Reciting a creed in a church mental coercion?

Post Reply New Topic

Is reciting a creed of some type publicly in a church a form of mental coercion especially when coupled with the idea that everyone must stand or sit at certain times and a minister can deliver a sermon without a public question and answer period at all?

---

Freedom or coercion?

Web definitions for coercion

the act of compelling by force of authority

wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn - Definition in context (Google)

Okay I'm guessing you're an atheist, I'm also guessing you are trying to get people to view religion as brainwashing and should be banned? Am I correct in my supposition?

It depends very much who you are.

To me in my atheist days it was coercion to the same degree as slowing while approaching a yellow traffic light or not talking to my neighbour in school. There was pressure to conform in outward behavior.

Hardly mental coercion, though, because it was irrelevant to my beliefs or lack thereof. When I pledged allegiance to the flag - I had no concept of the republic for which it stands, and if given the opportunity I might have asked how and why anyone would be loyal to a piece of cloth. Multiplication tables were real, but the pledge and the creed were just words.

These days the creed is actually meaningful, and I have refused [though I was urged] to say as f meaningful a statement of faith which I could not endorse.

Recitation of the creed, and coordinated standing and sitting - some churches are looser than others in these areas, but it comes down to ritual - which is very diffderent from faith. They tell us ritual is good for our psyche, and I know parents who have made up rituals just so their children will HAVE rituals.

Not so sure myself - I like some rituals, some parts of some rituals, and am very impatient with others. Standing, sitting, kneeling, pretending to sing in church is really no different - no better, no worse - from compulsory attendance at "pep rallies" in high school [do NOT start me on that!! !! !] But by and large, that sort of thing is just the price you pat for being part of society.

There IS coercion - mental coercion if you will to be in society. It is not just your grade for good citizenship [never my best area].

As for the sermon - yes, it would be great to have Q and A, a discussion session. In my teaching I ALWAYS built in a question opportunity. A few churches it really does happen.

But - I am stuck going to meetings where I am not even allowed to speak, let alone question anything. If Mr Obama does State of the Union, does he open up the phones for call in questions from Wyoming? AND not every teacher entertains questions.

I don't know - is church attendance by you compulsory like my pep rallies? If it is, be of good cheer, nobody is stuck with a given church forever.

If it is not - well go with it. Drop out, or, if you prefer, shop around. There are a LOT of churches out there, with different degrees of formality and audience participation.

And if you just do not like the pressure to conform any social setting imposes on you - I am right with you. Frankly, I conform JUST barely enough not to be kicked out [of a place I want to stay] or locked up.

Actually, I had at first taken you for one of those evangelicals espousing "soul liberty," which is an anti-creedal theology.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

Well, you're free to leave the church, and to find a more agreeable coercive force.

Honestly. If you are part of a faith or church, the creed is a reflection of what you profess to believe. If you don't, you really shouldn't be there.

Quite. I wasn't - and a great many assemblages I can't be.

I was once told by a pastor who wanted us in his church, "Hey, all you have to do is say it, you don't have to mean all of it, or you can mean it the way YOU mean it, not the way the church means it."

Sorry - can't do that. That would be like being a Democratic [or Republican or whatever, the principle is the same] legislator when you disagree with important elements of the party platform. Nobody would agree to that, right?

It is weird isn't it? I don't even like singing happy birthday with crowds.

With you there!

Really, I don't have that kind of problem would be different if I was on a stage though.

While disconncting oneself from a Church, especially given the numerous social capital networks it entails one to, is pretty freaking hard, you might have a point when it comes to adults. Children, brainwashed in the vile ideology of the Faithful, however, is an utterly different story.

I think myself and/or many other individuals could successfully argue that teaching children atheism and moral relativism is brainwashing.

How do we not brainwash our children? Songs, pledges of allegiance, chants, they are all around us. Maybe it's better to just participate like an anthropologist and reserve your inner thoughts to yourself and maybe just tell a few selected people what you really think. That has worked for me in the past. When I got a big mouth, it got me into trouble.

In the sense of weak atheism, I suppose not indoctrinating children with theism would "count" as teaching them atheism, though I'd hardly regard that as brainwashing. In the stronger, more theoretical, sense of teaching children that there is No God, that would be brainwashing. However, where have I suggested that? Honestly, why is it that your responses to my posts always contain responses to things I never said?

Going away from your false dichotomy, there's countless other options. Like...

1) Not discuss the matter until your child turns 14.
2) Do what the Unitarians do and give them an education in world religions.
3) Teach children atheism AND MORAL ABSOLUTISM
4) Teach children atheism and moral particularism.
etc, etc, etc....

I'd prefer option #2 out of the possibilities.

Those are just a few options that come to the top of my head.

Yes, true enough. And NOT teaching Post Darewinian evolution [my brother refuses to keep me posted on what the latest near consensus model is] is not brainwashing.

Two problems :

First, the educational model we have unleashed in North America [not to assume on other areas] is based to a [to me] horrifying extent on uniformitarian socialization and indoctrination [could we reserve "brainwashing" for replacing one indoctrination with another?]. Education can resolve not to deal with values - but it is the addict's quitting tomorrow, and in practice values are modeled and discussed and enforced. Education can resolve not to give instruction on religion or evolution except for presenting a comparative survey of views and practices. But [like my mother who never SAID that my ways and interests did not measure up] education cannot, seems to me, hold back from making one position or another very clear.

Secondly, NOT teaching theism or atheism or Creation Science or Evolution or Socialism or Deconstruction is not going to be a solution to anything. There are people [we have heard them here] maintaining that without Evolution all Science is crippled. There are those [I have met them] who hold as strongly that failing to present their religion condemns the young to hell. And those who believe the youth of the land need to be led out of racism or capitalism or communism or sexism, lest youth and nation prolong the darkness and misery.

Ideally - back up on the hobby horse - education would lead the learner to water and let the minds make themselves up. In my experience, a minority of teachers do that as much as they can get away with. Thank you, Ms Nesmith.

But if the minds I have seen running the world remain the majority - and Iooking over the available records of the documented millennia I see no break in the pattern - the educators WILL indoctrinate, and whoever runs the community will specify some positions, not always verifiable though peer-reviewed, as subjects for indoctrination.

Yeah, let's also skip teaching Germ Theory or Relativity, as "the Concensus keeps changing".

And, I was talking about parental options, not what the public schools should teach.