For Aimee's cousin John
I have been reading some things about atheism lately.
And I'm convinced.
No, just kidding, I've been an atheist all my life. I'm real comfortable with, as they say, witnessing to it. But there's this recent discussion about evangelizing for atheism.
I'm reflexively against that. Independent thinking is what got me here - why would I try to influence someone else's train of thought? However. The articles that I have been reading, by Richard Dawkins and others, make some interesting points:
- Religion is bad. It can lead people to murder. The worst a lack of belief can do is get you murdered for your impertinence.
- God is not true.
- A population that believes something that is not true - in the face of contradictory evidence - is a psychotic one.
And most persuasively: teaching little children "that there is a higher kind of knowledge which comes from faith, which comes from revelation, which comes from tradition, and that it is the equal if not the superior of knowledge that comes from real experience" (Dr. Dawkins, at a recent conference called "Beyond Belief: Science, Religion, Reason and Survival") seems, when you put it that way, to undermine our other attempts at educating them. To subvert any potential for a rational society. Certainly it serves to establish precedent for the kind of mulish credulity that has allowed great swathes of our nation to put their trust in people who have demonstrably lied to them about matters in the public interest.
I've seen this with Big Man's friends. At the risk of alienating some of the other moms, I will say that it is tremendously disturbing when a five-year-old contradicts a factual statement by an adult with some Christian claptrap.
Furthermore, it's not like the claptrap is limited to moral or peripheral issues. I might roll my eyes but I would have no essential objection to a kindergartner telling me that if she punches her brother Jesus will be disappointed. We'll all be disappointed. We allow little children to be incentivized by mythical figures - if it'll just keep her from punching her brother between now and Christmas, say.
No, we're talking death, babies, and the creation of the world - big stuff.
I have held off talking about god to my kids. Death, babies, the creation of the world - and god - when they're ready to know, they'll ask. And I fully intended, when I had to address the question of faith, to speak of diversity of belief, and appreciation of the world's mysteries, and different approaches to explaining things that seem hard to understand.
The religious of the world, however, take the opposite approach. I've had a 4 year old sing out, "I know why Jesus died!" Big Man greets this revelation with concern: "Somebody died? Was he sick?" Not only that, but these kids are learning that I - along with my unbaptized children - am going to Hell.
So fuck it, maybe I will throw in my lot with the more radical atheists here. Why shouldn't I tell my kids that god is a myth? That their peers who speak of god are being taught things that aren't true? And why shouldn't I start now?
Persuasive evidence:
1. Two recent articles, one in the NY Times and one in Wired
2. Ann Coulter
3. A song I heard out of a preschooler:
A, B, C, D, E, F, G,
Jesus died for you and me
Ha ha! You used the "word" "incentivize"!!!! At least you didn't say "incent."
ReplyDelete"motivate" doesn't carry the image of the carrot I was looking for. couldn't think of another.
ReplyDeleteand hey, I get no credit for "mulish credulity"?
I remember we were talking about how odd it is that atheism carries a stigma with it. You couldn't believe why; I believe the people that we surround ourselves with influence how we perceive the ideals of the world at large. Maybe why liberals think the world is more liberal than it is, conservatives think it's more conservative, vegetarians think vegetarianism is becomming bigger, etc. This goes for atheism as well. If everyone you tend to associate with is an atheist, then maybe you'll be disinclined to think that atheists are a minority.
ReplyDeleteIf you want to know what is really disturbing, especially in the context of what we are teaching children: the group of people I've been most uncomfortable with my atheism around is teachers. I swear they are all crazy bible-thumpers. I just don't understand it. Anyway, not only are you, your kids, and I going to hell, but everyone who isn't one particular part of one particular denomination is, too. I'm ranting here now. You probably won't read this. Goodnight.
Hey Miguel,
ReplyDeleteHave a blessed day.
Amen.
ReplyDeleteButthole.
I've been thinking about this post since i read it the other day. I'm beginning to think we need more freedom from religion in this country, not freedom of religion.
ReplyDeleteyou've made me think that i should actively 'train' my kid to be an atheist instead of just not giving him any religious training. kids mostly mimic what their parents tell them, hardly understanding the deep stuff about their brand of religion (most adult believers probably don't really think about it much either.) so my son should also be actively "brought up in his parents' belief system" which happens to be atheism. this would warrant some overt teaching about stuff, and some discussions aobut how other stuff is dumb. (trying not to get too specific here, but i hope you know what i mean.)
thanks for the links to the articles also.
Tina, thanks for your comment.
ReplyDeleteI've been thinking about this one since I wrote it too. It was the beginning of a thought process, not the end result, and it has prompted some interesting discussions with friends and family. I think I have more to say, so keep checking in.
I think part of the problem is with the categories. In other words, Dawkins et al. are choosing those aspects of religion that seem scariest to us athiestic sorts, like examples of people killing for their god or condemning certain kinds of behavior. I think it is important to remember that there are also good aspects to religion. Jim Wallis points out that many of the most positive social movements in US history (abolitionist and civil right mvmt come immediately to mind) were sparked by people's faith.
ReplyDeleteThe other side of the coin concerns what to oppose to religion. Usually people attacking religion prefer science or reason. Both of these have their good and bad sides too. Just as the bible was invoked to justify slavery, so were anthropology and genetics. And the Final Solution depended as heavily on reason for its implementation as anything else. Recent medical knowledge has been being used to define more and more conditions as outside the norm and in need of treatment.
Of course none of this gets at the truth of either religion or science. But if the objections to religion are that it can cause people to kill one another and be intolerant, well, I think its naive to blame that solely on religion. Atheists might not kill in the name of their non-god, but they've proven plenty capable of finding other reasons.
As for child raising, I really struggle with that one. When C. asks whether it's true that god is bigger than anything, do I tell her that some people believe that, or do I tell her that mommy and daddy don't believe in god? Actually I ask her who's been talking to her about god? Her response -- "Dad, everybody talks about god once in a while!" And that, most assuredly, is true!
Eric, by now you may have seen my follow-up, in which I back off a lot.
ReplyDeleteTo answer you:
It's hard for me to believe that all the Good Things Done in God's Name can outweigh the Bad. In addition, the church connection in both the cases you cite feels to me like an organizing point and not a root cause. But I don't know for sure, so I will concede.
Also, I don't feel like there has to be a discipline set up in opposition to religion. Religion and science, for example, just don't supplant each other. In fact, when religion stays in its box, the two exist peacefully side by side.
However, it's when Galileo faces the Inquisition (metaphor: I know he didn't) that we've got to pull up the reins on the church.
I am agreeing with these vocal atheists that there is a rapid expansion in this country of religious sects preaching errant bullshit to their children. Religious opposition to concepts like evolution, almost a non-issue when we were in school, is this big thing now.
Dawkins and the others have a whole lot to say, but the part I feel strongly about is: it's not acceptable to allow people to tell their children lies. Big new lies - you want to go with a virgin birth, ok, sigh, ok. But you want to tell them that people and dinosaurs lived at the same time - no. That is MESSED UP.
As for my kids, I'll go back to what I'd always planned to tell 'em: diversity of belief, mysterious world, blah blah. I hope I can make belief sound plausible, in fact - I'd like them to have a fair chance of evaluating all the options.
Meanwhile, I'm happy with the 2 tests that I came up with at the end of my followup blog entry: 1. Is it a universally-held moral value? or 2. Is it provable?
Hey P-
ReplyDeleteJust to be clear, I'm by no means claiming that the good done by religion outweighs the bad (don't even know how one would begin to measure that), just that the arguments for and against religion tend to pick those aspects (good or bad) that support their argument, as if any human institution couldn't swing both ways.
As for whether anything has to oppose religion, I don't think its really possible not to have something play this role in the argument, even if it is as nebulous as truth. When you say "as long as religion stays in its box," well, that's the crux of the argument, isn't it? Who gets what box, and what's in and out of each box, are exactly what people argue over.
Also, most of the evidence shows that there is no expansion of religion -- the number of Americans who are at least weekly churchgoers has remained stable for decades. What they ask for may be changing though.
Finally, I don't know that there are really a whole lot of universally-held moral values, at least not applicable ones. Didn't you cite "stealing is bad"? While most people would agree, I suspect that most people would also come up with examples when they thought it was okay to steal. So the debate is about exactly how the prescription applies. Same goes for provable -- by whose standard of evidence?
My point is not that religion is good, or that there is a god, or anything like that. Just that religion isn't so different than other institutions, and that competing standards (like truth and provability) can't end the argument, because they are as maleable as anything else.