Comment 11 by pollracker :

I disagree with small children going to church schools and all that, but i don't think they are all horrible for one specific reason; It is because of church schools that I am an atheist. I also have a few atheist friends who received the conversion in the same manner.

The reason it converted me was upon attending the faith based school they taught me "science" which I realized made little sense. They also taught me what the bible actually says, after that it didn't take long to realize it sounded very much like a fairy tale.

So whereas I don't think Children should be indoctrinated, It might be a blessing to all of us in the Atheist community if there was some sort of some philosophical after school program for teens that taught many different belief systems. This would included of course the main religions, and may be some ancient non believed ones, and than also lack of religion and the beliefs on it. Most of us can remember a phrase from our youth "knowledge is power"

P.s.

An odd fact Disney also helped make me an atheist. I never really started thinking about the idea of other gods/ religions till I got older and watched the movie Hercules as a young teen. Is it odd I can attribute my atheist conversion to a church school and Disney.

I don't think the issue is about whether children can work out for themselves whether to be religious or not. I don't think RD's intention is that people become atheists through schooling. It's more about the fact that faith schools often teach science (esp. evolution) incorrectly and inaccurately. This leaves us with large numbers of the population who are ignorant of what's really known and how science works.

For some people, once you've left education, going back and un/re/learning things you should have learned first time round, isn't an easy/affordable option, so generation after generation we have people who don't understand or mistrust science & are open to all sorts of quakery.

The other negative point is that if youngsters are segregated based on their parents religion, we end up with a divided population, all ignorant of each other's perspectives.