All I'm proposing is giving them the opportunity to make an unbiased decision as to what they believe in once they've reached the mental maturity to think for themselves about these big topics and avoid these mental trappings.
The thought of this paralyzes the theist and their favourite god, because they know deep down that their wild fantasy
requires the indoctrination of children, and the cycle would be broken.
Some thought from other great minds:
There is no absurdity, however palpable, which cannot be firmly implanted in the minds of all, if only one begins to inculcate it before the early age of six by constantly repeating it to them with an air of great solemnity. For the training of man, like that of animals, is completely successful only at an early age. (Arthur Schopenhaur)
The danger of religious faith is that it allows otherwise normal human beings to reap the fruits of madness and consider them holy. Because each new generation of children is taught that religious propositions need not be justified in the way that all others must, civilization is still besieged by the armies of the preposterous. We are, even now, killing ourselves over ancient literature. Who could have thought something so tragically absurd could be possible? (Sam Harris)
Imagine encouraging a child to participate in such 'twisted' rituals and worshiping of tortuous crucifixes and such like this from birth. No wonder we have so many hateful and sadistic people in our society. (Brent Allsop)
In childhood our credulity serves us well. It helps us to pack, with extraordinary rapidity, our skulls full of the wisdom of our parents and our ancestors. But if we don't grow out of it in the fullness of time, our nature makes us a sitting target for astrologers, mediums, gurus, evangelists, and quacks. We need to replace the automatic credulity of childhood with the constructive skepticism of adult science.
(Richard Dawkins)
Just think of the tragedy of teaching children not to doubt. (Clarence Darrow)
I am convinced now that children should not be subjected to the frightful mess of the Christian religion. If the concept of a father who plots to have his own son put to death is presented to children as beautiful and as worthy of societies admiration, what types of human behavior can be presented to them as reprehensible? (Ruth Hurmence Green)
Religions survive mainly because they brainwash the young. Three-quarters of Church of England schools are primary schools; all the faiths currently jostling for our tax money to run their "faith-based" schools know that if they do not proselytize intellectually defenseless three- and four-year-olds, their grip will eventually loosen. Inculcating the various competing — competing, note — falsehoods of the major faiths into small children is a form of child abuse, and a scandal. Let us challenge religion to leave children alone until they are adults, whereupon they can be presented with the essentials of religion for mature consideration. For example: tell an averagely intelligent adult hitherto free of religious brainwashing that somewhere, invisibly, there is a being somewhat like us, with desires, interests, purposes, memories, and emotions of anger, love, vengefulness, and jealousy, yet with the negation of such other of our failings as mortality, weakness, corporeality, visibility, limited knowledge and insight; and that this god magically impregnates a mortal woman, who then gives birth to a special being who performs various prodigious feats before departing for heaven. Take your pick of which version of this story to tell: let a King of Heaven impregnate — let's see — Danae or Io or Leda or the Virgin Mary (etc., etc.) and let there be resulting heaven-destined progeny (Heracles, Castor and Pollux, Jesus., etc., etc.) — or any of the other forms of exactly such tales in Babylonian, Egyptian, and other mythologies — then ask which of them he wishes to believe. One can guarantee that such a person would say: none of them. (A. C. Grayling)