Re: [asa] Dawkins, religion, and children

Pim

I can certainly appreciate that people are reading too
much into what Dawkins is saying.

But I also notice some inconsistencies with his position.
On the one hand, you cite that he declares that people
should be free to believe whatever they like:

your quote
Dawkins: "people should be free to believe whatever they like, to
write whatever they like, within reason"

Fine. The question is "who decides what is 'within reason'"?

Dawkins: "Neither I nor any atheist know ever threatens violence"

Maybe so. Though I think this does ignore some significant history.
He does specify "atheist [ _I_ (Dawkins) ] know". The atheists I
know are unlikely to threaten violence also.

An individual thinking in his little abode writing his/her ideas is
the right to individual freedom. There, we all can speculate
what the world should be, and how we can build our utopias of
whatever kind, be it a philosopher kings, brave new worlds, walden
twos, ninteen eighty fours, dawkinslands, dawsonlands, etc

Yes, he is an intellectual, and like me and you, his views are nuanced.
I have never read anything from him advocating violence. He lives
in a democratic nation where people are free to believe what they
want.

The problem comes in when this stuff is applied. For example, the
Soviet Union had a constitution that guaranteed freedom of religion.
Did they practice it? Granted, the Tsarist and Duma cultural foundations
can be seen even today in Russia with the eyes of history, so we cannot
compare a well established western democracy with the complexities of a
nation so enormous in size and diverse in its needs. But the fact remains
that the real test of an idea is when the rubber meets the road.

At least some of the reaction people project here is "who decides
what this 'religious freedom' is, and how it is practiced, and what will
be said and what will not be said", and what is fair to say as a parent,
and what is not fair to say as a parent, educator etc.?"

OK, so you've provided a quote:
<quote>In particular, it is normal and pleasing that parental impact
should be strong. I'm not talking particularly about genes, but about
all the influences that parents inevitably bring. It is to be expected
that cricketing fathers will bowl to their sons - or daughters - on
the back lawn, take them to Lords, and pass on their love of the game.
There will be some tendency for ornithologists to have bird-watching
children, bibliophiles book-loving children. Beliefs and tastes,
political biases and hobbies, these will tend, at least statistically,
to pass longitudinally down generations, and nobody would wish it
otherwise.

But now we come to religion, and an extremely odd thing happens. Where
we might have said, 'knowing his father, I expect young Cowdrey will
take up cricket,' we emphatically do not say, 'With her devout
Catholic parents, I expect young Bernadette will take up Catholicism.'
Instead we say, without a moment's hesitation or a qualm of misgiving,
'Bernadette is a Catholic'. We state it as simple fact even when she
is far too young to have developed a theological opinion of her own.
In all other spheres, a good school will encourage her to develop her
own tastes and opinions, her own skills, penchants and values. But
when it comes to religion, society meekly makes a clanging exception.
We inexplicably accept that, the day she is born, Bernadette has a
label tied around her neck. This is a Catholic baby. </quote>

Dawkins then focuses on the public education

<quote>But what do we do? We deliberately set up, and massively
subsidise, segregated faith schools. As if it were not enough that we
fasten belief-labels on babies at birth, those badges of mental
apartheid are now reinforced and refreshed. In their separate schools,
children are separately taught mutually incompatible beliefs. </quote>

to come to the final conclusion

<quote>Please, I beg you, strongly discourage the use, in all
ministerial documents and inter-departmental memos, of phrases that
presume theological opinions in children too young to have any. Please
foster a climate in which it becomes impossible to use a phrase like
'Catholic children', 'Protestant children', 'Jewish children' or
'Muslim children' without wincing. It only costs two words more to
say, for instance, 'children of Muslim parents' or 'children of Jewish
parents'. </quote>

Of course, this is merely a request. But then we run into all the
shouldn'ts.
Don't teach about hell (not that I think we necessarily should), but where
will we draw the line? And even such subtle changes strike me as hardly
practical for anyone who is not blessed to enjoy the luxury of an
intellectual
lifestyle.

Moreover, I live in a predominantly Buddhist country. I probably can speak
more charitably about Buddhism than many on this list. Yet I cannot in all
fairness represent Buddhism. The laws and attitudes run more favorable
to that religion than my own, and I shouldn't expect that to change either.

I think we have generally worked from the opposite direction, that when the
child is 18, then they are free to make up their own mind. That does mean
parents have 18 years to inculcate nutty ideas (if they be so) into their
kids, and it is not easy to fix that if they are really nutty. But children
have
not developed the full power of rational skills, and the results of
distancing
children from their parents (stewards) could be equally disastrous. Dawkins
choice to believe in the tough and pitiless life are his own. The choice to
promulgate that idea are also his own.

There is not a simple answer, but it seems the most a state can do is
intervene when a major problem erupts; like the subway gas attack here
in Japan with the Aum Church of Truth. They actually caught many
intellectuals (some graduates of University of Tokyo) within their net.
So it can all sound so good, and be so delicious, but still a bitter lie.
Of course the state intervened when they did their nonsense. People
here sometimes ask why they didn't do anything earlier, but it is very
difficult to get involved in those things. The alternative to entrust
everything to the state seems even more disastrous.

Should it be any surprise that people over react and bring up the sins
of the 20th century when they start hearing these ideas? I grant
that some of it is quite overblown and ignores our own capacity to
sin, but it is also true that we have been there before and done that.
Ironically, it is Hegel who said "the only thing we learn from history is
that we don't learn anything." Intellect and application rarely mix well.

So, to conclude. Fine. Dawkins, like myself and like you, is an
intellectual. We enjoy thinking about things and how they should
be and all that. But when it comes to application, I think we should
be a little more reticent about the implementation of our opinions.

by Grace we proceed,
Wayne

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Received on Sun Apr 29 22:22:29 2007