OK, this blog has now been going for three days - time to get controversial! Last Monday I watched the second part of Professor Richard Dawkins' documentary 'The Root of All Evil?', on Channel 4. In it, he proposed that indoctrinating our children with religion amounts to child abuse. This is a view I have held for some time. Can it be right to scare our children into 'being good' by threatening them with eternal hell and damnation if they transgress? As Dawkins says, we don't impose our political views upon them (or at least it is generally accepted that we shouldn't), but many people happily impose their religious views upon their children, and this is increasingly being supported by the state, which is actively encouraging more 'faith schools'. In such schools the teaching is based upon ancient religious texts of dubious origin, rather than scientifically-proven truth. Surely, this will only perpetuate the narrow-mindedness that can ultimately lead to the sort of murderous intolerance that we see almost every day in the news? I'm not saying that we shouldn't teach our children basic morals, but this doesn't have to be bound-up in religious 'mumbo-jumbo'. Let our children grow up and then decide for themselves - if we all did this then within a generation or two perhaps much of the trouble in the world would be a thing of the past. I know this is wishful thinking, but as John Lennon said: "Imagine...No religion.. Imagine all the people living life in peace..."