November 29, 2007
In the News: Turkey Considering Prosecuting Publisher of God Delusion
In the International Herald Tribune:
A prosecutor is investigating whether to prosecute the Turkish publisher of a best-selling book by atheist writer Richard Dawkins for inciting religious hatred, reports said Wednesday.
Publisher Erol Karaaslan said Wednesday he would be questioned by an Istanbul prosecutor as part of an official investigation into "The God Delusion" written by the British expert in evolutionary biology.
The investigation follows controversy about free speech in Turkey after Nobel Prize-winning author Orhan Pamuk went on trial in 2005 over comments about historic abuses in Turkey.
Karaaslan could go on trial if the prosecutor concludes the book incites religious hatred and insults religious values, and faces up to one year in prison if found guilty, Milliyet newspaper reported.
The prosecutor started the inquiry into the book after one reader complained that passages in the book were an assault on "sacred values," Karaaslan said.
Posted by Robin Varghese at 01:40 PM | Permalink
Comments
Dawkins is accused of "inciting religious hatred" when it is believers in the various religions, not atheists who are full of hatred and intolerance. Religion is a mental illness to which millions are susceptible through early childhood conditioning. It is responsible for a large part of the suffering of people on this planet.
Posted by: Jared | Nov 29, 2007 2:17:47 PM
This case sure presents a bit of a quandry for the self-loathing western leftists who despise religion - Do they side with Dawkins' publisher, which would then insult the beknighted non-European oppressed "persons of color" who actually hold irrational religious beliefs (the Turks)? Or do they simply shut up, "pay no attention to that man behind the curtain" in the form of non-European religious fanatics, look away when Dawkins' publisher is led to the abbattoir and avoid being called names such as "neo-colonialists"?
My money is on the lefties shutting up, putting on their blinders, and saying things such as "well, it's part of their Turkish culture, and it's not appropriate for me to criticize them".
The lefties will then go back to their art galleries and marvel at the wonders of Piss Christ and Elephant Dung Virgin Mary, because it's a hell of a lot easier to insult a bunch of wimpy western Christians than taunt a bunch of angry Moslems!
Posted by: John Prester | Nov 29, 2007 3:05:51 PM
And in Sudan, a teacher is being jailed and could be whipped for allowing her 7 year olds to name a teddy bear "Muhammed." Torture, burnings, wars, suicide bombings,whipping - what a lovely thing religion has been throughout history.
Posted by: Jared | Nov 29, 2007 3:40:27 PM
Religion is child abuse. I agree with John on points of "cultural correctness" pabulum that has lowered the Left into mediocre relativism.
Call it like it is- religion is mental illness that should not be held in respect.
As Dennett has pointed out, until we break the spell of "belief in the belief" of religion, examination of this parasitic meme will be protected.
Posted by: Dave Ranning | Nov 29, 2007 4:07:05 PM
Dave, I completely agree. Religion is an insidious kind of child abuse as bad, or even worse than physical or sexual abuse. It destroys a child's ability to think logically and rationally about the world, and makes him or her susceptible to irrational claims from authority figures throughout life. Thank God for Richard Dawkins! (wait a minute...)
Posted by: Jared | Nov 29, 2007 4:31:07 PM
The level of comments here has fallen distressingly low.
Posted by: senderista | Nov 29, 2007 4:49:28 PM
"insults religious values."
Don't like it? Don't read it.
Posted by: chris plummer | Nov 29, 2007 5:19:39 PM
I wish the Turks would decide once and for all whether they really do aspire to join Europe as a modern secular state with freedom of speech and thought. If so they have to do away with this silly notion that insulting "Turkishness" or "sacred values" is criminal or even actionable.
Posted by: D | Nov 29, 2007 7:17:11 PM
Senderista, you said it.
To regard those Sudanese clerics who would flog a British teacher for allowing her very young students to call the class teddy-bear Mohammed on the basis of it being their favorite name as "mentally ill" is a disservice to everyone -- people who struggle with mental illness included.
To suggest that religious faith is tantamount to child abuse is to misunderstand what child abuse is. Hint: it's not what happened when you didn't like your upbringing or find yourself sub-optimally kitted out for a meaningful adulthood.
To separate religion from everything else that has historically occurred to put civilizations or individuals on a path to brutal and stupid actions is not a project that can be seriously entertained, whether in retrospect or in forecasting the future. History has shown us that gradually peoples (and people) leave behind their myths, replace them with others, all the while tending to inquire more and more deeply into the nature of matter and the question of first causes. This results in a world view with a mythology of its own, which renewed inquiry with better tools chips away at.
If this were the route away from both societal sickness and the anguish of individuals, we would all be living abundantly in an unthreatened biosphere, hurrying to rid our earth of nuclear weapons. Instead, at the behest of our leaders (talk about mentally ill), the most educated and "rational" among us build more weapons to point at new targets like Iran, and the bottom billion scrounge for mildewed rice and drink contaminated water. These are the fruits -- these, among others -- of our comparatively rational world: we face extinction; the builders of Chartres Cathedral feared only Hell.
Perhaps the day we achieve science without arrogance will be, as well, the day we achieve morality without faith. Until then, it can't be helpful to anyone to deride village Muslims and others for their "backwardness" when the most sophisticated among us can be moral savages blind to disastrous threats and tone- deaf to the human condition.
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Nov 29, 2007 7:46:00 PM
Elita-
"our leaders (talk about mentally ill), the most educated and "rational" among us build more weapons to point at new targets like Iran, and the bottom billion scrounge for mildewed rice and drink contaminated water. "
I agree they are mentally ill- but also ruled by superstition.
Our leader are elite's playing a last man standing scenario for a ever disappearing resource base, steeped in a superstition based economic and political system.
They are not "science or reality based"--
Elita-
You are 150 years behind the times in science- The Cartesian world of Descartes with it's mechanistic worlds of absolute freedom of God’s act of creation was quite some time ago.
Religion is child abuse.
Child abuse is the physical, emotional or sexual abuse or neglect of children by parents, guardians, or others. Many religious people believe in invisible sky daddy's that rule their lives. Mental illness is a common factor, with many abusers having personality disorder or other severe forms of mental illness.
These guardians are dangerous to their children and themselves.
Posted by: Dave Ranning | Nov 29, 2007 8:39:45 PM
I came across this thread after only just starting to read Dawkins’ The God Delusion. I am only a few chapters in but, so far, I have found the authors degree of intolerance to any form of theology to be surprising. I read for pleasure and information and came to the book as one might drop into the local for a quiet drink only to find myself in the middle of a bar room knife fight.
I suppose I consider myself to be “a bit of an atheist” but I’m not sure I’m this much of one. I wonder if the whole problem is that many of us in western cultures have come to view religion as a charming inconsequence in many ways. How different might it be where religion is still an integral part of ones life? Where it is not only the basis of law but is all of the law. Where it still determines the very reason for existence to a point where it is indivisible from life itself. Would we then forgive those who piss on the very flesh of all that we hold to be the body of life more precious than just our own? I tend not to think so.
I am going to carry on with the book mainly because I am interested to find out how I will feel on this subject at the end.
Posted by: Gordon | Nov 29, 2007 8:43:38 PM
It's interesting that this whole "child abuse/religion" discussion always seems to result in flagrant overgeneralizations.
Do *all* people who consider themselves religious, or whom others consider themselves religious, in *any* sense of the word "religious," abuse their children, in any sensible meaning of the term "child abuse"? I don't think I would go that far. Surely there are some very mildly religious, highly tolerant and broad-minded Unitarian-type parents who are perfectly willing to allow their children to grow up believing whatever they find believable. Are they to be condemned as child abusers? Come now.
And can't we come to an agreement (at least among the enlightened readers of this blog) that governments investigating publishers for publishing books and clerics flogging teachers for what their students call their teddy bears are completely unacceptable? I'm a leftist, I suppose, but I would condemn that kind of behavior in any country, no matter what its "ethic heritage." Sometimes I think the world learned nothing from the history of the Nazi era.
Posted by: JonJ | Nov 30, 2007 12:21:23 AM
It's interesting that Turkey's freedom of speech may be loosened in lieu of pressures to join the European Union.
Kinda exposes some hypocrisy, doesn't it? Are their laws based on God's will, or economic benefit?
Posted by: beajerry | Nov 30, 2007 12:43:56 AM
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/11/29/jehovahs.witness.ap/index.html
Please tell me again why religion isn't child abuse.
Posted by: anon | Nov 30, 2007 8:52:11 AM
Dave,
I wouldn't go throwing around words like "mental illness" until you've gotten a little better handle on punctuation and spelling, especially when it comes to the names of long-standing members of this little community.
Sanity, in the end, is mostly breathing. What's the hurry?
Posted by: Chris Schoen | Nov 30, 2007 9:52:03 AM
"And in Sudan, a teacher is being jailed and could be whipped for allowing her 7 year olds to name a teddy bear "Muhammed.""
At least she won't be executed:
http://www.timesdaily.com/article/20071130/API/711300619&cachetime=5
But please, let us give more respect to these very sane and reasonable beliefs!
Posted by: anon | Nov 30, 2007 10:14:20 AM
Anon,
Who are you addressing? Nobody here has called the Sudanese clerics sane or reasonable.
Posted by: Chris Schoen | Nov 30, 2007 10:55:34 AM
Just one problem equating religion with child abuse -- to my eye, the main one -- is that, as an argument, it lacks cogency. It's up there with other catchy but almost meaningless equations such as "Happiness is a warm puppy." All I can answer to the latter is that happiness is probably not a cold puppy, but that in no way supports the original equation, because we are dealing here in hyperbole, metaphor, sloganeering, and extremely broad-brushed readings of human experience.
Anon, I have seen in your compendious comments under other threads that you are mighty fond of logic, so that when you make an argument that can be supported with ghastly anecdotal evidence ("Look, here's a cult that abuses children..."), but which, extrapolated to the world historical level, indicts as child abusers most people who have ever lived along with most who are living now, this drastic revision of what proper nurture is amounts not to a logical inevitability but to the kind of big moment one associates with revealed religion. In other words, its a sweeping opinion -- one that would be understood, if hardly assented to, by the kind of religious thinkers who know utterly and insist loudly that infidels must die.
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Nov 30, 2007 11:12:12 AM
Thanks, Chris, for suggesting to Dave that he spell my name -- among other words -- properly. It couldn't hurt his cause to look more careful.
Dave, about your comment of yesterday, addressed to me (I guess!), I only really mind one thing. Perhaps in order to take issue with its content, you have excerpted an incomplete sentence from an earlier comment I made. The excerpt:
"our leaders (talk about mentally ill), the most educated and "rational" among us build more weapons to point at new targets like Iran, and the bottom billion scrounge for mildewed rice and drink contaminated water. "
The sentence:
"Instead, at the behest of our leaders (talk about mentally ill), the most educated and 'rational' among us build more weapons to point at new targets like Iran, and the bottom billion scrounge for mildewed rice and drink contaminated water."
The incomplete sentence in the excerpt suggests I think our leaders are the most rational and educated among us, while also mentally ill. In what I actually wrote it is clear that I think the most educated and rational among us are scientists, who do terrible things at the behest of our dangerous leaders. The implication is that they should know better, and would know better, if science and rationalism amounted to promoting a better moral life than faith.
Dave, I make a lot of typos too -- everyone does. But thanks for being more careful when you quote me.
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Nov 30, 2007 11:48:47 AM
My neighbors teach their children that people come from Adam and Eve and that the world was created by God a few thousand years ago. I teach my 7 year old son that the universe is billions of years old and give him books that contain the evidence for this. Our neighbor's 8 year old child plays with my son, but once said to him we are "on the dark side". She, on the other hand, knows the truth. I consider that she is being psychologically abused by her ignorant parents into believing lies and delusions. Not only is she being abused, but she is learning to be intolerant of all those who do not share her "true" faith in Jesus. An 8 year old child is in no position to judge the validity of what her parents tell her. This is how the virus of religion is passed on from generation to generation. Is "religion equals child abuse" as sweeping generalization? Of course, but it is a true sweeping generalization.Please explain to me how teaching children lies and intolerance of those outside your faith is not child abuse.
Posted by: Jared | Nov 30, 2007 11:57:24 AM
Jared, you sound like a perfectly decent guy, and I'm sorry your child was exposed to judgmental and parochial thinking on a play-date. If you took that opportunity to show your child what tolerance of opinions you don't agree with is, then it was a teachable moment. I'm sure you didn't tell him his playmate's people were crazy and backwards, putting their rotten trip on her and, by extension, on him.
That little girl will grow up to believe a lot of claptrap -- or not. I've been unfaired against by some "ardent" Christians, too, and it's anything but pleasant. I think they're backwards and frightened, but if they'll leave my civil rights and my human rights alone -- as I will theirs -- then it doesn't matter to me what their nasty metaphysics are. If, without cruelty or neglect, they raise their children to be law-abiding, productive and moral beings, all of which can be discerned by the actions of the children as they grow up, then -- sadly -- they can fill the kids' heads with all manner of woo, and it's not my business or the State's. We need to think awfully hard before we'd want it any other way.
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Nov 30, 2007 12:27:05 PM
Chris & Elatia---
Point well taken. I will try and be more mindful of my careless and sloppy style.
I agree the scientific community should consider the moral and physical implications of their work. The current Neuropod from Nature explores this, and examines the abuse of scientific work when it comes to warfare.
And yes, Jared, religion is child abuse, as you correctly pointed out.
Posted by: Dave Ranning | Nov 30, 2007 12:35:01 PM
Elatia, I could read your comments all day. To me they are like a thousand warm puppies. But you are really going to catch hell for writing that scientists do terrible things. Scientists only do wonderful things. By definition! Terrible things are only done by clerics, (and those who are in their mysterian sway.) Who never use science. Never have and never will. Other than that, great post!
Jared,
The term "sweeping generalization" refers either to a form of sloppy thinking, or rhetorical dishonesty. If you want to maintain that your formulation (Religion=Child Abuse) is true, you'll want to say something like "it's not a sweeping generalization, it's a finely reasoned argument," and then point to something more than a couple anecdotal examples (that goes for you too, Anon).
Parents poison their children with all sorts of horrible crap. Some teach that people with different skin pigments are evolutionarily inferior. On the other hand some teach humility, compassion and respect. Shockingly, some of these people refer to scripture as their authority for these teachings.
You don't need "religion" to mess up your kids, and you don't need to shun it to nurture them. If you want to speak out against hatred and intolerance, please do, but please don't tart up your argument with specious putdowns just to make yourself feel more important.
Posted by: Chris Schoen | Nov 30, 2007 1:01:15 PM
Chris-
Yes, children can be "poisoned" in may ways, it's just religion is one of the most prevalent and effective ways.
Elatia brigs up the essence of the problem. What rights do these delusional and dangerous people have within a society? How do we protect our fellow humans from harm, but still maintain the freest flow of actions and ideas? These are questions that need to be examined, and I don't pretend to have the answers.
Posted by: Dave Ranning | Nov 30, 2007 2:00:34 PM
Chris, your line "please don't tart up your argument with specious putdowns just to make yourself feel more important" is offensive, uncalled for and a sure sign that you are aware of the weakness of your argument. As for "sweeping generalization", it does not mean "sloppy thinking". Here is a defintion:
Sweeping Generalization: This fallacy is committed when a general rule is taken to be universal, and the possibility of an exception (or accident) is ignored (rather than the fact of an exception being ignored, which would be a Suppressed Evidence argument).
For example, "birds can [normally] fly" is a general rule, and doesn't imply that all birds (such as emus or penguins) can fly. To take this general rule and apply it to all birds would be committing a sweeping generalization. It follows from this that a sweeping generalization is something which is true is most cases. Most birds do fly. Most religious indoctrination is a form of child abuse. I am therefore using the term sweeping generalization correctly. It is well known that in a debate the first person to resort to insults has lost.
Posted by: Jared | Nov 30, 2007 2:14:47 PM
Jared (Post #1): "Religion is a mental illness"
Jared: "It is well known that in a debate the first person to resort to insults has lost."
My thoughts exactly.
Posted by: Carlos | Nov 30, 2007 4:26:39 PM
"Relgion is a mental illness" is not an insult, but a fact. People who talk to imaginary beings, feel the universe was created especially for them and think that they will go on living after death are, in my opinion, mentally ill. The worst thing is they pass this illness on to their children. If this is taken as an insult, I can't help that.
Posted by: Jared | Nov 30, 2007 4:39:15 PM
Jared,
But the interesting question, I think, is whether most religious parents perform a kind of indoctrination that could be called "child abuse."
My mother was a not-very-strong Quaker, from a multi-generational Quaker family. My father was completely unreligious (my mother once said that his religion was crabgrass, because he spent his Sundays pulling the weed from our lawn). My mother could be called a religious person, but not at all an "abusive" one. While she did take me to Sunday school when I was too young to resist her guidance, I don't feel that I was "abused" in any sense. And I certainly grew into a strong atheist. Of course I did not grow up in the kind of religious environment that intense evangelical and fundamentalist believers' kids live in, but a lot of people grow up in environments that are very different from this intolerant evangelical-fundy sort of picture that seems to be commonly thought of these days as typical of all religion. (In fact, I think you will find that a certain number of evangelicals and even fundamentalists are more tolerant than you might think.)
I would say that the flat statement that "religion is child abuse" is indeed a sweeping generalization, or as I called it, an "overgeneralization," because there are lots of people like my mother (including some with stronger religious convictions than she had). Unless you want to call them irreligious (and fundies probably would), you must admit that a lot of religious parents are not at all "abusive." What are the percentages of "abusive" and "non-abusive" religious parents? I have no idea, and I doubt that the people flinging the "religion=child abuse" slogan around have any idea either.
Posted by: JonJ | Nov 30, 2007 4:51:19 PM
The Pope has weighed in. Have fun.
Posted by: Ruchira | Nov 30, 2007 4:53:04 PM
Jared,
When I'm aware of the weakness of an argument, I tend not to make it. Whether that makes me humble or oblivious is not my judgement to make.
Generalizations, sweeping or otherwise, can be constructed from any premise. Sometimes they end up being shown to be true, sometimes not, but the very act of induction itself is not some kind of crucible of truth. In fact it almost always invites error, since the world prefers not to fit into our tidy categories.
Your example of flying birds is not as illustrative as you'd like it to be. An important part of the definition of a bird is "a thing that flies." The counterfactuals, like penguins, are descended from birds that once flew; they've moved on to bigger and better things, but they haven't forgotten where they came from. So we're just a hair's breadth away from tautology here.
Generalizing from robins and sparrows that all birds fly would prove "true" in the sense you mean it-- predominantly, but not exclusively true. But generalizing from ostriches, emus, kiwis, rheas, cassowaries, or penguins that "no birds fly" would not be true in any meaningful sense. Nor would the generalization "anything that flies is a bird."
It seems clear enough to me that, having pre-defined "religion" as a toxic, viral mechanism of hate and intolerance, you find it a matter of some ease to "prove" the truth of it with selected case studies. But we can play duelling counterexamples all day. I'd put forward Dorothy Day and the Buddhist monks of Burma, you'd respond with, perhaps, Pastor Ted and Torquemada. Neither one of us would be treading any new ground, but it might be fun, if you have some time to kill.
We hold a high standard for child abuse because it compels us (as a society) to interfere with one of our most cherished liberties: to live privately as a family, clutching at whatever happiness and fulfillment we can muster. Merely disapproving of someone else's belief system is not enough cause to break up a family. If it were child abuse to make your kids intolerant, neurotic, irrational, or emotionally volatile, we'd almost all of us be wards of the state.
Unless you think that every child that grows up in a church/mosque/synagogue-attending home is going end up psychotic, your religion=child abuse formula is just reckless hyperbole. I don't think you'd get much argument from anybody in virtual earshot that there are some mean and nasty strains of fundamentalism out there. But to isolate your own in-group as the only sane going-concern puts me in mind of the Douglas Adams character who put up a shed on the beach; the four interior walls of the shed were actually the exterior walls of "the asylum." It's a charming idea as a piece of political theater, but just a tad immodest if taken too seriously, wouldn't you agree?
Posted by: Chris Schoen | Nov 30, 2007 5:37:50 PM
Let's go all in on this one. Sorry for all the big words: Spe Salve/Inglese
Posted by: Carlos | Nov 30, 2007 7:04:22 PM
Hey Carlos:
You weren't happy with my Reuters version?
Posted by: Ruchira | Nov 30, 2007 7:30:55 PM
Always better to read the original, but I appreciated the link.
Posted by: Carlos | Nov 30, 2007 8:17:38 PM
Chris, my comments weren't addressed to anyone in particular.
Perhaps I need to preface all of my comments with the following: Not all religion is bad. Some things besides religion are bad. Not all religious people are insane. Some people who aren't religious are crazy. And so on and so forth. Let's not get into these lame arguments about not making the proper qualifications of "some" or "sometimes". What I usually mean by "religion causes X" is that "religion causes X because religion is defined by qualities A,B,C and A,B,C directly caused X". If you'd like to counter-argue, it needs to be of the form "A,B,C didn't cause X" or "A,B,C don't define religion", not in the form "aspect D of religion didn't cause X" or "this other thing causes X too". Because I'll agree with those last two statements--however, they are beside the point.
Let's examine the main cause of the following:
* Turkish publisher's prosecution
* Jehovah's Witness's suicide
* Sudanese execution call
There may be other contributing factors, but these seem to me to be the direct result of
* insulting religious values
* interpreting the Bible to mean no blood transfusions
* using the prophet's name for a teddy bear
i.e., religion, religion, religion. And these are not inconsequential things; the last two are literally life and death.
Now, the neighborhood church's quilting group didn't cause any of these things. I agree. Some instances of religion are benign. I agree. But that's beside the point. Agreed?
I gather your view, Chris, is the something like: "Yes, but there are some good parts of religion. Let's keep those and throw out the bad parts."
The problem with this is simple. How do we determine is good and which is bad? How can we justify these revisions? The logical justification for the good stuff is exactly the same as the justification for the bad stuff: the Bible or the priest (or whatever religious text or authority). The ultimate justification, of course, is not a reason at all but the dangerous and irresponsible notion of faith.
Instead, our justification should be based on evidence, and thus our conclusions should always be tentative, always be open for debate and revision. And if we do admit that religion doesn't tell us how to distinguish good from bad, then it should stop being a source of morality.
Elatia,
"If, without cruelty or neglect, they raise their children to be law-abiding, productive and moral beings, all of which can be discerned by the actions of the children as they grow up, then -- sadly -- they can fill the kids' heads with all manner of woo, and it's not my business or the State's."
I disagree: children have rights--their parents don't "own" them. I'm curious why you say that we can interfere in cases of cruelty or neglect, but not when they fill their heads with woo? Isn't the whole point that we (as a society) have a duty to intervene on behalf of the child's well-being? You seem to agree that we are responsible for the child's physical well-being--but shouldn't we also then take responsibility for the child's mental well-being?
PZ Myers said it succinctly today: "Religion is a bad thing. It encourages people to believe in things that are not true. It really is as simple as that; we'd be better off if people valued truth over comfortable delusions."
Posted by: anon | Nov 30, 2007 9:06:43 PM
I have been burnt several times trying to defend atheism and rationality. This is one case where I cannot articulate very well what is on my mind but I know on which side I would rather err.
My question here is directed towards Elatia and Chris Schoen whose opinions on most other matters I tend to agree with.
What is it that you find objectionable with the atheist point of view? Is it the way Jared and Dave Ranning (or for that matter Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens et al) present their case, their shrillness, "sweeping generalizations" and tone? Or is it the argument itself that you object to?
Like Jon J. I was born in a household where my mother was a gentle believer and my father an atheist. In fact the extended family contained a good mix of both persuasions. My exposure to religious texts, rites, rituals was quite extensive and pleasurable. I still remember my mother's lovely domestic shrine where she offered a chaste prayer every Thursday evening and on High Holidays. The chanting, the incense and later the "blessed" sweet offering that she distributed were rituals we all enjoyed. Neither parent tried to persuade either me or my sister to tilt toward belief or non-belief. But my sister and I (both non-believers in our adulthood) looked outside the home and saw the toxic effects of religious orthodoxy on the plight of women, lower castes and vitiation of the political process. I was born in independent India but my parents and my parents in law lost their ancestral homes in the bloody partition of India brought about by sectarian carnage. In adulthood, having weighed matters for ourselves we found no good reason to become believers. Turning away from religion was made easier by the non-hypocritical, courageous, ethical and even humorous life style of atheist elders.
Had my sister or I been preached to constantly and been told from early childhood that not believing in god would condemn us to eternal suffering, we may not have had such an easy path to our choice. I don't know if that would have amounted to child abuse but it certainly would have contributed to irrational fears, no different than faulty messages about sex, gender hierarchy or the caste system.
So, let me ask Chris and Elatia that for those of us who sincerely believe that it is harmful to fill up our children's heads with things we ourselves are not sure of and will never be able to prove, how can you ask us to not flinch when we see little children smugly learning things on the basis of which at least some will look down on others, consider themselves "chosen people," deem others unclean and likely to burn in hell or be compelled to wage holy wars? Will it be okay with you if we continue to believe that even if it is not child abuse, it is at least harmful like poor nutrition consisting say, of a steady diet of fried food even when it is served lovingly?
It is easy to pick through the china cabinet of religion and point to its exalted qualities. But the truth is that outside the enlightened west (and even there) religion as a basis for politics and social justice is an instrument of oppression and curtailment of rights. Individual religiosity for peace and therapy is not what most atheists find repulsive. It is the collective tribalism which infringes on rational discussions of public policy that cuts us to the quick.
Where do you draw the line? When an atheist is sexist, racist or a homophobe we can safely call him or her a jerk because he has nothing to hide behind except his / her personal proclivities. But when the religious do the same, we look at the scriptures and try to "understand" where they are coming from and cultural relativism sets in.
As for scientists and other rationalists having offered nothing better in terms of morality and ethics, I do not agree that it is the case. I don't think a serious debate has occurred in the public square. And even if they haven't, do we keep looking back at a flawed model to carry us through life? If my car keeps blowing up after every thousand miles, should I keep going back to the dealer for the same model just because a better car is not yet on the market? Or should I put myself through some inconvenience and try walking?
So is your anger just at our "unpolished" tone and that we haven't yet built the Cadillac of our conviction or do you object that we dare to not belive and wish to seek a better vehicle?
Posted by: Ruchira | Nov 30, 2007 9:54:02 PM
Anon,
You will never find me agreeing that "religion" can be understood as entirely distinct from other cultural forces at work in causation -- that's just not my reading of history. The most florid, horrifying instances of religiosity run amok, from the slaughter of the Cathars ("Kill them all -- God will know His own.") to 9/11, demand to be understood in a more nuanced way if they're to be understood at all. If that were not so, then we could get up a Red State faction right here, and declare that 9/11 was caused by Islam's sway over primitive minds, when it is far likelier that not-so-primitive but quite canny minds used Islam most treacherously to figure forth their own rageful and apocalyptic visions.
I'm not an apologist for religion -- as absurd a position to be in as that of a "foe of religion" -- I'm just a reader of history who tries to avoid the simple-minded in favor of more accurate if less easy answers. Your quotation from PZ Myers shows that, if he is involved in a similar struggle, today was not one of his more victorious days. Because "it" is really not as simple as that.
Now, about society's obligations to children when the adults who raise them fall down on the job of making them smart and free. The day that you and I can disrupt a family for raising superstitious, incurious children is actually the very same day that ardently religious citizens can march in on you and me and and fix us for raising our families Godlessly. The only difference is -- which faction is ascendant? Freedom of religion encompasses the freedom not to be religious, and in a week of teddy-bear floggings and insults to Turkishness, we should be happy and grateful that that is so. Even if the Jehovah's Witness who died needlessly -- we would say -- made strange use of his Constitutionally guaranteed freedoms, they were his, and he was free to misuse them. Where you and I are doubtless in agreement here is that it would be extremely abusive of a child's rights and his young mind to teach him "Creation Science" in school. But that's a whole different legal and moral argument.
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Nov 30, 2007 10:09:17 PM
Ruchira, you and I were writing at the same time.
Don't know about Chris, but I came to this blog later than you, and it may be my personal metaphysics are not yet apparent to all via inference. I am a non-religious person brought up in a non-religious way, but that is not to say I don't believe all kinds of things for which the evidence is highly dubious. At least I know it. And, I went to a Catholic school, which for a time was where a good education could be had in my Bible Belt city. I never became a non-believer by decision or by some other more gradual process -- I just never actually believed most of what I heard under the heading of religion. But I found it extremely interesting, and still do.
It would be very hard to love art and music and literature and yet find religion trivial or offensive or dispensable with. Karen Armstrong -- none too religious herself these days -- wrote about 15 years ago in _A History of God_ that if a human were not called homo sapiens, he might just as easily be called homo religiosus, for God-seeking is what we do. Those who see a vastness, a grandeur and a totality to science are doing it, too -- they are allowing themselves to be borne up by what they find infinitely precious, and they experience awe. They should be careful, then, not to deride the religious experience, for they are in their own way partaking of it whenever they lose the power completely to describe or convey intellectual rapture, whenever they feel like falling to their knees.
My problem with Dawkins -- other than with one or two of his personal characteristics, which are tedious, and which he shares with many other stellar academics -- is his fantasy that his thinking on religion is wholly rational. You don't need to read Dostoyevsky, only to watch "Star Trek," to know that utter rationality is not what humans do. Utter rationality is a construct, along with perfect justice and absolute fairness: we need to strive for these things knowing they will not be achieved, but that in striving our humanity is brought forth in ways that will almost certainly never make us ill with remorse. Dawkins did say something highly, attractively rational in an interview not long ago -- he admitted that the most anyone could ever really be was agnostic. No, he wasn't backing down from his atheism -- just clarifying that sticky point about not being able to prove a negative.
If it sounds like I'm defending religion, I'm defending it on the basis of its being an innate aspect of the human experience, not a whimsy that can be extirpated, and certainly not a strand in the chain of causation that can be teased out and separately blamed for the awful things done in its name. Hideous things have been done in the name of love and in the name of honor, yet no one suggests love and honor should -- and will -- cease to bind or motivate. Who to blame, then? For things go wrong, wrong, wrong when faith and love and honor come into play. When this happens, why do we not blame fear, and greed and vanity? That would locate the problem where it belongs, in our own flawed hearts.
As for cultural relativism -- yes! don't we all bend over backwards trying not to condescend to, and execrate, people or whole cultures we find primitive and harmful. Maybe we're trying to correct the attitude that we associate with colonialism. It's a struggle, seeing people who are not like you, who represent and cleave to things that you hate and perceive as disastrous to them, as nonetheless not worse than you. But it's a struggle we have to be fit for, because, historically, seeing them any other way is a prelude not to helping them but to destroying them.
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Dec 1, 2007 12:27:13 AM
Elatia,
I agree with a lot of what you have to say, but I think that calling religion "an innate aspect of the human experience" is going a little too far.
It seems clear to me that it is perfectly possible to live a completely non-religious life, in the ordinary sense of "religion," from cradle to grave. Many people do. If so, religion can't be called "innate" -- it's not "born into" Homo sapiens like, for example, the capacity for speech.
True, all sorts of emotions and irrational mental functionings are "born into" us, but to call all of them "religion" is to stretch the denotation of the word so far that it loses most of its meaning. Religion, I would say, very roughly, is the belief that there is some sort of supernatural being or beings with magical powers to take care of us and provide miraculous salvation from the ills of life, from diseases to droughts to death itself. In that sense of religion, it is not impossible (in the modern word, with a secular culture available at least in the more favored parts of the world) to live without religion.
True, we humans need the emotional side of life, and all of the art, music, and so on that goes with it, besides "pure reason." But I would argue that what reason can do is make it clear that it is very hard, to say the least, to assert that a Supreme Supernatural Being exists without committing numerous mistakes in reasoning. And many people (perhaps even most people) really don't attach that much importance to avoiding mistakes in reasoning, which is why the belief in the Supreme Being continues to thrive even in this era of science.
What we do with our lives after we reach the conclusion that the existence of a Supreme Being is illogical is what the secular way of life is all about. In other words, atheism to me is a purely theoretical, philosophical matter. I would fully endorse Goethe's saying: "Gray, dear friend, is all theory, and green life's golden tree." If anyone wants to cling to a poetical, artistic sort of religion because it gives their life a meaning they can't do without, be my guest. Just don't try to tell me it's a correct description of reality. I'll trust rationality to give me that.
By the way, it occurred to me the other day, while listening to Bach's B minor Mass, that the close connection that many people want to assert between art and religion is very questionable. What occurred to me was that one can fully appreciate the beauty of Bach's music without the specific words that are usually sung to it. The music would be exactly the same if one substituted some purely Darwinian or Dawkinsian or Hitchinsian text (there's an alarming thought!). Similarly, one could take any Crucifixion painting or Pieta from the Renaissance, etc., and attach a story to it along the lines of "here is a depiction of the sad story of a martyr to the sacred cause of Rational Enlightenment executed by religious fanatics," and it would still be the same painting. (Again, I suppose, a horrible idea. I apologize to art lovers everywhere!)
Posted by: JonJ | Dec 1, 2007 1:36:52 AM
Thank you Elatia for your thoughtful reply.
The mistake here is the all-or-nothing scenario we suspect the other of promoting. Anon explained it quite well in his comment above mine.
The fact actually is that most atheists or rather agnostics, because the former can be a dogma too, do not so much scoff at honor, love, wonder and quirky personal beliefs which can be irrational and can sometimes lead to mayhem. It is attaching those emotions to the workings of an agreed upon mythical presence one can neither prove nor disprove and which then provides a shield for our own gifts, frailties or our crimes, that is troubling.
Humans will never be perfectly rational - that would be quite inhuman. Why then do we need to conceal that by hiding behind the skirts of an imaginary infallible force which gives us the license to couch our irrationality behind the veneer of "rationality?" Perhaps it is the religious who consider irrationality an imperfection. Organized religion is actually a very systematic and "rational" discipline if you leave god out of it. It is about power and control - even if individual religiosity/ spirituality is not. But not much individualism is permitted under conventional religion, is it? Apostasy, heresy and "cultish" tendencies are sins. And all the answers are in the Books.
I doubt also that "rational" automatically means simplistic or lacking nuance - no matter what PZ Myers says. Everyone in fact is not looking for a simplisitic and comforting final answer. Perhaps there is none. May be life is all about wonder, mistakes, missteps and quest. The non-believer is more likely to be at peace with that scenario than the devout for whom the final word came long ago and was set in stone.
I also don't think that rationality is on the ascendency. Perhaps in western Europe and Japan. Even in Europe the collapse of the USSR has led to new found religiosity in eastern Europe. India after independence, under the leadership of rationalists (but dreamers) like Nehru truly wished to follow the secular path. Sectarian distrust and orthodoxy are far greater among the educated urban young than was common during my youth. And what about the middle east? Or even the US? Was wearing one's faith on one's sleeve such a common political, public practice just two or three decades ago? So I don't really know which trend is gaining ground, Messrs. Dawkins, Dennet and Hitchens notwithstanding.
Posted by: Ruchira | Dec 1, 2007 1:47:59 AM
Anon,
I don't know why, but I like you. Let me say here (and as a preface for my response to Ruchira to whom I will respond separately) that I don't agree that it is a simple matter of separating the good and bad parts of what we keep sloppily referring to as "religion." What we are actually referring to is metaphysics, from which no one is free, from which no one can be free. If you think a Dawkinsian worldview escapes the need for metaphysics you aren't reading closely enough. The selfish gene theory, which to this day continues to be the underpinning of all Dawkins' writing, including TGD, is as much mythography as science.
To say that justification for any given idea must be based on evidence is to forget that at the bottom of every idea is a system into which that idea is integrated. There must be a bottom, a foundation, for more complex propositions to rest upon. For Dawkins (and so many others) that fundamental idea is atomism. It's such a major underpinning to modern rational thought that it's hard to see it as a fundamental mythology or metaphysics, but when one examines it systematically, in comparison to other metaphysical schemes, one can begin to consider it as an argument rather than a given, and this is where history, philosophy and anthropology come in handy.
Here I must pause to say there's really no reason for me to try to re-articulate what Elatia has already said so well, except for the improbable chance that the cut of my rhetorical jib is more accessible to you. And I can elaborate on any of these concerns if you wish, but it's late, and I don't want to second guess which parts you'll want to quibble with.
I am not arguing, and would never argue, for an appeal to authority. I am in unconditional support of each individual being the best possible agent of her or his actions. But, as Elatia wrote above, we are, in this culture free to choose our worldview. In the US, in particular, we are encouraged in our founding documents to pursue "happiness," which is not the word I would choose, but it gets the point across that we all must work out personally what shape this might take.
I believe it would be better if Turkey did not prosecute, or persecute, publishers of any book, by Dawkins or anyone. And I believe the Sudanese effort to punish the English schoolteacher who well-meaningly named the teddybear Muhammad is indefensively naive and ignorant to the realities of a global world. But national sovereignty does still count for something, and there is a difference between disapproving of something, and demanding the whole world conform to one's views. As for the JW boy, I'm a subtle shade less comfortable than Elatia with considering an 8th grader the master of his own fate, but if we imagined for a moment that he was safely beyond the age of majority, the question of whether he had the right to live or die on his own terms would become moot. We might consider him a fool, but not a victim. At some point all children become adults, and responsible for themselves. Whether we are first generation atheists, like myself (or Richard Dawkins), half first-generation like Ruchira or JonJ, or 2nd generation like Elatia, we are all beneficiaries of the decision made somewhere along the line to consider for ourselves what is best. If religion was the horrible virus some would cast is as, we'd all be animists like our great-great-great-etc. forebears were. We all, as adults, make our bed and lie in it.
Posted by: Chris Schoen | Dec 1, 2007 3:07:41 AM
Ruchira,
Being an atheist, I assure you have no problem with the atheist point of view. But atheism does not mean anti-religionism, it just means non (Or, I suppose, anti-) theism. In the end I'm probably something of a constructivist-Taoist-panpsychist, whatever that might mean.
You write that "religion as a basis for politics and social justice is an instrument of oppression and curtailment of rights." About which social institution is this not true on some level? Which social institution is immune to exploitation and manipulation? It pleases no one that reads these words that persons in power employ a religious foundation to foment fear and cravenness, but that doesn't make "religion" evil any more than bludgeoning people with hammers makes hammers evil. And we must concede that no small number of so-called rationalists found themselves just as suceptible to manipulation in the wake of 9-11, or the French Revolution, or whatever. As a species, we are overwhelmingly prone to tribal instincts; the fact that the specific profile of these instincts embodies one cultural motif or another should not confuse us over the true nature of these responses.
Your personal experience of Hindu nationalism notwithsranding, I think if you explored the global literature of religion you'd find that atheists have no monopoly on the "non-hypocritical, courageous, ethical and even humorous life style." Examples from every tradition abound--Zen Buddhist, Sufi, Vedanta, Shamanist, Christian, Hebraic, Stoic, Neo-Platonist, animist, rationalist, &c &c. In any walk of life there are generous hearts and small shrivelled ones to be found if one is prepared to penetrate the generalizations. Why are we so quick to cast out James Watson as an apostate of the scientific-rationalist worldview, and so hesitant to embrace any number of wise and noble mystics, whether poets, prophets, or crackpots? What are we so afraid of?
Posted by: Chris Schoen | Dec 1, 2007 3:44:35 AM
Interesting comments all.
It makes me appreciate living in a society that practices (in theory at least) freedom of religion. If America could only add 'silence of religion' to that practice, we'd be just perfect.
Posted by: beajerry | Dec 1, 2007 4:33:18 AM
After a couple of days I’m now about half way through Dawkins’ God Delusion. (Sorry, I know that’s a bit slow but I have to keep my finger on the line and my lips keep moving which is off-putting.) Anyway, I was interested in the statistics involved in Dawkins’ tentative estimate of the number of planets that might support life. He writes: “Suppose it was so improbable as to occur on only one in a billion planets.” Using that same improbability to estimate the likelihood of a birth of a messiah does this mean that we might expect there to have been at least 6 messiahs born during human history? And, given the exponential rise in population, might we assume that at least 4 ½ of them were born during the last 200 years? Further, should we expect 2 ½ of them to be wandering around as we speak?
This causes me some concern particularly where, in Australia where I live, there is a dire shortage of water but in any one of the many thousands of bottle shops* in Oz you can’t move for bottles of cheap wine.
Is this a clue?
* for bottle shop, read off-licence or liquor store
Posted by: Gordon | Dec 1, 2007 4:56:38 PM
Elatia,
I agree that we should take a careful and nuanced view when examining religion, but that doesn't mean that we can't tease out general patterns.
Of course I would want the same standards applied to my own family--again, I don't own my children. (I don't actually have any children.) I'm curious why you say they can "fix" us for raising our children godlessly. In fact, I think a rational outlook leads to a healthier life, and would be eager to prove that in a courtroom. If someone believes that this isn't the case, that it harms my child's mental well-being, then I'd love to see the evidence.
Things don't suddenly become relativistic and arbitrary when we insist on basing our policies and beliefs on evidence.
Chris,
I strongly disagree with your comments on "metaphysical foundation", but we've argued this at length in other threads and I'm not interested in restarting it here. However, there was an article a few weeks ago about this very thing, "Taking Science on Faith" by Paul Davies:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/24/opinion/24davies.html
I think that is roughly your position, while my rebuttal is stated eloquently by many:
http://www.edge.org/discourse/science_faith.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/27/opinion/l27science.html
I hope this provides some insight.
Posted by: anon | Dec 2, 2007 12:38:40 AM
Adding to Anon's comment. The hubris and arrogance of individual scientists notwithstanding, science has in place the best system of checks and balances which transcend geographic as well as cultural boundaries. (Wish our government could emulate even a fraction of that practice.) Not that good science does not occasionally fall by the wayside and pseudo science does not gain prominence. But these are rare cases and nothing exposes fraud, deceit and sloppiness better than rigorous peer review. We all shake our heads every time a drug is recalled and the results of a longstanding study is overturned. In fact it should actually be reassuring that scientific findings are under ongoing scrutiny and review.
When was the last time that a church, temple or mosque issued a retraction, revision or recall?
Posted by: Ruchira | Dec 2, 2007 12:58:52 AM
Anon,
I think we had a miscommunication. You wrote:
"Of course I would want the same standards applied to my own family--again, I don't own my children... I'm curious why you say they can 'fix' us for raising our children godlessly. In fact, I think a rational outlook leads to a healthier life, and would be eager to prove that in a courtroom. If someone believes that this isn't the case, that it harms my child's mental well-being, then I'd love to see the evidence."
My point was that a government that would police how we raised children into the intimate reaches of the mind, and demand of a family that a certain philosophical orientation -- whether rationalism and music camp or astrology along with compulsory marijuana use -- be programmed into child rearing, is a government that over-reaches. Once you do away with certain freedoms -- of speech, of religion, including the freedom to practice no religion -- you may be the one who ceases to hear speech that is odious to your ears, you may be spared the sight of children raised in ways that are hateful to you, OR a man who feels exactly the opposite from you about what words should never be said or child-raising ideas implemented may be the one whose agenda is served. The point is, freedom is drastically reduced, and your values cannot always be ascendant. If today you can legally insist that your erring neighbor raise his child as a secular humanist, and call the police if he does not, then tomorrow it could be just exactly the other way around.
What I meant by "fixing" you and me for how we might godlessly raise our children -- it was a grim joke, along the lines of our "fixing" other families who displease us. If you don't want a Wahhabist legally coming after you for neglecting your children's spiritual life, then you should be very uncomfortable hoping to go after him for dwarfing his children's intellectual life. Society is always moving between progressive and conservative trends and ideas. Freedom of speech, religion and association is your best defense against persecution -- whoever you are, whatever you stand for.
Anyone who cares whether children are being intellectually badly served, their futures and their mental liberties compromised, should look at what a mess our schools are. There, they will see young people who have been throw into boiling oil -- so to speak. Save those children, why not?
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Dec 2, 2007 1:51:43 AM
One would only hope Ruchira, but the volumes of books that could be filled with Science, once embraced, reviewed and accepted and fully integrated into society that is now known to be dangerous and frequently fatal claptrap might outweigh the worlds store of Holy Writ.
A quite recent example, to put the lie to the notion that these things are now behind us, was the theory of Eugenics (if some of you still hold to it, you are wise to keep silent). At the time, it was widely embraced in the scientific community. Popular Magazines and Peer Reviewed Journals both acclaimed its revolutionary findings and its grand promise for a brighter future for mankind.
Per anon's hopes for our future, some nations started removing children from their parent's control so that they could more fully integrate the wonderful new ideas without distortion from superstition and unacceptable mythologies.
In this country, no expense was spared to propagate the practices called for into those segments of society the proponents saw as most in need of their services. New medical techniques greatly increased the safety and efficiency of the remedy and the convenience and personal benefits were loudly acclaimed.
I don't recall seeing a retraction from "Science," but I do know millions of people were murdered in an attempt to fulfill the promise of this theory and many millions more died putting a stop to it. I know that even today, in this country, the intent of its practitioners is still being fulfilled largely unchanged as evidenced by the ethnic identities of those groups who are most encouraged to benefit from the promises of abortion.
Posted by: Carlos | Dec 2, 2007 10:21:43 AM
Carlos -
1. On eugenics and pseudoscience, I don't see what there is for a scientist to 'retract' here regarding the idea of eugenics itself. The idea that we can change the traits of humanity probably isn't pseudoscience. Do you seriously doubt that it's possible to make people more musical or less prone to heart disease or better at doing calculus in their heads? Science doesn't become pseudoscience merely because its ethical implications may be troubling. With the recent advances in genetics, I suspect we're soon going to be able to do all sorts of weird and wonderful things to the body and mind of man.
2. Regarding abortion and race, have you considered that rates of contraception usage might happen to vary by ethnicity as well? Indeed, google reveals that they http://mchb.hrsa.gov/whusa_05/pages/0427contraception.htm>do. Why on earth would you want the CDC to formulate policy in ignorance of such data?
Posted by: D | Dec 2, 2007 10:58:41 AM
Thank you for that link, D. It would have better served my purposes had I thought it through.
Says there that Black women are nearly twice as likely to use sterilization as a birth control method than another
kindtype, with Hispanic women 30% more likely to follow the same course.Chart
Doubtless the acolytes of St. Sanger couldn't be more pleased.
Posted by: Carlos | Dec 2, 2007 11:17:31 AM
"With the recent advances in genetics, I suspect we're soon going to be able to do all sorts of weird and wonderful things to the body and mind of man."
Spoken like a true Fordian.
Posted by: Carlos | Dec 2, 2007 11:25:14 AM
Elatia,
I don't think we had a miscommunication. I'll try to explain how I understand the situation.
You are relying on my gut feeling that I know what's best for my child, and that I should be free to raise them however I wish. But I disagree, because we also need to take into account the child's right to be free of physical and mental abuse. Hopefully my interests are the same as the child's, but this is not guaranteed. Society needs to stand in place for the child until the point that we label him or her an adult, whereupon they are free to do what they wish. I am in no way saying that we should abandon freedoms of speech or religion, but instead I'm saying that parents shouldn't have absolute freedom in raising their children.
We are also talking of degrees here. Do you agree with compulsory schooling for children between certain ages, at least in principle, even though the current educational system is flawed? In that case we look out for the child's mental well-being. Isn't it a small step to extend this to the cases where children are being indoctrinated into a cult (let's not say mainstream religion)? I don't think that government interference is necessarily the best of handling such a situation, or that we would ever be able to establish beyond reasonable doubt the actual circumstances (because of privacy) and so be justified in acting, but in extreme cases, or at least in principle, I think we as a society do have the right and duty to intervene on behalf of the child's mental well-being.
And about this relativism, that "tomorrow it could be just exactly the other way around," I don't think it holds up, as I explained.
Posted by: anon | Dec 2, 2007 11:47:43 AM
Carlos:
Please note that I do not subscribe to the idea of removing children from their parents except in circumstances when their life and limb are in danger. Not all atheists (like religionists) think alike. Just as Chris keeps warning me not to paint all religious folks as crack-pots, please don't categorize all non-believers as bright eyed automatons marching to the drum beat of cutting edge science. In fact I argue with my doctore more often than I do with my religious friends. There are Kool-Aid drinkers on both sides of the aisle but not all members on either side fall in that category.
As for Eugenics, disparate medical treatment of different races and other such inequities, is that an idea propagated by science or other societal forces like racism and casteism? The ideas of untermensch, Brahmin birth, Chosen People, infidels etc. which have given rise to genocides, colonialism, apartheid, caste system and jihad are all rooted in religion. That all have tried to co-opt science to boost their pernicious theories is not the fault of science. Do you seriously believe that science has promoted such ideas more than religion? And remember pseudoscience is possible to refute with evidence. How do you argue with God's word?
Posted by: Ruchira | Dec 2, 2007 12:13:12 PM
I wasn't painting you with any brush, Ruchira. I find you to be quite well reasoned and thoughtful. I'm sure you would abhor the idea of Sciencists enforcing their mandates through the power of the state as much as I do.
I disagree strongly with an any a priori categorization that tribalist feelings of exclusivity are rooted in Religion though. They surely preceeded it, and they seem to act in even fuller force when religion is ripped from the ideological core, as we saw in the last century. Even the fact that some of them are explicitly self-identified as religious should be taken with a grain of salt and weighed against the elements of race, territory, wealth, politics, history and entitlement that are interwoven with them.
And as far as the inability to argue with God's word, how then do you explain so much of it? I think the whole art of rhetoric has in no small way profited from people arguing about God's word. Aquinas was not just arguing with himself, after all. And for'a the bad things done in the name of those arguments, more good has come of it, IMHO.
Posted by: Carlos | Dec 2, 2007 1:26:00 PM
Anon,
Thanks for clarifying what you meant.
We need, and possess, plenty of enforceable protections for the children at risk of neglect and abuse, both of which surely happen when some people raise them "any way they wish." A child's right to freedom from mental and physical abuse is supremely important, never even to be questioned. But you can see how some people would classify a strictly religious upbringing as mental abuse, and others would classify a strictly irreligious upbringing the very same way. If I can be legally protected from the latter people (should they ever form a majority), I'll gladly give up my fond thoughts of legally interfering with them (when I and my kind happen to form a majority.)
When you suggest that there may be forms of non-governmental interference in the lives of families of cultists, so that they are prevented from raising their children as next-generation cultists, what legal basis could there be for such intervention? What moral basis that is also legal? Freedom of thought is very high moral ground indeed, and is legally protected; sadly, it is just this freedom that enables the family of cultists to go about their life-dwarfing business. But it is not a freedom that a rationalist could seriously wish to see abolished on the grounds that it is sometimes abused. The true outer limits of our freedoms are a real borderland reaching right to terra incognita -- unless we want to be soul-brothers to Cotton Mather, all we can do is tolerate it.
I don't understand your reluctance to see that the tables could CERTAINLY be turned, with legally sanctioned pursuit of adults who raise rationalist children the possible future consequence of a law empowering -- at present -- a rationalist, enlightened state to pursue cultist-citizens raising children within cults. People disagree so on what enlightenment really is, on what the public good is, on how the proper broad spectrum nurture of children must be achieved, on what the true business and worth of women is and on whether they incite men to violence, on whether same-sex sex between consenting adults is an outrage, and so on and so on. If you mean, a backlash to less rational times is unlikely, then you have not noticed girls re-veiling in Turkey, and the related dilemmas they have there about how to be modern without being Western and somehow have trade agreements with Europe too. Or the rise of religious fundamentalism within the U.S., and the increased percentage of fundamentalists who vote -- that 20% of the Ohio electorate that gave Bush-Cheney a victory there in 2004, for instance. These are people who are as convinced as you are that their way is better and more enlightened than that of anyone who opposes them, and how glad I am there are laws that stop them from coming after me. If we are on a march towards a better future, it is a carnage-strewn, detour-ridden march. For now, the law is on my side -- the side of the greatest possible freedoms -- and I hope it always will be. But you were talking of something extra-legal yet enforceable?
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Dec 2, 2007 1:36:42 PM
Carlos:
The fact that religion is a human construct, makes Thomas Aquinas' arguments just as valid as that of the wild eyed jihadist. Religion is what the believer believes it to be. Whether more good has come of those beliefs or not, I do not know. More good than what? Have we had another open, god-free system to compare with? (No, communism won't do because that was a dogma too - as rigid as any religious orthodoxy)
And if what you say is indeed true that we humans are incapable of uniting for common good and decency except under the banner of a tribal ideology, then it doesn't matter whether it is religion, racism or totalitarian utopia. We are doomed to live as herded sheep.
Posted by: Ruchira | Dec 2, 2007 1:59:41 PM
"And if what you say is indeed true...We are doomed to live as herded sheep."
Well, though I don't recall saying that out loud:
Not doomed. Blessed.
Posted by: Carlos | Dec 2, 2007 2:30:57 PM
Gordon,
I have seen estimates that around 100 billion humans have lived on earth (factoring for an average lifespan of 25 years.) That would indicate that there have been, to date, 100 messiahs and/or sons of god, and that 6 percent of them are now wandering around as we speak. So you have every right to be alarmed.
But wouldn't any messiah worth his salt in 2007 turn wine into water, rather than the other way around?
Anon,
I'm not so nuts about the Davies piece, actually. But you're right, we've tried good and hard to communicate on this issue, with no luck so far.
About public schooling, I think we should be careful not to fall prey to the standard myth that public schooling (as we know it) exists to further the aims of the enlightenment. More accurately it is an indoctrination programme to prepare children for the world of work in the late capitalist era, without which indoctrination no human in her right mind would willingly join. This doesn't mean I oppose formal education in itself, but let's not kid ourselves about just why we send the tots away on their yellow buses each day.
Ruchira,
Along similar lines, the reasons drugs and other technologies are recalled are often not because of "scrutiny and review," but rather because of concerted efforts by public interest groups to pierce the veil of secrecy maintained by most successful companies in the pharmaceutical and other industries. How many memos have to come to light showing that executives knew a product was not safe (or simply not effective) before we conclude that rigorous peer review plays a far too small role in the sciences that effect us most powerfully. When it comes to deceit and coverups, there's not a whole lot of difference between the Vatican and Merck or Firestone.
Setting it up as you do here:
creates, I believe, a false dichotomy. Science itself is not an ideology, it is a method of inquiry. To imagine that science itself can "promote" pernicious ideas is a little like imagining that mathematics--or for that matter singing hymns or meditating--promotes ideas. That's putting the cart before the horse in a big way.
The dream that humans can transcend ideology, so vividly sought by Comte, Russell, and so many others, has yet to come to terms with the fact that language itself is not possible without it (as Wittgenstein spent a lifetime showing).
So the question is, having moved beyond untenable (for us) mythologies, how do we understand the world and our place in it? I think to propose, as anon does, that science makes this question moot or self-evident, is to ignore the hidden, often unconscious ideologies that inform our modern views. (Specifically a sort of particulate atomism where all the entities of the cosmos are separate from one another, and antagonistic in need and intent). We only have the capacity to question our own ideologies, as we so enjoy doing to the ideologies of others, if we admit they are there. That, to me is the exciting task our culture faces today: not pointing out how everyone else has it wrong, but how we can get it righter.
Posted by: Schoen | Dec 2, 2007 3:04:17 PM
Thanks Schoen (I assume you are Chris), you are indeed now speaking the way I myself would have, if I had the required power of articulation. I don't necessarily believe that we can do without an ideology, just which one, I am not yet sure.
I have said something to you before (not here) which I will repeat again. Between this loud debate over god or no-god, there may be a substantial number of people very much like me for whom it doesn't make a difference. Walker Percy said it beautifully in his book, The Moviegoer. I will paraphrase here. How I live my life is clear to me. I have made a conscious decision. If tomorrow god were to appear before me in person, I am unlikely to go into a state of "fear and trembling" and change my ways. If tomorrow on the other hand, the atheists come out with a mathematical equation which proves beyond a doubt that there is no god, I am equally unlikely to join the festive parade on the street. It matters very little to me either way. My morality, ethics and joy are not predicated upon either outcome. This question which has many others passionately engaged is of little interest to me. Just as is the answer. To the mix of the serenity of believers and the clarity of the non-believers, please add the muddy indifference of skeptics like me. I want my answers and questions framed in human / animal / natural terms.
As for the secrecy of Merck and Firestone, it is useful to remember that the executives are businessmen. They worship at the altar of the bottom line and not scientific veracity. Academic science is still one of the most open places of discourse that we have in the public sphere.
And Carlos:
Have a blessed day at the pasture. Just don't send the sheep dog after me while I wander thirsty in the desert, forage among the thorn bush and drink at the tainted pool. When the going gets tough or my tummy hurts, I'll call you.
Posted by: Ruchira | Dec 2, 2007 4:16:59 PM
Ruchira,
I so agree! My nature, too, recoils at demanding the "either/or" answer to the question of whether there is a God to believe in. All I know for sure is that I believe in the question.
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Dec 2, 2007 4:28:48 PM
Elatia,
To me, you seem to still be confusing the parent's freedom and the child's freedom.
"But you can see how some people would classify a strictly religious upbringing as mental abuse, and others would classify a strictly irreligious upbringing the very same way"
We'd have to look at the evidence to determine this, right? It's not just a he said-she said thing. If someone had evidence that raising a child godlessly in fact hurts the child's well being, then I would love to see it, and if it held up to scrutiny, then I would have to abandon my position that it's okay to raise children in a rationalist household. Wouldn't you do the same? But I don't believe there is any such evidence.
"These are people who are as convinced as you are that their way is better and more enlightened than that of anyone who opposes them"
I'm sure they are actually more convinced than I am, but they're beliefs are grounded in faith, not evidence. As long as our legal system requires evidence, not religious superstition, then I think I'm okay.
And I'm not arguing for any one thing in particular, just in principle. I don't even know how it would be applied.
Posted by: anon | Dec 2, 2007 5:01:52 PM
This discussion about religion is very polite, but is it fun? If the Chritians had been invited to an inter-faith discussion panel at the Colloseum, instead of being thrown to the lions, would it have been box-office materiel? My being absolutely right and your being heretically wrong make for clarity of vision and heady self righteousness, thats what people like.
Posted by: aguy109 | Dec 2, 2007 5:44:38 PM
Anon,
You probably work and/or conduct graduate study in some field closer to Science and Engineering than I do, so you would know better than I how to design the experiment that would yield the conclusive evidence you speak of -- that children either are, or are not, harmed by being raised in a rationalist household.
At present, Americans are free to raise their children either in a religious household or in a rationalist one, and these children, once they come of age, are free to set aside the religions or secular humanist philosophies they acquired at home -- which they frequently do. In actuality, most Americans are neither intensely, relentlessly religious nor unfailing rationalists and philosophical materialists. All of us believe all kinds of things, rational and not, even if only to the extent of getting upset if a favorite neck-tie magically associated with good job interviews has gone missing. I guess the test is whether you’d rather be told by your 5-year old daughter that she'll pray for the neck-tie to turn up, or that she thinks you’re a bad daddy for ceding that kind of power to it.
Just as it is impossible, reading history, to completely isolate religion from other forces that go into causation (you don't think the 16th c. Wars of Religion were "all about" religion, do you?), it is impossible to determine the exact elements, and ratios of those elements, of a foolproof recipe for raising mentally healthy, kind, curious, ethical children who can get through life better than the generation preceding them. This is because no one thing any family does is in stark isolation to everything else it does. It's all just a lot yeastier than that -- as you might find out someday, when your 5-year old daughter up and tells you she'll pray for your missing neck-tie to get back in its drawer.
You are so right -- you won't own your children. And someday soon, you will not want to render formulaic the infinitely complex, or use the law to reduce diversity in folkways.
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Dec 2, 2007 6:25:10 PM
Gee, I got on the train in Portland, Maine, with 12 pages of Arial 8 to read (this comment thread, printed out) and landed in Cambridge with another whole chapter to catch up on. Eventually I will try to add something more coherent and fleshed out, but there are some questions I keep wanting to ask, because they are hiding behind so much of what certain people on this thread keep saying, and anon presented me with the perfect opportunity (yet again) a couple of comments ago.
Anon, you wrote: "It's not just a he said-she said thing. If someone had evidence that raising a child godlessly in fact hurts the child's well being...."
"Evidence" is all well and good, but my first question is: Evidence of what?
To put it a different way: How do you define "well being"?
And: How many ways of existing in a state of "well being" are there?
Moreover: *Who* gets to *define* "well being"?
And beyond that: If we don't agree on how to define it (as we are quite likely not to, judging just from the variety of opinion on this thread, never mind the world at large), what collective decision-making process are we going to use to decide on the definition and the measuring process?
From another angle: How are we going to decide what values to apply, which is maybe a more fundamental way of posing the question "what is well being"?
And yet another level: If we don't immediately agree on a collective decision-making process, how are we going to choose one collectively?
Etc.
It is all well and good, and kind of slick, to talk about evidence and rationality. But once all the evidence is in, having been gathered by a rational and scientific process, we have not touched the problem of how to evaluate it, and science and rationality don't tell us how to do that.
I am not religious in any conventional sense of the term, nor do I believe in any God that conventionally religious people would recognize as such (in fact, I don't really believe in any God that I would recognize as such). I have been a "fan" of science all my life, I was educated at one of the world's great scientific and technical universities, and my paid work involves systems analysis and programming. So I am well aware of the power of science and rationality.
Moreover, religious fundamentalists who think they know better than I do how I should live (and I happen to be gay, so this is a very live issue for me) frustrate and sometimes terrify me.
In other words, I don't have any allegiance to religion, and I do have a lot of appreciation for the power of science and reasoning to accomplish certain ends; in fact I make my living applying that power, loosely defined.
But telling us what values to hold is not among those ends. Reasoning may be applied to the question of how to connect certain evidence to certain values, but it does not tell us how to select the values in the first place.
The fact that religion purports to tell us that doesn't cut any ice with me either; I think we choose our values from the gut, so to speak. But that's a post for another time.
Meanwhile, I have been reading Lee Smolin's "The Trouble With Physics" and dipping into a thread at Cosmic Variance where the book is discussed (by Lee Smolin, among other people, including his critics):
http://cosmicvariance.com/2007/05/21/guest-post-joe-polchinski-on-science-or-sociology
The book and the CV thread make it pretty clear that scientists, with all their evidence-based activities and all their reliance on reasoning, can't agree even about science. I would never dream of trusting them to do better than the rest of us at deciding what values we should live by.
Posted by: JanieM | Dec 3, 2007 12:27:27 AM
Elatia, JanieM, Chris and Ruchira have made the point clear, at least in my mind: I would be very reluctant to live in a world governed by what Jared, Anon, Dawkins, Hitchens et al. thinks I should teach my kids ("NO! You cannot drink whiskey at 10 am! You're a kid! I don't care what uncle Hitchens says!"). The point that keeps coming up here and in other threads is that intolerance and zeal are the things to fear. Every time an Anon or a Jared or anyone else starts speaking in absolutes is my cue to look somewhere else for enlightened thought. None of us have a monopoly on truth (though I'm sure Mr. Dawkins would disagree), and I would perhaps label that kind of thinking "The Atheist delusion".
The thread started out as commentary on the possibility that Erol Karaaslan would be prosecuted for publishing Dawkins book. This is part of an ongoing conflict in Turkey between Islamists and secularists, and must be understood in that context and as a political manipulation of religion within a specific political climate.
In Anon's dream world, perhaps people will be prosecuted for NOT reading "The God dilusion".
Posted by: dkmy | Dec 3, 2007 1:52:50 AM
"I would be very reluctant to live in a world governed by what Jared, Anon, Dawkins, Hitchens et al. thinks I should teach my kids" You badly misconceive my postion. I do believe that for parents to teach their children that the world began a few thousand years ago is a form of mental abuse, but where did I say the state should intervene in such cases? Forcibly separating children from their parents is something best left to the Immigration and Naturalization Service who seem to enjoy that sort of thing. I agree with those who observed that such state interference with the religious education of children would leave the door wide open to the opposite: the state removing children from atheist homes. I feel sorry for the children who are mentally screwed up by exposure to false belief systems, but there is no doubt that people have the right to be religious in their own homes and,more importantly, not to be religious. I have no doubt that I am more tolerant than most religious people. To return to my example from last week, the young religiously indoctrinated child of our neighbors said to us "you are on the dark side". We did not say to her "you and your family are hopelessly deluded". The intolerance and judgemental attitude comes from the religious side. Atheists just want to be left alone. As for the misconception that non-religious people are immoral, I am fed up with hearing this. Nothing could be more rational that the repudiation of violence, exploitation, greed and intolerance, and the embrace of compassion, mercy and justice. Buddism without the reincarnation, monks and Dali Lhama, plus a pinch of Taoism to remind us we are just a part of the natural world. Suits me.
Posted by: Jared | Dec 3, 2007 11:19:21 AM
Elatia,
"it is impossible to determine the exact elements, and ratios of those elements, of a foolproof recipe for raising mentally healthy, kind, curious, ethical children"
Yes, but I never claimed otherwise. You seem to think that if we can't understand something perfectly, we can't understand it at all...
"use the law to reduce diversity in folkways"
Again, I am not against freedom of religion.
You aren't addressing my points, Elatia.
Janie,
"To put it a different way: How do you define "well being"?"
That's a good question, and I'm guessing that child psychologists would have the best understanding of a child's mental well-being. But to give a small example, suppose that parents tell their child that his or her best friend is going to burn in hell for all eternity because they don't believe in God. That can't be good for the child's mental well-being, can it?
"I think we choose our values from the gut, so to speak"
And also "from the air", so to speak. The values of a society constantly shift, although they must always jibe with the moral sense evolution has created. But I think as long as we have a heterogeneous society, none of these values will have an absolute language in terms of one particular faction's religious text.
But you raise good points.
dkmy,
You've made a few common mistakes. If you reread what I've written, you'll notice that I'm in favor of freedom of religion and freedom of speech. What's at issue here is whether parents have the right to indoctrinate their children. This is something I'm against, because I think it is trumped by the child's right to be free of such things. If you've read any of my other comments at this site, you'll notice that my conclusions are always tempered by evidence, so truth is never absolute. You can certainly disagree with my conclusions, but you should attack my arguments rather than construct these wild strawmen.
Posted by: anon | Dec 3, 2007 11:24:57 AM
"What's at issue here is whether parents have the right to indoctrinate their children. This is something I'm against, because I think it is trumped by the child's right to be free of such things."
I cannot agree with this. The state has no right to indoctrinate children - for example, in public schools in any particular belief system. Parents, however, do have the right to teach children at home whatever they feel is appropriate, no matter how much I may disagree with their teachings. In an ideal world, all children would be taught the importance of compassion, non-violence and tolerance.
Posted by: Jared | Dec 3, 2007 11:51:42 AM
JanieM,
Great post! Good to see you here. I always worry I'm just not logical enough to be understood in this space, and you make beautifully many points I would have liked to have made.
Jared,
Thanks for making your point of view clearer. I think I misunderstood it from your contention that religion is child abuse. That's kind of a red flag, because if it is literal child abuse, that puts some responsibility on society to separate the children of cultists from their families. If on the other hand, religion is not child abuse but a philosophy of life that religious parents are legally and morally entitled to raise their children in accordance with, then the non-religious among us need only to practice laissez faire, reminding ourselves and our children that it takes all kinds to make a world. It would actually be a powerful thing for children who had been aggrieved, as your son was by his playmate, to start learning about important freedoms safeguarding various points of view, including their own, and about the implications for ethics of the difference between thought and action.
Anon,
This has gotten to be a monster thread, has it not? As is normal for us, we can't really agree -- which is fine. You contend I have not addressed your points, but I think I have. What I notice is that you're always tacking, so that when I do address your point, it's "as if" I missed it, because that part of your point turns out not to have been your real point, as the present iteration of your real point will show -- and so on. Ultimately, your real point -- in very truth -- tends to encompass the opposite of itself, if that's what's necessary to go on being misunderstood, but never wrong. Hey, it's not bad -- it's the same method that has gotten Hillary Clinton to the brink of the presidency, and if you mean to hang onto it, I can only wish you success of it. I see it as something lawyerly done when a person is operating under constant pressure to win, if only in their own perceptions. There's none of that pressure on any of us here -- unless from within. Sometime, please consider that in some places, discussion is better than tacking, because it actually accomplishes something more fruitful than testing how wrong you can make others look by changing your stripes.
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Dec 3, 2007 12:30:00 PM
Elatia,
I'm glad I cleared this up. As for your statement:
"If on the other hand, religion is not child abuse but a philosophy of life that religious parents are legally and morally entitled to raise their children in accordance with, then the non-religious among us need only to practice laissez faire, reminding ourselves and our children that it takes all kinds to make a world."
while parents have the legal right to impose whatever belief system they choose onto their children, I would not go so far as to say they have a moral right. While I am an atheist, I do believe in certain universal moral values - the value of compassion being the most important. Have you seen the movie Sancho the Bailiff, by the Japanese director Kenji Mizoguchi? In this great film, a father loses his high position precisely because of his compassion for people and his family is sold into slavery because of it. Now there is no way to force people to teach their children compassion or tolerance, but it is the universal moral value that I wish people would teach, and teach by example. So I would say that people do not have a moral right to teach their children intolerance and violence, but they do have a legal right which it would be hazardous to interfere with.
Posted by: Jared | Dec 3, 2007 12:50:14 PM
Jared,
I appreciate your flexibility, but it does seem you are playing both sides of this issue.
You can't on the one hand cry "abuse" and on the other say that's a private matter, unless you are willing to say the same about other forms of abuse.If we are talking about matters of degree, then I think we need to establish some thresholds. Most of us would not call family services because a child has been spanked, but any corporal violence that exceeds that will at least have us double-checking that the hotline number is close at hand. The same goes for emotional abuse. For sexual abuse the threshold is well-known; the moment affection requires a child to assume a sexual role, that affection becomes felonious, and with good reason.
For parenting behaviors that do not cross these thresholds we do not use the word "abuse." We call it bad parenting, or being an asshole, but we reserve the term "abuse" for conditions that are so dire that a child must be removed from them immediately.
I think what's getting lost in this discussion is a recognition of what children actually need to grow to be healthy, sane adults. Far more important than any particular set of facts about the origin of the world is a strong sense of reliability, both of the child herself, and the social groups she's born into. In the years that precede puberty, emotional truths are far more crucial than intellectual truths. If a child grows up believing that he isn't safe, or that his friends and family are unreliable, that belief is much more likely to persist throughout his life than whatever beliefs the child may have about how old the earth is. I'd go so far as to say the intolerance you are so rightly concerned about would have much less purchase in a child raised not to be afraid of herself, or others.
(It's also worth remembering in passing that Richard Dawkins has repeatedly characterized the transfer of Catholic doctrine to children as more treacherous than the sexual abuse many of these children received at the hands of the priesthood, which is so shockingly ignorant I don't know why it isn't pointed out more often.)
The last 200-odd years are replete with stories of people shaking off the "indoctrinations" of childhood. Not just religious ones, of course, but humdrum work-a-day indoctrinations about success, body image, romance, and national security as well. Indoctrination is not, after all, brainwashing, in any literal sense of the word. I frankly don't see how religious indoctrination is any more damaging to a young psyche than whatever it was that was done to Nicole Ritchie or Donald Trump, both of whom have far less chance of ever getting well than your average bible-thumper.
Posted by: Schoen | Dec 3, 2007 1:48:17 PM
Elatia,
"What I notice is that you're always tacking, so that when I do address your point, it's "as if" I missed it, because that part of your point turns out not to have been your real point, as the present iteration of your real point will show -- and so on. Ultimately, your real point -- in very truth -- tends to encompass the opposite of itself, if that's what's necessary to go on being misunderstood, but never wrong."
You've got to be kidding. Please give some examples of this.
My point has been consistent throughout, and I've been trying to get you to address it--to see the situation from the child's point of view--but have so far failed. My point has always been that children have a right to be free of mental abuse. I've acknowledged that I'm not sure how this would be applied, that it can be hard to determine whether mental abuse is taking place (because families are private), and that government intervention might not be the remedy. But this does not take away from my main argument that we have a moral responsibility to protect the mental welfare of children, and that this trumps any considerations of a parent's "right" to indoctrinate their children.
You have not given a passing thought to the rights of the child. You have always framed things in terms of the parents, and their rights to freedoms of speech and religion. But these are not absolute: you cannot yell "fire" in a crowded theater, you cannot kill apostates even if your religion demands it. And I think the same holds in the situation we've been discussing. But in not a single one of your responses have you addressed the point of view of the child.
Posted by: anon | Dec 3, 2007 1:49:28 PM
Schoen,
I see your point about the word "abuse" - it is usually taken in a physical or sexual sense. I am using it in this sense, which is one of the older definitions from the OED:
Abuse: To make a wrong use of any one's confidence; to impose upon, cheat, or deceive (a person).
This is exactly what I mean by religion being "abuse" - people are imposing upon, cheating or deceiving small children. Parents may think they are helping their children - their motives may be good, but the result of teaching children to believe in lies and distortions is often to make them confused and incapable of critical and rational thinking. I actually felt bad about telling my son there was a "Santa Claus" for this very reason. I can see how you may think I am "on the fence", but there is a difference between a legal and a moral right. Legally, parents can teach their children that they are among the "chosen" and everyone else is going to hell. I would not interfere with that, although it goes against my sense of what is right morally. I can only sympathize with the chidren so "abused" and hope they will outgrow their conditioning as adults.
Posted by: Jared | Dec 3, 2007 3:52:29 PM
Come on, Jared, have the courage of your convictions. It's fun. You began this thread by writing that "religion is child abuse ... as bad or worse than physical or sexual abuse."
You've backpedalled on that after it was pointed out that this would require supporting that children so abused would be removed from their families, by law, and their parents prosecuted. It's not just inethical to abuse your children, it's illegal.
If you lived in a country where it was true that "legally, parents can teach their children that [they must prove thier love for them sexually]" or "[that they are pieces of shit who deserve the whipping with a fishing pole they're about to get]," would it be so easy to write "I would not interfere with that, although it goes against my sense of what is right morally"?
It's rather hard to take such an inconsistency seriously. What comes across is that your rhetoric has gotten the better of you. You don't really believe that religion is child abuse, else you would support locking up over 3/4 of the parents in the United states, not to mention some billions of parents worldwide.
Posted by: Schoen | Dec 3, 2007 4:14:51 PM
Schoen,
To repeat my definition of the world abuse from the OED,
"Abuse: To make a wrong use of any one's confidence; to impose upon, cheat, or deceive (a person)."
By this definition, religion is child abuse. What's your definition? And I do think the psychological effects can be as bad as any other form of abuse. So how am I inconsistent?
Posted by: Jared | Dec 3, 2007 4:55:49 PM
Jared,
Please read my comment again. If "the psychological effects can be as bad as any other form of abuse," then why don't you support the criminalization of religious instruction?
Or, conversely, why don't you support the decriminalization of child-beating and molestation?
Posted by: Schoen | Dec 3, 2007 5:06:55 PM
What a great prospect, to replace the godlike claims of religious people to know what's best for the rest of us, with the godlike claims of anti-religious people to know what's best for the rest of us.
Aiy.
Posted by: JanieM | Dec 4, 2007 12:44:32 AM
The reason is purely pragmatic. Where there is evidence of physical or sexual abuse of children, the state has a duty to intervene. The psychological abuse of religious indoctrination is more subtle and far more difficult to prove. Of course there is a wide range of abuse on a scale from fairly benign to the kind that can drive people to suicide. The state cannot and should not post police in every home to monitor what parents are saying or doing to their children. On the other hand, religious indoctrination must never be tolerated in public schools.
Posted by: Jared | Dec 4, 2007 9:48:37 AM
The reason is purely pragmatic. Where there is evidence of physical or sexual abuse of children, the state has a duty to intervene. The psychological abuse of religious indoctrination is more subtle and far more difficult to prove. Of course there is a wide range of abuse on a scale from fairly benign to the kind that can drive people to suicide. The state cannot and should not post police in every home to monitor what parents are saying or doing to their children. On the other hand, religious indoctrination must never be tolerated in public schools.
Posted by: Jared | Dec 4, 2007 9:50:41 AM
Jared,
Does this really makes sense to you, ethically? You say that religious indoctrination is a worse offense than physical or sexual abuse of children, which are essentially the worst crimes that can be perpetrated on a child short of torture and murder (assuming the abuse doesn't end up as one of these).
And then you step back and say it would be too complicated to enforce. It seems to me that if you are capable of clearly identifying "mental abuse" in a child, such as your son's playmate, then a trained police psychologist shouldn't have much difficulty either.
In fact, religious indoctrination would be quite easy to prosecute. Unlike beatings and molestations it is done quite openly, with both perpetrator and victim more than happy to talk about the experience. Every Sunday, children are rounded up and brought to mass and Sunday School, every Saturday to shul. The times of indoctrination are posted outside the building! What could be simpler? There's even coffee and donuts in the rectory basement--what cop wouldn't want that beat?
You write that "The state cannot and should not post police in every home to monitor what parents are saying or doing to their children." Quite so. And yet child abuse is prosecuted, successfully and avidly. Why should religious mental abuse be any different?
I submit that the problem is that there is no science that suggests that transmitting ideas is ipso facto abusive or damaging. If you are aware of some, please share.
Posted by: Schoen | Dec 4, 2007 12:42:53 PM
You have convinced me. Tonight I will throw out all my son's books on evolution and tell him we come from Adam and Eve, and we [insert religion of choice] are the chosen people and everyone else is going to burn in hell forever.How could I have filled his mind with all that science drivel? Thank God I have seen the light!
Posted by: Jared | Dec 4, 2007 2:05:51 PM
Jared, no doubt you were joking in that last post, at least in the sense that I’m sure you aren’t really going to throw out all your son’s books on evolution and fill his head with hellfire and brimstone. (At least I hope not.) But the touch of sarcasm suddenly made me see a couple of unexamined underlying assumptions in this thread, and I want to mention them before letting it go (I hope) for the time being.
The first is an assumption about “truth,” and it reminded me of this passage from “Finite and Infinite Games,” by James Carse:
“Augustine, the most famous convert of antiquity, was puzzled that he could have held so firmly to so many different falsehoods; he was not astounded that there are so many different truths.”
I think there are many *kinds* of truth, and therefore in some ways many truths. Some of the things religious people believe are abhorrent to me and I think harmful to the world, but other things religious people believe are maybe in some sense “emotional” truths that help them order their lives in a messy and challenging world.
But that’s not even the core response to your joke. The core response is: It’s not like there can be one and only one truth -- in this case either science or religion -- and you have to teach your son one or the other. No one who has been arguing against the idea that “religion is (necessarily, automatically, or even usually) child abuse” is saying that therefore you are to be obliged and compelled to indoctrinate your child into some religious tradition. (anon might have some name for that kind of logical fallacy, but I’m not trained to know those kinds of things). I can’t speak for Elatia and Schoen, but I am horrified at the very thought!
This is what I meant by my own sarcasm last night: I don’t want anyone’s godlike claims to infallibility to be running other people’s lives, except in relation to harms that are so clear and so serious that the need to stop them is an overwhelming societal consensus.
This brings me to the second unexamined assumption. In brief, it is the observation that the whole argument about “religion is child abuse and we have an obligation to protect children from it” is a single-factor analysis of a thousand-factor question.
Anon made a passionate challenge yesterday for someone to address the rights of children to be free of mental abuse. But aside from the fact that that formulation still begs the question of whether “we as a society” could ever come to consensus on whether religion *is* actually abusive (the kind of consensus that would be needed to justify bringing the coercive police powers of the state into play), there is also the question of the bigger picture, and the possibility of the solution being worse than the problem.
We intervene when children are being physically/sexually abused because we have overwhelming consensus that physical and sexual abuse are so bad in their effects that there cannot even in theory be enough positives of other kinds in such a situation to make us doubt the need to intervene. We have no consensus whatsoever that religion is “abuse” of that weighty a kind. (In fact, an overwhelming majority of Americans, never mind people in certain other parts of the world, would probably look upon that assertion as either abusive or lunatic in its own right.)
We don’t intervene just because a child gets spanked now and then. We don’t intervene because a child isn’t made to eat enough fruit and vegetables. We don’t intervene because some children’s parents are too tired to help them with their homework, or have been so poorly educated themselves that they wouldn’t be able to help even if they had time. We don’t intervene when parents push their children too hard to be basketball stars, when the kids would really rather have some free time now and then. We don’t intervene, mostly, to make sure that every family has even the material means to live a decent life, never mind the intangibles. We don’t intervene, we don’t intervene, we don’t intervene…..
There are a lot of failings we don’t intervene to correct, little ones and sometimes even larger ones, for a lot of reasons. We don’t intervene because maybe we have the humility to know that we aren’t infallible ourselves. We don’t intervene because this is an imperfect world full of imperfect people living imperfectly supported lives, most of whom are doing pretty much the best they can most of the time. We don’t intervene because we should maybe be noticing the beam in our own eye. We don’t intervene because life is mixed, some good and some bad, for everyone, and we know damned well we aren’t the superheroes who can make everything perfect for anyone.
We also don’t intervene because sometimes the solution is worse than the problem. Jared has backed off from the idea that children should be taken away from parents who “abuse” them by teaching them religious doctrines, but what else would you do, anon? Have you considered the damage done to a child taken away from loving parents, whom the child loves, however misguidedly in your eyes? Do you know where you are going to find the resources to heal not only the harms perpetrated by the religious parents, but the harms perpetrated by you in removing the child from the parents? This is no minor thing. Do you really think that religion is so bad that a lifetime in foster homes is better? And where are you going to find enough non-religious foster parents, in fact foster parents who are such realized beings themselves that their care will provide the perfect context, free of flaws like religion, that the children’s parents failed to provide?
Anon -- you challenged Elatia to see “religion as child abuse” from the perspective of children’s rights. Since Elatia doesn’t believe that religion is child abuse in the first place, I think the onus is on you, or maybe Jared, to back up the bald, unproven, and unprovable assertion you keep making about abuse, and say what you suggest doing about it -- the “purely pragmatic” side, as Jared called it last night.
Jared -- if you’re like me, you didn’t try to talk to the parents of your child’s friend when she told him you are “on the dark side.” Without great skill, forbearance, humility, and the long view, it’s hard to do something like that without creating a fight that will only make things worse. But sometimes there’s a little opening, where we get a chance to make some space for connection and change. I think most of the time that’s about all we can hope for, in the “purely pragmatic” sense.
Posted by: JanieM | Dec 4, 2007 11:29:54 PM
Janie M.
I agree with you 100% on your take about intervention with parents on their parenting skills or abilities. We are all fallible and no matter how best we try, we leave much to be desired in all our endeavors including child rearing. Our children are the first ones to tell us that sooner or later. Parenting is one of the most humbling tasks one undertakes.
But I would like to point out just one small problem here with all the scolding that Jared and Anon have received for their hypothetical (wrong headed for sure) suggestion that religious indoctrination may amount to child abuse. I doubt that Anon and Jared have gone knocking on the doors of their religious neighbors to state their suspicions.
I have never suggested, hinted or otherwise expressed my disagreement with my religious neighbors, friends or family members about the upbringing their kids receive at home. My kids (and sometimes, I) on the other hand, have been repeatedly hectored and cajoled by the other side. Some classmates pleaded with my kids to attend church and learn the "truth." Some were fearful enough for their prospect in afterlife that they threatened to "save" them, even suggesting that they attend church without informing me or my husband. Friendly neighborhood pastors handed them pamphlets while wishing me "a blessed day." The pamphlet later revealed pictures of smiling children in the sun who have "taken Jesus into their lives." On the opposite page was the picture of crying children "who are in the dark."
I had always figured that my children will have to live in a world where the majority is religious - many of whom are officious sanctimonious jerks. A punch in the face was therefore not the option. Instead, we ourselves took them to churches, temples and synagogues and let them attend religious functions with their close friends. Ironically enough, while atheists like me took all the religious bullying in stride, it was the religious parents who made the largest din of outrage. The Baptists and Catholics wanted evolution and books by feminists and atheists banned in school. The Hindus, Muslims and Jews wanted any mention of Christmas or Christ forbidden. My husband and I were in fact the most relaxed parents, not averse to exposing our children to all the faiths, their calm sides and their illogic as long as we made sure that we explained to them where we stood. Both my kids are adults now and I think no lasting harm was done by the meddling of our friends and neighbors. My daughter was a philosophy major with a minor in religion. My son, a science graduate also took comparative religion and philosophy in college. Whether or not either will turn to religion some day I don't know. But I can at least be assured that it will be an informed choice and not a result of indoctrination.
So, although I never believed that my religious friends abused their own children, at times I certainly felt that they were abusing mine. You see, Jared and Anon are not the dangerous people right now, not the way society is functioning. It is good to warn them that authoritarianism of any flavor is harmful for the body and mind. But the power of that "abuse" right now is squarely in the hands of the religious. Whether the balance will tilt, I do not know. As of now, let us please be realistic about who the "all knowing" and the intolerant are. My devout neighbor who loves me despite my heretical lifestyle, just informed me that she would rather "die" before she votes for a Mormon or a crypto-Muslim like B. Hussain Obama. So you see, no matter what Jared and Anon are spouting in their anger, they are the hapless minority. They are not the threat ... not yet.
Posted by: Ruchira | Dec 5, 2007 12:56:48 AM
Very good points Janie, and I agree with nearly all of it. I do appreciate (and share) the concerns about implementation, etc., and what I have been arguing here is mostly just in principle. What I've asked Elatia is (1) whether she thinks that "mental abuse" exists, and (2) whether children have a right to be free of it. If we don't agree about those two things it makes little sense to debate (3) whether religious indoctrination qualifies as abuse.
I've already given a few examples in regards to (3), but here are a couple more from today's news:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,314869,00.html
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/US/12/04/kaye.murdersuicide/?iref=mpstoryview
I don't think that most religious upbringings would count as mental abuse. (Although this may not be true in fifty years, as the moral zeitgeist changes very rapidly.) I know my own wouldn't, even though religion (Lutheran) was a big part of it. Evidently we believed that non-believers would spend eternity in hell, but I guess we didn't focus on it too much. The one time that I got close to real abuse was at some huge evangelical concert that focused on the death of Jesus, how he died for our sins. Kids in the hallways were breaking down, crying, promising themselves to Jesus. If it wasn't for my best friend trying to hold in laughs I might have joined them.
Have you watched "Jesus Camp"? I've only seen clips from it, but that would definitely count as "mental abuse" in my book.
You've had some nice points too, Chris.
No anger here, Ruchira.
Posted by: anon | Dec 5, 2007 1:13:55 AM
Ruchira --
Thanks for the reply. It's such an interesting conversation that it's hard to give it up.
I appreciate the reminder about who most of the "all knowing and intolerant" are in this era. I agree with you at one level, but at another level I see it a little differently, and that reminds me of another theme that has been brought up in this thread, which is the idea of a kind of categorizing error.
You point out that it isn't the Jareds and anons who are the danger right now, it's the religious people. But it isn't really the religious people; it's only some of the religious people: the intolerant and arrogant ones. There are lots of religious people who are the opposite, and there are "science people" who are arrogant and intolerant. I am always trying hard to think in terms of kinds of phenomena (tolerance vs its opposite, peacefulness vs warlikeness, etc.) rather than in terms of labels that so often lump together people who aren't at all alike in some important ways.
There have been plenty of revolutions/victories in the history of the world where the former rebels or victims took power and used it to act just like the people they had replaced. That is what bothers me about saying that "religion is child abuse and we need to protect children from it," or the appalling suggestion that teaching children Catholic dogma is worse than priests' sexually abusing them. (I was raised Catholic. Yes, it affected me in ways that took a long time to get over. No, it was not within light years of being as damaging as sexual abuse by a priest would have been. If Dawkins really said that, I wonder whether he understands anything at all about actual human beings.)
So I get frustrated and discouraged when I hear people who, if they were in the ascendance, would propose to act (in the name of the superiority of their self-styled rationality) pretty much like so many people now do (in the name of the superiority of their religious beliefs). It is the arrogance of assuming that superiority that is a danger, not whether the people expressing the arrogance base their claims on religion or science. I used to have this saying on my bulletin board: "An idea is not responsible for the people who espouse it." I would tweak it, in this context, to "An idea is not necessarily bad because some people do bad things in its name."
I live in rural Maine, where between 1995 and 2005 we had six statewide votes concerning gay rights, so I have seen a lot of public nastiness spouted from a purportedly "Christian" standpoint. But my kids and I have never had anything like the experience you describe of people repeatedly and insistently getting in our faces or proselytizing us. Now and then the Jehovah's Witnesses come to the door, but other than that, not much. I wonder where you live! Remind me not to move there......
If I were the dictator of the world, I would take care of this problem for you by enshrining "freedom from religion" right up there with "freedom of religion," and the old saying about the fist and the nose would be enhanced to include: Your freedom to practice your religion ends where my personal space begins.
Alas, I am not the dictator of the world. ;-)
****
P.S. -- anon, I just saw your reply but am out of energy. I appreciated it, though, and for now all I will do is answer the "Jesus Camp" question. No, I haven't seen it, but my daughter watched it in a class she's taking and told me a little about it. While I see the dangers and agree with you at some level about the harms, I guess I have just lived long enough to think that these are knotty problems to try to solve.
But enough for tonight. Thanks for the good dialogue.
Posted by: JanieM | Dec 5, 2007 2:00:02 AM
(To reply to the two parenthetical comments, Dawkins really said that. The following is from "The God Delusion", pages 317-318.
... I received a letter from an American woman in her forties who had been brought up Roman Catholic. At the age of seven, she told me, two unpleasant things had happened to her. She was sexually abused by her parish priest in his car. And, around the same time, a little schoolfriend of hers, who had tragically died, went to hell because she was a Protestant. Or so my correspondent had been led to believe by the official doctrine of her parents' church. Her view as a mature adult was that, of these two examples of Roman Catholic child abuse, the one physical and the other mental, the second was by far the worst. She wrote:
"Being fondled by the priest simply left the impression (from the mind of a 7 year old) as 'yucky' while the memory of my friend going to hell was one of cold, immeasurable fear. I never lost sleep because of the priest--but I spent many a night being terrified that the people I loved would go to Hell. It gave me nightmares."
Admittedly, the sexual fondling she suffered in the priest's car was relatively mild compared with, say, the pain and disgust of a sodomized altar boy. And nowadays the Catholic Church is said not to make so much of hell as it once did. But the example shows that it is at least possible for psychological abuse of children to outclass physical.
...
'Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me.' The adage is true as long as you don't really _believe_ the words. But if your whole upbringing, and everything you have ever been told by parents, teachers and priests, has led you to believe, _really believe_, utterly and completely, that sinners burn in hell (or some other obnoxious article of doctrine such as that a woman is the property of her husband), it is entirely plausible that words could have a more long-lasting and damaging effect than deeds. I am persuaded that the phrase 'child abuse' is no exaggeration when used to describe what teachers and priests are doing to children whom they encourage to believe in something like the punishment of unshriven mortal sins in an eternal hell.
)
Posted by: anon | Dec 5, 2007 2:49:23 AM
Anon is right.
Dawkins has even written a few articles on this theme, such as this one, in which he writes:
There's a lot packed into that little passage. For one thing: "gentle pedophile"? Would that be something like a "gentle rapist"?
For another, it's odd to see Dawkins patiently prevaricating over subtle degrees of sexual assualts on children, while still maintaining (elswhere) that all religious upbringings are harmful, and that moderate religious teachings just "give cover" for the extremist vanguard.
But probably the biggest breach of sense in this article is the phony comparison of his own "fondling" at the hands of his Latin master, which he seems to have laughed off, to the painful angst of absorbing parental teachings of "everlasting fire" and the like. In this sense, Dawkins is right that not all sexual abuses are created equal: as damaging as it can be to be molested by a trusted figure of authority, to be abused by a parent is almost always life-wrecking, surmountable only through sustained and difficult therapeutic treatment that, frankly, most people don't have the patience for.
So if we're going to consider religious upbringing at the hand of ones parents "abuse," we have to compare it to sexual abuse at the hands of one's parents. If Dawkins' Latin master had starting spouting off about the rapture during a lecture, I'm sure he wouldn't have considered this a very grieveous offense either. But an ethologist like him should know what an enormous impact on the development of a child is given to his parents alone.
The phrase "gentle pedophile" alone shows how off-balance Dawkins is on this topic.
Posted by: Schoen | Dec 5, 2007 1:14:29 PM
Mark Morford's article on Teddy Bears... and coffee mugs.
The relevant passage for those who don't have the time to peruse the whole thing and suspect non-believers of shrivelled hearts. [The two that Morford refers to are Dawkins and Hitchens]
To me, both are dead right, and yet also deeply missing the point, if for no other reason than that they both argue their perspectives straight from the mind, the realm of reason and logic, when spirit is, of course, a matter of the heart. To me, the greatest argument against organized religion is not merely that it makes no logical sense — this much is obvious. It's how it puts the heart, the fluid and indefinable — and yes, hotly mystical — spirit, in a kind of theological cage, bound and gagged and fed only scraps of carefully censored truth, and dares to call it love.
Posted by: Ruchira | Dec 5, 2007 4:16:24 PM
Oh but the next paragraph is even cherser:
Um. Read history much? Born yesterday? Please. Poor peaceloving, anti-war, jolly little Benedict the most dangerous man alive for recalling the 120 odd million men, women and children murdered by Atheism's avenging angels only a few decades ago. How dare he? What is he, pro-life or something?
Posted by: Carlos | Dec 5, 2007 6:22:16 PM
Chris, I actually agree with Dawkins, and was only providing context. I'm not sure what you're upset about here. Aren't there different degrees of sexual abuse? The distinction between abuse by parents and by other people is irrelevant, because his point was that it's possible for mental abuse to be worse than sexual abuse (regardless of who's doing the abusing). And it is the case that the religious moderates give cover for the extremists, because their justifications are exactly the same (faith). But that has nothing to do with this topic...
The following is the lecture that Dawkins refers to in the article that Chris linked to. It is incredibly on-point:
WHAT SHALL WE TELL THE CHILDREN?
Amnesty Lecture, Oxford, 21st February 1997
By Nicholas Humphrey
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/humphrey/amnesty.html
I encourage you to read it, if you've kept up with this discussion. I think his arguments have pushed me even farther to his side. (Of course, the concerns about any implementations, etc., are still valid.)
Posted by: anon | Dec 6, 2007 4:27:02 PM
Anon,
That Humphrey lecture strikes me as incredibly naive. Does he really propose that a "scientific" upbringing somehow evades "enculturation"?
I'm sure we both agree that critical thinking and open-mindedness are preferable to dogma. But do we really want to get in the business of evaluating the goodness or badness of parental ideas? I know, you've given the disclaimer that you wouldn't know how to implement a society-wide plan to prevent indoctrination. But if this form of abuse is worse than sexual abuse, how can we fail to criminalize it, even if we can't count on fully effective enforcement?
The answer is that it's not worse, of course, and if there's any science that shows the "addling" and "crippling" Humphries speaks of, I'd like to see it. (Ironically he appeals to, among other things, a Jesuit maxim to make his case).
It's interesting that Humphries dumps on the Amish in this lecture. What's so damn horrible about being Amish? Clean air, clean water, stable family structure, focus on humility and pacifism--that's child abuse? Ironically, the Amish would agree with Richard Dawkins that formal acceptance into a religion is no matter for a child, and so baptism is not permitted until the age of majority. And famously, at age 18, Amish children are given a chance to live as the "English" do so they can make an informed choice about their own culture.
I won't idealize them; most Amish communities are conservative, and not what we would consider tolerant. But they don't proselytize, and their commitment to their communities over individual gratification is, to my mind, admirable (and smart.)
As for the distinction between who does the abusing, whether physical, sexual or mental, I wanted to make sure we compared apples to apples, since who does the abusing makes a big difference. You aren't suggesting, I hope, that it's more damaging to be peaceably and lovingly raised as a Christian fundamentalist than it is to be sexually abused by a parent at any "degree." If you are, I'd suggest you better familiarize yourself with the ample literature on this subject.
Posted by: Schoen | Dec 6, 2007 6:39:11 PM
Interesting article. Interesting also comparing little girls sitting in bible school to little girls undergoing genital mutilation. Close fit.
It's hard to read that paragraph, for me anyway, without thinking that, because significant majorities of people who are exposed to every sort of alternative end up — in fact — choosing a belief in God, that it is the Atheist parent who imposes her beliefs on her children and steers them away from alternatives that is morally indefensible.
I'd suppose, in fairness, we should probably give him a chance to restate his test.
Posted by: Carlos | Dec 6, 2007 8:43:24 PM
Chris,
"if this form of abuse is worse than sexual abuse"
Substitute "can be" for "is". You have a hard time thinking in anything but black-and-white here.
"What's so damn horrible about being Amish?"
He gives the example that many children who grow up Amish but are exposed to society at large decide to leave their community, whereas few adults convert to the Amish way of life. The point is that if a child would readily choose B over A given all the information (i.e., in the impossible situation that he could look back on his lives under both conditions), it's not moral to force A upon the child. Basically, parents don't have the right to choose for their child. (Of course, Humphrey says this much better than I can.)
More news:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071128/ap_on_re_us/papa_pilgrim;_ylt=A0WTUdJ7CU1HfPkA5ACs0NUE
"Hale insisted that he had a perfect spiritual understanding, his wife, Kurina Rose Hale, testified Monday. "This is how he justified all his immoral activity," she said."
Posted by: anon | Dec 6, 2007 9:11:50 PM
About sending Allegra, his daughter with Clare Claremont, to a convent school, Byron wrote, "Should I deprive her of the benefits of belief in God -- who may or may not exist -- just because I myself am no believer?" Allegra died at barely 6 years of age, so her thoughts on the matter have not transpired, but Byron's other daughter, Ada, who attracted less of her father's attention, led an unhappy, mathy, medium-length and religious life. I think lots of people, like Byron, try to look beyond themselves -- surprise: they may not be completely happy! -- when they make decisions about how to raise their children. My psychoanalyst once told me, when I asked why on earth an analyst would take religious vacations, that "bad Jews make good Moonies." He believed that the very most threatening forms of thought control could be exerted over young people who believed nothing at all. Wherever I personally come down about all this -- meaning, how would I raise my children? Or, how did I? -- I believe that variety is socially healthy, and I treasure it for itself. To me it is the philosophical counterpart of biodiversity -- the way it is supposed to be. The tremendous latitude of every newborn to make an inconceivable intellectual journey, and a journey of the spirit to any far shore, is what is precious and worth protecting. I don't think it's up to me to decide how it should all play out; if, most rationally, I did, well then -- that would be a fantasy at work.
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Dec 6, 2007 10:23:47 PM
"They fuck you up, your Mum and Dad. They don't mean to but they do."
I was raised in a strict fundamentalist home and left the faith for the usual trinity: sex, drugs, and rock and roll.
Honestly there were parts of it I could have done without, but I think I've managed to shuck off most of the bad habits of mind - judgmentalism, black/white thinking - which stick much longer than the actual content of beliefs. There are worse things than being raised in a house where acceptable pop culture ended somewhere in the 1950's and mom read Dickens instead of Erica Jong. That's what Dawkins and co. don't seem to get - most of what kids learn from parents and other adults is not the explicit content but the tone, the attitude, the example. Is is safe for me to make mistakes? Will I be loved if I'm not perfect? That sort of thing.
One thing about the example Dawkins quotes: a trusted adult fondled her, and her best friend dies tragically, all in the same year. Any child would have nightmares after a double whammy like that. It may be worse to think your friend is in hell than that she is becoming worm food, but either way it's going to leave a scar. Helping a child through the death of a friend takes some patience and sensitivity, and believe it or not some religious parents possess those qualities. Maybe this girl's parents didn't, but it could have less to do with their religion than Dawkins thinks.
For the other side: I know well the streak of fundamentalist authoritarianism that, mixed with the "rod" verses in the Bible, can lead to very tragic results. Google Daniel Pearl, Bill Gothard, Gary Ezzo for examples. But one of the most enlightened of current baby-raising gurus, Dr. William Sears, is also devout Christian. So go figure.
One thing I know, we haven't yet figured out a good substitute for the family, despite all its faults. Because of the potential harm to the child of being separated from parents, we do have to make sure that any such separation will truly be better for the child. I'm sure that some here would condemn my parents as child abusers for what they believed and taught us. (I might even have told a friend she was going to hell, in the midst of some playground battle.) Would I have been better off in a foster home? I seriously doubt it.
Posted by: Vicki Baker | Dec 7, 2007 1:34:05 AM
I'm sorry, Daniel Pearl is certainly not irrelevant to a discussion of the effects of religious upbringing, but I meant Michael Pearl, self-proclaimed sinless individual and author of child-rearing manuals which contain tips about the appropriate size of stick to beat your child with.
Posted by: Vicki Baker | Dec 7, 2007 1:39:35 AM
Like Elatia, I too believe that a certain degree of diversity of thought and action (until it descends into lawless chaos) is a healthy defense against authoritarianism. Neither would I enjoy my stay in a society where everyone thought exactly like me. I wouldn't even like it if everyone in my "family" thought exactly like me.
What we are forgetting here is that there is a world outside the relatively safe confines of the US of A where that diversity is muffled, trampled and threatened with dire consequences. Very often, religion is the instrument of that oppression. (Even Carlos will agree) The original post here addressed that fear. Turkey is supposed to be a tolerant Muslim nation. That is where the publisher of Dawkins' book may face prosecution. The publisher of Rushdie's Satanic Verses was killed in Turkey (not by the government), in case you have forgotten.
Organized religion by definition (not individual theism, spirituality, peace seeking mechanisms of belief) is NOT about diversity, wouldn't you agree? It requires submission to dogma, faith in the institution and unquestioning obedience to orthodoxy and orthopraxy. (The eastern religions are a bit more flexible but still fertile grounds for giving rise to a whole host of superstitions and social ills.) What is the scope here for diversity? Please look outside your enlightened social boundaries to get the picture before you rain down on non-believers for their stridency (echoes of Greg Epstein, Fox News Channel's favorite atheist) Is this the Narcissism of minor differences? Perhaps it is a healthy sign. If there is so much disagreement among rationalists it may mean that there are quite a few of us! And please. Science is not the antonym of religion. It is a tool to explain the natural world and that explanation often runs counter to what religion would have us believe. Non-scientists believe in it too. You don't have to be a card carrying, baptized member of "science."
Vicki, I respect your opinions on most matters. But not everyone is as smart as you are. Yes, parental influence can be and are shaken off. Not by all though. When the little superiority that comes with upbringing ceases at the kindergarten sand box, it is not much of an issue. But if it persists through high school and beyond and the target is not only not from the same religious background as the tormentor but also from a different race and a first generation American, things can get a bit nastier and a lot closer to bullying. I would think that you of all people are capable of seeing the ugly side of that.
Anon unfortunately has hijacked this thread by bringing up the unnecessarily provocative issue of what does or does not constitute child abuse in the physical and the moral sense. Let us focus of what adults are up to vis a vis public policy. Remember we are talking of governmental attitude towards religion, as in Turkey. We now see that our presidential candidates are having to froth at their mouths about their "faith" before they are permitted to hold forth on policy. The Republican side of the debate is fast morphing into religious body frisking. I guess we can all relax.
Mitt Romney had to come to my state of Texas to give his "faith" speech. Not a bad choice. Texas has just fired its director of science education for the unforgivable sin of forwarding an e-mail announcing a talk by philosopher Barbara Forrest who is an opponent of Creationism. While the US Constitution prohibits a "religious test" as a requirement for public office, the Texas Constitution adds:
"nor shall anyone be excluded from holding office on account of his religious sentiments, provided he acknowledges the existence of a Supreme Being."
Posted by: Ruchira | Dec 7, 2007 11:11:34 AM
Glad to see the discussion is still going on. I just have time for a quick link right now. There's a bit more of it than I'm quoting, but not much. It makes me curious about the status/validity of the passage Ruchira quotes from the Texas constitution.
http://tpmelectioncentral.com/2007/12/romney_spokesman_wont_say_whether_athiests_have_a_proper_place_in_america.php
In Torcaso v. Watkins (1961), the Supreme Court struck down a Maryland state constitutional provision which stated: "[N]o religious test ought ever to be required as a qualification for any office of profit or trust in this State, other than a declaration of belief in the existence of God."
The Supreme Court held: "We repeat and again reaffirm that neither a State nor the Federal Government can constitutionally force a person to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion. Neither can constitutionally pass laws or impose requirements which aid all religions as against non-believers, and neither can aid those religions based on a belief in the existence of God as against those religions founded on different beliefs."
Posted by: JanieM | Dec 7, 2007 12:20:53 PM
Anon,
My "black or white" -ness was just intended to summarize what I take to be Dawkins' (and Humphries') position. Dawkins has said on numerous occaisions that he considers religious upbringing, without qualification, as child abuse. If the point is merely that it can sometimes rise to the level of abuse, then scientifically we should be asking what is the extra variable, and making that our concern. (The article you cite is a case in point: if the "Papa Pilgrim" hadn't tortured and raped his children, it wouldn't be a news story.)
Child abuse is a black and white affair. The line between healthy and abusive affection, or healthy and abusive punishment, is a pretty clear one, and there is ample literature delineating it. Can you cite anything from the childhood development disciplines that describes the "crippling" influence of organized religion?
What you write here is not logical:
As you write, no objective comparison after the fact is possible. A child can only choose a worldview in light of (if not in reaction to) the worldvew the child already has. Part of child-rearing must be "indoctrination," especially during the earlier years. Culture is indoctrination. Language is indoctrination. That doesn't mean it always "takes," or that it can't be discarded or modified later. If that were true, we'd all still be paleolithic. There's simply no way to put to the test the proposition that, all things being equal, all children would choose enlightenment values, and you know it.
What you are really arguing is not that parents don't have the right to choose worldviews, but rather than there are right and wrong worldviews. On a personal level I would agree with you, though I might soften "wrong" to something like "unproductive." But in our culture we privilege the right to embrace (and express) one's own ideas, and the primacy of the family in rearing children. Like it or not, these are more sacred values than what you or I may consider valid truth claims. (Though they are not more sacred than the right of children to be free of actual, demonstrable damage [as opposed to the hypothetical damage that is presumed to arise from holding untrue beliefs]). It was the enlightenment itself which brought forth these values; for example the Declaration of the Rights of Man, which states:
Posted by: Chris Schoen | Dec 7, 2007 1:10:43 PM
Thank you Ruchira, for bringing the thread back on point.
Someone who has been following the debate may have more accurate opinions, but it seems like we could benefit from examining the chicken egg nature of these points of conflict.
The Satanic Verses---Rabid Muslim Oversensitivity to apostate mockery of Mohammad (pbuh).
Fundie creationist incursions into public ed---Atheist activism within same.
[Side note: Gays running out and getting "married" --- Rightwing political campaigns opposing Gay Marriage]
And most recently, Atheist Mass Marketing Efforts -- Dawkins publisher potentially being held criminally liable for publishing a book that with forsight could have been predicted to cause riots, mayhem, insult, anger, what have you (whether or not it actually did any of those things, I have no idea)
I have a pretty good idea that I would be arrested for firing a gun into a crowd of people even if I did not hit anyone. I believe I should be arrested for pouring blood into the water around people swimming in an area where sharks frequent, even if nobody was maimed or killed.
I appreciate the idea that your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins but that constraint inspires certain people to see just how close they can get their fist. I think the flaming edge between Fundamentalist Religious Dogma and Fundamentalist Atheist Dogma is always going to be difficult, but some fault goes to the one fanning the flames. Since, as we have seen, people can actually be killed over such ideas, and governments have a duty to keep the peace, I suppose we can expect to see a range of decisions from various governments best suited to their own populations. This does not necessarily mean that they are religiously intolerant (I thought Turkey was a secular state).
To quote WC Fields Epitaph, "On the whole, I'd rather be in Philadelphia," a mythical city of brotherly love where, in my mind, Dawkins would be seen as a rude little prig but nobody would refuse to have lunch with him. They'd rather have lunch with Dennett though; sometimes it's not what you say as much as how you say it.
As far as the belief in a Supreme Being test, that's not new, nor unique to Texas. The notion was even, if I recall, discussed in the Federalist Papers that it was only the Federal Government that was excluded from having such religious tests, or even a preferred religion. I may have that completely wrong, and I apologize in advance if so. Even still, Dawkins, Harris, Dennet et al could still pass that test. The Supreme Being is them.
Posted by: Carlos | Dec 7, 2007 1:19:10 PM
Ruchira, I completely agree -- valuing diversity where there are (still) Constitutionally guaranteed civil liberties is easy, not more than to say I agree with the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. In Turkey, where a long struggle to secure a secular government is apparently collapsing, where women students are longing to re-veil, where partnering with the West economically is desirable, but suddenly nothing else of the West is any good, I can't imagine what I would do but...emigrate. Freedom of thought has a different feel, depending on where you look in the world. To us, it is both precious and natural -- so much so that we wouldn't dream of taking it from someone who disagreed with us. I can see how to lots of Turks who desire Islamicization for political ends, however, freedom of thought can't bring about social cohesion -- it's no good to them, and they can't imagine how any group rising to power would tolerate it. So how much do you just throw up your hands and figure "That's Turkey?" I know what I think, but I'm not sure I know what I'd do at the policy level, if it were up to me.
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Dec 7, 2007 1:52:42 PM
Post a comment