Quebec Policy On Teaching Religion — To Educate Or To Confuse And Proselytize?

A guy named Openly Atheist has posted an interesting comment to a previously reported story about Quebec government not allowing parents to exempt their children from a mandatory course on world religions. First of all, he's here to tell all the concerned parents not to worry:

Far from being something to fear - or compare to an Orwellian plot - the Quebec education program aims NOT to proselytize, but rather aims to educate students by presenting factual data about the existence of various belief systems.

Well, there are also many numeral systems in the world (binary, octal, hexadecimal just to name a few) - does it mean that our schools should teach them all as equal alternatives to the traditional decimal system? Should the children be introduced to binary and duodecimal systems before they even learn the multiplication table?

What do you think will happen if a teacher starts telling 6 year-olds that while 2+2 is technically 4, it could also be 11 in trinary numeral system and that 5x5 is not necessarily 25, because it could also be 0x19 (hexadecimal) or 031 (octal)? Would those kids become geniuses at math or would they become confused and scared of everything that deals with numbers?

Well, Quebec's "Chinese buffet" course in world religions does just that. Instead of giving the children enough time to learn about their parent's and their society's system of beliefs, it bombards young minds with at least half-a-dozen of theories, each contradicting the other. With the outcome being quite obvious to Openly Atheist:

a) many different religions are practiced around the world;
...
c) since so many divergent worldviews exist, it's clearly impossible for all to be absolutely true.

Here you go! That's exactly the impression the child will get from the course - that either there's no absolute truth or, if there is - it's too complicated to be understood. Could there be a better way to shove agnostic (if not secular) worldview down the children's throats? Could there be a better way to prepare a child for yet another dose of moral-relativist brainwashing? If this is not proselytizing - then what is?

Openly Atheist then continues:

One can't deny that, merely by living in Canada, kids will find out sooner or later about the widely divergent belief systems that exist out there.

That's right. But the keyword is "sooner or later". I'll once again bring math as an example. Yes, we do teach positional numeral systems to our children, but not before they become fully acquainted with arithmetics and basic algebra. Also, positional numeral systems are never taught as if they were equal to the decimal count. Among other things, the children learn to understand the difference between a classroom math assignment and counting the change in a grocery store.

Same with teaching "pluralism" and different worldviews. Those should only be taught once the children are knowledgeable enough about the values and beliefs of their families, their society and their nation. And - not before the children are old enough to distinguish between what people someplace far away believe in and the system of values and core beliefs upon which their own nation is founded.

Openly Atheist concludes his comment by suggesting that:

I do note, wryly, that most protesters are affiliated with one of the Abrahamic monotheisms. I haven't seen reports of atheist parents afraid that their children will be indoctrinated into believing a Bronze Age story as the literal truth.

Teaching pluralism, science and rational thinking is a good thing for our society.

Are you sure? Then why atheists are so vocal in their opposition to Christian Bibles, Christian prayers or even Christian songs in our public schools? Why can't they tolerate Christianity as they would tolerate any other 2000-year-old legend? What happened to pluralism, let alone rational thinking?

Here's the way I see the situation: Secularists are losing the demographic battle. If they let the demographic trends continue - they'll become a minority within a generation. Reversing the demographic trend is possible, but it will require secularists to renounce their views on abortion and contraception, on promiscuity and perverse lifestyles... They can't make that sacrifice. So their only option is recruiting children from other communities that haven't yet lost the self-preservation instinct; primarily - traditionalist Christians, which have one of the highest birth rates in the country.

This is not the first time secularists appeal to the young generation. Apparently their "little black book" wasn't convincing enough, so they're going even younger.