, scientology, mormonism, santeria, zeus, thor?  If you don't, why not? "

  LOUDER friend ! Blow HELL away !

Why are you hung up on labels? You are assuming we are picking on you and Christianity, yet you would rightfully say that teaching a child to do nothing but regurgitate the Koran would be child abuse.

It is and here is why. You set a child up for the dissapointment of finding out that not everyone is a clone of you. Atheists dont teach their kids that everyone is like them or should be like them.

Children who are taught |"this is the only way, and you will believe it, like it or not" precludes them from learning to make decisions on their own. Then they run into oposition later in life that they dont know how to deal with which causes them needless  conflict.

I dont see anything wrong with telling a kid santa isnt real. I dont see anything wrong with telling a kid that |Thor is a myth. And I dont see anything wrong with telling a kid that humans DONT get up from the dead after 3 days of oxygen and bloodflow deprovation to the body.

We dont teach our children that the earth is flat, nor should we be teaching that hocus pokus is real. But if you insist on doing such, we are going to compete with you with the best tool available to humanity, and that is truth. It is not child abuse to teach a kid to use logic and reason.

If you can understand the logic you use to reject the claim that |"Thor made lighting", you should be able to understand WHY RRS targets EVERY DEMOGRAPHIC and criticises all superstitious claims, not just yours.

RRS believes, and so do I, that the age of believing myth as fact is on it's way out. For the same reason you reject the sun being a thinking entity called "Ra" which the ancient Egyptians believed for over 3,000 years.....for that same reason we reject claims of ghosts getting girls pregnant and zombie gods surviving rigor mortis.

There is nothing wrong with telling your neighbor that Ouiji Boards are worthless junk. There is nothing wrong with telling your kid that Zues is made up and there is nothing wrong with pointing out to you THAT YOU BAUGHT A LIE, no matter how good it may make you feel.

It never occurs to people like you that atheists are trying to help you excape the mind shackles of superstition. 

If those numbers look scary, it's because there's a swing vote, essentially.  Authoritarianism is a sliding scale, where the weakest authoritarians tend to do whatever the most dominant authoritarians (who are in favor) do.

In times when authoritarianism is out of favor, this group seems to disappear, for they have no leaders to latch onto.  Nevertheless, they still have the personality type.

That's what most atheist parents do.

 Then one would presume you are a Christian, and you were likely indoctrinated at an early age.

Yes.  Your atheism in practice, theism in name is atypical, and it would be grossly incorrect to assume that your views are representative of theism.

... which I've always found odd, because you're so fast to jump in on our side when someone suggests that morality is removed from empiricism.   Or, maybe I'm just imagining that you've done that.   I dunno.

 The generalizations I've given above are not conjecture.  They're fact.  Where I think you often err is in juxtaposition of should and are.  Authoritarians are rigid in their childrearing, and they also are overwhelmingly theist.  If authoritarians were not theists, they would still be rigid disciplinarians, but they wouldn't have the bolstering dogma that they are right even if science says they're wrong.  That's the whole point.

It is impossible to not indoctrinate. Again, parents cannot escape imprinting their children. Even if the imprinting is to be rational and ask questions it is still an imprint. 

Of course there is a difference. But it is still indoctrination.  And so your child comes home from school one day and asks you about the Jesus freak that says we all need salvation. What are you going to tell him? Go to church with the Jesus freak and keep an open mind? No. You are going to present the facts as you see them. You will be unable to prevent your own bias against fundamentalism from affecting your presentation of those facts. You may teach him to reason, but you will also prime him with the data with which he must reason. You will also indoctrinate him with the belief that a rational approach to life is better than an irrational approach. You WILL indoctrinate him with something. Just not authoritarian, fundamentalist religion. And you will believe he is better for it.  

The specific difference is subtle, wave.

If you imprint/indoctrinate a child into theism, you are brainwashing them -- forcing them into accepting cognitive dissonance.

If you imprint/indoctrinate a child into, well, nothing (since atheism is literally a non-position), you're not brainwashing them.

Brainwashing, after all, requires that the teaching is at least partially false.  You can't brainwash someone into believing that stopsigns in America are red.

This, of course, if we survive this dark, "convert-or-die" days. One quick glance at the current state of affairs leads me to believe that our future will be a kind of Blade Runner type of world, but with one omni religion (an amalgam of most/all religions) instead of an omni language.

Now, in regards of the indoctrinatio questionn, most agnostic parents I know (I am yet to meet one family whose members refer themselves as atheists) do the "teach multiple sides and let the kids decide" type of upbringing. All theistic families I know exercise the "My God is Your God" approach, and some of this families put the "and everyone else is wrong" bonus in it, so, who was indoctrinating again?

Easiest to be indoctrinated?

There's a difference between reaching out to teens, the most skeptical age developmentally, and inculcating infants into a belief.

Are you able to see this difference? If not, consider a course in developmental psychology.