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> A religious school that frames these values along the lines of "what G-d expects of me" would totally work for me

As a gay man who grew up religious (in public schools), “what god expects of me” was not only oppressing but also the source of a lot of self-doubt, self-hate, depression, and anxiety. (Thankfully I quickly ditched the religion and paved my own path - very content with life now!)

> I don't want my kids to "not see it"

I get where you’re coming from. But also, you can’t force kids to see things a certain way. There’s no amount of schooling or indoctrination that can force them to adopt the outcome you’re expecting of them.

Setting a good example yourself by how and with whom you parent is probably 10x more impactful than the school you sent them to.

> As a gay man who grew up religious (in public schools), “what god expects of me” was not only oppressing but also the source of a lot of self-doubt, self-hate, depression, and anxiety. (Thankfully I quickly ditched the religion and paved my own path - very content with life now!)

Okay, for you, but what about the 90% of the population that shouldn’t forge their own path? Society actually needs them to do what’s expected of them.

>90% population that shouldn’t forge their own path?

Who decides who these 90% are?

>Society actually needs them to do what’s expected of them.

You would be surprised how many people do what society needs without forcing them.

> Who decides who these 90% are?

Elders.

> You would be surprised how many people do what society needs without forcing them.

It’s surprising how many don’t. TFR for white people in LA (to use an example of a place where social norms have been upended quite thoroughly) is just over 1, and more than half the adults are unmarried. Without immigration from more religious and rigid Latin American countries, LA would be shrinking in half each generation.

>Without immigration from more religious and rigid Latin American countries, LA would be shrinking in half each generation.

i'm sure that religion is the only reason why immigrants into the United States would want to have kids.

/s There's definitely no US-centric financial/legal/immigration-related reasons, right? /s

Comparing different immigrant groups suggests it’s religious. Muslim Americans have similar fertility rates to Latinos, but East Asians have similar fertility rates to secular whites. But Muslims and East Asians have similarly high levels of education and income to each other, in contrast to Latinos.

This is a phenomenon across the developed world. Permissive western societies are outsourcing the job of perpetuating the population to Catholics and Muslims, just like they outsource industrial production to China. Permissive societies don’t appear to be sustainable without that arbitrage.

> Permissive western societies are outsourcing the job of perpetuating the population

Why does the job of perpetuating the population need to be done at all? At what levels? Why those levels? Does it matter where that population lives or their quality of life? Why or why not?

The best bet for fragments of culture, beliefs, way of life, world view, sense of morality, genetic variations, etc to exist as an average person is to have kids and instill the best parts of those values into them as a child.

If you're fine with your people's history just disappearing from the world, feel free to never reproduce.

Sure, but like, that's not what we're talking about. OP says western society is "outsourcing the job of perpetuating the population," as if there is some shirking of responsibility going on, or we all need to care about this for some reason. That's macro-level, not the personal choice to have children or not. No one is asking them to do that, so it's unreasonable to foist responsibility back on western society and then shame them for not fulfilling that responsibility.

Why is maintaining the human population at or above present levels something that so obviously needs to be done?

Maintaining a stable population in the steady state is something that needs to be done for society to continue existing. You can decide that, okay, maybe the target should be half the current population, but that just means that within a generation, those people in LA need to be having twice as many kids as their parents, which doesn’t seem plausible to me. Whatever the target is, the lifestyle of American secular whites (where the TFR is around half the sustainable rate) can either only be temporary, or must be propped up by immigration that only exists due to accidents of history and colonialism.

I’m only here with my three kids because the British colonized the country I’m from. The Latinos in LA—who are doing the grunt work of society as well the work of raising the next generation, while white people have dogs instead of kids—are only there because the Spanish were worse colonizers than the British. Secular white people tell me how wonderful their permissive, individualistic values are. But it’s like saying how great a job a government is doing when they’re running massive, unsustainable budget deficits. A value system can’t be “good,” in my view, if it can only exist because of an immigrant servant class.

Probably to fund Social Security as life expectancy increases.

>Comparing different immigrant groups suggests it’s religious. Muslim Americans have similar fertility rates to Latinos, but East Asians have similar fertility rates to secular whites

Are those Muslims from the same countries/cultures as the East Asians or is religiosity only one of a host of differences between the cohorts?

By "shouldn't forge their own path", I assume you mean something other than "should continue to ostracize and oppress 10% here, 50% there", so what do you mean?

That's what capitalism's for.

This is a very typical opinion that many religious people have about non-religious people, but I think it betrays a fundamental misunderstanding. You get your values from religion but this is not the only source of values. People readily receive values via tradition, culture, example, etc. And then there are those thoughtful (and often somewhat tortured, like myself) people who engage in a lot of soul-searching in order to develop their own set of values. A lack of religion does not mean a lack of values. In fact, judging by the behaviour of many religious people, it often seems to be the opposite.

In terms of the values you cited, such as raising the next generation and contributing to society, these are extremely common values found in a wide spectrum of society and indeed, are heavily emphasized in virtually any education system you care to examine!

I agree with your point.

One of the primary benefits (and drawbacks) of religion is that it provides a set of packaged values that are straightforward and generally work pretty well for a lot of people. Thousands of years of refinement went into the development of those packages.

They're mostly effective and convenient for a lot of people.

Determining values from first principles is hard, and there are a lot of easy mistakes along the way. You can easily find yourself trapped in nihilism or moral relativity or one of the other common philosophy potholes.

It's kind of like a happy meal vs cooking from scratch. We all know cooking is healthier and cheaper, but sometimes we just don't have time, and there's no guarantee on how it will turn out.

> Determining values from first principles is hard, and there are a lot of easy mistakes along the way.

It's a shame they decided to put a bunch of weird stuff in Happy Meals because I think you're right about this.

Not providing guidance to children is at least as bad as providing overly dogmatic guidance.

Did not expect a philosophical comparison of happy meals coming with toys versus having to wash your own dishes, but here we are.

> I meant something different by "anything goes." I am ~40 and was born in Eastern Europe -- but even in the US, back then there was still a strong value that a good life a combination of having a family and raising the next generation, ability to work to support your family and contribution to society through your work. Whereas even in "my time" these values would have resonated with the tone in a public school, I am pretty sure that's not going to be the case today.

I'm not aware of that class in the curriculum. Is it supposed to be taught during math, history, geology or sports?

// I'm not aware of that class in the curriculum.

These topics come up at the very least in: literature, history, social studies, sex ed, etc...

It may be funny to you, but consider that many Americans have encountered "men of God" who've turned out to be your garden-variety dickhead using religious fervor as a fig leaf to mask their bad actions.