Friday, July 16, 2010

Ethical Education

Svengali ME! - Beliefnet:

"Unless you were sent to a Catholic boarding school for reasons other than religious indoctrination, I can think of several, I might suggest that your parents were neither wise or fair to you or your fellow students. I suspect the physics epiphany did not come out of the blue, but that you were familiar with the atheist alternative from your parents.

By my cosmopolitan morality of radical respect for all including religions I think are dysfunctional, I would find a different way to 'fully present the other side' than using the Catholic Church to educate an atheist's child presumably without full disclosure. By the way, why a Catholic rather than a non-denominational religious boarding school. Or for that matter why not St. Thomas Choir school?

And lest you worry about my walking the talk, I spent the better part of my adolescence trying to become a Catholic. I loved the Mass, I enjoyed the ritual, I enjoyed theology discussions with anyone who would take the time mainly Jesuits, but I never presented myself as anything but an atheist, and I never convinced the Jesuits that they were really atheists. Basically we parted on Pascal's wager. I wouldn't give up this life for the next.

The first couple of paragraphs do not need a referent, although one exists. The context is religious brainwashing of children by their religious parents.

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