The future is a bright?

[j4]

This has just irritated me mightily.


After the first paragraph, I was already gritting my teeth. The first flakes of enamel started fluttering down like dental dandruff onto my keyboard as I reached the third or fourth. By the time I got to "Children are too young to know their religious opinions" (ascribing a religion to a child is "child abuse", whereas writing them off as too immature to have an opinion is somehow not?) I was gnawing the table-edge and muttering "sorrel, sorrel" under my breath.

Despite the damage to my dental regions, I did manage to read as far as the point where Dawkins kindly decides to inform the "gay" community what connotations "gay", "homosexual", and "queer" have. No, I'm not about to be drawn into the deadly dance of self-identification; my objection is nothing to do with obsessive people-pigeonholing, much less poof-specific pedantry. (After all, I suppose it is understandable that he has failed to notice the Queer Rights movement, and thus still regards "queer" as unquestionably an "insult".) But to blithely limit the meaning of one set of words (and, like it or not, identities) while claiming to liberate his own smug subculture from the tyranny of being called a spade... well, I wonder what the current meaning of "double standards" is in Dawkins' ideolect?

Perhaps he is right, and "I am a bright" really does sound "too unfamiliar to be arrogant". Perhaps it really is "puzzling, enigmatic, tantalising", and will revolutionise the world with its daring and memetic (natch) approach to (a lack of) religion. Fortunately, his real message comes out wholly untainted (and unredeemed) by his religious bias, with the resounding familiarity of the shit hitting the bowl: "I am a self-satisfied waste of the planet's vital resources".

Comments

[j4.livejournal.com]

Hmm. No easy answers, perhaps.

There are if you don't accept the validity of that system of beliefs :-)

Argh. No, no, no. Listen: SOME PEOPLE DO ACCEPT THE VALIDITY OF THAT SYSTEM OF BELIEFS. Given that situation (which, like it or not, IS THE CASE) there are very few "easy" answers.

I don't actually see any huge issue with the "commitment" aspects, since as an adult you can choose to renounce those commitments without any negative consequences

Have you ever held any religious beliefs?

Some things to think about:

1. It's not always as black-and-white as "I believe all of this" and "I believe none of this". If you've always believed something but suddenly you find that those beliefs conflict with other things you discover/learn/begin to believe/etc., then you may struggle to reconcile the old belief system with the new data. Or else you may simply find yourself questioning some aspects of the belief system, and struggling to reconcile the doubts in one area with the still-strong beliefs in another area. For some people, these inward struggles can be extremely traumatic.

2. The loss of belief can in itself feel like a negative consequence to someone who's used to having a faith -- imagine that all your childhood you've firmly believed that there was a loving God, and the "point" of life (insofar as you thought about such things) was to be good so that you'd go to Heaven. (Grossly oversimplified, but run with the example for now.) As a teenager, you start doubting this; perhaps you can no longer reconcile the idea of "a loving God" with the fact that Bad Things Happen To Good People (more gross oversimplification). Suddenly, you're faced with other options: perhaps God *isn't* loving? (If you've never believed in any higher power, obviously this won't bother you -- try imagining that you're suddenly faced with the possibility that your parents are murderers.) Perhaps God doesn't exist at all? If that's the case, what (you may ask yourself) is the point of life? For some people, coming to that sort of question and -- for the first time -- not being able to answer it is unsettling, upsetting, traumatic.

In summary, if you put your faith in something -- anything -- and then you lose that faith, it will have an effect. Think of losing trust in a friend or a family member; think of the PhD student realising halfway through their thesis that the subject they're researching is irrelevant and benefits nobody. It's as though a bit of mental ground which you believed to be solid suddenly turns out to be quicksand. And if the mental ground underpins every single facet of your life -- as religions tend to do -- then the effect may well be far-reaching.

2. If your belief system is one which you previously accepted without question from your parents/friends/teachers/elders/etc., then beginning to question that belief may result in rejection by the people who previously acted as your family/mentors/friends. Are you really saying that (to take an extreme example) being disowned by one's parents would count as "no negative consequences" -- even for an adult? Would you shrug and carry on regardless if former friends suddenly turned against you? (Have you ever felt emotional attachments to another human being?)

And even if their reaction is still accepting, you may feel that you can no longer relate to them, or even no longer trust them, since they are still running their lives according to a system of beliefs which you now believe to be false. And this (I shouldn't need to explain this, but given your post I feel I do) can be upsetting.

[hsenag.livejournal.com]

Argh. No, no, no. Listen: SOME PEOPLE DO ACCEPT THE VALIDITY OF THAT SYSTEM OF BELIEFS. Given that situation (which, like it or not, IS THE CASE) there are very few "easy" answers.

There are plenty of easy answers for me - with regard to myself, had I been baptised it would be of no particular consequence to me (although I might have filled out a "Certificate of Debaptisement" to make a point).

With regard to others, I feel sorry for those whose lives have been negatively tainted by religion in the way you describe, and I am strongly in favour of practical efforts to reduce the chances of this kind of thing happening (e.g. by ensuring that schools do make it clear to children that alternatives exist). But in the end, the answer for me is that systems of belief that lead to that kind of effect are fundamentally abusive and should be condemned as such. There's no easy *solution*, however.

Have you ever held any religious beliefs?

Yes, but only because my teachers up till the age of 11 taught the Bible as an established fact. So through ignorance, not faith.

[j4.livejournal.com]

There are plenty of easy answers for me

You missed the smug smiley this time.

But in the end, the answer for me is that systems of belief that lead to that kind of effect are fundamentally abusive and should be condemned as such.

Are relationships also "fundamentally abusive" because people get hurt when they fall apart?

[hsenag.livejournal.com]

You missed the smug smiley this time.

Correct.

Are relationships also "fundamentally abusive" because people get hurt when they fall apart?

People enter into relationships when adults or at least heading towards adulthood.

[j4.livejournal.com]

People enter into relationships when adults or at least heading towards adulthood.

I'm talking about "relationships" in the broadest sense: engaging with other people on any kind of personal, social and/or emotional level.

Are families and friendships "fundamentally abusive" because people get hurt when they fall apart?

[hsenag.livejournal.com]

Friendships are also entered into voluntarily and for the most part (perhaps excluding very young children) by people who are competent to make the decision.

Families - yes, there's an element of compulsion about such relationships for children, but the alternative is far worse, so there's a clear benefit in having them that outweighs that. Parents have to make _some_ decisions on behalf of their children.

[addedentry.livejournal.com]

Tough.

The potential for emotional upset is precisely why one should think twice before assuming that children will follow the faith of their parents, which is a point Dawkins often makes.

Life is complicated. Data do not fit our assumptions. We do the best we can with working models of morality and psychology.

The belief system of several million people was lost when communism collapsed. Tough. Why the fuck should we pussyfoot around religion?

[j4.livejournal.com]

Dear me, I expected better reading comprehension from you! Of course, while atheism may not "count" as a "religion", it has just as much power to make its adherents lose their intellectual faculties.

Quick recap. for the sor(r)el(l)y challenged:

Ganesh said (and I paraphrase) "Bringing kids up religious isn't a problem because adults can just forget about all that religious nonsense when they grow up."

I argued that this reasoning was flawed; that imposing faith on people affects them deeply, even if (perhaps especially if?) they later reject that faith, and that therefore imposing one's faith on one's offspring (or students, etc.) was potentially "a problem", and was to be avoided.

You, apparently, agree that it's a bad idea to assume that children will follow the faith of the parents.

... You know, if you want to pick a fight with somebody on usenet^H^H^H^H^H^Hlivejournal, it works better if you can choose something where you disagree with them.

* * *

Ultimately, though, yes, it's "tough" if people are emotionally scarred by their parents' (or schools', or whatever's) misguided attempts to bring them up in a faith (or indeed absence of faith) which they later resent and/or reject. (They may not mean to, etc.) Worse things, as they say, happen at sea.

Clearly we need to strike at the root of the problem: accordingly, I propose that we move to legislate against "promoting" emotions in schools.

[hsenag.livejournal.com]

Ganesh said (and I paraphrase) "Bringing kids up religious isn't a problem because adults can just forget about all that religious nonsense when they grow up."

You paraphrase badly. What I said was that religiously symbolic acts (baptism, confirmation etc) are generally of no relevance to an unbeliever. I never suggested that the transition from believer to unbeliever was easy.

[addedentry.livejournal.com]

Ah, gotcha.

I propose that we move to legislate against "promoting" emotions in schools.

Is that satire? Because I think it's a bloody good idea.

[j4.livejournal.com]

I don't think emotions should be "promoted" any more than homosexuality. Does that answer your question? (Look at it this way: if everybody gets irrationally weepy over Judy Garland, we'll all drown.)