Reply to Ummm, Parent of DS Friend told me I was using religious propaganda on their son...

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
So if anything is Christian you just immediately label that as proselytizing? Proselytizing is an action so perhaps you could speak to what aspects of veggie tales were actively proselytizing? [/quote]

"Since 1993 Veggie Tales has been helping children discover that God Made Them Special - And He Loves Them Very Much!"

http://veggietales.com/vtmain/whoweare/[/quote]

Wow. Such villainy.[/quote]

The question was not about villainy. The question was about proselytizing.

Non-religious people, by and large, do not believe that there is a God, let alone that God made children special and loves them very much, let alone that children should "discover" something that they (the non-religious people) believe to be untrue. Given this, it should not be hard to understand why non-religious people might consider "helping children discover that God Made Them Special -And He Loves Them Very Much!" to be proselytizing.

And not just non-religious people, either. Believers in polytheistic religions, for example, might consider it proselytizing, since polytheism is believing in more than one god. And religious Jews might consider it proselytizing also, since "God loves you" is not (in my understanding) a major feature of Judaism. These are just examples -- there are a lot of religions I know next to nothing about, and if you wanted to know more, you'd have to ask believers in those religions how they would feel about it.

[/quote]
Too much ado about nothing.

DH and I are agnostic/non-believers and don't care if our kids "discover" religion.  We recently went to a bar mitzvah and it was beautiful.  I was glad my kids were exposed to it.   Religion is a huge part of our western cultural heritage -- you need to know something of the Judeo-Christian faith to truly understand centuries of literature, art, philosophy, even music and politics.  This is also true of Greco-Roman faith (i.e. "mythology") for that matter!
  
Proselytizing to me means actively preaching the gospel or whatever sacred literature with the intent on converting others -- it's the people who knock on your door and want to come in to tell you the "Good News." Yes, it's harassment if it doesn't stop after a polite "no thanks." Watching a cartoon that mentions God or dramatizes so-called Christian values is not the same.  Heck, I look forward to watching with my kids those hokey 50s technicolor bible movies that come around every Easter.  To me it's the same as watching a movie of Homer's Odyssey.  If I sent my child on a play date and they watched a cartoon about Mormonism or Allah or whatnot, then I would discuss it rationally with my child afterwards if he asked questions about it.

We have a comic book about some of the Hindu gods.  It's fun! It's action filled! I don't fear my child is going to convert to Hinduism by reading it.

But if some day my kids decide to become believers of some faith, that is their choice and I would respect it.  I send my boy to scouting and don't flinch when they have to make token gestures toward a higher being.  My kids can ask me my thoughts on the matter and I'll tell them out right.  DH and I set the tone in our household, but it's for the kids to decide for themselves what they believe.  (Same with politics, by the way -- our kids know our opinions about politics, but we don't tell them they HAVE to agree with it.)

Tolerance begins at home.  Also the less you make something forbidden and secret and awful, the less appealing it will be to inquiring young minds.  If you want your child to be a rationalist when he grows up then act rationally.  This parent who overreacted about a cartoon (that didn't even mention religion) is setting herself up for a huge rebellion when her kid is older.

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