The root of the problem

[cleanhippie]

[Oregonian]

1. Child abuse

That's the only way to explain religious indoctrination. Pollutes the mind, creates needless anxiety, and acts as a gateway to all other scientific information. It's deplorable.

[FiveGoodMen]

3. I'll say!

Among other things, they teach their children that burning to death is too good for them.

Also that parents killing their children is the right and proper thing to do should an invisible voice instruct them to. They set aside time (and have printed lesson plans) just to make that point to kids who are too young to protect themselves.

No such person should ever be allowed to raise a child.

Yes. Really.

[Rob H.]

2. The really sad part is...

that even after they reach adulthood, some who were indoctrinated as children seem to refuse to even consider the idea that it's possible for them to leave the church. (It also seems to turn some of them into dour, humorless adults. Who wants to live like that?)

[dmallind]

4. In the specific sense I am not sure I agree

In the generic sense, indoctrination especially of the young is certainly the main impediment to sloughing off superstition. However the image shows kids in a school environment taught by what we must assume is not intended to be a parent figure (the dubious status of celibacy oaths notwithstanding).

All I have is anecdotal info, but it seems the products of school-based clergy-taught R.E., from US Catholic School alums to my own ilk of British minor public school old boys, discard their religion, if ever possessed, at a greater rate than the norm. Indoctrination of children is much more effective, in modern times at least and with apologies to Ignatius Loyola, when done by parents and peer pressure. That's why home-schooling and evangelical Protestant "academies" chosen for their fundamentalism rather than academics seem to lose fewer adherents than the olde-worlde Catholic schools shown here. Keeping kids away from nonbelievers, and making them into monsters when they are encountered, is also more vital than defining sacraments and warning against mortal sin.

[Warpy]

5. Didn't work on all of us

In fact, all my atheist friends IRL survived Catholic school. I'm tempted to say Catholic schools are institutions dedicated to the production of unbelievers.

[OriginalGeek]

6. As far as I know

I am one of the 2 or 3 survivors of my fundamentalist baptist high school indoctrination. Insofar as that we no longer self-identify as fundamentalist baptists. I am an atheist and one of my friends is a Yuan Buddhist (He always makes that distinction but I'm not really sure what makes "Yuan" different from other Buddhism). There is another lady who still believes in god but routinely chastises the fundies we went to school with for their "non-christ-like" interpretations of the bible. She is pro marriage equality and as near to pro-choice as she can be while still being wholly against having an abortion. (She wouldn't but she will begrudgingly accept that others might need to). Trust me when I say that is a hugely liberal viewpoint compared to the lunatics we graduated with.

I like your statement re: institutions for producing non-believers - lol, I often claim that my school and church made me the happy atheist I am today. Unfortunately, they failed to produce many more... I graduated in 1981 but I still have many of my classmates as friends on Facebook so I often get to see their rantings.

[Plantaganet]

7. Wow!

A picture really is worth a thousand words! Perfect!

[Taverner]

8. It's leaders. Always leaders.

what was the old quote, mankind cannot be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest?