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Comment by castis | Hacker News Reader

What exactly are you having to tolerate?

Poor working conditions for a fellow person.

In a wider context indoctrination of children. I feel that 'Sunday school' is child abuse. But, where we don't tolerate public beatings of children some topics are considered off limits.

PS: I accept many people will disagree with this. But, while many pat them on the head and move on I think it is important for everyone to understand their bubble is just that, and their assumptions are far from universal.

It's a tricky subject, because heavily regulating what kids must be exposed to by the state could easily be classified as propagandized brainwashing. If we support both the right of parents to express their beliefs to their children and the right of the children to make an informed decision when they are adults about their beliefs, the best thing may be have a mandatory "survey of beliefs" class for children at various points in their lives.

A class that covered the 4-5 most common world religious beliefs as well atheism in a way that did not promote any of them, much less one over the others (a tall order in some communities, I'm sure), would do a great deal to both inform individuals on various beliefs and how they interrelate, as well as foster understanding for others.

You are falling into the trap of assuming the state must accept religion. We where happy to indoctrinate Indians though forcible separation from their parents.

So, it's not actually about 'religion' or 'tolerance' it's about the short list of accepted religions.

PS: Some argue that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Child_Welfare_Act fixed this, but there are plenty of more recent cases disproving that idea. As of 2010, Alabama,[41] Indiana,[42] Kentucky,[43] Louisiana,[44] Missouri,[45] and Tennessee[46] still use the "existing Indian family" exception.

> You are falling into the trap of assuming the state must accept religion.

I prefer to think I'm "falling into the trap" of assuming that personal choice is important and we want to preserve it. Like most things, both extremes of the spectrum are unhealthy. Indoctrination by your parents about the "one true way" to think is dangerous, but so is indoctrination by the state.

The way to fight misinformation is not to restrict that information, it's to provide more information so people can make informed choices. It's a free market of ideas, and information (and light regulation) is key.

> We where happy to indoctrinate Indians though forcible separation from their parents.

We were happy to enslave people as well. That doesn't mean we should condone conduct such as that going forward.

> So, it's not actually about 'religion' it's about the short list of accepted religions.

No, it's about opening people up to the possibility of choice, and that there there may exist views different than they have been exposed to. I'm an atheist myself, but I can't imagine a world in which people are forced, coerced or steered to a particular belief as being better.

Adults get personal choice when it comes to religion, children don't.

Adults also get personal choice as to which TV programs they watch, which beverages they drink, which candidates to vote for, whether to join the military. The option is not whether to constrain the choices available to children - it's a matter of who gets to decide. Remember, always turn things around: how would you feel if the religious right got to tell you that you couldn't raise your children as atheists or agnostics?

> how would you feel if the religious right got to tell you that you couldn't raise your children as atheists or agnostics?

This has been a common state of affair in many places for thousands of years. But here is the thing, you don't need to indoctrinate someone as an agnostic.

An interesting comparison is the effort to maintain belief in Santa Clause vs end it.

I'm not actually sure how common it was for the government to intervene in families' home lives, even, say, at the height of the middle ages or the Byzantine empire. That said, to whatever extent it did happen, it was wrong, and the Catholic church acknowledges as much these days.

On the other hand, I think the history of humanity, which involves nearly universal belief in some flavor of divinity, is all-but-conclusive proof that your second point is incorrect. That doesn't mean the x-theists are right: just that religion is quite obviously the default state of humanity, and irreligion is the exception.

Religious thinking doesn't require divinity. various outspoken outrage groups qualify, as does anyone who has a belief system that is not evidence-based.

Promoting Religion has clear upsides and most humans for most of human history have not had their thoughts recorded. Further, religious people kept a lot of our history's. So we have no idea how common actual belief was.

I suspect in 10,000 years looking though limited and relatively random records Santa could be considered a widely warshiped god even if effectively zero adults believe in him today. Private journals are solid evidence, writing on temple walls is not. A coworkers Rabbi growing up was an atheist.

If we are going by popularity either Atheism or Agnostic beliefs are probably the single most common specific beliefs. Religions come and go, shifting through time so a modern Mormon has little in common with a 5th century Christian sects.

On a side note - you do know that Santa is real, right? He was a real bishop in Turkey in the 4th century, participated in the Council of Nicea, and was even reputed to have thrown a punch at Arius on the council floor.

I would agree with the religious right on that point. I think brainwashing a child into blind acceptance of atheism is just as bad.

I don't view it as regulating what kids must be exposed to. What we should be doing and what I think the GP is suggesting is that we regulate was kids must not be exposed to.

There is no ethically sound justification for forcing a child to go to Church repeatedly during their development. Most religious people believe that children have innate innocence until a certain point. Until that point, they have no need for religion and should be given the opportunity to make up their own mind about it when they are old enough.

Are they being forced to work at hobby lobby? Are sexually active people who refuse to pay for their own contraceptives a Protected Class?

> sexually active people... a Protected Class?

Yes, of course the US only plays lip service to separation of church and state so that can cause confusion.

The US also only pays lip service to the enumerated powers.

Separation of church and state doesn't mean you're entitled to various federally funded benefits, regardless of your beliefs. At the state level - sure.

Sexually active people are not a Federally Protected Class.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pregnancy_Discrimination_Act

required to provide disability and sick leave for women who are recovering from an abortion.[4].

Birth control is specifically for NOT pregnant women.

What's your point?

Someone that just had an abortion is also not pregnant. Regular abortions are also a form of birth control.

That still doesn't mean that sexually active people are a protected class. There are people who get pregnant without sex. There are people who have sex and cannot get pregnant.

For the record, I agree with both points you make. Preventing your employees from accessing certain birth control products because you are against birth not different from forbidding your employees from having homosexual relations because you are against homosexuality. It's wrong.

Also, indoctrination of children is an abhorrent crime. It's child abuse. It's brainwashing, fact, and there's no way to argue otherwise. Brainwashing is the word. It's instilling fear, implanting a worldview in a child while their brain is developing that will cripple and condition them for life. Sending your child every week to church and Sunday school to have dogmas drilled into their heads is tantamount to the "hypnopaedia" in Brave New World. Insidious and abhorrent, a crime against freedom and self-determination.

> Preventing your employees from accessing certain birth control products

Not providing access != prohibiting access.

He didn't say prohibiting, he said preventing. The distinction matters greatly. For lower paid people, the cost of access can to some mean a difference between eating or paying their bills and getting contraception.

Those are exactly the kind of situations where the societal cost of not ensuring access to contraceptives is vastly higher than the cost of contraceptives, so it's not just the employees that are harmed in this, but wider society as well.

This is a nice rant, more emotional than well thought out. First off there is no such thing as neutrality in this context. Whatever worldview/moral system you approve of teaching children is not neutral. You are lying to yourself by pretending it's possible to raise a child in some kind of a void.

Indoctrination to you = any time somebody teaches a child something you don't approve of.

Who is the dangerous extremist enemy of freedom? Look in a mirror.

No, indoctrination to me is instilling dogmas in a small child who is developing their brain personality and cannot critically evaluate what they're being told. Instilling your morality based on a solid reasoning is not. Compare "Stealing your schoolmate's toy is wrong. Why daddy? Because it's his and he wants to play with it. If you steal it he can't play, and he will be sad. If you want to play, ask him first for permission, and offer one of your toys too so he can have something to play with." with "There's a man who preached in the middle eastern desert in the time of the Roman Empire that will make you live forever if you are good and go to church every Sunday. Why daddy? Because. And if you ever doubt, even in your mind, he will punish you forever!". These aren't the same.

Critical thought is a beautiful thing. Brainwashing a child into accepting an absurd dogma for no reason other than authority and fear is wrong.

Why are you instilling your child with such a reverence for private property? Taking the toy could be morally justified if the schoolmate is a child of the parasitical classes. Your 'solid reasoning' is severely lacking a grounding in material dialectics IMO, you're practically brainwashing them with capitalist absurdity.

Everything you claim to be true to your children is indoctrination. It doesn't matter if its religious in nature or not. Everyone is therefore a child abuser according to you.

Have you done research on the worldview or are you just brainwashed as the ones you claim are. If you can I want you to watch this video and try to explain how this is possible

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kqo6a5n1ArQ

start around the 5 min mark.

I'm not likely to watch a >1h evangelist propaganda video, thanks. If you can give me a summary of the alleged points I'm supposed to consider, I'd be grateful.

Ok here is the point basically I think u don't believe in God....but I want you to consider on what basis you came to that conclusion was it because of what you saw or what you were told. So I am presenting to you a video which clearly shows the work of God working in this man through prophecy which you can check for yourself and decide whether to believe or not.

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