My answer is "yes." C-c-combo breaker?
Parents have not just the right, but the duty of educating their own children and teaching them about the nature of the world, to the best of their understanding.
I will not take issue with an atheist parent teaching his children that religion is a silly and outdated superstition, or with a Muslim one teaching that Jesus was "merely" a Prophet, or so on — why should I? I may disagree with them, but they are honestly trying to give their kids as accurate an information as possible.
And just as I would definitely force an eventual offspring of mine to go to school and to do their homework, I would also force them to go to Church and study doctrine — call me a backwards tyrant, if you will, but I will try to equip them with the best resources available for them to live their lives with.
I would not force them to believe (how could I even do that?), nor would I punish them if they don't, that goes without saying; but they would be expected to participate to the rites, at least until they grow old enough (15-something, maybe?) for me to decide to let them do their own thing if they want.
Obviously, I think that parents should also teach the basics of the other possible positions, and point out that people who believe them can still be perfectly decent ones; but that's beside the point.
But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.Parents want their children to join the same Church, Tribe, Sports team, Political Party etc, so far, it's People Sit On Chairs.
OP was about parents divorcing and one parent joining a new Church and trying to convert the children to the new Church and whether that issue is different from the People Sit On Chairs of parents bringing up children in their own regular church where God put them.
The trouble is that "Protestant" is a catch-all for a whole heap of breakaway sects, many of which aren't even remotely similar. I mean, lumping Lutherans and Baptists under the same tent is gonna cause a whole lot of WTF down the line.
Both are there. Both are terrifying. More often than not, they perpetuate each other's existence and extremism.
My answer is "no" too. Forcing a religion on them before they are adult enough to understand all is infringing their freedom of religion.
Even more so when religions advertise themselves as an universal truth, rather than just "a religion".
edited 26th Jan '12 5:12:04 AM by Medinoc
"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."