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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Religious indoctrination of children is like child sex abuse
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Zach82
Shipmate
# 3208
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Posted
I hope your friend, Yorick, is visiting a therapist who will help her cut through the shit about "indoctrination" so that she can find the real issues at work in her life, and then claim her agency over them. I ain't an expert in mental health by any means, but I've worked in the field enough to see baker's dozens of people who come up with explanations like "It was religious that messed me up!" so that they can dodge the real issue.
[ 28. August 2013, 14:14: Message edited by: Zach82 ]
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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice
Posts: 9148 | From: Boston, MA | Registered: Aug 2002
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
Somebody talking about poking Christians with a sharp stick, oh damn, I've just realized I've been set up by Yorick. Fee fi fo fum, I smell the blood of a great big WUM. I blame my parents, they over-sensitized me to piss-poor anti-theist non-arguments.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
Parents can certainly fuck up their children, indeed, they can be very inventive in their methods. Religion is merely another tool with which it can be done. It is how the tool is applied, hammer works on a nail, hammer works on a head.
Pretending religion cannot harm or that it harms necessarily are useless positions, IMO.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Anglo Catholic Relict
Shipmate
# 17213
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
Last weekend, I bumped into a childhood friend of my sister (we'll call her 'G') whom I haven't seen for thirty-odd years, and I'm here to complain about how she's been harmed by her indoctrination into religion by her parents. It very badly fucked her up, and I hereby call all parents who do this stuff to Hell.
This Be the Verse
Philip Larkin
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/178055
Posts: 585 | Registered: Jul 2012
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Zach82
Shipmate
# 3208
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Posted
Yorick, this is hardly the first time you've driven around this block on these boards, and it always goes the same way.
What psychological need does doing this fulfill for you?
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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice
Posts: 9148 | From: Boston, MA | Registered: Aug 2002
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
The need to wum.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
Yes, Q, I would. (And so would you, I'm sure. Suicide cults, extremism, etc.).
mousethief, you know that I agree that it is impossible to avoid inculcating our values on our children, and that doing so is what parenting actually IS. I'm talking very very specifically about indoctrinating religious beliefs when this causes harm (regardless of intention).
Ah, so you have answered the second question in my post, now go back and answer the first. I'll repeat and broaden it.
1. What is "harm" in this case?
2. Who gets to define it?
3. Do the same things cause harm in every person?
4. Do parents have a fundamental right to teach their children their values?
5. Should the state define which values are okay to teach and which are not?
6. Based on what?
7. If a value causes harm in only 1% of children taught it, is that enough to ban it?
8. 0.1%?
9. 0.01%?
10. Just one child, ever?
11. How can you decide for any given case whether the harm was caused by that value being taught, or the WAY it was taught, or just because they have abusive parents?
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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North East Quine
Curious beastie
# 13049
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Posted
Parents can harm their children in many ways, even in many well-intentioned ways.
There are the parents who lovingly pile their kids' plates high, guilt them to eat it all on the basis that there are starving children in Africa who would be grateful and end up with obese kids.
There are parents who are so determined to keep their children filling-free that they ban all sugar and end up with kids shop-lifting the pic'n'mix.
There are parents who are so worried about traffic and strangers that they won't let their children out and they end up with kids immobilized in front of a computer screen.
Their are parents so keen to give their kids a head start that they overload them with classes and extra tutoring and end up with burned out kids.
Religion is only one out of a thousand ways that well-meaning parents can get it wrong.
Posts: 6414 | From: North East Scotland | Registered: Oct 2007
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Sighthound
Shipmate
# 15185
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Posted
As the poet said (roughly), they mess you up, your mum and dad, without meaning to do so.
I think this is true even of good, caring parents. I had truly excellent parents, I loved them to bits. But, in many ways, they were 'fighting the last war' trying to inculcate me with stuff they had found useful in their experience. To an extent, and in certain ways, this screwed my head up.
Obviously, this process can go a lot further and be a lot more damaging. But it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with religious indoctrination. That's just one possible issue.
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Supporter of Tia Greyhound and Lurcher Rescue.http://tiagreyhounds.org/
Posts: 168 | From: England | Registered: Sep 2009
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comet
Snowball in Hell
# 10353
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Posted
I don't agree with Yorick, I more agree with the majority of the rest of you. fucked up parents can deeply harm their kids in any number of ways and in the name of many belief systems.
However, you all wanted concrete examples. here's the basics for just one. his eldest daughters ran away from home. this included spending the night in a snowbank in freezing temps under a white sheet in hopes that they would not be found. He was evil. before the abuse came out, he sought out the publicity that came from a battle with the NPS, extolling the virtues of living in the wild and keeping his children from the influence of the outside world. the photos... they looked like a bunch of brainwashed zombies. it was terrifying.
Variations on this theme happen here a lot. AK is known to the outside world as a place you can disappear. people come here to get away from society. some of the people do that because they are afraid of being caught.
I know a young woman who was raised so strictly in her religious community that she never attended public school, never spent time with anyone outside the church. When she was 19 (and still at home, never left home without a chaperone) she got a love note from a young man. She called the police and accused him of rape. for writing her a note telling her she was beautiful and saying he dreamed of kissing her. I saw the note. it was not crude in any way. But that poor boy was visited by the police, accused of all sorts of horrible things, and had a restraining order against him for a month that kept him from going into a large part of our small community.
From what I understand, she really believed that she had been assaulted.
there's two concrete examples for you all.
That all being said, I don't think religion is at fault. it's parental fear and ignorance. This can fuck up kids in lots of different ways. I know children who believe that if they go to the doctor they will have tracking device implanted into their heads by the government. I really wish I was kidding.
I have a friend who into his thirties honestly believed that Roman Catholics were all demon worshippers. He was shocked when I told him RCs are Christians. argued with me, even.
I work with a teenager (drama program) who refuses to perform religious-based material, even satire, because his parents have him believe that even if he learns a little about religion, it will make him ignorant and brutish. those are the words he used. This kid is bound for an ivy league school next year.
he's in for a lot of surprises.
the problem here is parents who are so passionate about their beliefs, no matter the subject matter, that they fill their children with their own fears. I suspect we all do this to some extent. I suspect my children would be less afraid to tell me they're taking drugs or street walking, than to tell me they've become Republicans (US variety). I am not reasonable in my anger at the GOP and I speak out of anger and fear. they hear that.
We fuck our kids up. all of us. and it's hard for them to get beyond that. it's just a matter of what our trigger topic is, and how far we take it.
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Evil Dragon Lady, Breaker of Men's Constitutions
"It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.” -Calvin
Posts: 17024 | From: halfway between Seduction and Peril | Registered: Sep 2005
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
Hard cases make bad law, as they say. I think we can safely ignore the seriously fucked-up in this discussion, even if they happen to cluster in Alaska.
And I also do not think that it is fair to say that parents generally fuck up their children. That measures their efforts against impossibly high ideals. I prefer to cut them some slack, so that I do not run out of four letter words when describing really bad parenting.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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EtymologicalEvangelical
Shipmate
# 15091
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Posted
Of course, we don't know what Yorick means by "religious indoctrination". Atheists tend to use this word 'religion' as a catch-all for any belief that does not conform to their dogma of philosophical naturalism. It's a pretty useless word, in my view.
Anyway, I can't see how teaching children about God is abusive, on the one hand, and yet teaching them that they are nothing more than meaninglessly assembled bundles of chemicals is not abusive, on the other. The philosophy on which atheism feeds is about as abusive as one can imagine, because it provides no conceptual protection against any form of abuse.
And then dear Yorick talks about sexual abuse, as if it's glaringly obvious that his philosophy implies the universal and objective validity of the moral principle that "we should not sexually abuse children". Of course we should not do that, but atheism / philosophical naturalism does not remotely teach us this. If other human beings are really nothing more than bundles of chemicals, of no more intrinsic value than piles of shit, then where is the moral injunction to treat such mindlessly configured conglomerations of atoms in a certain way rather than another?
If Yorick wants to preach to us about the evils of "religious indoctrination", then perhaps he could be honest enough to stop stealing ideas - such as the objective validity of morality - from a world view which he so clearly despises, and quite obviously doesn't understand.
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You can argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome': but you neither can nor need argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome, but I'm not saying this is true'. CS Lewis
Posts: 3625 | From: South Coast of England | Registered: Sep 2009
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Porridge
Shipmate
# 15405
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
Her parents were (and remain) zealous Christian evangelists, and they inflicted their religious views on their children in ways that I, even as a child then, considered abusive. Now, G tells me that she herself feels she was profoundly abused by their religious indoctrination, and that this has caused her terrible pain and suffering. She blames this single aspect of her childhood experience for much of the trainwreck of her adult life (drug abuse, self-harm, eating disorders, disastrous relationships, divorce, you know- the usual shit), and this seems reasonable to me. But I'm not impartial.
Emphasis mine.
I'll come at this from a different angle: would Yorick (and anyone agreeing with him) be just as inclined to view this woman's "indoctrination" as evil if this person had turned out to be, say, merely ordinary?
While both a-religious and childless myself, I'm a little suspicious of the readiness with which any of us is apt to seize on some aspect of some individual's past and cry, "Aha! So that's why you're the way you are!"
We usually only do this when somebody's messed up. Yet the fact is that most of us are, just in different degrees.
I'm one of (originally) four siblings, at least one of which (possibly two) is no longer living.
There is, or was, a big age spread amongst us. Two males, two females. Our parents were nominal, church-on-Christmas-and-Easter Protestants. Thus we were all subjected to similar "indoctrinations," albeit possibly altered by the passage of time, and due to the gender of the intended recipient of said indoctrination.
One male sib became an ultra-conservative, born-again-with-bells-on, Bible-quoting, woman-silencing evangelical whatcha-may-callit.
One male sib became a raging proselytizing atheist and a drunk, and has no contact with the family any more, if he's still breathing.
One female sib became a nominal, non-observant Protestant.
And one sib (me) became an atheist after a couple of spells in a couple of churches. I am not much more interested in atheism than I am in, say, becoming an Episcopalian. Or a Sufi. Or what-have-you. Religion, aside from basic moral teachings about treating one another decently, merely seems irrelevant to me.
I doubt that these wildly different outcomes from one "nest" are all that unusual.
If parental indoctrination is so powerful, why aren't all four sibs from my family nominally-observant Protties?
Further, I'm suspicious when any adult starts claiming that his or her messed-up-ness is all down to the parents and their doings. At some point, we either start taking responsibility for our own lives, or we don't; we blame our own decisions and actions on Somebody Else.
My parents were far from perfect people (or parents, for that matter). Perfection is not part of my own make-up either. But as I like to tell my own older sister when she calls to complain about our parents (one of whom has been dead for a decade, and the other, nearly two), "That was then. This is now. What have you done for yourself lately, and if you say, 'Nothing,' what the hell is stopping you?"
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Spiggott: Everything I've ever told you is a lie, including that.
Moon: Including what?
Spiggott: That everything I've ever told you is a lie.
Moon: That's not true!
Posts: 3925 | From: Upper right corner | Registered: Jan 2010
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Chorister
Completely Frocked
# 473
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Plique-à-jour:
After a certain age, it's all on you. You may rage in private against how off-course you are because of the failures who raised you, but your failure is your own. Going around telling people how responsible others are for the choices you've made? No, no, no. You're just repeating the pattern of their lives, sodden with other people's wills, other people's decisions. You're giving them a power over you they could never attain by their own efforts. Failures cannot make you a failure any more than bullies can make you commit suicide. You have to own your own will, and move on.
I think Plique-a-jour and Porridge (in the previous post) have it: however you were brought up, when you reach adulthood it really is up to you. Some people decide to follow the faith of their parents (however extreme), others reject it, while yet others modify it in the light of their own experience. Perhaps one of the best examples is the widely publicised departure of Fred Phelps' granddaughter from the extreme views of her relatives. It would have been hard for her to do this, but she realised it was necessary and has been applauded by many for doing what she believed was right.
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Retired, sitting back and watching others for a change.
Posts: 34626 | From: Cream Tealand | Registered: Jun 2001
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Patdys
Iron Wannabe
RooK-Annoyer
# 9397
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Hard cases make bad law, as they say. I think we can safely ignore the seriously fucked-up in this discussion, even if they happen to cluster in Alaska..
Oy, I happen to like comet's posts. ![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
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Marathon run. Next Dream. Australian this time.
Posts: 3511 | Registered: Apr 2005
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Chorister
Completely Frocked
# 473
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Posted
Some people use religion as an excuse to ostracise or even kill their offspring, if they don't conform when they become mature and start thinking for themselves. Now that really IS Hell - but I don't think for a moment that is the same as what Yorick is talking about in the OP.
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Retired, sitting back and watching others for a change.
Posts: 34626 | From: Cream Tealand | Registered: Jun 2001
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QLib
Bad Example
# 43
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Posted
The Linns are very good on spiritual abuse. I don't think it's quite the same a indoctrination (also a bad thing) though the two often go hand-in-hand. The way I would define spiritual abuse is to say it's an attempt to enlist God in terrorizing a child. So, for believers, it's blasphemy.
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Tradition is the handing down of the flame, not the worship of the ashes Gustav Mahler.
Posts: 8913 | From: Page 28 | Registered: May 2001
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comet
Snowball in Hell
# 10353
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Hard cases make bad law, as they say. I think we can safely ignore the seriously fucked-up in this discussion, even if they happen to cluster in Alaska.
I happen to agree. people were asking for examples. I gave some.
and I suspect if some of you got out more, you'd discover that AK isn't special. there are just fewer of us, so the nutjobs stand out. In the rest of the world, they're in relative hiding. Just congregating on Theology Nerd Discussion Boards.
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
And I also do not think that it is fair to say that parents generally fuck up their children. That measures their efforts against impossibly high ideals. I prefer to cut them some slack, so that I do not run out of four letter words when describing really bad parenting.
yeah. hyperbole. look it up.
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Evil Dragon Lady, Breaker of Men's Constitutions
"It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.” -Calvin
Posts: 17024 | From: halfway between Seduction and Peril | Registered: Sep 2005
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comet
Snowball in Hell
# 10353
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Patdys:
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Hard cases make bad law, as they say. I think we can safely ignore the seriously fucked-up in this discussion, even if they happen to cluster in Alaska..
Oy, I happen to like comet's posts.
the doc says two more weeks without biting people and I can get out of these restraints!
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Evil Dragon Lady, Breaker of Men's Constitutions
"It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.” -Calvin
Posts: 17024 | From: halfway between Seduction and Peril | Registered: Sep 2005
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
Tampering with their minds like that is as wrong as tampering with their genitals.
No it is not. And to say so is to compare something that may well have positive intentions with something that cannot under any circumstances have. You are wicked and destructive to say so. Your screen name sounds like a cat vomitting, but I like cat vomit better than the likes of you for this.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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alienfromzog
Ship's Alien
# 5327
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
I feel that religious indoctrination of children is on a moral level right down there with child sex abuse. There are obvious parallels; with paedophilia, adult abusers of minors will often claim they mean no harm and that they act out of genuine love, for example. However, religious indoctrination of children can be as harmful as sexual abuse can be, and society should condemn it similarly.
As has been covered over the last page and a half, this is at best a nonsensical statement. As IngoB covered on the previous page, the construction ultimately is as trivial as Harmful things are harmful with the deliberately provocative link to child sexual abuse.
I think this covers it quite nicely also:
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
Of course, we don't know what Yorick means by "religious indoctrination". Atheists tend to use this word 'religion' as a catch-all for any belief that does not conform to their dogma of philosophical naturalism. It's a pretty useless word, in my view.
Anyway, I can't see how teaching children about God is abusive, on the one hand, and yet teaching them that they are nothing more than meaninglessly assembled bundles of chemicals is not abusive, on the other. The philosophy on which atheism feeds is about as abusive as one can imagine, because it provides no conceptual protection against any form of abuse.
(It is very worrying to me who I find myself in agreement with on this thread ![[Biased]](wink.gif) )
But let us get down to the nub of the this therefore; either Yorick is saying that harm is bad or that any kind of religious thinking shared with any child that doesn't conform to his worldview is on a par with child sex abuse.
Can I just start with
![[Mad]](angryfire.gif)
before going on to explain that this might be a little ambitious.
I understand why (some) atheists consider religion to be harmful. I won't bother here to take apart this argument - though it is ridiculous - but let's accept for the moment the notion of religion as harmful. As a comparator to go for, child sex abuse is aiming a little high don't you think?
As anyone who's on the Ship regularly will know, a while back we had some very heated debates on the subject of childhood abuse and myself and a few others shared both their direct experiences and what they have seen in others who have been victims. Speaking as someone who has cared for, counselled, sat with, cried with and for, a number of victims; I find this comparison pretty-fucking-offensive. It either demonstrates very lazy thinking from 'all religion is bad' to 'therefore teaching it to children must be really bad' or a deliberate and callous attempt at an offensive moral equivalence. That is, the OP is meant to offend.
So I would postulate this: If we get past the sweeping generalisation, it is indeed true that is some cases, the religious view of the parents can be demonstrably detrimental to the children but to draw this parallel I suspect shows a complete lack of any knowledge about what IngoB rightly insisted on referring to a child-rape.
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
No.
Tampering with minds is not as wrong as tampering with genitals.
Don't worry I'm not actually going to agree with Evensong - well not quite. The thing about sexual abuse is that it is really an attack on the mind more than the physical - for the very obvious reasons but also because if you look at the data in terms of long-term affects, the wider circumstances are very significant. A child who suffers abuse by a non-parent with usually be better able to recover from their abuse because of the strong family relationship. Abuse by a parent is worse in that it runs completely contrary to the proper role of a parent as love-giver and installer of self-worth. The abusive relationship is most damaging when there is no healthy relationship to fall back on. Sexual abuse is very much tampering with the mind.
But I may be getting a little off topic here. It is difficult to describe what I have seen in people, broken by what has been done to them. The scars that run so deep. The insecurities that are often life-long. The desperate need for healthy-positive relationships and the seemingly inevitable self-sabotage that makes this all-but-impossible.
Essentially, the comparison of 'religious indoctrination' with child abuse is intellectually lazy and difficult to defend with anything other than anti-religious zeal. It is almost worthy of nothing more than derision and laughter. Yet it's not, for it equates sincere people of faith with abusers and much more than this it minimises the deep hurt suffered by abuse victims. And that is simply unacceptable. Ever.
AFZ
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Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.
[Sen. D.P.Moynihan]
An Alien's View of Earth - my blog (or vanity exercise...)
Posts: 2150 | From: Zog, obviously! Straight past Alpha Centauri, 2nd planet on the left... | Registered: Dec 2003
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
I think Yorick is just wumming, but several people have made good points about the confusion between correlation and causation in his OP. His friend seems to assert that her religious upbringing is the 'single aspect of her childhood' which has brought about various ills.
This strikes me as a very dubious statement. How can anyone know that that is the case?
As a therapist I saw tons of people come to therapy declaring that 'X is the cause of my misery', and after a period of therapy, it turned out that X was not the only factor at all. And quite often X receded into the background.
But furthermore, we are getting it via hearsay, from Yorick. The plural of anecdote is not data.
OK, Yorick is an anti-theist, so he wants to slag off religion, and poke Christians with a sharp stick. What poison dwells in some men's minds!
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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HughWillRidmee
Shipmate
# 15614
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
Tampering with their minds like that is as wrong as tampering with their genitals.
I suspect that only those who have been unfortunate enough to have been subjected to both can know if this is true – and then only whether or not it is true for them.
ISTM that those who say it cannot be so are as wrong as any who say it must be so.
I was fortunate enough never to have been sexually abused – but I am certain that, particularly in my teens, my relationships with other people, and therefore my development as a rounded personality, were inhibited by my childhood environment; and no – I’m not going into greater detail. The 24/7 intrusive watching-you-at-all-times and knowing-what-you’re-thinking (and its BAD and if it isn’t it soon will be) -even-when-you’re-asleep god that I had no option but to accept lost its power in my teens, but it didn’t disappear without leaving consequences which have resonated throughout my life.
Ideally we would be unaware of religion until our mid-twenties – and then be expected to consider all the options. Can’t happen of course, in most of the world children are born into a society which is not just religious but specifically oriented towards a particular version of religion. Even in the UK life is largely dictated by one religion albeit a lot of the influence is fairly subtle - the “persecution-of-christians” is mainly just the pain that any historically privileged group feels when asked to conform to the same rules as those not in their group. Religious parents will want to share knowledge of their beliefs with their children, christianity and others demand it and mandate terrible consequences for those the parents are supposed to protect if the children don’t accept the correct superstition (in other situations it’s called blackmail).
Perhaps the most that we can reasonably ask is that beliefs are presented as what they are – opinions unsupported by conclusive evidence which the parents feel to be true. It would be helpful if religions would be moral enough to encourage parents not to try to force a set of ideas upon children but to stop at explanation and encouragement by example. Unfortunately some groups will be so convinced of the potential harm to all and sundries’ imaginary soul that such a posture will be impossible whilst others will quickly see the threat to their revenue stream as retirement beckons.
And Plique-a-jour – your touching conviction that we have our own free will which pops into existence unbidden is totally contrary to the last twenty (in fact it started in the 80s with Benjamin Libet and others) years experimental evidence on how the brain actually operates. Our decisions are not made consciously (for some unknown reason(s) we seem to need to kid ourselves that they are) but are the outcome of a combination of genetic inheritance and our lifetime’s experiences.
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The danger to society is not merely that it should believe wrong things.. but that it should become credulous, and lose the habit of testing things and inquiring into them...
W. K. Clifford, "The Ethics of Belief" (1877)
Posts: 894 | From: Middle England | Registered: Apr 2010
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Porridge
Shipmate
# 15405
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
Our decisions are not made consciously (for some unknown reason(s) we seem to need to kid ourselves that they are) but are the outcome of a combination of genetic inheritance and our lifetime’s experiences.
And 20 years' experience with mindfulness meditation will help anybody who chooses to do so became gradually more self-aware about innate tendencies and also capable of viewing one's own experiences from more than one perspective.
It's not the experiences, it turns out, which shape us so much as it is our attitudes toward said experience. And we have the ability to re-frame these.
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Spiggott: Everything I've ever told you is a lie, including that.
Moon: Including what?
Spiggott: That everything I've ever told you is a lie.
Moon: That's not true!
Posts: 3925 | From: Upper right corner | Registered: Jan 2010
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HughWillRidmee
Shipmate
# 15614
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Porridge:
It's not the experiences, it turns out, which shape us so much as it is our attitudes toward said experience. And we have the ability to re-frame these.
a) Can you provide link(s) please?
b) Where do our attitudes come from if not genetics and experiences?
c) Where do we get the ability to re-frame - or indeed to want to re-frame - other than from genetics and experiences?
I don't doubt that we change as the result of additional data - I wonder if the "choose to re-frame" is just another example of telling ourselves stories.
“Our sense of being a conscious agent who does things comes at a cost of being technically wrong all the time” Daniel Wegner , 2002 The illusion of conscious will p342
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The danger to society is not merely that it should believe wrong things.. but that it should become credulous, and lose the habit of testing things and inquiring into them...
W. K. Clifford, "The Ethics of Belief" (1877)
Posts: 894 | From: Middle England | Registered: Apr 2010
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
comet, I didn't mean to be particularly critical about your post, actually. I was more proactively defending against how your comments could be twisted by Yorick (et al.?).
quote:
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
Ideally we would be unaware of religion until our mid-twenties – and then be expected to consider all the options.
And why for fuck's sake would that be ideal? I would be hard pressed to find a worse method of dealing with religion. Even if I allow for the sake of argument that religion is some kind of mind porn, then this suggestion is like saying that one should keep everybody sexually continent and indeed totally naive of sex until they are twenty, and then blast them with all manner of available hardcore porn, so that those innocent virgins may consider their sexual options for the rest of their lives. Yeah. No doubt that will lead to lots of sexually well adjusted individuals. ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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Leaf
Shipmate
# 14169
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Posted
Ah, Yorick. How fortunate for you that whatever genuine hurt you experienced on behalf of your friend so nicely hooked into your preconceived notions! Don't you find righteous anger is such a trip? And in this case it fuels two of your favourite things: atheist crusading and attention whoring. Lucky you. (I will try to make this as much about you as possible, because I'm feeling charitable about your need for attention.)
Unfortunate for you, though, that you have been so thoroughly called out on your bullshit by other, more capable posters.
What really makes this fun is that you, and possibly your friend, are guilty of the very thing which you condemn: binary, blinkered fundamentalism. The teaching of religion is so wrong that you can only compare it with the secular world's greatest sin, the abuse of children, so that you can use the emotions of wishing there was a hell without having to employ the concept. Neat.
Whatever response you are hoping to generate on Ship of Fools, I doubt that you will receive it. Maybe one day someone will buy what you're selling, but this seems to be a tough market for your atheist evangelism. I feel for you; it's tough to be a missionary. Or perhaps you yourself could grow up past your fundamentalism - "rise above your programming", as they say - and think more critically about religion, education, and parenting.
In closing: You.
Posts: 2786 | From: the electrical field | Registered: Oct 2008
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Even if I allow for the sake of argument that religion is some kind of mind porn, then this suggestion is like saying that one should keep everybody sexually continent and indeed totally naive of sex until they are twenty, and then blast them with all manner of available hardcore porn, so that those innocent virgins may consider their sexual options for the rest of their lives. Yeah. No doubt that will lead to lots of sexually well adjusted individuals.
Isn't that exactly what the RCC teaches?
(apart from the porn bit of course)
No sex, not even masturbation then marriage and - wham, all breaks off.
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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The Phantom Flan Flinger
Shipmate
# 8891
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Porridge:
Further, I'm suspicious when any adult starts claiming that his or her messed-up-ness is all down to the parents and their doings. At some point, we either start taking responsibility for our own lives, or we don't; we blame our own decisions and actions on Somebody Else.
May I give a perspective on that for my own experience?
I was raised by an abusive father, and a mother who followed him, I can see now, out of fear.
This left me with mental problems, and what might be called messed-up-ness.
I manage this with various things, including medication, by not letting these problems define me, and also (ITTWACW) through a lot of prayer.
I take responsibility for my own life and for managing my messed-up-ness, but that doesn't mean my father wasn't a major contributing factor in causing it.
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http://www.faith-hope-and-confusion.com/
Posts: 1020 | From: Leicester, England | Registered: Dec 2004
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
Isn't that exactly what the RCC teaches? (apart from the porn bit of course) No sex, not even masturbation then marriage and - wham, all breaks off.
Apart from the porn, apart from having to be naive about sex (intellectually), and apart from all breaks coming off. There is one option for sex you licitly have, you can inform yourself about it, and then choose to get it or not, in one way only. Oh, and it is not the goal of the RCC to produce "sexually well adjusted individuals" in the modern secular sense either. But I agree, it was a bad analogy since it did invite this question and I would prefer to not steal this thread from Yorick.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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Yorick
Infinite Jester
# 12169
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Posted
Thank you to those who addressed their posts directly to me, and sorry I haven't been able to get back to you before. I'd like to respond to each point, but have insufficient time. In summary, the key objections to my position here seem to be:
a) that atheists indoctrinate their kids just as much as theists
b) that this is unavoidable whatever the parental intentions may be
c) that harm is not caused by religious indoctrination
d) that anyone who thinks it is is wrong, including those who feel abused
e) that the comparison of the (disputed) harm caused by religion with that caused by child sex abuse is invalid and unconscionable
I think there's been plenty of discussion here and in previous threads of most of the above points, though I'd be happy to go over my thoughts on these if required, when I get some time.
Please pay attention to the following if you wish to gain anything close to an understanding of my actual thoughts on all this.* My particular point here is to propose for your consideration that the effects of indoctrinating religious beliefs in children may cause harm in a similar way to that in which harm may be caused by child sex abuse. I feel this is of equivalent moral wrong when the harmful effects are equivalent.
I'd be happy to discuss this further, but will be short of time for a bit.
* And if you don't, well, have a nice day.
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این نیز بگذرد
Posts: 7574 | From: Natural Sources | Registered: Dec 2006
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
I feel this is of equivalent moral wrong when the harmful effects are equivalent.
Well, duh.
I'm sorry Yorick, you know I've tended to support you in some of your Ship travails, but this is getting a bit silly. Sure, it's bad if it's harmful. Sure, it could happen. But you've done absolutely nothing to address the likelihood of it happening, and the complete difference in intentions that might be involved.
We've now graduated from 'harm is harmful' to 'bad harm is bad'. It's true but it's pretty well meaningless.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Yorick
Infinite Jester
# 12169
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Posted
I know nothing about the statistical incidence of harm caused by parental indoctrination of religion, nor the intentions of the individual harmers. I imagine its a relatively minor thing and often is accidental to intention. But whatever the case may be, it's something that religious people seem averse to accepting AT ALL, when they should all be looking very carefully at it, and this seems morally negligent to me.
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این نیز بگذرد
Posts: 7574 | From: Natural Sources | Registered: Dec 2006
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
But whatever the case may be, it's something that religious people seem averse to accepting AT ALL, when they should all be looking very carefully at it, and this seems morally negligent to me.
Not so. Liberals are quite aware severe religious indoctrination can be harmful.
That's why we're so bad and passing on our faith to the next generation: we don't want to fuck it up.
But by avoiding the issue too much, we do damage too.
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a theological scrapbook
Posts: 9481 | From: Australia | Registered: Apr 2009
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
But whatever the case may be, it's something that religious people seem averse to accepting AT ALL, when they should all be looking very carefully at it, and this seems morally negligent to me.
Now you're just making shit up.
Have you not noticed we have a permanent Phelps clan thread down here in Hell?
[ 29. August 2013, 10:04: Message edited by: orfeo ]
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Yorick
Infinite Jester
# 12169
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Posted
I don't see much acceptance of the idea on this thread, but perhaps that's because people are rather fond of their religions and rather less fond of my opinions.
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این نیز بگذرد
Posts: 7574 | From: Natural Sources | Registered: Dec 2006
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
I don't see much acceptance of the idea on this thread, but perhaps that's because people are rather fond of their religions and rather less fond of my opinions.
What you see on this thread is a response to a badly formed declaration on your part that "I feel that religious indoctrination of children is on a moral level right down there with child sex abuse."
That doesn't exactly scream "only if the religious indoctrination results in the same bad level of harm that we associate with child sex abuse", does it?
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Yorick
Infinite Jester
# 12169
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Posted
Agreed. I blame myself for having insufficient time to take care of that with my postings, but perhaps I've straightened that out a bit this morning, and people will now respond to the point rather than the person. Perhaps.
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این نیز بگذرد
Posts: 7574 | From: Natural Sources | Registered: Dec 2006
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
My particular point here is to propose for your consideration that the effects of indoctrinating religious beliefs in children may cause harm in a similar way to that in which harm may be caused by child sex abuse.
No, it is utterly obvious that they do not cause harm in a similar way. First, there is the whole issue of stuffing genitals (or other things) where they should not go. I know it is terribly modern to ignore all physical and sexual aspects of rape and declare it to be about "power" only. But whatever one makes of that as far as the perpetrator is concerned, there certainly is actual physical and sexual harm being done to the child in child rape, with rather significant physiological issues like STDs and pregnancy looming large. Second, considered simply as violence one may suggest that physical violence and verbal / psychological violence have similar long term impact. Whether that has been demonstrated scientifically I would very much doubt (how is one going to get controlled data on that?), but we can consider it true for the sake of argument. But even then that is setting a false equivalence between "indoctrination", i.e., teaching of religious doctrine, and potentially verbal / psychologically abusive methods of doing so. I remember the case of some dentist driving his son into suicide with obsessively crazy focusing on getting his teeth perfect. From that nobody concludes that telling your child to brush its teeth may have similar effects to child abuse. Because that's bollocks, the brushing of teeth is here a mere vehicle for the abuse. The abuse is not essentially connected to perfect teeth, but accidentally by virtue of the father's obsession with them. If you want to have any leg to stand on, you need to demonstrate that it is essential, not accidental, to religious indoctrination that some children will get abused. Oh, and even that is not enough. Because of course one may well argue that even if there were such an essential connection, then that this connection exists just as essentially with other bits of culture and knowledge that we teach our children. Say politics, art, business, ... And since we are not about to stop all teaching of culture just because someone may get harmed in the process, that would still have no meaning. You have to demonstrate that religious "indoctrination" is essentially connected to abuse far above normal levels of potential harm in transmitting culture. Good luck with that.
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
I feel this is of equivalent moral wrong when the harmful effects are equivalent.
And I think circles are round.
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
I know nothing about the statistical incidence of harm caused by parental indoctrination of religion, nor the intentions of the individual harmers. I imagine its a relatively minor thing and often is accidental to intention. But whatever the case may be, it's something that religious people seem averse to accepting AT ALL, when they should all be looking very carefully at it, and this seems morally negligent to me.
What a load of crap. Some dentist killed his son by obsessing over perfect teeth, therefore you are morally negligent if you don't fret over telling your children to brush their teeth? Hello? Here's the deal: you have limited headspace, and teaching children is a complex undertaking full of significant issues and threats. It would be morally negligent to focus one's attention on problems with negligible likelihood, because there are lots of actual problems to be sorted out. Like for example how to keep one's children as far away as possible from utter assholes who compare teaching religion to child rape.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
I feel this is of equivalent moral wrong when the harmful effects are equivalent.
And I think circles are round.
Dammit, that's better than my version.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
I don't see much acceptance of the idea on this thread, but perhaps that's because people are rather fond of their religions and rather less fond of my opinions.
It's also because so far you have produced plenty of assertions, but very little in the way of demonstration.
I can say that X is like Y, but a point comes when I need to produce some evidence for that.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
As an example of what I mean by 'demonstration', the idea that being religious aids health has been around for a long time, but health professionals began to research it, and it appears that religious people are to an extent protected against mental illness and suicide, and also recover better from illness and surgery, and so on.
But these ideas are not just assertions a la Yorick, but are being empirically researched, e.g.
http://ftp.iza.org/dp5215.pdf
I'm not saying that therefore this research is correct, but at least it is empirically based.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Dave W.
Shipmate
# 8765
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
Agreed. I blame myself for having insufficient time to take care of that with my postings, but perhaps I've straightened that out a bit this morning, and people will now respond to the point rather than the person. Perhaps.
Seems to me you're just attempting something very like the rhetorical "two-step of terrific triviality" (so-named by John Holbo):
quote:
Say something that is ambiguous between something so strong it is absurd and so weak that it would be absurd even to mention it. When attacked, hop from foot to foot as necessary, keeping a serious expression on your face. With luck, you will be able to generate the mistaken impression that you haven’t been knocked flat, by rights. As a result, the thing that you said which was absurdly strong will appear to have some obscure grain of truth in it. Even though you have provided no reason to think so.
Posts: 2059 | From: the hub of the solar system | Registered: Nov 2004
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
Or if you keep throwing shit at a wall, hopefully, a bit of it will stick.
I will remember the 'two step of terrific triviality' - very good phrase, and an excellent explanation also.
[ 29. August 2013, 11:26: Message edited by: quetzalcoatl ]
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
Agreed. I blame myself for having insufficient time to take care of that with my postings, but perhaps I've straightened that out a bit this morning, and people will now respond to the point rather than the person. Perhaps.
Before you build up your hopes, remember that this is Hell and people will play the man instead of the ball. If you want to engage seriously, this might be a disappointing thread.
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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fletcher christian
Mutinous Seadog
# 13919
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Posted
As long as you refuse to give the details of what you are talking about (or concrete examples of what you are referring to) then this thread will always be aimed at you, the person, and that's because it looks like a bit of trolling exercise. I very much doubt that there is anyone on this thread or even on this ship who feels that indoctrination taken to an extreme that leads to misery/terrorism/oppression/murder...whatever, is ok. But as long as none of us know what the hell you're on about then there is no discussion to be had.
On the other hand, if you were really interested in your subject, you would give examples, and it might open up and interesting discussion on the more unseen, yet equally insidious and destructive forms of indoctrination that are present in our world.
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'God is love insaturable, love impossible to describe'
Staretz Silouan
Posts: 5235 | From: a prefecture | Registered: Jul 2008
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Soror Magna
Shipmate
# 9881
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
Agreed. I blame myself for having insufficient time to take care of that with my postings, but perhaps I've straightened that out a bit this morning, and people will now respond to the point rather than the person. Perhaps.
Don't you just hate it when people don't do what you want?
Youprick, you are the most offensive example of medical egomania I have ever encountered. You wished cancer upon me so I would be more respectful of doctors. You got mad when your patients who had the flu came to your office and sneezed all over the place, apparently because you're too stupid to put a box of tissues in your waiting room. And now you're comparing RE to child sex abuse.
It's patently obvious that not all religious education is child sex abuse, and it's equally obvious that all child sex abuse is child sex abuse. So this panentheistic agnostic thinks you should take your false equivalency and stuff it up your teeny tiny rectum.
You wrote something stupid and you got called on it. Again. And again, you're whining.
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"You come with me to room 1013 over at the hospital, I'll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean." -- Tony Kushner, "Angels in America"
Posts: 5430 | From: Caprica City | Registered: Jul 2005
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
Agreed. I blame myself for having insufficient time to take care of that with my postings, but perhaps I've straightened that out a bit this morning, and people will now respond to the point rather than the person. Perhaps.
Before you build up your hopes, remember that this is Hell and people will play the man instead of the ball. If you want to engage seriously, this might be a disappointing thread.
Ironically, there was some quite reasonable playing of the ball in the part of the thread that was before Yorick explicitly asked people to play the ball. Reverse psychology in Hell is a wonderful thing.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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