I’ve enjoyed several of the videos produced by The Thinking Atheist. The following video, however, should make them reconsider their (already rather smarmy) name.
In the video, several atheists relate their Christian upbringing, which they now not-so-fondly remember as ‘brainwashing’. Dawkins has sometimes gone so far as to claim that religious education is a form of child abuse. It can be, but the complaints made by the atheists in the video struck me as petty. There are too many grave injustices in this world for me to care about your being dragged to church every Sunday as a child. (Though I’ll admit that my religious upbringing wasn’t very strict, and I generally don’t regret my experience in Mormonism.)
The main point of the film is that it’s wrong for religions and religious people to target the youth. But if you believed in a real, literal Hell, you’d be obligated to do all you could to ensure that your kids averted it. Just as you wouldn’t let your kids drink poison to find out it’s lethal, you wouldn’t expose them to or let them hold poisonous (read atheistic) beliefs that would imperil their salvation. If that requires a degree of so-called ‘brainwashing’ or ‘indoctrination’, then so be it. Were I ever to have kids, I would of course try to teach them to be open-minded, critical thinkers. I’d even encourage them to investigate the world’s religious traditions. But that’s a luxury I have as someone who doesn’t believe in the threat of Hell.
To be sure, I think the degree to which religious parents inculcate religious beliefs in their children is often detrimental—especially when those beliefs are terror-inducing, like the concept of Hell. But this video misidentifies the problem. The problem isn’t the indoctrination so much as its content. It doesn’t make sense to ask Christians to stop steeping their children in their respective religious faith or to stop proselytizing. To ask this of a Christian is to ask them to be a hypocrite. Again, if you believe in a real Hell, it’s imperative that you save people from it. No, the only appropriate response is to challenge the very belief (in this case, Hell) that is motivating the actions.
And another thing: Isn’t everything you teach children a form of brainwashing? Kids are evolutionarily primed to be sponges for information. Kids may be born atheists, as the video asserts, but they are not born critical-thinkers. They’re curious, granted, but they’re nonetheless impressionable. Critical thinking is a skill that requires a fully-developed brain and years of intellectual exercise. Even were you to teach your children skepticism, they would accept those lessons unskeptically.
What’s more, I have a hard time believing that the people interviewed here are not raising their kids to be atheists, just as the religious parents raise their kids to be religious. Why is the latter ‘brainwashing’, but the former not? Because Christians host concerts and pizza parties (how nefarious!)? Give me a break. We’re not talking about a pedophile luring kids into his van with candy, but sincere religious people concerned about the spiritual well-being of their children.
I’m very supportive of the movement for nonbelievers to come out of the proverbial closet, but it seems many new atheists expect religious people to go into one. I’d rather everyone have a voice in the public square, the marketplace of ideas. The more debate and discussion, the better. This video, though, trades in the kind of lazy accusations and caricatures of religious people that do little to advance our dialogue.
Some good thoughts. I couldn’t tell you how many times I have rolled my eyes whenever I hear someone accuse the Church (or religion in general) of brainwashing.
Don’t get me wrong. I think a lot of Mormon parents are guilty of ‘brainwashing’ (though I’m often reluctant to use that word, given its emotionally charged nature). And I do think it’s unfortunate that children aren’t exposed to contrary beliefs and what not. I just felt it was worth noting that religion doesn’t have a monopoly on ‘brainwashing’, and that it makes sense given beliefs like Heaven and Hell.
I agree. We’d do better to try to get people to examine the irrationality of a God who demands obedience through fear and punishment (seriously, the Christian version of God is rather ignorant of developmental psychology, and yet he’s supposed to be omniscient). Complaining that they pass on their beliefs doesn’t do much; getting them to give up the dumber and more harmful beliefs is easier, I think.
Interesting video. I question whether or not it is “demonstrable” that all children are born atheists though. How exactly does one demonstrate that? At some point, don’t children look up at the sky; the vast landscape; the complexity of nature; and ask “why are we here?” And could that not lead to a personally-founded belief in a higher power?
I certainly agree that our species is prone to believing in the supernatural. We ask the ‘why’ questions that other animals don’t, for instance. So obviously a belief in god comes easy to us; in fact, atheism is counterintuitive for most people. I think the point is just that, despite our receptive predisposition toward supernaturalism, specific religious beliefs have to be taught.
But I agree that it’s a pretty silly line–claiming that all babies are atheists. It doesn’t really say much of importance.
Jon you’re always so well spoken and diplomatic. I love it.
Thanks for being sensible about this, Jon. All parents inculcate beliefs in their children; it would be impossible not to. What is plain is that adults are capable of reflecting for themselves on what they were taught as chidren. The people in the video managed to escape the “brainwashing” of their religious parents. My parents are atheists, and I managed to escape their “brainwashing.”
I am left to wonder what kind of hurt these people experienced to have so much resentment and sadness over their childhoods. I feel sad for them. I also think this video shows how adolescent the atheist movement can sometimes be. JPII described atheism as a “rejection of fatherhood”, and the connection to this griping about parental “brainwashing” is apt.
I also am left to wonder what happens to their kids who are raised to be skeptical free thinkers. Will their kids blame their parents on some future youtube video for brainwashing them into nihilism?
And I want to say something about the last quotation in the video: “It is an interesting and demonstrable fact that all children are born atheists …”
Let us suppose this is true. Incidentally, I don’t think it says much. Pretty much everything we believe is something we have been taught (I think we are born blank slates). So what are we to take from this claim about everyone being born atheists? Look, it is an interesting and demonstrable fact that infants and toddlers are selfish tyrants, and if civility, sociability, and self-control were not inculcated into them, they would remain barbaric creatures. Is that somehow an argument against inculcating care for others, selflessness, civility, and self-control in your children? If you think so, then read some freaking Plato; he does a fine job of explaining what happens when education of the young goes wrong. Or, if you want, run an experiment with your kids when you have them. Don’t teach them anything, let them live unshackled from the tyrannical constraint of parental direction. Then gather all of the SHAFT kids together for a picnic. What will you see ? Hobbes’ state of nature – war of all against all, life that is nasty brutish and short.
Back to the adolescence point. One can now see the Romanticism that is at the heart of these sorts of videos, and I think Romanticism is a fundamentally adolescent philosophical movement. The last quotation about being born atheists implies that we are born with some kind of natural wisdom and that natural wisdom is corrupted by the alienating forces of education and civilization. This is pure Romanticism, whose theme music might as well be Another Brick in the Wall (we don’t need no education) by Pink Floyd. Read Rousseau’s Emile – education of the sentiments is the enemy, and the preferable state would be letting man live outside civilizing influences so that he could remain the “noble savage”. This is the adolescence of it all. These poor people in the video had their real and authentic “selves” (the radical individual unmediated by socializing formations) irreparably damaged by that tyrannical and alienating force of civilization that is called the family.
I am sorry, but I find all of it just plain childish. It is unsurprising that Dawkins – by far the most adolescent member of the extremely adolescent new atheist movement – is the one who has encouraged all this nonsense.
Last point – I wonder how many parents preach the hellfire and brimstone to their kids. Atheist bloggers seem to think this “obedience through fear of punishment” is the Christian story, but that is a ridiculous caricature. I am not sure where that view comes from. I am sure some parents play this card with their kids, and that is too bad. I am sorry if your parents did that to you. But I think a fair amount of this stereotyping comes from treating stupid “documentaries” like Religulous (an exercise in complete dishonesty) as actually fair treatments of a religious tradition. I was raised atheist, so have no first hand experience. I can say that this kind of “you’ll go to hell if you don’t believe X” has absolutely no part in the religious formation I am giving to my children. I am a joyful Christian, not a scared one. I go to Mass not because I fear punishment if I don’t, but because I love God.
Let’s step back just a bit here. Many of the comments hold religious belief and atheism as two equal sides of some grand debate, and fault religion for “merely” (innocently, trivially) neglecting “both sides”. Other comments reveal the assumption that atheism is either some kind of “brainwashing” equivalent to religious belief, or some kind of nihilistic, amoral, even abusive abandonment and neglect of children. This draws on the age-old myth that atheists have no morality and, therefore, do not teach their children anything at all.
How absurd.
First of all, by definition, atheism is an absence of belief. It is not necessarily an absence of any belief whatsoever, just an absence of belief in the kind of personal god or other supernatural deities taught by traditional religion. Some of you take issue with the statement that everyone is born an atheist. That makes no sense. Of course everyone is born an atheist. That may not be “demonstrable” in any empirical sense, but it is certainly a valid rational postulate stemming from the definition of the word “atheist”. We could with equal confidence and validity state that all human infants are born lacking a belief in Santa Claus or Pixies or unicorns. Can anyone argue against that?
Second, if an absence of belief in deities does NOT hold the same epistemological valence as belief in deities (as I am arguing above), then atheist parents NOT “indoctrinating” their children is NOT the same thing as religious parents “indoctrinating” their children. Failing to mention Santa Claus to your children is NOT the same thing (“brainwashing”) as asserting the teaching your children daily about the reality and intricate, magical world of Santa. As such, NO, it is NOT the case that “everybody is “brainwashed” about something.
Finally, some comments here assume that humans “naturally” look up into the sky and ask “Why am I here?” and that this is some kind of proof of an innate religious impulse. The “Why” question does not equal religion or belief, and the non-theistic, non-supernatural answers to the “Why” question does not necessarily constitute religion or belief in a god.
@ Dr. Kleiner: As I was reading your post I heard your admonition to “read some freaking Plato” in a Napoleon Dynamite voice. I’m still laughing.
@ Dan: You can define atheism as the absence of belief, but you’ll have to deal with the fact that you’re not using the word in the same way most people do. That’s because when most atheists refer to their atheism, they are talking about a whole slew of beliefs, often including the belief that their lack of belief in deity is good and ought to be imitated by others.
If you stick to the definition of atheism as an absence of belief and don’t sneak any other beliefs in there, the tag “atheist” ceases to say anything interesting about anyone. Since “atheist” means only that one lacks a given belief, it closes down only one possibility as a predicate, leaving infinite others open in the same way that saying a car was “not white” tells you very little about its color. A conversation between this type of atheist and a Christian might look like this:
ATHEIST: I lack belief in any supernatural being.
CHRISTIAN: Would you like to believe in Jesus?
ATHEIST: Well, I’m sure I don’t know. In the same way that I lack any belief in a supernatural being, I also lack any beliefs surrounding my belief. For example, I don’t have any idea whether it is good to lack belief as I do, or what my reasons are, or whether your reasons for believing are any better.
CHRISTIAN: You should try believing in Jesus. It’s nice.
ATHEIST: You’re right, it sounds fantastic! And since I also lack beliefs about whether it is possible to modify one’s own beliefs, I have no reason to believe that I can’t change mine wholesale!
Although this conversation isn’t very likely, defining atheism as a simple absence of one belief makes it entirely consistent. In real life, however, atheists have many beliefs surrounding and supporting their atheism. Even if one grants that atheism is a simple lack of belief and is therefore the sort of thing which cannot be the goal of indoctrination, the other beliefs that surround atheism can be indoctrinated and will be by parents who believe they are on the right track. That’s what people are talking about when they draw the very sensible parallel between religious and atheistic childhoods, and missing that point is what makes the people in the above video seem so whiny.
I never claimed that atheists have no morality. That would be a silly thing to say since most atheists I know have roughly the same moral opinions as I have. My nihilism remark referred to the possibility of grounding morality. If you think atheists can ground their morality just as easily as theists, let me refer you to Friedrich Nietzsche. Theists should thank Nz for speaking so clearly and frankly about the consequences of atheism. All of the atheists I know are thankfully too weak and wimpy to actually walk all the way with Nz.
Or you might find the talk called “Why atheists should not be so smug about morality” that Prof Huenemann (an atheist!) gave a while back. The talk was sponsored by SHAFT and I think the audio was posted on this blog. It focused on how naturalism could never get you an ethics with much in the way of moral force.
Sam Harris does a bit better in his recent book morality. But it is ripped through with teleology (he basically proposes a natural law eudaimonia ethics), so he has some serious metaphysical skeletons in his closet (even though he seem totally unaware of it). I heard that after his debate with Craig at Notre Dame, a priest approached Harris after and thanked him for defending the Catholic view of morality!
kleiner,
I submit that what you pass off as “morality” in the name of (Christian) religion, by any other name would be the most immoral and inhumane “grounding” imaginable. See my post about the monster god of the LDS as an example of the kind of twisted “morality” most religion gives us. The “obedience through fear of punishment” concept is not a caricature; it is grounded in sacred scripture and the Christian tradition itself. Simplistic characterizations of Christianity as “joyful” and based on “love” are the caricatures and are not scriptural nor traditional.
So it is a matter of the “ease” with which we can ground our morality? As such, Christianity claims the superior moral grounding because it is easier? Is this a tacit appeal to parsimony or utility as the ultimate grounding for Christian morality? Or is it the “moral force” (you invoke in your appeal to Huenemann) that gives religion its superior moral grounding? And is this merely the ultimate appeal to authority (and dogmatic acquiescence and blind acceptance of the authority of the Christian god)?
As do others in this blog, you also seem to throw all “atheists” into one big pot, stir it up, add the fire of your criticisms, and homogenize the lot (or, rather, you homogenize SO THAT you can attack the straw man you have cooked up). My point was that people are “atheists” in a much more diverse manner than believers are believers, and this by virtue of the fact that there is no shared or common belief central to, nor around which “atheists” congregate, by definition. There IS such in religion, again, by definition, and the beliefs common to Christianity are not only documented and passed down by tradition, but they contain the “obedience through fear of punishment” doctrine with which you claim to be unfamiliar. Speaking of “childish”, such a “joyful” and naive view of Christianity as you seem to espouse (at least to your children) is akin to the childish belief in a wonderful, simply magical Santa Claus.
As for Sam Harris’ “teleology”, it is deliberate and erroneous equivocation to call that “serious metaphysical skeletons” as if that somehow refutes his “ethics”. Teleology need not be metaphysical at all.
I keep forgetting why I don’t post here, then get reminded every time I return when I get the standard atheist put-downs (I am naive, dogmatic, love authority, etc etc). Also, I don’t feel the need to be lectured on what atheism is and is not. It is likely that I was an atheist for more years than you have been alive.
Two points:
1) You can get that obedience through fear in Scripture, no denying that. The trouble I have is that many atheists read Scripture like sola scriptura biblical literalists read it – they yank out some number of lines out of context and pretend that is the whole story. I am not saying those lines aren’t there, nor that fear (awe) is not an important part of the Christian story. I just want to understand all of that in the broader context of God’s self-revelation. When you do that, the whole picture takes on a much different flavor and what you say starts to look more like a caricature.
2) I am not making a claim about the ease of grounding a morality, but of the possibility of grounding it at all. Nor did I make a claim about any particular religious conviction. I was making a very general claim – that theism can provide a metaphysics that can ground and explain teleology and hence ethics in a way that any naturalistic / atheistic metaphysics won’t be able to do. This is not a claim that just religious people make. Huenemann readily grants this point (but bites the bullet and admits that he doesn’t really have good reasons for his moral views). Of course various stripes of religious believers may or may not believe in the kind of God I have in mind. To me, that is a second order question.
If you think serious Christianity is akin to belief in a “magical Santa Claus”, then you demonstrate nothing other than your own complete ignorance about classical theism and natural theology. You are in good company, it is typical of atheists who use those new atheist talking points to not know much about classical theism. Put away the talking points and read some Aquinas. You may not be persuaded, and that is fine. But any serious reading of Aquinas will persuade you that he is not talking about a magical Santa Claus. It is serious philosophy and it is worth taking seriously even if you disagree (by the way, I would say the same thing about Nz from the point of view of theism).
Teleology need not be metaphysical at all? Really? Let’s go with the most basic definition of teleology, supplied by wikipedia: “A teleology is any philosophical account which holds that final causes exist in nature, meaning that design and purpose analogous to that found in human actions are inherent also in the rest of nature.” Sounds pretty metaphysical to me.
But let’s just take Harris’ account. Harris’ argument is that human nature has genuine and knowable ends/goods. Actions that encourage and enable the fulfillment of these ends lead to human flourishing and so are good. Actions that frustrate these ends are bad. He rejects cultural relativism because he thinks these ends are real facts about a universal human nature (the genesis of human nature would be another question). In other words, he is not saying that here are only apparent ends, or there is the appearance of real telic significations when in reality there are not. No, he commits himself (quite rightly, in my view) to real human ends that are bound up in knowable human nature. In short, he puts forth a natural law eudaimonia ethics. Good on him, I share those views. But I don’t see how you can say he is not making a metaphysical claim since he is making claims about human nature.
Note – anyone who holds a natural law view like this (as I do) rejects the view that you need faith to be understand morality. You don’t need faith, you just need an adequate anthropology – an understanding of human nature and human goods. For the most part, I think these things are pretty obvious. Hence the first principles of morality are pretty plain and widely accepted (man is a social animal so traits x, y, and z are good and traits a, b, and c are bad).
Point is, you can know the intermediate cause without knowing the ultimate cause. That is why there is widespread agreement on morality in the midst of widespread disagreement about the existence and nature of God. But if you start asking about ultimate causes, the grounding of teleology, and the ultimate grounding of morality, I am with Aristotle – you’ll need an Unmoved Mover. Atheists who don’t ask ultimate questions end up doing what Sartre and Nz both condemn – they proclaim the death of God but then go on living as if nothing was different. Nz knows better. He asks ultimate questions, remains an atheist, and so delivers what non-chicken-shit atheism really looks like. (Note: I am glad all of the atheists I know are chicken-shits in this sense).
I think my responses to Dan may have turned into a “threadjack”. Sorry about that, SHAFTers! I’ll leave you guys alone again.
Kleiner,
I am more sorry for your verbosity than for my opacity. I suppose I should expect as much from a professor of philosophy (especially one who sports a bow tie!).
My original post was a response to your “name-calling” (which, ironically, came across as very juvenile, even as you were applying “childish” labels to the mass of “atheists” you continue to lump together onto one homogeneous group.
Before you bless us with further “words”, please simply and directly address that point. How do you justify such a move, given the obvious and repeated definition of “atheism” (including on the explanatory page of the SHAFT site) as an absence of belief? By the very nature of the word, it is nigh unto impossible to say anything definitive about “atheists’ on the whole. Upon what basis do you persist in doing so (and still hope to claim intellectual or diological coherence)?
My next point was simply that, given the absence of belief as well as the absence of homogeneity among “atheists”, it follows that atheist parenting does not have the same “brainwashing” (indoctrinating) valence as does theistic parenting. NOT indoctrinating your children is clearly not the same thing as indoctrinating with a positive, affirmative belief in a deity.
Please address these two points directly, if you will. As yet, I have not seen you touch upon these two key points of my posts.
I get paid by the word.
I did not respond to those two points because I thought Siler had ably responded to them. I still think Siler’s response was more than adequate.
I understand what you are saying, Dan, but I think Siler is right to say that “atheism” tends to refer to more than just an absence of belief. Rather, it tends to indicate a family of beliefs. I am a former atheist (born and raised), I know a lot of atheists and I see a fair number come through my classes. I can say this – I see very little diversity of belief among atheists (particularly college-aged atheists). There are a family of beliefs that are commonly held – materialism, naturalism, and scientism paired with predictably progressive cultural/political opinions all tossed with a large dose of scorn. That is the norm. A few of the more sensible ones manage to avoid the scorn. Still, the family of beliefs are all the sorts of beliefs that can be “brain-washed” into kids. Typically the atheist has no real argument for his naturalism and materialism, nor does he see much need to make arguments. The atheists I encounter tend to be as involved in dogmatic group-think as any religious people I know. (I’ll readily confess that this was true of me when I was an atheist. So I treat the group as a relatively homogenous lot because, well, because they are a relatively homogenous lot.
And, as Siler points out, there is something downright evangelical about the new atheist movement, which is less a-theism than it is anti-theism. New atheists have the truth and they are eager to proselytize. Non-believers won’t go to hell, but they are guilty (of “irrationality” and even “child abuse”). Appropriate and scornful judgments are made accordingly. Look, atheists even have their own nifty “A” logo now that they paste onto their laptops and t-shirts to advertise their group membership (Dawkins will happily sell these over-priced trinkets to you, rather like Deseret Bookstore sells the trappings of that group membership). Mormons have their CTR rings, Catholics their rosaries, you have your A logo. Strange to have the external trappings of group membership when you are a member of a negation group (does the atheist also wear a shirt saying “not a horse”?). Atheists even have their own “popes” (the four horsemen) whose mostly ignorant philosophical ramblings are confidently repeated like pseudo-creedal talking points by the lay scientific atheists.
So if I treat atheists as a group, it is because they put themselves forth as a group.
My last thought:
Different people might mean different things by “atheism”, and Dan’s quite narrow definition is no doubt legitimate. But for fun I went to 4 or 5 websites of national atheist organizations (like American Atheists) and read their mission statements. None of their self-definitions are as thin as Dan’s definition of atheism. Rather, all them included some mix of naturalism, humanism, materialism and scientism. In other words, all of them made some mix of metaphysical and epistemological claims. And every mission statement included a commitment to evangelical efforts. Some even allowed for the excommunication of members if they were not aligned with certain core mission beliefs. All of the statements read like creeds. In short, atheists treat themselves as a group.
In light of this, I don’t think it is all that unfair of me to treat atheists as a group that has a collection of relatively homogenous beliefs. And Siler’s post was on the money. “Atheism” – as articulated by major atheist organizations themselves – signifies far more than the mere absence of a particular belief. All of the creedal mission statements were chock-full of “brainwashable” ideas. I should say that I have no problem with this – people (atheists and theists alike) should rear their children according to their carefully considered convictions about what is good, true, and beautiful.
Kleiner,
No, “they” (all) don’t put themselves forward as a group. Some do. Those who do are a tiny minority, and they have no “authority” to represent all those who “lack belief in a personal deity”.
As such, painting with such a broad brush as you do is reckless and unprofessional, if not anti-scholarly, especially when your “argument” amounts to “those atheists are all so childish… because they aren’t serious atheists (they aren’t Nietzschean atheists!).”
But my points still hold, even against Siler’s silliness (does Siler claim to be a professional philosopher as well? Tisk, tisk).
How many atheists are “groupies” is an empirical question. For you to refuse to acknowledge that fact, and to cavalierly lump atheists all together, and think you are offering an intellectually valid critique of “atheists” because you do some name-calling, is laughable.
You are right, not every atheist will define himself in terms of naturalism, humanism, materialism, and scientism. But I think it is very common. It is strange, I think, to call the largest national organizations of atheists representative of “tiny minorities”. I suspect their actual membership is pretty small, but proxy membership (atheists who agree with the basic convictions of those mission statements) is extremely high. So we’ll have to agree to disagree. I am sorry you find my making claims about atheists and their typical convictions to be “reckless, unprofessional, and anti-scholarly”. Ironic, of course, since your posts lumped Christian believers into a simplistic caricature that was more grossly unfounded than my generalizations about atheists. My generalizations about atheists, as it turns out, are echoed in the largest national atheist organization mission statements. Do you think you’ll find organizations of intellectual Christians talking about Christianity in the way you did? Perhaps a few, but not much.
Siler is not a professional philosopher, but he was one of our strongest majors we’ve had in my time here at USU. He doesn’t need me defending him, but he has more than earned respect and doesn’t deserve dismissive tsk tsks.
I will stand by my claim that a rather adolescent attitude is a basic feature of mot of the atheisms I encounter (to name some figures, Nz, Sartre, any of the Romantics, and the new atheist movements). Not all, but most. And, to get back to the video, that adolescent whininess was on full display in the video clip.
Have a good summer Dan!
Dan –
I will grant your point. From the perspective of the very narrow (and perfectly legitimate) definition of atheism as a mere absence of a belief, you are right – I painted with an unfairly broad brush.
My comments were directed toward a broader definition of atheism, or more accurately, toward a collection of beliefs that commonly travel with atheism. I think it is a reality that the vast majority of atheists understand themselves in terms of this larger family of beliefs (naturalism, materialism, scientism, humanism, etc). As such, “atheist” can and often does signify a collection of moral, metaphysical, and epistemological views (positive claims, not mere absences of beliefs). I take the atheist organization websites (and, it is worth noting, the title of this blog), as evidence that this broader signification is sensible. When it comes to that broader collection of beliefs, I stand by my claims.
I appreciate your concession (?).
The size of an atheist organization (or a slew of them) is hardly the point. Yes, atheists have united and formed groups – largely to push back against the (fascist) religious forces that seek to influence political power, pass laws, etc. that tread on the individual liberties of atheists. The religious hegemony in societal institutions can be quite onerous to deal with.
But the large majority of atheists are silent, non-group-joiners who, quite frankly, don’t care about the Christian god anymore than they care about Zeus, Apollo, Thor, or the countless other gods in which other people believe. As such, judging the numbers, much less the attitudes (or maturity levels) of atheists based on those you have encountered in organized groups is completely unrepresentative. It would be like judging the “group” who does not believe in pole-vaulting by the number and character of those “a-polevaulters” who take the time to organize. Clearly, there is a huge sampling problem.
As for your “I-know-you-are-but-what-am-I” argument that I, too, make judgments about all Christians by lumping them together unfairly, you are not quite accurate. I simply referenced the sacred scriptures of those kinds of official religious organizations. They DO organize deliberately, as a necessary part of their belief systems, and they DO declare their beliefs to be contained in a canon of scriptures by which they openly declare they are to be identified and judged.
By contrast, there is no atheist canon of scripture against which all (or even most) atheists are evaluated to determine their “orthodoxy” (or orthopraxy). There is NO ORTHODOXY for atheists (by definition). Your claim that atheist organizations do “excommunicate” members who do not conform to the groups’ standards is incidental to the point.
As such, your “whining” about atheists, and calling them “juvenile” (or childish) is being done based on your own esoteric (and limited) experience with a non-representative sample, and based on non-authoritative writings (or documentaries). By contrast, my criticisms of Christianity were based on widely accepted, canonized “scripture” by which Christians identify themselves and hold themselves accountable for questions of orthodoxy.
Do you see the difference?
It was a bit of a concession, though I think I am taking it back.
Siler made a good point, that I will expand on. On your very narrow definition of atheism (absence of belief), there would be no distinction between an atheist and an agnostic. But there is some difference in what those two terms signify. On your definition, there would be nothing preventing the atheist from believing. But, in fact, most atheists (and I might even say all) are distinct from agnostics in at least one way – they make genuine metaphysical commitments (various epistemological and moral commitments often follow). It is not just that they do not believe, they positively believe in an alternative metaphysical story (materialism, naturalism) that precludes the possibility of a theism.
I don’t think the sampling problem with atheists is as severe as you think. By the way, are you a humanist or a naturalist or a materialist? It would be a bit funny if the shoe happened to fit you. Nor do I take you to be an expert on what Christian scripture and tradition teach. In fact, your caricature view (based largely on some sola scriptura / decontextualized readings of the OT or, in what you actually cited, some LDS texts) suggest that you are not an expert at all.
I think I am about done talking with you about it. Whoever you are, I don’t feel the need to be “tisk tisked” by you, nor am I “whining” about anything. Your general snarkiness and the comment that any attempt by religious people to influence political power is “facist” shows the cards in your deck. I tend not to take people who hold those cards all that seriously, because, well, it is a silly new atheist talking point that doesn’t deserve to be taken seriously. I am sure, of course, that you will not “brainwash” your kids into all of these other beliefs – materialism, naturalism, or that religious groups are facist, etc, since, you know, atheists don’t brainwash like religious people do.
Signing off.
Kleiner,
Nice… and childish.
Ditto with the agreements. Everyone is “brainwashed” about something. And I do think it’s understandable (although in some cases taken to extremes) given Christian beliefs. That’s generally what I tell people who wonder how I don’t get frustrated at all of my parents’ re-activation attempts. I see them for what they are — sincere attempts by loving parents to save their daughter from what they believe to be a horrifying fate. And it doesn’t hurt me to hear about the church, so why should I care if they send me the Ensign every month?
Great post and comments.
I don’t think religions are guilty of brainwashing so much as they are guilty of showing only one side. I would have no problems with a parent who says, “This is what we believe about God. It brings me guidance and happiness in life and I want the same for you. But you need to learn for yourself. Here are some books on Buddhism, Hinduism, Catholicism, agnosticism, and atheism. Let’s talk about what you learn.”
That, to me, is very different than indoctrination (i.e. “This is what the true God is like. If you don’t believe it you will suffer.”)
As for the claims that religions (in particular, Christianity and/or Mormonism) do NOT actually teach fear and punishment, let me tell you exactly where those ideas come from: Sacred, Holy, Canonized scripture!
Here is the most poignant example from Mormonism:
The consummation of the LDS “Another Testament of Jesus Christ” is found in 3 Nephi when the resurrected Jesus Christ allegedly appears to countless people, preaches (in word-for-word King James vernacular) the same “gospel” he taught in Jerusalem, establishes his “priesthood” and “Church”, then ascends back into heaven.
The account is remarkable because Jesus’ appearance follows devastating, catastrophic destruction of over 16 cities and all the inhabitants of them. Presumably, millions of men, women, and children are buried by landslides, burned by fire, drowned by tsunamis, etc.
These are the “punishing” actions of the LDS Jesus Christ. Then 3 Nephi 9:1-13 reports this so-called “Prince of Peace” actually threatening those survivors:
“…will ye not now return unto me, and repent of your sins, and be converted…?” (3 Nephi 9:13)
“…But if not, O house of Israel, the places of your dwellings shall become adesolate…” (3 Nephi 10:7).
That is the god of punishment, threats, and bullying that we find in the official, sacred, canon of scripture of the LDS, and it is the same kind of monster we find in the Old Testament of all of Christianity.
It doesn’t matter how “nice” and “loving” your primary teachers or your parents told you god is. Sacred scripture tells otherwise.
Okay, forgive me for commenting so late in the game but I’ve been playing catch up with my google reader and only just read this post. I wasn’t able to watch the video you posted (damn my browser) and I haven’t sifted through all the comments, so if this comment is a bit irrelevant to those things, that’s why.
Jon, I’ve generally found your posts to be enlightening and you to be an empathetic writer, so I was pretty shocked when I read this. Your post seems to weave between arguing against the labeling of religious teachings as brainwashing, but then also to shrug off the real harm that those teachings may do. I don’t think religion is necessarily harmful, but tormenting your child about hell is. I am less concerned about parents exercising their right to raise their children according to their world views as I am about the spiritual abuse that can occur as a reaction to some, usually extreme, beliefs. This is why I was confused when you say that “There are too many grave injustices in this world for me to care about your being dragged to church every Sunday as a child.” If that were the extent of the complaints, I would agree with you. My concern is that you seem to lack empathy for the experiences of those who do suffer greatly because of what they were taught. The children who are tormented by the fear of hell, who are taught self hatred for small mistakes, often carry these scars into adulthood. The depression and anxiety that results is crippling and very real. Once again, I don’t think there is anything wrong with simply teaching your children beliefs, but when they result in psychological torment, that is wrong. And I really could care less if you, as a parent, sincerely believe them. Since when is that the standard for doing harm? Actions should be judged based on their results (as best as they can, anyway) not on the intentions or beliefs behind them, no matter how honorable they might be. If a parent’s teachings cause a child fear and self-loathing for most of their life, it is not right for those beliefs to be inflicted on a child (and these effects are common, though I would presume they are more common in more dogmatic religions that demonize simply thinking outside of the group’s prescribed ideas). And when, by your definition, is the line drawn when someone does something that causes harm even though someone may truly believe in what they are doing? Is psychological torment not enough? Was BYU justified in using aversion therapy on its gay, or presumed to be gay, students because they believed it to be right? That was a pretty extreme example, and I don’t mean to accuse you of anything, but I don’t think belief is a good justification for harm. I think parents have an obligation to not only examine the validity of their beliefs, but their effects, and giving them a free pass because their beliefs are sincere does not help the percentage of children who will suffer emotionally because of what they were taught.
But as far as your other points, I agree with you to an extent. I think a teaching becomes brainwashing when it will continue to warp a child’s thinking into adulthood. What I mean is, force-feeding your child your beliefs while also telling them that believing something else, or even considering something else, is evil and horrible, and then teaching that child to associate any other belief with fear or hatred, is brainwashing. I certainly don’t think a religious upbringing has to fail that test or that a secular upbringing will always pass it.
Also, I think asking your child to repeat a statement of belief or knowledge when they could not possibly understand that statement goes beyond teaching and treads into brainwashing territory. Lds sacrament meetings, though done innocently enough, come to mind, with seven year olds being praised for repeating, “I know Joseph Smith is a prophet, I know this church is true…” and their parents gushing when that child could not possibly have to come to a conclusion about any of those things. But I don’t want to just pick on religion here, a skeptical upbringing could make the same mistake. I could foresee a child being taught to recite how they know the Earth is this old and that humans evolved, but weren’t created, when they couldn’t possibly know these things. In both my first and second example, I think it’s fine to teach these things to your kids, but making them recite those beliefs as if they had somehow evaluated the evidence and now know for themselves and can testify to the truth of those things is just ridiculous, maybe even brainwashing. Lastly, asking your child to make a commitment to your church, ie baptism, at the age of eight, then acting like they somehow understand what that commitment means, is fanatical.
Thanks for you comments, Kellie.
To be sure, I never denied that steeping your children in religion can be harmful. That’s why I wrote the following: “I think the degree to which religious parents inculcate religious beliefs in their children is often detrimental—especially when those beliefs are terror-inducing, like the concept of Hell.
My thoughts were more specifically in response to the video. Many people do have legitimate grievances about their religious upbringing, no doubt. But the people in this video seem too easily insulted. There is nothing offensive about your friends and family inviting you to church because they fear for your salvation. Well, there is nothing necessarily offensive, that is. Someone can say “You’re going to hell” in an arrogant or hateful way (as arguably the Westboro Baptists do), but when most Christians express concerns about one’s salvation, I believe it’s sincere. And insofar as you believe in a real hell, it’s actually your obligation to warn people about it, even if that means indoctrinating your children or being obnoxiously overbearing with non-Christian friends, etc.
Again, I am not defending religious indoctrination so much as I’m asking that we understand it more sympathetically in light of the belief in hell.
On a quick aside, can I invite a friend of mine to this blog? He’s a Christian and has pretty well stated that the majority of Atheists on the net (Not real life) are morons. He’s also convinced that net Atheists have no good arguments, are irrational, ect, but he and I have had pretty similar discussions as had here.
I think he’d appreciate it.
That said, I also don’t really buy into the whole mantra of “religion is brainwashing”. It just seems like a cheap gimmick designed to make religion look bad, and of course to make the hapless Atheists seem like victims and heroes who overcame this dreadful phenomenon.
A lot of those complaints ring hollow. I was taken to Church as a boy. So what? It didn’t hurt me any. Besides, what else were my parents suppose to do, leave me home alone?
My “de-conversion” ( itself a useless word) was simple. I just didn’t believe in God. I didn’t develop some massive hatred for Christianity though. I didn’t feel compelled to really go full bore and attack everything. I found Christians in general pleasant enough and got o with my life. It was only in my late teens and early 20’s that I began to attack religion and Christianity became a huge target, but that was thanks to the internet and meeting other vocal Atheists. Pretty soon I too was combing my own past to show what a victim I was, and how I had been abused as a Child by Religion. I began to memorise lists of Bible contradictions, and could shoot off lists of atrocities committed by Christians in the past.
Then I grew up a bit and realised I was being a jerk. It hit me one day when I realised no Christian I actually know had actually fought in the Crusades. None of them had been part of he Inquisition either. I also started to be honest with myself about their arguments. One of the ones I scoffed at was how they’d say Communists killed a lot of people and were Atheists.
I did the usual “COMMUNISTS KILLED IN THE NAME OF COMMUNISM, NOT BECAUSE THEY WERE ATHEISTS” routine till the friend I mentioned earlier told me that Communism was not separable from Atheism. I called him a moron. He challenged me to read up on Communism, and lo and behold he was right. Lenin, Stalin, Mao, hey all pretty well talked like I talked. When not discussing economics or some other issues, they spoke of the need for religion to die so humanity can embrace a new era of Scientific progress, of the need to be rational. They also ardently defended freedom of religion, even though they’d also kill religious people.
Yeah, the commies were humanists.
Gradually it dawned on me, people are capable of pretty rotten things, or pretty awesome things. While it may be stupid to think all Atheists are like Stalin, its equally stupid to think all Christians are like Fred Phelps.
From there, my whole memories of Childhood abuse by being indoctrinated fell apart too.
Basically I reverted back to how I was at 15-18 as just an Atheist before college. I didn’t believe in God, but I also bore no ill will to Christians. I am now thankful to fate that my militant period lasted only about three or four years.
But I do think the militant Atheism has its own subculture and is pretty well trying to get everyone on board using a shared mythology, and part of that is how just awful religious upbringing is.
Oh, one last thing. Doesn’t Indoctrinate just mean “To teach”? If I’m right, then if you teach a child anything you are indoctrinating them.
I fail to see how indoctrination is wrong.
On a quick aside, can I invite a friend of mine to this blog? He’s a Christian and has pretty well stated that the majority of Atheists on the net (Not real life) are morons. He’s also convinced that net Atheists have no good arguments, are irrational, ect, but he and I have had pretty similar discussions as had here.
I think he’d appreciate it.
That said, I also don’t really buy into the whole mantra of “religion is brainwashing”. It just seems like a cheap gimmick designed to make religion look bad, and of course to make the hapless Atheists seem like victims and heroes who overcame this dreadful phenomenon.
A lot of those complaints ring hollow. I was taken to Church as a boy. So what? It didn’t hurt me any. Besides, what else were my parents suppose to do, leave me home alone?
My “de-conversion” ( itself a useless word) was simple. I just didn’t believe in God. I didn’t develop some massive hatred for Christianity though. I didn’t feel compelled to really go full bore and attack everything. I found Christians in general pleasant enough and got o with my life. It was only in my late teens and early 20’s that I began to attack religion and Christianity became a huge target, but that was thanks to the internet and meeting other vocal Atheists. Pretty soon I too was combing my own past to show what a victim I was, and how I had been abused as a Child by Religion. I began to memorise lists of Bible contradictions, and could shoot off lists of atrocities committed by Christians in the past.
Then I grew up a bit and realised I was being a jerk. It hit me one day when I realised no Christian I actually know had actually fought in the Crusades. None of them had been part of he Inquisition either. I also started to be honest with myself about their arguments. One of the ones I scoffed at was how they’d say Communists killed a lot of people and were Atheists.
I did the usual “COMMUNISTS KILLED IN THE NAME OF COMMUNISM, NOT BECAUSE THEY WERE ATHEISTS” routine till the friend I mentioned earlier told me that Communism was not separable from Atheism. I called him a moron. He challenged me to read up on Communism, and lo and behold he was right. Lenin, Stalin, Mao, hey all pretty well talked like I talked. When not discussing economics or some other issues, they spoke of the need for religion to die so humanity can embrace a new era of Scientific progress, of the need to be rational. They also ardently defended freedom of religion, even though they’d also kill religious people.
Yeah, the commies were humanists.
Gradually it dawned on me, people are capable of pretty rotten things, or pretty awesome things. While it may be stupid to think all Atheists are like Stalin, its equally stupid to think all Christians are like Fred Phelps.
From there, my whole memories of Childhood abuse by being indoctrinated fell apart too.
Basically I reverted back to how I was at 15-18 as just an Atheist before college. I didn’t believe in God, but I also bore no ill will to Christians. I am now thankful to fate that my militant period lasted only about three or four years.
But I do think the militant Atheism has its own subculture and is pretty well trying to get everyone on board using a shared mythology, and part of that is how just awful religious upbringing is.
Oh, one last thing. Doesn’t Indoctrinate just mean “To teach”? If I’m right, then if you teach a child anything you are indoctrinating them.
I fail to see how indoctrination is wrong.
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