I guess my take on the indoctrination point is a little less nuanced Valka, but in case anyone cares - Once Dawkin's, or anyone else, tells me I'm wrong, morally, to "indoctrinate" my son in my religion, then they're absolutely done. Full stop, opinion chiseled unless view rescinded. And that's not because I don't think they have very good reasons to be angry about something. They probably do. But - here's the thing - I can't not indoctrinate my son constantly. He watches me, ravenously, for information and social queues and for how we act, then he wants to know why we act that way so he can sort it out on his own. Kids are big on learning to do things on their own. I'm sure you know this, but I like stating the obvious. It keeps my train of thought on line. So, functionally, if Dawkins tells me not to indoctrinate my son, he's telling me to exclude my child from a large part of my life, to lie to him about my reasoning about things, and to hide myself from him. And here's the justification - it's because I'm an immoral or inferior presence and influence to have around my own kids when they're still impressionable and weak to corruption. Which, for the record, should sound very familiar.
As far as I am aware, and granted this awareness could be lacking since I don't go seeking this stuff out, people who are anti-religious indoctrination are not anti-religious exposure.
Can we agree that a religious belief is based on faith, and not empirical evidence?
It is fairly well understood that a child will emulate their guardian, look to their guardian for guidance on how to navigate life, and are more inclined to take what their guardian says as concrete fact. Those who are religiously inclined tend to take advantage of this by describing their belief as fact. It is not a belief but instead the right way to live, period. Since this takes place in a child's most formative years, they often inherit this perspective. It's all they know. By the time competing viewpoints are relevant, they've been ingrained in a system that was deliberately designed to convince them that your way is
the way.
You are not being asked to hide your faith from your child. You are being asked to not tell your child that your faith is fact, even if you believe more than anything else in the world that it is. The reality of the situation is, for
any religious individual, they do not have concrete evidence that their belief is true. Atheists are held to this same standard, and I would likewise ask atheists to not teach their children that there is no creator. They have no concrete evidence to support such a claim.
The intended theory here is that you do not tell your child what is true when you do not know what is true. You structure it as an opinion, as a choice. You give them the opportunity to decide what they personally want to do. A child will naturally wish to be exposed to your faith and that should be encouraged; if you want to involve your child with your faith practices and they are amenable to that, great! Go right ahead. But this comes with the secondary expectation that they be educated about other faiths and other viewpoints so that, should there come a day when they wish to branch out from what you have selected as your path, they are capable of doing so and know that they do not run risk of being outcast from the family for doing so.
If you encourage your child to be curious of other viewpoints than your own, then you are not at risk of indoctrinating them. Indoctrination comes with the explicit implication that there is no choice in the matter because your behaviour is specifically designed to lead down one path and one path only. Telling your child that your belief is the only correct one would fall under indoctrination. Telling your child that your belief is your belief and they are welcome to join you in that journey should they so choose would not fall under indoctrination.
