The Economist has a review of The God Delusion up, and it concludes:
First, Mr Dawkins wants to subvert the mode of transmission between parent and child. He calls a religious upbringing a form of indoctrination and equates it to child abuse. He wants to encourage a change in the Zeitgeist, so that when people hear the words "a Catholic child", or "a Muslim child", they will wince, and ask how a child could already have formed independent opinions on transubstantiation or jihad.
When I reviewed The God Delusion I said that I wasn't really going to address the issue of parent-child transmission. The reason is two fold: I hold the parent-child bond and relationship as extremely important, and only in cases of clear and present abuse am I willing to allow the state to intervene. I don't consider religion abuse. Second, and perhaps more importantly in the context of most of my posts: I believe that most humans are lost souls who are destined to live a life under the spell of demons in the night. Cognitive anthropology and psychology has convinced me that supernaturalism is a default human cognitive mode, it is not learned. Living among "New Age" types who are not religious (by their own assertion) but "spiritual," and often raised by parents who allowed them to "seek their own Truth," I have seen firsthand how ad hoc supernaturalistic worldviews can be generated from whole cloth within a generation without any strong outside suasion.
In other words, if one prevented a child from being indoctrinated in Catholic teaching, or forced to recite the Koran, that does not imply they would become scientific materialists. Rather, they would probably generate their own supernaturalism de novo within their own peer groups. Of course not all supernaturalisms are created equal, so the key issue is not indoctrination in religion per se, but what religion. Dawkins', and my own, main problem is the aggressiveness of particular forms of monotheism, to the point of being a clear & present danger to the lives of unbelievers (in the case of most Muslims). Does that mean we should prevent Muslim children from being raised Muslim? A friend emailed me this in response to my post about the veil:
But I have always suspected from my own interactions with Muslims here and in India that observant Muslims are more terrified of fellow Muslims than they are of any outsider. More is the pity. I must add that when I lived in India, the atmosphere was quite different from what it is now, some twenty five years later. I have also observed with some bemusement, the increased radicalization / Arabization among my Pakistani and Bangladeshi American friends and acquaintances in the last decade.
The way the Islamic religion is interpreted by many believers is a problem for liberal democracy. So shall we block parent-child transmission? Frankly, I don't think anyone is ready to do that, as it would bring to mind the specter of the Inquisition and the centuries of crypto-Judaism in Spain. But, and I think this is crucial, the outside culture can demand, force and beat change into the culture of minorities. In The God Delusion Dawkins points out that Iqbal Sacranie, a prominent Muslim "community leader" in Britain, refused to point blank disavow the death penalty for apostates when Dawkins pressed him on this issue. 1 This is inexecusable, and demands a kulturkampf. Secular intellectuals need to take up the torch of anti-clericalism and reshape Islam as it is practiced in the West to be more congenial to the values of the West. This is not necessarily an easy task, but turning our backs on plural monoculturalism is a first step. I would argue that changing the culture or religion is far more plausible that simply demanding than children not be raised in the religion of their parents.
1 - Full disclosure, by the Islamic definition I'm an apostate and should suffer the death penalty unless I recant.
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I agree that most humans are born predisposed to believe in the supernatural, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't do our best to counter what's innate with what can be learned. Humans are born predisposed to all sorts of things that we "suppress" through learning, and we do so because not to suppress them would be injurious to a healthy society. This is called culture. Without it, we'd live in a violent anarchy in which only the physically strong enjoy anything approaching a comfortable life.
So, I say Bravo Mr. Dawkins. Let us discourage the indoctrination of children with religious nonsense. I share the distaste for telling other parents how to raise their children, but we all draw the line somewhere. When it comes to religious instruction, it all comes down to what each of us considers a dangerous cult. Some of us have broader definitions than others.
Oddly enough, Anabaptists (Amish) and many Baptists believe that belief cannot be transmitted by parents. There has to be an "born-again" adult commitment and adult baptism. That does not keep them from indoctrinating their children.
I don't think that child-indoctrination is wrong though. I didn't preach atheism to my son, but he always knew what I thought and I did not encourage church-going, though there were few signs that he wanted to.
It's gone so far that I hope he marries a born atheist. (For example, Scarlett Johannsen.)
"Full disclosure, by the Islamic definition I'm an apostate and should suffer the death penalty unless I recant."
Does that ever seriously worry you? This is not meant to be a stupid question, but knowing that there are people in the world who think that as a matter of principle you should be dead is not the same thing as actually worrying about it. When I read excerpts from "The Turner Diaries" in the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing in the NYTimes it became a game among my friends to count the independent reasons why the author thought we should be killed, but we didn't go out and buy guns.
On the other hand, I am not an apostate Muslim. Maybe that's different.
Though I'd settle for Natalie Portman.
james,
i am all for disputing a naive assumption that you are born into your parents' religion. i do it all the time in my own life as i reject those who would label me as a muslim because i was born into a muslim family, as i think this smacks of racialized thinking on the part of many (i always like to point out that no one calls richard dawkins a 'atheist christian,' but people have labelled me an 'atheist muslim' though unlike dawkins i never really believed in god!). and as john points out, it is precisely the evangelical subculture which is in like with dawkins' ideas theoretically, that one is not born a christian, and must be baptised after making a personal commitment to christ. this, i favor. nevertheless, we should not delude ourselves into thinking that this will allow 'freethought' in any way we (unbelievers of materialist bent) would understand. to really diminish religion via parent-child transmission, as opposed to changing the character of religion, one must intervene in pretty extreme ways. in the generality one can leave it to imagination, but i don't recall dawkins being particular explicit and detailed of what his prescription was.
Does that ever seriously worry you?
sometimes. but not much. i don't live around many muslims, so i don't a clear & present danger problem. an issue i've had with many muslims (e.g., back when i was in college) as they simply couldn't understand that someone would reject islam. generally they were more confused than hostile, though sometimes i did encounter anger and outrage. when i was VP of the college atheist club and we were profiled in the newspaper i got a few weird emails hinting at 'consequences,' but they were from anon accounts. mostly atheist is tolerated in many muslim countries so long as you aren't very public about it, and i'm not a public person so i think my risk is low.
While I agree that we cannot and should not do much about the parent-child bond and transmission of religion, I do object strenously when Muslims assume that my 2 year old is a Muslim.
The advantage of born religions as opposed to norn-again religions is that it allows laxity. I'm still a Lutheran if I want to be one and say that I am, and the same would be true if I were Episcopal or Catholic.
Razib: you note that "one must intervene in pretty extreme ways" to counter parental indoctrination, suggesting that there really isn't a viable strategy for those of us are troubled by the practice. It's hard to argue with that. All I'm suggesting is that we should spread doubt and suspicion where we can about the idea that it's OK to consider children "Christian" or "Muslim" or whatever, and do what we can to encouarage Dawkins' notion that children should be free to reach their own conclusions. That's what I intend to do with my own child, and that's what I will encourage my friends and family (as politely as possible) to do. I don't think there's much else we can do. I'm certaintly no advocating legislative action.
That and post about the issue in my own blog, of course...
Cognitive anthropology and psychology has convinced me that supernaturalism is a default human cognitive mode, it is not learned.
What is "supernaturalism"? And how does one distinguish between the beliefs held by "lost souls who are destined to live a life under the spell of demons in the night" and those beliefs which are true?
Razib,
So, do you therefore accept as valid attempts by religious conservatives, of whatever stripe, to use their cultural influence to modify the behavior and beliefs of others to match their own ideas of what is 'right' and 'good'?
So, do you therefore accept as valid attempts by religious conservatives, of whatever stripe, to use their cultural influence to modify the behavior and beliefs of others to match their own ideas of what is 'right' and 'good'?
only if it matches my own claims :) though seriously, what does 'valid attempts' mean? a republican democracy is about debate and battle between faction. religious conservatives have the numbers and ground troops. the irreligious have the commanding institutional heights. a war with two camps with different strengths. those of us who are irreligious but on the Right are allies of convenience!
Teaching religion to children can have either positive or negative results. It can either lead to a lack of personal inquiry-seeking, independant thinking, or it can stress these characterisitics as principles in a society constructed brick wise from the past.....
Conceptualzation of change and time perplex mankind from his first thought, as he does not(and cannot)see all of nature.. In my own interpetation, we seem to come to a concensus that nature has a unifying concept to it and we can ask(claim) if this is so ..what is(would be?) the difference in the nature of the world regardless of how deeply we probe? The obvious answer is none. We just simply do not perceive it from our vantage points and are constantly pointing way beyond for evidences asked of facts seemingly explainable only by deduction . Yet, if life propagates in a tree like manner, parent to child, then the world is a tree and can be no different. What would be the seed of such a tree-it has none we can contemplate-all is a tree. the tree is the tree that is-we really have no further question to ask-to seek to ask. Yet we make further divisions- do we not already know that the straight lines of logic are not the same as the real world when we seek to ban gene cloning, or demand Americans get their own internal businesses in order before they tresspass afar, or ask for nuclear non-proliferation,or enforce auto emmison controls, or try to conserve parks and wooded areas... If the world has a unification, an underlying unique concept, maybe we are bored with it, as we have walked past where we began; as the need to seek (a unity, known unity) originates in the past from life's needs(the needs always of the same known tree).
An animal can not do this ,his problem solving cannot invent or construct notions about distasnt places beyond where he survives -it is my opinion that in this matter, neither can(should) the problem solving of aware menbe different from that of an animal. Given the existence of a unity. man first knows of all things-there are not two unities by definition(i.e what he(mankind) knows of his seeking to seek and why he seeks-vs what he defines to seek. It can be asked, what properties of men, their instincts or motivations could they have to approach or transgress the line of awareness denoting his first perception? if real truth, it can hold no mystery as innate. What place does science legally own in the afairs of mankind.
With respect to this, where in does lay the difference between men and animals if we are to proclaim that the existance of a spiritual nature to men gives them a separate place in the world? What does an innate unity of things have to do with the other living things we share the world with? That we do not know the evolution of animals-how are we different? I think we can extrapolate to the fact, that, of the definition of animal,an animal is no more or less an animal than would be the definition of an animal of himself -a container can define no more than its' contents, as the same for man. And together..? always container and contents. If our spirit and learning grow and change the container is changed. If the soul were to be defined as the composite of all of the possible choices of all of the possible possible path, walked and learned, past to present, that as light rebounds and reflects past to present, our thinking souls are, just alone, this vast (infinite) number that also defines the container-a fluid, thinking, seeking, feeling assembly of all that is-that has rebounded too and from us of all the paths walked. There in passed to us, are only tales of evolution and history in this process, which reflects our lives,only, as they stand from past history to present. Are we digging up the world in a search for naught? Have we walked past the important clues given to our witness ?..maybe we have a greater circumference to our containers than meets our eyes, impinges on our senses and feeling-but is this not how men grow narrow/callous and unready when opportunity presents itself.
This I think is the only description of evolution, as all knowing is dependant on first hand witness-on the human and animal life that habitat the world along with each of us, as the unique and holy sacred witnesses to the lessons of life and breath-the only means for each of our spiritual endurance.
It is evident in the nature of mankinds contradictions and conflicts, resolutions, his scientific religious questions, pursuits , catagorizations, that these notions have escaped our lives.
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Razib,
I've wondered about your relationship with your Muslim relatives. I started visiting GNXP because of your posts about visiting relatives in Bangladesh. You provided rare insight when I was trying to understand Islam from a western, scientific perspective.
In particular, your description of your fundamentalist uncle intrigued me. I remember examples such as your family hiding photos before he visited and his calling fellow co-religionists to threaten a bus driver who failed to stop when your uncle wanted to pray. I also remember your writing that he doesn't advocate violence.
I've thought that if you, his nephew, had to hide your beliefs and conform to his strictures then there is little hope for peaceful coexistence between Islam and the West.
My brother-in-law was a Southern Baptist minister. He firmly believed that I would burn in hell. And yet we had intelligent, friendly discussions about religion. He wasn't threatened by my lack of belief and didn't feel obligated to save my soul. We could agree to disagree.
I don't imagine such a conversation is presently possible for you and your uncle. Can you imagine circumstances in which you could discuss your beliefs with your uncle in a friendly manner? (Assuming of course that I haven't totally misunderstood what you've written with regard to your family.)
I don't imagine such a conversation is presently possible for you and your uncle. Can you imagine circumstances in which you could discuss your beliefs with your uncle in a friendly manner? (Assuming of course that I haven't totally misunderstood what you've written with regard to your family.)
my opinion on this topic has changed, and my knowledge, quite a bit while i've been running GNXP. when i visited bangladesh in 2004, there were two things which revised some of my opinions
1) my uncle had 'mellowed' over the years and become more worldly
2) i explored, or was informed of, in more detail about the nature of my uncle's religious beliefs and his order
on the first part, my uncle no longer engages in tirades as he sees that as unproductive. so over the past 15 years he changed a lot. he still has the 'chilling' effect on people, but mostly becaues people in that culture give due reverence to religion which people in this culture do not (except perhaps in a few southern white and black subcultures). second, he is a member of the tableegh order which is actually generally apolitical (though they are often a 'gateway drug' for budding islamists). their general idea is to foster social change through person-to-person conversion, witness and reformation of values (adherence to sharia for example). i think in hindsight i could discuss religious issues with my uncle in a way that would not be possible with more 'traditional' (culturally conditioned) muslims because his own beliefs are rather rationalistic/axiomatic (though that doesn't make them any less medieval). my uncle actually offered that to some extent he was sad that his sister (my mother) had moved to the USA because he anticipated that we (his nephews and nieces) would marry christians and that our descendents would become christian. this is not a possibility my own mother is ever willing to admit, though she herself is less religious than my uncle, so i was surprised by this realistic acknowledgement of the issues from him.
in any case, i could say more. but, i have to qualify that my family is not normal in bangladesh, obviously. my uncle is a geologist by training, and a college professor. many members of my family are of religious vocation, and i have sufi saints in my lineage, so religiosity by itself is not particulary impressive to us.
"i have to qualify that my family is not normal in bangladesh, obviously. my uncle is a geologist by training, and a college professor"
Yes, I remembered him being a geologist and I knew your family has high status. I believed your family would be more open than most to western coexistence.
Thanks for the update. It's good to see live and learn on all sides.
"his own beliefs are rather rationalistic/axiomatic"
Very formalized religious beliefs can coincide with science; in fact, formalization is common to both, and historically such religions have served as a training-ground for scientists -- some important early science even had a religious substrate (probably including Newton).
being able to compartmentalize is necessary, but compartmentalization is what formalization is all about.