Wednesday, August 16, 2006
Surely it's Obvious...
...that forcing kids into religious services is going to turn them in to atheists faster than GCSE science classes ever will! Statistically in the UK kids with two religious parents are 50% atheists, with one religious parent 75% atheists and two atheist parents very nearly 100% atheists. Rationalism will prevail and the religious nutters are helping us more than anybody else. Cheers guys...
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5 comments:
Whilst I agree with you that children should not be forced to attend religious services through schooling, don't you think you're being very presumptious? what harm does having a faith do? even if you don't believe in any faith why should you see people having faith as a problem...
Faith in some religious system is irrational. Faith schools teach children things as facts which are scientifically unsupportable. As far as I'm concerned that's negative education.
If children mustn't be taught things that aren't scientifically verifiable, an awful lot of sociology, psychology, minority studies, art, and socialist economics professors will be on the bread lines. As will all the diversity coordinators.
Faiths (as we speak of them) do two things. One is to provide a behaviour and ritual code. "thou shalt not steal" or "kill apostates" are not true or false, they are mandates which people may freely suggest, dispute, and put into law if enough agree.
The second thing faiths do is purport to answer the big 3 questions- where did we come from, where do we go, and why/what does it all mean?
The only true answer to that question is, "unknowable at this time". That is too huge, simple and complex for most people to accept. We may even be hard wired by evolutionary process to reject the true answer. For whatever reason, people demand an answer. History tells us that we will make up an answer anyway, because the lack of one can't be borne.
The key is not to try to stamp out religion. It can't be done. The key is to make sure that the behaviour systems are consistent with a world we want to live in, and that the big question "answers" do not cause believers to do things we don't want.
Behaviour is a public matter. Belief is a private one and must be kept so. That means neither compulsion to believe nor punishment for unbelief.
And parents have a right to explain their belief to their children. Faith isn't poison. Its demands can be.
Well where to start - yes faiths do offer a behaviour and ritual code. However there is no evidence to suggest that atheist kids grow up lacking a moral code. The difference being that atheist kids are taught not to do things that would hurt other people whereas religious kids are taught not to do things that "god" doesn't like and while that may include lying and murdering, it might also include masturbating, being gay, leaving the house with anything more than their eyes exposed or indeed questioning the religious doctrine being pushed on them.
Modern science offers plenty of information about where we came from and modern philosophy has much to say about what purpose our lives can have if we wish them to. While I agree that we can never be entirely sure about these things - I find that knowledge very easy to bear. And one thing I do know for a fact is that we weren't created by a beard-sporting, toga-party attendee.
"The key is to make sure that the behaviour systems are consistent with a world we want to live in" The exact problem with religion is that we - the reasonable ones - aren't able to ensure that it's inherent morality codes represent international best practice. If we could the pope wouldn't be speaking out against the use of condoms in Africa, female infidelity wouldn't be punishable by stoning in large parts of the sharia-infested middle east.
Very little taught in sociology, art and such subjects is taught as FACT, and rightly not because it isn't scientific fact, it's theory. Religious leaders - teaching stuff which isn't just theory but in fact myth - always present their doctrine to kids as fact. It should be taught in mythology classes as befits it's status as such.
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