Lately, I've been reading some of the essays of the 19th century German philosopher, Arthur Schopenhauer. This quote about the indoctrination of children strongly resonated with me.


Religion: A Dialogue, an essay by Arthur Schopenhauer. http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/22570/

He expressed similar sentiments in another essay entitled Studies in Pessimism:
http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/s/schopenhauer/arthur/pessimism/chapter5.html


Schopenhauer clearly describes my upbringing. How I managed to escape from the indoctrination of my youth is still a mystery to me.

http://www.theofrak.com/2012/04/get-them-while-theyre-young.html

So the absurdity of anti-Mormonism can be indoctrinated at a very young age? Old news.

Says the believer in angels with flaming swords demanding infidelity, and scriptures translated on glowing rocks in a hat.

The absurdity of not believing that God was so interested in one man's libido that he sent and angel with a flaming sword to make sure his needs were met?

The absurdity of not believing that the ancestors of native Americans where Christian Hebrews, when all evidence points to them being Siberians with no belief in anything related to the Bible?

The absurdity of not believing that the afterlife can best be described in feudalistic terms?

The absurdity of not believing that Masonic handshakes are so important that not learning them will keep you out of God's presence?

The absurdity of not believing that Abraham's writings are contained in Egyptian papyrus that, when translated accurately, contain no reference anything in the Book of Abraham?

The absurdity of not believing that the application of cooking oil and magic incantations can heal the sick?

Not believing in such things takes no indoctrination at all. The default state is unbelief. It takes considerable indoctrination over the course of decades to induce most Mormons to believe.

Yes. As soon as my children are 18 months old I will starting showing them pictures of Joesph Smith and telling them 'this man was a false prophet.' Then when they are a little older I will have them get up in front of large groups of people and have them testify 'I know the church is not true. I know the Book of Abraham papyrus is an ordinary Funeral document. I know Joseph Smith practiced polyandry.'
Even if they choose to reject my teachings I will force them to endure at least 3 hours of it every week until they turn 18. Also if they reject my teachings it will strain and perhaps destroy our relationship completely.

That would be the Mormon methodology for raising kids--but I think they'd want the focus to be 180 degrees differently.

Yes, along with the absurdity of a 4+ billion year old (round...not flat) planet, evolution, humans who lived before a "garden of Eden" and other nonsense.

Bcspace, when you type the word "anti-Mormon" you could as easily type the word "science". Both words are synonomous in this case.

My son is making his own decision about this kind of thing. I am a theist/deist, my husband is an atheist. At the moment my son is atheist with an absolute love of all things scientific. It's his choice. I support him in it. If he had decided that he believed in God/Jesus, as I did when I was 14, then I would support him in it.
My parents did that for me.

By the way BC, I have it on good authority that one of my active LDS friends thinks that I, I assume as an apostate, is a danger to his/her children. That is breathtakingly strange don't you think. I am more than happy for my friend to talk to my son about the church, and give opinions and even bear testimony. It's then my son's choice to investigate further if he wants to.

Individuality is an anathema to organized religion.

Doesn't describe my upbringing, or the upbringing of my children. I have, by my own choice, been exposed to literature produced by the critics of the LDS Church a large majority of my 52 years, and nobody ever told me that doubt was "the first step to eternal perdition."

Furthermore, when my son spent some time with a female acquaintance in his martial arts class, whose parents began feeding him criticism after criticism of the LDS Church, I didn't say a word to him about doubt being that first step. He requested I tell him all the criticisms of the Church that I was aware of, and I did, along with my reactions to those criticisms. He indicated that he was satisfied with my explanations.

My daughters are a different matter; they both went through periods of inactivity, though not due to any criticism they'd heard of the LDS Church; rather they both just seemed to be going through rebellious phases. Both daughters are currently showing indications they may choose to come back to activity in the future.

Not strange. Apostasy leads away from salvation and the truths of eternal life.

If you're trying to dissuade people from thinking the church is a dangerous cult, you're doing a terrible job.

For goodness sake bc, what truths?

If you're having trouble indoctrinating your kids, there is help:

http://www.troubledLDSteen.com/

Absolutely revolting, and yet I can provide hundreds - literally - hundreds and hundreds - of this exact story through Ex-Mormons. I've got too many to count on the Mormon Curtain to start. More can be found on RFM and throughout recovery circles.

Mormonism is truly sickening.

When I first saw this thread's title, I thought this was going to be one of those fun, "Breed 'em Young University" humor threads.

I was just thinking of this topic.

I saw a street preaher the other day saying that if people didn't repent they would go to hell. I kind of felt like going up and talking to the guy. See if I could get him to question what he was saying. I was with a friend so I decided not to.

I mentioned to my friend that I was once like him. Now I see how crazy you seem to everyone else. I mentioned that the poor guy was stuck in religion. My friend said the reason why he is preaching like that is because it is his personality. My friends seems to think that people that are religious want to be religious because it is part of there personality. I think this may be true for some but it was not the case with me. To be honest I really did not like to much about church but I felt like I was stuck in it. If I didn't go then I would not make it to the CK. Me being religious was not becaue of my personality it was because of being stuck in religion. I think my personality drove me to follow that religion as much as I could.

These quotes really relate to me. My parents and church members really indoctrinated me while I was young and it sure lasted a long time.

You know your not suppose to look at those anti mormon material right? If your not teaching your childern not to look at it then you are not following church council.


Did you guys watch the BofA video together and how did you explain that? I dare you to show him that video.



Have you shown your daughters what the critics have to say about mormonism?

Telling my children not to look at anti-Mormon material has struck me as being so foreign to what I'm all about, that I've never brought myself to tell them stuff like that. I'm just not the type of guy that would tell his children something like that. If that's "not following church council," then go ahead and brand me a maverick.


You can dare me all you want, for all the good it'll do you. My son asked me to explain the controversy, not illustrate it. If my son mentions the video you're talking about and wants me to watch it with him, that would be a different matter, but right now I have no plans to actually get my hands on any actual critical literature, either in video or written form.


No. My daughters have never asked me to explain the controversies like my son has.

I was going to show my kids The God Makers film but the funniest thing has happened. They just don't give a s*** about religion.

Indeed. You have to shove religion down kids' throats constantly for it to take hold. The default state is apatheism about Mormonism and every other religion.