You Guys Need to Communicate! (thoughts from an ex evangelical Christian)

quote:

---

Two Non-Fundies who reject the written fundamentals of God's scripture.

---

Who says it's "God's scripture"? Edited by AdminPD, : Warning

quote:

---

I'm not an atheist, but from the standpoint of intellectual integrity I'd have to say that the atheists have it over everybody, including the agnostics.

---

How so?

quote:

---

What exactly makes for brainwashing do you suppose? What is the criteria for brainwashing? When and how does someone move from listening to personal belief in liturgy to full on brainwashing?

---

Er, how about total immersion in and parental teaching of that lifestyle and faith since one was a toddler?It's easy to brainwash children, which is why nearly all religions make it a very, very important tenet to indoctrinate children from a very young age.It's is very, very difficult, often painful, and can cause terrible rifts in family relationships to reject the religion of one's parents, and that is a big reason people find ways to live with the cognitive dissonance, or become nominal followers of a religion.

quote:

---

Just what does he mean by that? Is he implying that because we speak out against the Cults of Ignorance that we are somehow sheltering them?

---

Perhaps he means that he thinks that religious moderates so very rarely speak out against religious radicals in their own faiths.Let's face it, jar, among the Christians on this board you are pretty much the only one willing to do that. Edited by nator, : No reason given.

quote:

---

Are parents essentially brainwashing their kids when they teach them values?

---

Since when are "values" and "belief in the supernatural" synonyms?They aren't.Of course, it was never my point that teaching values is brainwashing, and it's easy to tell this because I didn't say anything close to that.One doesn't need any sort of supernatural belief in order to teach or learn values. Values are secular.It was, though, my point that it is brainwashing to relentlessly teach little children from a very early age that there is such a thing as the supernatural, that to doubt is wrong and dangerous, that certain sorts of knowledge is to be avoided, that only certain select people (us) understand The Truth(tm), that their allegience is first to their religion and second to themselves, their familiy, their country, etc.In other words, it is "brainwashing" becasue it seeks to take away the individual's ability to think for themselves and question what they are being taught to believe.Many, many Christian and Muslim sects operate this way. Some are more strict than others, though.

quote:

---

I doubt that anybody intends to "brainwash" or to "indoctrinate" their kids, even if they are actually doing it. I don't think people make a point to do this because of its negative connotations.

---

I certainly agree. But it is indeed done, all the time to a greater or lesser degree, in most Christian and Muslim sects, at least.

quote:

---

If one parent talks to their child about Jesus, is that any more of an indoctrination process than telling them that such a person never existed?

---

Well, there is little to no evidence that Jesus existed, so to talk to a child as if he did exist is a lot like insisting that the kid believe without any reason to, other than the parent wants them to believe it.

quote:

---

Where is the line of demarcation? Who gets to decide what is brainwashing material and who doesn't?

---

I think that one can teach children anything you want as long as you make it clear that they have to learn to be critical thinkers and not just accept things because an authority figure tells them it is so.They should be taught that what they believe is up to THEM, not anybody else.

---

'Explanations like "God won't be tested by scientific studies" but local yokels can figure it out just by staying aware of what's going on have no rational basis whatsoever.' -Percy"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool."- Richard Feynman"Science is like a blabbermouth who ruins a movie by telling you how it ends! Well I say there are some things we don't want to know! Important things!"
- Ned Flanders

quote:

---

No, of course not. But if you think these religious traditions aren't teaching parents that they need to inculcate anti-skeptic attitudes intentionally before their children are old enough to question them, then that can only be because you've never set foot in such a church, and you're completely ignorant of what the culture of Christian fundamentalism is like.

---

It isn't just Christian fundamentalism, by the way. Discouraging children from asking "too many questions" and strong disapproval of doubt are prevalent in many mainstream Christian sects, too.

Roman Catholicism.(At least, it was in my experience)Like I said, though, the strictness varies between sects.

quote:

---

Yet even here at EvC you have examples that falsify that assertion. Look at Trixie as an example.

---

One example in Trixie does not falsify anything.Of course, I don't seem to recall Trixie saying that she, as a Catholic, was encouraged to doubt and question her Catholic religion. If true, this would be highly unusual.

quote:

---

Do you really think that the majority of parents - whether Christian, Muslim, or couldn't-give-a-damn - think about raising their kids to be critical thinkers? They don't even know what a "critical thinker" is!! All parents raise their kids with their own prejudices.

---

No, I don't think most parents, at least in the US, know what critical thinking is,, nor that they teach their children to think critically.I didn't claim they did.I did, however, say that parents should teach their chidren to be critical thinkers, and that what they believe is up to them (the children) and not anyone else.I have no illusions that this is rarely the case.My point to Juggs was that many, many Christian and Muslim sects actively seek to remove or hinder that ability of children to think for themselves and question what they are taught by religious leaders.Parents passing on their own prejudices is not the same as systematically instilling ways of thinking specifically designed to keep their children from being able to question and doubt those prejudices.

quote:

---

In our (rather special) case, its the prejudice of educational snobbery

---

Ah, I see.Considering the teaching of how to tell the difference between fantasy and reality is the most important thing to teach children is "educational snobbery".So, is it "educational modesty" to teach children that all claims, regardless of supporting evidence, are equally valid?

quote:

---

Well, you may not like it, but unfortunately for your blanket statement, one example does falsify it.

​

Sorry.

---

I really wish you would read what I actually wrote instead of what you wished I had.I wrote: What definition of "prevalent" means "blanket statement"?

quote:

---

Even Jesus doubted and questioned his beliefs.

---

That's great.What does that have to do with how the Roman Catholic church, when teaching children, discourages the asking of too many questions and disapproving of doubt?

quote:

---

And the Roman Catholic Church also constantly tests items of belief and over time even Roman Catholic dogma changes.

---

Also irrelevant.What the Catholic scholars and theologians discuss has little to nothing to do with what happens in the second grade Sunday CCD class at St. Ignatious Church in Hoboken.

quote:

---

It is more important to teach someone how to believe, than what to believe.

---

I think it is most important to teach a child how to decide what they accept and what they don't.

I wrote: (And let us not forget that this statement was made in the context of teaching/brainwashing children)Then you claimed that because EvC member Trixie exists, an adult Catholic, my above claim is somehow falsified.Of course, so far you have not presented any evidence that Trixie wasn't ever discoraged from asking too many questions in her religious indoctrination as a child, nor experienced disapproval for having doubt.What she does as an adult is irrelevant to what I've been talking about all along, which is the nature of the religious indoctrination of children.In addition, you claimed that I had made a "blanket statement" of some kind when I had not. As you can read above, I said that the practice was "prevalent", not "universal", or "true in ever single case".What definition of "prevalent" means "blanket statement"?Then you wrote:

quote:

---

Even Jesus doubted and questioned his beliefs.

---

And I replied:

quote:

---

That's great.

​

What does that have to do with how the Roman Catholic church, when teaching children, discourages the asking of too many questions and disapproving of doubt?

---

But then you question that this ever occurs:

quote:

---

And just why have you shown that to be the case?

---

Are you seriously going to challenge the notion that there doesn't exist any negative social pressure to conform inside the Catholic CCD classroom? Or inside a Catholic household, for that matter? Do you seriously want to suggest that openly challenging the doctrine or the basis for faith are welcomed and encouraged there?Then you went on to say: And I replied:

quote:

---

Oh come on Schraf. Second grade? Get serious. LOL

---

Again, you are avoiding the point.Make it 7th grade or 4th grade, it doesn't matter.The point is, just becasue "Jesus questioned" doesn't mean questioning of the doctrine or the faith is encouraged during childhood religious instruction. Just becasue Catholic scholars and theologians debate and sometimes change doctrine somewhere far away means diddly squat to how the local CCD classes indoctrinate children and frown upon doubt.Doubt in a child is something troubling to the adults who are trying to teach them to believe a religion. The children aren't stupid. They can sense this. Children try to please the adults by believing what they are told to believe.Again, I said previously that strictness varies among the sects, and probably between individual churches and individual CCD instructors, as well. I never said that questioning and doubt are never, ever tolerated in every Christian or Muslim sect. I think that some sects probably consider it a natural progression.There is a reason, however, it is so important to many of these sects to start the religious teaching when children are very young. The simple fact is that if you tell small children a story that sounds an awful lot like a make-believe tale, they simply accept it as such. As they get older, they are said to "mature in faith", which is just another way of saying, "they figure out how to make what they previously knew as a childish magical make believe story into something they can swallow as a teenager and adult".Just think how difficult it would be for religions to get followers if the very first time anybody heard of God, or Jesus, or Mohammed, or Heaven, or Hell, or the Ten Commandments, or any of it, was when they were adults?

quote:

---

I would have to ask for evidence of the many many sects that "actively seek to remove or hinder..."

​

I would be happy with "unwittingly (and in extreme cases actively seek to) remove or hinder..."

---

I am fine with that characterization.

quote:

---

And my point in return is that this is also true of many, many non-religious families.

---

Sure, I accept that, too.

quote:

---

I think I get your point. The second grade is not a time of brain-washing. If kids get to the age where they can really question, and yet hold on to the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus, then there is a problem.

---

Here's the thing, though.If a second grader has suspicions that it's really their parents who are the Tooth Fairy or the Easter Bunny, perhaps becasue they catch their parents putting out the money or the chocolate, and the child asks the parent, "Hey, are you really the Easter Bunny/Tooth Fairy?",
the parent will probably say, "Yes, that's true, I am."What happens when the same little kid (or an older kid, it doesn't matter) has suspicions that God might not exist if they live in a religious household?Time for a serious discussion, Junior.

quote:

---

I think that Schraf, being such an example of how religion does not brain-wash you into being unable to decide for yourself, has little to fear.

---

The point is, ana, that I was brainwashed.It was frightening and painful to get out from under it, and it took a decade or more to escape from it.Just because there are skeptical ex-Catholics doesn't mean that brainwashing doesn't go on.