The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #144236   Message #3337423
Posted By: Steve Shaw
12-Apr-12 - 04:50 PM
Thread Name: BS: Follow Jesus, not religion Andrew Sullivan
Subject: RE: BS: Follow Jesus, not religion Andrew Sullivan
I assure you that I was religious-by-force for many years and that it took me a long time to see the light. Like most childhood victims of religion's deadly grasp, I had to find out how to shake off the fear of eternal damnation, family disapproval and even a degree of ostracism from people I used to get on well with. You couldn't really expect government inspectors to disapprove openly of signs of indoctrination, as their brief is to ensure that the laws of daily worship are adhered to by schools. Evidence of indoctrination abounds: it's there in every harvest festival service, carol service, Christingle and any other service or ritual that children are railroaded into. And every time they are made by their school or their parents to bow their heads in prayer. Those prayers which express a totally-unjustified certainty about the existence of God. Our Father who art in heaven, not Our Father who may be in heaven but we only say that without evidence and the chance of its being true being vanishingly remote. Any lie you tell children under the guise of eternal truth is indoctrination.