Debating atheists, Part 2: Open mouth, insert foot

As previously discussed, a commenter on a site I frequented at the time, EJ, seemed to be advocating a horrific curtailment of religious liberty. Partly due to the conversation but mostly because of other real-life stuff, I made two mistakes: First, instead of staying away from the internet in my impaired state I grabbed my phone to check on new comments on the thread. Second, I had a serious case of reading comprehension fail and identity confusion.

( Read on for epic fail )

EJ's seeming stance on this issue got me wondering, though, if the prohibition on religious education was in fact a mainstream anti-theist position. If that were true then there would be a large cause for concern, so I went researching this issue. What did major anti-theist voices have to say about parents' religious instruction of children?

Debating atheists, postscript: Atheists weigh in on forbidding religious instruction of children

In the past two posts I detailed how I got into a spat with an anti-theist about his seeming proposal to ban the religious education of children, with a detour into how I was a raging asshole to another commenter. I was curious whether movement atheists had discussed the issue of forbidding the religious instruction of children by their parents and guardians outside of public school. EJ, the commenter I'd had the main argument with, had presented his position as common among anti-theists and I wondered if that was the case.

( Disturbing, coercive, horrifying, dangerous, appalling, noxious, totalitarian... So I take it that's a 'no?' )

When Richard Dawkins, PZ Meyer, Ed Brayton, and Nick Matzke, plus a host of intelligent and thoughtful readers think banning religious instruction in the private sphere is a terrible, awful, nasty, no-good idea even in the hypothetical, I think we can safely say it's very far from being a mainstream atheist or even anti-theist position. Those who advocate such a prohibition are in the distant fringe of anti-theist thought. I am at ease, content that most atheists--including the anti-theist variety--are in fact reasonable people who are firm in their convictions of liberty.

( P.S.: Religious instruction and Obama )