Joined: 10 Jan 2006 Posts: 796 Local time: 2:17 AM
Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2007 11:16 am Post subject:
Ivan_Ivanov wrote:
Iliketofrolic666 wrote:
Well I think he is a little extreme in his views, to say that telling your kids there is a God is child abuse is just stupid and elitist. I don't think Richard Dawkins is a very good representative of atheists, because many theists see him as an asshole.
The reason many theists think he's an asshole because they don't bother to listen him.
He actually gives a good argument why raising your kids in a specific religion could be considered abuse.
Namely for the same reason that indoctrinating your child to be a communist would be child abuse, you'd be making your child accept claims it doesn't understand as true.
That, and filling childrens' minds with the mythical lie that there are rabid demons out to torture them to burn in an eternal endless fire if they don't agree to religious brainwashing. Abusive negligence on children is quite an appropriate label for such psychological religious refuse, especially when considering the social shame strictures such children must go through being raised in such environments. Not only are children forced to adopt an unwell frame of mind in such upbringings, but they must contend with harsh social excoriation if ever they try not to. The evolution of human psychology is arduous to say the least, but if not challenged, pernicious memes will remain harshly reinforced again, and again. The cycle of mental abuse continues. Our responsibility as freethinking non-believers remains to stop the abusive mental cycle, and instead offer a more exact, life-affirming, ambitious existential answer - conditioning proactive enlightened honesty minus the deteriorating mythology.
Joined: 23 Oct 2005 Posts: 3414 Local time: 11:17 AM Location: Pennsylvania
Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2007 3:01 pm Post subject:
Most people don't have a problem with people beating the shit out of their kids. It's not hard to see why a lot wouldn't agree with Dawkins on indoctrination being child abuse.
Joined: 13 May 2006 Posts: 266 Local time: 11:17 AM Location: Buffalo, NY
Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2007 3:58 pm Post subject:
So how is telling your kids to believe in something that you believe in immoral? How is it immoral for me to encourage someone to believe something that I believe? Using this logic, an atheist encouraging a child to not believe in God is immoral from a Christian standpoint.
Joined: 26 Jul 2003 Posts: 6610 Local time: 5:17 PM Location: Den Helder, the Netherlands
Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2007 4:17 pm Post subject:
Iliketofrolic666 wrote:
So how is telling your kids to believe in something that you believe in is immoral?
If it wasn't intellectually honest of you to believe it yourself for starters, you're making your kid(s) hostage to your nonsense, and teaching them it's okay to simply believe stuff true. _________________ ~ Let us be reasonable ~
Congratulations: you are paracorrect about the supernatural.
*"If there were nobody listening to gods anymore, there would be nothing left for us to do,...
... then to finally start listening to each other."
*As any gamer will tell you: God-mode is a cheat-code.
Joined: 02 Apr 2003 Posts: 12818 Local time: 8:17 AM Location: SoCal, USA
Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2007 4:50 pm Post subject:
There's a difference between teaching your children about your beliefs and forcing them to believe them. One is open ended, the other is closed. _________________ Namaste,
CET
Joined: 26 Jul 2003 Posts: 6610 Local time: 5:17 PM Location: Den Helder, the Netherlands
Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2007 8:59 pm Post subject:
Uncertainty wrote:
Iliketofrolic666 wrote:
Using this logic, an atheist encouraging a child to not believe in God is immoral from a Christian standpoint.
I'm sure a lot of them already think it is.
That's a false dillema I overlooked by the way. A third option, merely refraining from teaching your kids there is a god, isn't being considered. _________________ ~ Let us be reasonable ~
Congratulations: you are paracorrect about the supernatural.
*"If there were nobody listening to gods anymore, there would be nothing left for us to do,...
... then to finally start listening to each other."
*As any gamer will tell you: God-mode is a cheat-code.
Joined: 31 Jul 2005 Posts: 457 Local time: 11:17 AM
Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2007 9:19 pm Post subject:
Iliketofrolic666 wrote:
So how is telling your kids to believe in something that you believe in immoral? How is it immoral for me to encourage someone to believe something that I believe? Using this logic, an atheist encouraging a child to not believe in God is immoral from a Christian standpoint.
Whether indoctrinating kids into Christianity (or atheism, for that matter) is immoral/abuse or not, citing that Christians actually believe what they're teaching isn't a very compelling argument. As Alonzo Fyfe might say around here, fervently believing that sacrificing a virgin to appease the volcano gods is right does not make it so.
The argument Dawkins makes (I think; haven't read his book, only watched his BBC documentary) is that various Christian teachings do actual psychological damage to children. They may be taught, for instance, that their close friends are going to be tortured for eternity. A woman in the documentary recounts how a friend died at a young age, and that's what she thought, because she was taught so. And you could argue that many Christian teachings saddle children with unnecessary shame of their bodies and sexuality and such. Et cetera.
Arguably, atheism is better in this regard. It certainly has no similar doctrines (or doctrines at all). I don't know how to begin to make a case to the effect of, "teaching kids to investigate things for themselves and come to their own, reasonable conclusions causes them untold amounts of psychological damage." I suppose it's possible, though.
Whether or not this is a good argument, or whether the examples are extreme enough to constitute abuse is something that can be argued. However, if it does qualify as abuse, citing good intentions doesn't justify it. It's not the mere act of indoctrination, it's the content and validity thereof. If someone could provide good reasons for believing that, say, hell is real, and god will torture your for fornicating, then perhaps that would justify it (since it'd simply be teaching the facts of the matter, and the consequences of not teaching it would be much worse than avoiding some psychological pain). But, well, no one really has.
"The road to hell is paved with good intentions," as they say.
Joined: 26 Jul 2003 Posts: 6610 Local time: 5:17 PM Location: Den Helder, the Netherlands
Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2007 9:24 pm Post subject:
I wasn't raised an atheist. I never signed up for being an atheist. It's just a label that happens to apply to me because others do raise their kids to be theists. _________________ ~ Let us be reasonable ~
Congratulations: you are paracorrect about the supernatural.
*"If there were nobody listening to gods anymore, there would be nothing left for us to do,...
... then to finally start listening to each other."
*As any gamer will tell you: God-mode is a cheat-code.
Last edited by Jutter on Sat Feb 17, 2007 7:40 pm; edited 1 time in total
Joined: 10 Jan 2006 Posts: 796 Local time: 2:17 AM
Posted: Sat Feb 17, 2007 3:58 pm Post subject:
dolio wrote:
The argument Dawkins makes (I think; haven't read his book, only watched his BBC documentary) is that various Christian teachings do actual psychological damage to children. They may be taught, for instance, that their close friends are going to be tortured for eternity. A woman in the documentary recounts how a friend died at a young age, and that's what she thought, because she was taught so. And you could argue that many Christian teachings saddle children with unnecessary shame of their bodies and sexuality and such. Et cetera.
Yep, precisely it. The example you saw in the documentary is the very one brought up in The God Delusion, most notably the thing about forcing children to attend so-called "Hell Houses" in order to crystalize the fear mythology in their minds. It's utter bollocks. Nothing wrong in doing away with such nonsense, and calling it "bigotry, dogmatism, arrogance, or hypocrisy" mislabels the matter so as to sensationalize it, and not have to deal with it. It's kinda like when Christians oafishly dismiss atheism as foolish bigotry simply because they don't like being criticized, being told to note what is clearly a foul matter in the irrationality of a religion they consistently try pedaling off into government.
Joined: 13 May 2006 Posts: 266 Local time: 11:17 AM Location: Buffalo, NY
Posted: Sun Feb 18, 2007 12:06 am Post subject:
Friend wrote:
It's kinda like when Christians oafishly dismiss atheism as foolish bigotry simply because they don't like being criticized, being told to note what is clearly a foul matter in the irrationality of a religion they consistently try pedaling off into government.
You can dismiss a claim without going out of your way to offend people, I can disapprove of a war without calling soldiers baby killers. I can also disapprove of Christianity without calling Christian parents abusive. The example that Richard Dawkins uses is an exception, most Christians aren't that extreme. You can't use an exception to prove a rule, when you do it makes you look dishonest and hateful, which undermines your goal of persuading people that God is imaginary.
Joined: 10 Jan 2006 Posts: 796 Local time: 2:17 AM
Posted: Sun Feb 18, 2007 12:28 am Post subject:
Iliketofrolic666 wrote:
Friend wrote:
It's kinda like when Christians oafishly dismiss atheism as foolish bigotry simply because they don't like being criticized, being told to note what is clearly a foul matter in the irrationality of a religion they consistently try pedaling off into government.
You can dismiss a claim without going out of your way to offend people, I can disapprove of a war without calling soldiers baby killers. I can also disapprove of Christianity without calling Christian parents abusive. The example that Richard Dawkins uses is an exception, most Christians aren't that extreme. You can't use an exception to prove a rule, when you do it makes you look dishonest and hateful, which undermines your goal of persuading people that God is imaginary.
So most Christians don't forcibly indoctrinate their children to believe there is a place where people suffer indefinitely by being charred, and burned, tortured maimed, etc, for not following the word of the myth? Most Christians give children the option to not partake in such conditioning? To me it seems raising children to believe such things is the very idea of dishonest, and clearly it was psychologically abusive to the people Dawkins mentioned. The question is whether it's abusive to all children who undergo such upbringing, which I'm willing to say it is. It's not hateful to tell people it's not right to be raising children into such a mindset.
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