Religion/Stable Families

Lightkeeper · #1 (**permalink**) 29th October 2007, 06:51 PM

Quote:

Don't write off religion - it can be the key to a stable family

Anne Karpf
Saturday October 27, 2007
The Guardian

If Richard Dawkins had his way, a fair number of you and, as it happens, me, would be had up for child abuse. According to him, that's what religious indoctrination of children by their parents is. And if you can sue for the long-term mental damage caused by physical abuse, he argues, why shouldn't you sue for the damage caused by mental child abuse?
If you accept Dawkins's characterisation of religion, you'd probably agree. Religious parents, to him, are Mr Dogma and Mrs Bigot: they terrify their kids with tales of eternal hell, fire and ****ation, when - that is - they're not carrying out female circumcision or coercing them into forced marriages. Flat-earthers the lot, they're brainwashers, fanatically opposed to science and rationality.

Isn't it curious that we tolerate the stereotyping of religion in a way we'd never abide with race, religion or gender? I certainly don't recognise myself in this caricature. That may be because, while I've encouraged my kids to experience a fair bit of religious observance, I personally have very little religious belief. I love some religious liturgy in the same way that I love poetry, the music in a synagogue can do powerful things to me, and the enduring ritual I find moving. Aren't there contradictions like this in all but the most orthodox families? I know dozens like mine, where the children are regularly exposed to religion but are also fearsomely contrary on every subject.
In fact I'm not sure what Richard Dawkins traduces more - religion or families. Certainly his view that religion is the one sphere of society in which it's accepted without demur that parents have an absolute right over what their children believe is a bizarre one. Where does the fellow live? Parents attempt to exert control over almost every other aspect of their kids' lives as well. And parents almost invariably fail. Dawkins himself had an Anglican upbringing but began doubting the existence of God at the age of nine.

The total distinction often made between religion and other belief systems also strikes me as deeply disingenuous. All parents believe in something or other (often just as passionately as religious ones do), whether it's human rights or whether they worship in the temple of rising house prices, and most want to transmit their values to their kids. Dawkins says he flinches when he hears a child referred to as a Christian child rather than the child of Christian parents, for you wouldn't talk about a Marxist child, and how can a four-year-old choose their own religious belief?

He's wrong, and partly wrong. Talk to the American child of 1960s activists and they might well describe themselves as a "red diaper baby". And sit in a car with a bunch of 10-year-olds discussing reincarnation, as I did recently, and you'd have heard as passionate an engagement with moral, religious and philosophical issues as you'd come upon in any Muslim madrasa, Jewish yeshiva or other kind of seminary. The difference between indoctrination and education is whether you use religion to try to open up debate or close it down.

Atheist fundamentalists, I can't help thinking, see religion in their own image: they're curiously drawn to the fanaticism of other fundamentalists. And in the middle sit the rest of us, struggling to impart to our kids some values that go beyond the material, commercial or purely rational, though not necessarily incompatible with all those. I want my children to know about the long cultural tradition that they come from. And yes, if I'm honest (and though I recognise I might fail), I'd like them to continue this in some way.

In a report last month, Harriet Becher found scores of studies with the same findings: religious families were more stable and (to a small extent) happier, the parents more involved, nurturing and family-centred. We know kids have a hard time in chaotic families: perhaps, at its best, religion can provide a valuable structure as well as community support.

I've met enough religious crazies to know that there are a lot out there. But there are plenty of non-religious crazies too, and the idea that religious families are conservative, autocratic and dogmatic rather than humane, moral and questioning (or perhaps all six) - that's the Dawkins Delusion.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/family/sto...199794,00.html

Is teaching your children about religion abusive? Is Dawkins deluded?

vivamis123 · #2 (**permalink**) 29th October 2007, 08:33 PM

I agree that putting fear into children causes damage. BUT!!! Not all religions are fear based and religion is not the only source of fear.

I think Dawkins is very bias; fear based thoughts can be found in every area of our life and amoung ALL people (not just religious ones).

cardero · #3 (**permalink**) 29th October 2007, 08:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lightkeeper

Is teaching your children about religion abusive? Is Dawkins deluded?

Parents can't and won't teach their children about every religion so maybe the possibility exists that children will grow into their own views about religion.

**arthra** · #4 (**permalink**) 30th October 2007, 05:02 AM

In the Baha'i Faith children are considered Baha'is... just as children in other religions so they attend Feasts and participate on a limited basis... as children.

They don't fast until their fifteenth birthday and they cannot vote as minors in Baha'i elections.

Since Baha'is accept the Founders of the major world religions as Manifestations of God, I saw to it that my children had a wide exposure to various religions so we visited Buddhist, Sikh, Hindu Temples, Mosques, Jewish Temple, Christian Churches so they would have a wide exposure to all the religions around where we live.

When they reach their fifteenth birthday Baha'i youth can choose to remain Baha'is by signing a declaration card or not signing one.. in which case they are free to be any religion they please.

Fifteen is the age of maturity in the Baha'i community.

So in our community I think there is general acceptance of religions and dogmatism or bigotry are not compatible with our values.

- Art

**angeleyes** · #5 (**permalink**) 31st October 2007, 04:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lightkeeper

Is teaching your children about religion abusive? Is Dawkins deluded?

Well, since the writer didn't quote Dawkins at all, we don't know if he said anything like this. I not particularly impressed with alot of what Dawkins has to say, but the article seems a little over-the-top to me for some reason.

Although I don't think teaching religion to children is abusive, one could find certain cases where it could be. But to say that most of the world is engaging in child abuse because they talk about God with their children or take them to worship......well, it's an argument that's just not defendable, in my opinion.

**metis** · #6 (**permalink**) 31st October 2007, 03:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lightkeeper

Is teaching your children about religion abusive? Is Dawkins deluded?

To me, it could be "abusive" depending on how it's done. If we teach our children that our religion is "right" and all others are "wrong", that's "abusive" imo.

Dawkins admits that there's both good and bad that religion can have on an society and an individual, so declaring it "abusive" in all cases would be an exaggeration, and I believe he would admit to that. Even though I have appreciated Dawkins' writings, sometimes he goes over the top at times by making some very provocative statements. But it sells books.

Shalom,
Vern

evangelicalhumanist · #7 (**permalink**) 31st October 2007, 03:40 PM

There are parents who teach their children that their friends of other (or no) faiths are despised by God, and going to burn in hell forever and ever and ever. Is this a good thing to teach children?

There are parents who teach their children that they should not accept blood transfusions, even if it is to save their lives, and they should deny it to their own children in their turn. Is this a wise thing to teach to children?

Their are parents who teach their children that their bodies, especially "the naughty bits" are loathsome things of which they should be ashamed, and feel dirty about when the inevitable happens. Is this really what children should grow up knowing?

There is a superb polemic on how religions abuse the minds of children, "What shall we tell the children?" by the distinguished psychologist Nicholas Humphrey. Originally a lecture in aid of Amnesty International, it has been reissued as a chapter of his book, The Mind Made Flesh, published by Oxford University Press, but the essay is available online at the link supplied. One excerpt, though:

Quote:

So I'll come to the main point -- and lesson -- of this lecture. I want to propose a general test for deciding when and whether the teaching of a belief system to children is morally defensible. As follows. If it is ever the case that teaching this system to children will mean that later in life they come to hold beliefs that, were they in fact to have had access to alternatives, they would most likely not have chosen for themselves, then it is morally wrong of whoever presumes to impose this system and to chose for them to do so. No one has the right to choose badly for anyone else.

**arthra** · #8 (**permalink**) 31st October 2007, 05:16 PM

Evangelical,

I think when you write

"There are parents who teach their children ..."

You are also overlooking the positive things parents can teach their children... Some parents without religion can also teach their children very negative things and do...

- Art

evangelicalhumanist · #9 (**permalink**) 31st October 2007, 06:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by arthra

Evangelical,

I think when you write

"There are parents who teach their children ..."

You are also overlooking the positive things parents can teach their children... Some parents without religion can also teach their children very negative things and do...

- Art

Absolutely, of course you are correct.

That was not my point, though. We run into difficulty when we try to deal with broad, multi-faceted subjects from a single focus, however. The original question was "Is teaching your children about religion abusive?"

Now, how many ways can we answer that question?

Teaching your children "about" religion might mean teaching them about the belief systems of many cultures around the world, without teaching them that any of them is true.
It might mean teaching them about the tenets of your own religion, both the good and the bad.
It might mean teaching them only the good (or only the bad), hoping they'll be able to deal with the other half when they are more mature.

Is the parent who teaches their children the Golden Rule doing something wrong? No, of course not. But what if, at the same time, the parent also teaches that same child that her little friend Gayatri, who has just died in a tragic street accident, is now in Hell burning forever and ever because she was a Hindu?

In such an example, do we get to add the positive and the negative and come up with zero? Or do we take the two issues completely separately?

So, I was focusing only on one side of the question, because the question was asked in such a way as to elicit that kind of response. (Just as asking "what is 2 + 2" would elicit an answer of "four," rather than, "well, 2 + 2 can't be 5, and of course it can't be 6, nor do I think it should be 3......." We usually answer questions in the same sense as the questions are framed.)

**arthra** · #10 (**permalink**) 31st October 2007, 10:31 PM

The parent also teaches that same child that her little friend Gayatri, who has just died in a tragic street accident, is now in Hell burning forever and ever because she was a Hindu?

It depends of course..whether the parent has those particular views...and it varies. I doubt one could draw any overall conclusions about religion per se from the original question.

- Art

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