Religious Indoctrinator Says Atheists Are Indoctrinating Their Own Children To Disbelieve in "God"(s)

The fun starts here:
[link]
[I wasn't able to  find this same video on YouTube]  
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In the comments section, someone wrote:
"A child is born with no concept of religion or atheism. If you promote atheism itself to your child then it is doctrine itself being implanted and can be come a form of dogmatism."
--
My reply:

"Atheism" isn't a worldview, a philosophy, or a values system.
 
It's exactly like being a non-Leprechaun-ist.

Everyone comes into this world NOT believing in the eternal King of the Leprechauns.

A-Leprechaunism is our default mode.

A-theism is our default mode.

But as the woman said, she will NOT be indoctrinating her child.

Instead, she'll educate her children to understand religious history.

She will ensure her children are properly equipped to be rational.

They will understand what propaganda is, what logical fallacies are, and how to recognize when someone's trying to manipulate them with fake data, fallacious reasoning, and emotional manipulations.

She understands that religions only thrive because they indoctrinate the vulnerable." ------------
In reply, ...

That same guy said this to me: 
"You’re smuggling a lot of assumptions in and calling it neutrality. Atheism may not be a full philosophy by itself, but teaching that gods are fictional, that religion only exists to manipulate, and that believers are irrational absolutely is a worldview. The leprechaun comparison fails because religion isn’t a fringe myth with no cultural weight. It shapes laws, ethics, communities, identity, and personal meaning for billions of people. Teaching kids only that religion is propaganda while framing yourself as the gatekeeper of ‘rationality’ is not neutral education, it’s value loading. Teaching how to think is different from preloading conclusions about what serious people should dismiss. That’s exactly where dogmatism creeps in, even when it wears the label of skepticism"

In reply, I'll address each of his assertions in the order they appear.

1. "You’re smuggling a lot of assumptions in"

--

One of us is. 

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2.

"and calling it neutrality."

--

I'm not neutral. 

Neither is she. 

Religions are all forms of governance. 

Organized into hierarchical networks, they function as forms of private government and as a mafia.  

Religion is politics with fantasy themes. 
They always want to be left alone, but they never leave anyone else alone. They systematically interfere with the lives of others. 

That is why, as Vinnie Paz points out, we "can't be neutral on a moving train". 

To go a bit further, with the same point, still using a "train" analogy, ...

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3. 

 "Atheism may not be a full philosophy by itself,"

--

It's not even partially a philosophy. Unless you want to argue that Not-Believing-In-Leprechauns is a philosophy. 

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4. 

 "but teaching that gods are fictional,"

---
The woman in the video doesn't say this. 

Just as importantly, ..

"Atheism" doesn't teach this.

"Atheism" doesn't teach anything at all. 

SOME atheists say no gods exist. 

This is called "strong atheism", "anti-theism", or "philosophical atheism".

But the woman in this video clearly wasn't employing that meaning of atheism.

She was clearly talking about the lack-theism type of atheism.

For anyone new to the English language, the prefix "a" means "without; absent of".
It doesn't mean "anti" or "against".

Both lacktheists and antitheists are "absent of" a belief that any gods exist. This is why the term "atheism" applies to both. 

Even without understanding how a prefix works in the English language, no reasonable person is going to assume she meant that human *infants* are all thinking "no gods exist". 

Nor does she say she plans to tell her kids "no Gods exist". 

Meanwhile, non-theism remains the default mode for all humans.
Nobody alive today thinks a "God" exists ... except for people who were TOLD by other humans that a "God" exists.
She merely plans to NOT do that. 
She directly clarified this. 

**However**, ...

It is absolutely NOT an example of "indoctrination" to teach a child that "no gods exist".

Again, that's not something the video talks about doing. But my point is  ... "even if" a parent were to go that far, it still would not count as indoctrination, because it would be the equivalent of teaching a child that 

a) Soul-stealing demons don't exist, 

or that 

b.) an all-powerful psychopath doesn't exist, 

or that 

c.) a child will NOT incur a curse of 7 years of bad luck for breaking a mirror.

"Gods", in the sense of meaning literal, autonomously sentient, super-powered BEING(s) who sit in judgement and threaten punishment for human thoughts and behaviors ... is a form of magical thinking.

For any children's minds that get infiltrated with that way of thinking, it can greatly handicap their ability (later, as adults) to distinguish fantasy from reality. 
[Link]

This, in turn, can make them more susceptible to con artists, abusive domestic partners, pseudoscience, predatory religions, and predatory politics. 

The "God"-guy in bibles,
...
burned followers alive (to death) (right in front of his own earthly father) for accidentally lighting his altar from an incorrect fire-source.

He violently drowned (to death) nearly every puppy, and kitten, and child in the world ... for merely inconveniently existing at the same time that "HE" was violently angry at most adult humans. 

He gave permission to Moses to kill a man who picked up sticks on God's day off.

He gave permission to Moses to kill thousands of followers, ... just to make an example of a random group of men ... who just happened to merely EXIST at the same time that random other (and only just maybe some of the same) tribesmen worshipped a golden calf.

He designed teeth, inner ears, and random other body parts to generate A LOT more pain than is needed to alert us to damage. 

He poisoned random bodies of fresh water with undetectable heavy metals, and then just quietly watched innocent people unwittingly poison themselves and their children. 

He CURSED all of Adam and Eve's descendants with serious failings, then just sat back and watched random people's brain-trains go off the rails and hurt both themselves and innocent other people.

He made a bunch of harmless, edible plants and fungi.

Great!

But then he made a bunch of super-harmful plants and fungi, didn't tell humans which was which, ... 
and then also made a lot of those super-harmful ones look nearly identical to some edible ones.

What kind of Father goes out of his way to make bottles of bleach look like sippy cups of juice, leaves them unmarked in the kitchen, leaves them all just randomly lying around, then watches secretly from afar to see which kids get lucky? 

This is Christian men forcing their families to attend the special show they like to watch on Sunday mornings.

 

 

This, in turn, makes them extra-susceptible to being lured, captured, and exploited as a cheap and disposable resource. 

This, in turn, makes them more likely to VOTE against the common good, and more likely to spread pseudoscientific conspiracies that directly harm all life on Earth.
Examples:
The idea that global climate change is a hoax, or that vaccine science is an evil plot to control them.

It is also a form of **superstition**.

Merely EXISTING as a human on this Godforsaken rock (pun intended) ... is hard enough already, without laboring under the ever-present shadow of supersitious WHAT IFs. 

A responsible parent cannot justify taking a silent or neutral stance about whether or not any threatening forms of magical entities or phenomena... are real.

 For all such things, a responsible parent must speak up BEFORE a child is threatened with such things.

Parents need to get ahead of it before any real damage is done by predatory religions, including damage threatened by other children on the playground who have been unwittingly weaponized by their parents' or grandparents' religious PSY-OP. 

It also hinders the development of ethical maturity by mentally projecting a hoverparent who is always there.

 Worse yet, "He" also has strong moral opinions (often disgust) about what that child is thinking, feeling, and doing. 

Even more psychologically invasive than Big Brother,
OmniPresent, All-Knowing, Humanity-Obsessed, Sin-Obsessed, innately violent, Father ... is always watching. 

This negates the opportunity for believers to develop autonomous strength of character. 

It creates moral-crtuch dependence, such that believers rely on divine commands and hoverparenting to treat them like 5-year-olds whose only real understanding of ethics is "Father says" and "Obedience is virtue". 

Meanwhile, they never notice that it's mere fallible humans who give Father his voice.  

We really need to stop pretending those aren't PSY-OPs.

We really need to accept responsibility for protecting children from predatory mind-hacks that target defenseless minds. 

If any literal SuperBeings want CREDIT for anything that might have done FOR US, or blame for whatever they might have done TO US, ... nobody "down here" has the power to scare them away by actively scoffing at the notion. 

Nor would it be rational or healthy for any such an Entity to play a high-stakes game of HIDE AND SEEK with us,
...or to treat our lives like a board game that has hidden and cryptic rules,
... or like a twisted gameshow where most people end up trap-doored into a raging fire (or any other eternal consequence) when their randomly timed endgame clock expires.  

Meanwhile, if a NON-threatening God happens to be real,
...
That would mean DEISTS are correct. 

Personal-God-theism would still be unjustifiable, and every deist realizes this. 

If a DEIST "God" is real, then that "God" doesn't give a shit if we think they exist or not. Nor would there be any consequence for humans who think such a "God" doesn't exist. 

It would be like living in a universe created by a magical pink Unicorn.
It would be interesting to lucky-guess it, or to otherwise deduce it. But it would be otherwise trivial to be either correct or incorrect about its existence. 

Meanwhile, it would not count as "indoctrination" for parents to teach their children that there is NOT a giant, invisible, pink unicorn hiding in the clouds, watching them, reading their minds, judging them for wrong-think, and planning to HURT THEM for failing to make a string of lucky guesses (or "dilligent investigations") about that magical unicorn. 

Nobody should have to explain this to you.

Meanwhile, the reason I keep putting the word "god" or "God" in quotes is that I refuse to dignify the notion that such a word has any potentially legitimate meaning or usage.  

To nature, we are just food.  

To physics, we are just a localized form of convergent energies. 

To the Greek gods, we are toys and pawns.

To modern monotheistic versions of "The God of Abraham", we are a UTILITY for his violently fragile, hungry, and entitled ego.
Worse yet, according to the writers, translators, and other faboys, ... they have not been allowed to honestly admit that.  

ALL believers in a literal "God of Abraham" are in an abusive relationship ... with the MEN who give him voice. 
The very fact that they don't realize that ... just makes it worse. 

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5. 

 "(teaching) that religion only exists to manipulate,"

--

She never says any of this in that video.

You are just making a stream of assumptions about what she was thinking.
In doing so, you are manifesting your personal biases about theists and atheists.  

However, I'll say it.

Religions all exist to manipulate people.

In fact, literally ALL academically qualified Bible-scholars and historians of religion will tell you this. 

There is no shortage of academic commentary on this topic. But here, I'll just arbitrarily provide an example of this:

Actually, how about one more?

Do religions have other intended purposes, and other later-developed purposes, in addition to that? 

Sure.

But that underlying purpose is present in all religions.   

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6.  

"[when it comes to saying] that believers are irrational" ...
(this claim, and the prior listed claims) are absolutely (part of) (every atheist's) worldview."

--

No.

However, those claims should be part of everyone's worldview.

It's weird to see so many atheists who haven't (yet) ADDED these points of discovery to their respective **worldviews.
[**none of which are predicated on "atheism".
-Just as nobody's worldview is predicated on Aleprechaunism] 

But given enough time, IQ, and sufficient character, ... they'd all eventually grow to include these listed discoveries about reality. 

All religions only ever worship concepts created by humans.

Also, ...

* Libertarian Free Will cannot exist. 

* "Moral authority" is a thought-stopping exercise designed to rob targets of their sense of being qualified and entitled to evaluate the merits of religious claims. 

* "Religion" isn't merely the belief that a "God" exists.
It's the belief that a GOD tells us what to do. 

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7.

"The leprechaun comparison fails because religion isn’t a fringe myth with no cultural weight."

-- 

Argumentum Ad Populum.  

Besides that, your logic is like saying we shouldn't be so quick to down-talk often-fatal viruses, because they have a long history of successful adaptations, which allowed them to spread around the world and become seen as just a normal part of nearly every society.

The idea of "this is common" or "it has been this way for a long time", ... are bad justifications for harmful systems. 

Meanwhile, you speak as if anyone needs your permission to advocate for the good health and good function of our species. 

I also find it ironic (and very telling) that you're defending ALL religions, given that:

a.) Most religions ATTACK all other religions as utterly untrue and evil. 
Why do they get a "Decry Religions As False" Pass ... but atheists don't?

b.) Those religions openly indoctrinate children (along with especially vulnerable adults). 

Mind you, I do not agree with you when you say this is what specified atheists are doing, or what they are advocating for. 
But setting that aside, ... 
Why do all religions get an Indoctination Pass ... but atheists don't?

I'm not agreeing with you about that video intended meanings.

Nor am I agreeing with you that saying "no Gods exist" counts as a form of attempted indoctrination.

But it's genuinely interesting to me that you want atheists to STFU about religions that indoctrinate defenseless minds.
In effect, (if you get your way), this shelters all religions from scrutiny and accountability for doing such things. 
-While you still insist on the freedom to scrtuniize, accuse, and hold accountable any atheists you perceive as being guilty of the same. 

You also want atheists to stop expressing personal bias as facts.
I'm not agreeing with you when you say this is happening either.
But it's still interesting that you're special-pleading for religions to have the right to behave 'as such' while simultaneously insisting atheists be held to a different standard. 

I cannot respect that.
I cannot respect or indulge your efforts to shelter those religions from accountability ... while simultaneously IMAGINING atheists doing the same thing, and then attempting to hold atheists to the very same standards you want all religions exempt from.

Meanwhile, I'd wager you are not IN "all" religions.

You're only in one of them.

And whichever one that is, I'll bet it's predicated on mostly literal interpretations of ancient religious texts.

And those texts are probably predicated on the "moral authority" of men who claimed to speak for some version of "The God of Abraham".

Right?

But you can't afford to just SAY THAT, and then reserve the "right" for ONLY your oddly specific religious faction to do all of the at-issue shenanigans.

So you try to argue for blanket exemptions for the entirety of "religion", so that your undisclosed and exclusive Special Bullshitters Club can benefit from that blanket exemption from all at-issue standards. 
-While simultaneously holding all "atheists" to the same standards that your SBC gets exempted from.

That way, your religion secures an unearned "high ground" of grossly unequal social power, where YOU don't have to play fair;
which is useful in any-and-all possible clashes with atheists. 

 It's EXACTLY the same maneuvering that clinical Narcissists do in domestically abusive relationships, when they insist on being exempt from the very standards they dishonestly accuse their intended victims of. 

Mind you, I am not saying you are a clinical Narcissist. 
But it's impossible to tell which Christians, Muslims, etc. ARE ... because their religions teach them to emulate that disorder. 
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8.

"It (believing in magic, hoverparenting, Daddies and Mommies) shapes laws, ethics, communities, identity, and personal meaning for billions of people." 

--

THAT has actually slowed down rational, ethical, and societal progress. 

Meanwhile, such persons like to **plant flags* of ownership and authorship ... into ideals and tools ... which they merely discovered someone else already having. 

 In reality, the only things we really owe to religions ... are harmful things.

None of the helpful things that societies are built with ... are things we owe to any religion.

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9.

"Teaching kids only that religion is propaganda ..."

---

Here's the thing, .. 

A good parent just needs to teach about propaganda is how to recognize propaganda + understand how it works.

If that subject is taught and understood correctly, no parents will ever need to say anything about how religions use propaganda.

The properly informed mind will automatically recognize when and why religions use propaganda.

Also, it is far too reductionist to say "religion is propaganda".

Religions are more than **just that**.

They use such insidious mental technologies. But they can't be rightly boiled down to **just that**.  Nor did the woman in the video assume they could be. 

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10. 

" ... while framing yourself as the gatekeeper of ‘rationality’"

--

No "atheists" are doing that here. 

None of us presumes to be perfectly rational. 

No human can rightly claim that.

- Least of all the criminally insane humans who created "The God of Abraham".

This isn't about perfect rationality.

This is about how various religions needlessly handicap every affected person's struggle in their quest to be as rational, ethical, and self-aware as they can be. 

Religions don't help people make progress towards rationality or ethics.

As Bishop Spong pointed out, popular religions bring people further away from their potential. 

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11.

 "is not neutral education,"

---

Educators cannot afford to be neutral when preparing young minds to differentiate health from unhealth and to distinguish reality from bullshit.

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12. 

"it’s value loading."

---
Let's have a clearer and more rational look at what is and what isn't being front-loaded here. 

Religions front-load truckloads of absolute bullshit. And they are not shy about it. 

Meanwhile, ...

The assumptions that:
* Relevant facts have positive value,
* logical reasoning has positive value,
* good health has positive value,
* extreme suffering has extremely negative value, 
* other people have positive value,
* and that good function has positive value, ...

must all be front-loaded into education.

Otherwise, we'd have no justification for educating. 

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13. 

"Teaching how to think..."

--

... is precisely what religions do the opposite of. 

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14. 

"... is different from preloading conclusions about what serious people should dismiss."

--

PROGRESS, for all humans, is only possible when we stand on the shoulders of giants. 

No human can afford to start on a fresh slate, to make sense of themselves and their circumstances.

 

"Thus far"-themed conclusions in science, history, health, etc... simply must be presented to pre-kindergartners as "facts".

Over time, growing minds should learn about matters of science and history as:
 "What is currently regarded as accurate data, sound argumentation, and resulting conclusions, ...  by the overwhelming consensus of our world's most vetted experts in these fields, pending new data and/or argumentation".

Meanwhile, many discoveries truly are (and ought to be regarded as AND presented as) ... settled matters.

Our planet is not flat.

The Earth is nowhere near being only 6,000 years old. 

Our sky is not a solid dome.

Germs exist.

Disease is not the result of magical curses.

Mental illness is not actually "spiritual illness". Nor is it caused by wrong theology, lukewarm theological commitments, unwedded sex, or demons.  

Some chemicals are volatile when mixed.

Some gases are fatal when inhaled.

Charles Manson was not the reincarnated Christian messiah. 

"Jesus" was most definitely not the prophesied Jewish messiah.  

Nor will anyone ever be. 

Nor is there any good reason to think it's a "sin" to be imperfect, nor that it's a "sin" to disappoint any religion's deity.

Nor is it healthy to measure ourselves against impossible standards.

Nor is it healthy to worry about a magical Cosmic-Parent punishing us with extreme violence for failing to take any given theological claims seriously. 

Also, ... 

Moses "as written" never existed.

The biblical exodus "as written" never happened.

The biblical flood "as written" never happened.

Adam and Eve never existed.

The mere EXISTENCE of carnivores, natural disasters, harmful microorganisms, and labor pains ... are NOT the result of a magical curse imposed by some creator-deity(ies) because a couple of naughty humans ate a piece of fruit. 

CHILDREN DEPEND ON RESPONSIBLE ADULTS ... to share what we K N O W, and ALSO to gradually equip them to eventually REVIEW and SCRUTINIZE everything we've claimed to know.

Hopefully, they end up agreeing that we were CORRECT and WISE to insist that gravity *IS* a really existing phenomenon and that they shouldn't jump, walk, or slide off tall buildings.

 If you want to think of it as "indoctrination" to tell children that magical monsters do NOT exist, and that gravity DOES exist, before they have enough mental tools to fully sort that stuff out for themselves, then fine. 

Feel free to unthink that way. But there are some facts that we simply can't afford to present to children as "maybe not facts".

 
Meanwhile, exactly ZERO (not any) atheists
(not the woman in the video,
not the man presenting the video,
and not me either) ... 
advocated for indoctrinating children into "atheism" nor against any or all forms of "God"-isms.

She specifically let us know that she specifically won't be doing that.

She specifically realizes her children will remain non-theists IF nobody has an opportunity to indoctrinate them INTO theism while they are en route to cognitive and ethical maturity.

If nobody has a chance to indoctrinate them into any personal-God-isms, she won't ever need to say a word against personal-God-isms. 

Although again, she COULD warn them about it, and she still wouldn't be guilty of indoctrinating them against theism.
-Just as warning children about germs is not a matter of indoctrinating them into germ theory, nor indoctrinating them against poor, innocent Salmonella. 

--------------------

15.

" That’s exactly where dogmatism creeps in, even when it wears the label of skepticism"

--. 

Fuzzy logic, special pleading, and undrawn lines in the sand. 

At least I can afford to be specific about where, and on what basis, I draw such lines. 

Meanwhile, the lady in the video said none of what you imagined.