Good post, conversely suppose we said everyone must be interested in trains, we
had a huge money spinning industry devoted to informing people about trains,
trains would be introduced in school Assemblies and people went from door to
door informing people about trains. This would be an unwanted annoyance to say
the least right? Religion does all this and to top it of imposes bad law on many
countries


----- Original Message ----
From: ke1thheron <k.heron@...>
To: atheismuk2@...
Sent: Monday, 15 January, 2007 10:57:30 PM
Subject: [Atheism UK] Faith based schools

I came across this quote from Bertrand Russell earlier this evening
and think it is relevant to the discussion here:

"Every boy is interested in trains. Suppose we told him that an
interest in trains is wicked; suppose we kept his eyes bandaged
whenever he was in a train or on a railway station; suppose we never
allowed the word "train" to be mentioned in his presence and
preserved an impenetrable mystery as to the means by which he is
transported from one place to another. The result would not be that
he would cease to be interested in trains; on the contrary, he would
become more interested than ever but would have a morbid sense of
sin, because this interest had been represented to him as improper.
Every boy of active intelligence could by this means be rendered in a
greater or less degree neurasthenic. This is precisely what is done
in the matter of sex; but, as sex is more interesting than trains,
the results are worse. Almost every adult in a Christian community is
more or less diseased nervously as a result of the taboo on sex
knowledge when he or she was young. And the sense of sin which is
thus artificially implanted is one of the causes of cruelty,
timidity, and stupidity in later life. There is no rational ground of
any sort or kind in keeping a child ignorant of anything that he may
wish to know, whether on sex or on any other matter. And we shall
never get a sane population until this fact is recognized in early
education, which is impossible so long as the churches are able to
control educational politics".

I don't know exactly when it was written but as the author died
nearly 40 years ago it is depressing that we are still having to have
the same argument today.

Read the whole article at
http://www.positive atheism.org/ hist/russell2. htm








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