Religion as Child Abuse. My own thoughts

I wanted to discuss my opinion on this argument separate from my analysis of Hitchens' presentation of it in god is not Great. This is mostly because I think it deserves more space than being intertwined with my analysis. Hopefully I will be posting a review of that chapter tomorrow, but I was inspired to write this instead for today.

The argument that religion being put forth to children is child abuse, and I am very much of two minds about that position. Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion presented the argument in a way so as to demonstrate that there are no "Catholic Children," or "Marxist Children," and such trying to justify that religious indoctrination of children is immoral and abusive. I agree with this insofar as I think deep indoctrination of children into just about anything is wrongheaded and an affront to reason as it pushes the child in a prechosen direction before they have developed the reasoning skills to comprehend the enormity of the decision.

But then I also have to disagree. Indoctrination is a loaded word in this case, and is particularly poignant when applied to religion. That said, at some point we have to think about where can we draw a line at what values and beliefs parents can instill in their own children. While I, and no doubt many people reading this, view religion as a hostile and caustic influence in the world the parents of the religious children literally believe they giving them "truth" whatever that may be. The same goes for a parent instilling capitalistic values, or stoic values or, whatever values, beliefs, and opinions you may wish to look at.

Do we draw the line of abuse at obviously harmful values, like racism and bigotry? Or do we start dictating the majority status quo with the ability to decide what is abusive? Take it to the courts? But any of these options bothers me. I'm not currently a parent, but someday I intend to be; I would not want the government or some other external authority telling me I could not teach my own child from my own experiences and values. So i'm really at a loss here. We can't just limit it to religion since that's far too narrow, and hardly the only indoctrinating philosophy category available.

I personally think it to be impossible to not indoctrinate children, even unintentionally. If, as parents, one does not teach their child, the child won't learn anything. Its also natural that in any environment a young child will learn by adopting something from the actions, words, and habits of his or her parents. Children from different backgrounds will obviously develop differently in this respect, but we can't really expect every religious parent to stop all religious habits to protect their child and give him a free development without influence. Its not realistic, and its questionable whether it would be moral.

So, is religion child abuse? Possibly. But I personally don't see that there's anything that can be done to stop it as a whole without violating a thousand other rights, and that I'm not ok with.

Intelligent Design and the Echo Chamber

I'm sure I'm not the first one to write on this, but I can't help but making note; It seems to me a very odd phenomenon that the only people who argue for the idea of intelligent design are religious. And beyond that, not only are they all religious, but they are almost all evangelical Christians, with a few fringe Jews like Ben Stein. The fact that this is almost an exact match to the same group of evolution deniers (other than the muslims) is rather telling when you look at it from a scientific and sociological perspective.

The largest part of this group is what is commonly called an echo chamber. They all tell each other what they want to hear while bouncing their own ideas back at each other and keeping any dissenting opinoin out. But this group never looks outside the chamber to make the obvious conclusion: If we're the only ones who don't believe something and we all happen to share one certain belief system, perhaps its not the other side that's closed-minded.

Of course, that would be an admittance of severe cognitive dissonance that the average fundamentalist simply cannot accept. It's world-shattering in their view after all. But when we look at modern evolutionary theory which is generally accepted by (non-fundamentalist) Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Atheists, Shinto etc. you have to look at that and wonder how the recalcitrant deniers of evolution can possibly make their case when they are basically the lone voice of dissent. If their absurd dating was correct certainly someone outside the echo chamber would have come up with something supporting it, but that's never the case. And then, of course, the ones outside the echo chamber are considered to be either consipiratorial, or just plain closed-minded.

I think its important to avoid an echo chamber mentality, wchich is why I listen to dissenting media quite a bit. I like to make sure I'm analyzing the other side which gives my personal convictions a stronger basis through reasoning. For example, I hate Michael Savage. I think he's an ignorant alarmist who is riding solely off of sensationalism. But I listen to him because every once in a while an interesting point pops up that I can't reasonably dispute. Then i research the claim and see how valid it really is. If it is, I've learned something. I may come a to a different conclusion than that asshat, but I did learn something. When you're in the Echo Chamber its rarely learning something new. Its regurgitation of what you already believe, and what you want to hear.

I think that's valuable for many skeptics and rational thinkers. Many of us do fall into the same problem, but to a less severe degree. Luckily, particularly with evolution, the facts and science are very much on our side. But that's not always been the case, and while most of us are open-minded to new theories and ideas, but we need to keep it that way.

And that doesn't mean giving pseudoscientific garbage a fair shot. Homeopathy, ID and such are pretty much objectively garbage. But even so when a reliable source presents dissent we need to (and usually do) listen.

Atheism is not Nihilism

How many times have we atheists heard it said that atheists do not believe in a purpose to life, or in any kind of moral code? In other words, those who so vehemently condemn atheism often believe that atheism and Nietzsche's vision of nihilism are basically the same thing. Here I will outline some key (and obvious) differences between the two "isms."

Nietzsche viewed nihilism primarily as a philosophy of hopelessness, despair, and complete apathy. In my opinion this is an oversimplification of nihilistic philosophy, but a decent rough approximation of some of the adherents of nihilism, and also of how atheists are viewed by many (particularly fundamentalist) theists.

Moral nihilism posits that morality is nonexistent. That there is no inherent good or evil and that actions are personal in nature and reflect individual preference rather than a common value set. Its easy to see where this can be construed as an anarchistic, or apathetic view. The writings go much deeper, but this is the most basic point. Let us compare that with an atheistic view of morality. It is similar, but not the same as the nihilistic one. Atheism is primarily an individualistic philosophy in regards to morality; it does not necessitate a nihilistic world view, neither does it preclude one. An atheist is above all an individual, and morally tend to largely reflect the society that they grew up in. I have often seen legalistic views, as well as views that are focused on the what is best for the society as a whole. That said, there is no defining aspect in atheism that decrees a particular world view.

Existential nihilism is a bit trickier. Existential nihilism at its most basic premise is that life has no purpose. Life is, in and of itself fairly meaningless, and worthless, lacking any inherent value. Here, atheism and nihilism almost always diverge. Atheists mostly believe that life does have value in what we do with it; that what we do in our lives determines its value, and that having only one life, it would be a shame to waste it in apathy or doing nothing of value. Neither philosophy takes a god-given goal for life as granted, but atheism takes its (individualistic) approach towards making the individual life meaningful to society and the world at large.

This view comes largely (in my opinion)from the early 20th century view that nihilism was the opposite of Christianity. By extension the common belief is that atheism, being a rejection of God (vainly assumed to be the Christian God) not only rejects the existence of God, but also rejects anything it stands for i.e morality, charity, etc (ignoring all the terrible things about God we also reject). Yes, atheism rejects the god hypothesis, but does not reject our humanity, ethics, or personal moral principles. This, I think is why so many atheists today like the terms "rationalist" or "free-Thinker"; it separates them from the label that is so commonly used as derogatory.

So, remember. An atheist who is not nihilistic is not one who lays in bed mourning over what a waste life is and how pointless existence is. If we were, we would not have such vocal proponents as we have today, nor would the advancement of science and humanity be such a common goal among us. So remember, while nihilism is almost always atheistic, the reverse is not the norm, or even common.