Atheist Richard Dawkins: ‘Indoctrination of religion’ is ‘child abuse’

[rug]

By David Edwards
Monday, April 22, 2013 9:53 EDT

Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins on Sunday told a British literary festival that parents who forced their children to believe that religion was a fact were guilty of “child abuse.”

Speaking about his family-friendly book The Magic of Reality at the Chipping Norton Literary Festival, the University of Oxford professor warned against the “indoctrination of children,” according to The Daily Mail.

“What a child should never be taught is that you are a Catholic or Muslim child, therefore that is what you believe. That’s child abuse.”

The author of The God Delusion recommended that children be taught religion in the same way that they are taught literature.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/04/22/atheist-richard-dawkins-indoctrination-of-religion-is-child-abuse/

I smell a meme.

[Politicalboi]

1. Finally, some logic

I've been saying this for years. I felt it was abuse being dragged off to church EVERY Sunday, and then since we were catholic, we had CCD classes on Wednesdays.

It IS abuse, and I hope someday it will be looked at just as hate speech, and physical abuse. It's mental abuse.

[rug]

4. Did you hear his earlier pronuncements that raising a child Catholic is similar to sexual abuse?

She told me of those two abuses, she got over the physical abuse; it was yucky but she got over it.”

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2251963/Being-raised-Catholic-worse-child-abuse-Latest-incendiary-claim-atheist-professor-Richard-Dawkins.html

I suppose somebody somewhere could logically consider sexual abuse a "yucky" thing to get over.

[backscatter712]

7. Put it in context! This girl was told by her priest that her dead friend was burning in Hell.

http://www.richarddawkins.net/foundation_articles/2012/12/22/physical-versus-mental-child-abuse

The money quote, excerpted from The God Delusion:

Once, in the question time after a lecture in Dublin, I was asked what I thought about the widely publicized cases of sexual abuse by Catholic priests in Ireland. I replied that, horrible as sexual abuse no doubt was, the damage was arguably less than the long-term psychological damage inflicted by bringing the child up Catholic in the first place. It was an off-the-cuff remark made in the heat of the moment, and I was surprised that it earned a round of enthusiastic applause from that Irish audience (composed, admittedly, of Dublin intellectuals and presumably not representative of the country at large). But I was reminded of the incident later when I received a letter from an American woman in her forties who had been brought up Roman Catholic. At the age of seven, she told me, two unpleasant things had happened to her. She was sexually abused by her parish priest in his car. And, around the same time, a little schoolfriend of hers, who had tragically died, went to hell because she was a Protestant. Or so my correspondent had been led to believe by the then official doctrine of her parents’ church. Her view as a mature adult was that, of these two examples of Roman Catholic child abuse, the one physical and the other mental, the second was by far the worst. She wrote

"Being fondled by the priest simply left the impression (from the mind of a 7 year old) as ‘yucky’ while the memory of my friend going to hell was one of cold, immeasurable fear. I never lost sleep because of the priest – but I spent many a night being terrified that the people I loved would go to Hell. It gave me nightmares."

Admittedly, the sexual fondling she suffered in the priest’s car was relatively mild compared with, say, the pain and disgust of a sodomized altar boy. And nowadays the Catholic Church is said not to make so much of hell as it once did. But the example shows that it is at least possible for psychological abuse of children to outclass physical. It is said that Alfred Hitchcock, the great cinematic specialist in the art of frightening people, was once driving through Switzerland when he suddenly pointed out of the car window and said, ‘That is the most frightening sight I have ever seen.’ It was a priest in conversation with a little boy, his hand on the boy’s shoulder. Hitchcock leaned out of the car window and shouted, ‘Run, little boy! Run for your life!’

‘Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me.’ The adage is true as long as you don’t really believe the words. But if your whole upbringing, and everything you have ever been told by parents, teachers and priests, has led you to believe, really believe, utterly and completely, that sinners burn in hell (or some other obnoxious article of doctrine such as that a woman is the property of her husband), it is entirely plausible that words could have a more long-lasting and damaging effect than deeds. I am persuaded that the phrase ‘child abuse’ is no exaggeration when used to describe what teachers and priests are doing to children whom they encourage to believe in something like the punishment of unshriven mortal sins in an eternal hell.

[rug]

11. Ok, I did.

I still think calling sexual abuse "yucky", and then using it to make a dubious point about religion, is far from logic, to say the least.

[backscatter712]

12. For this girl, religious indoctrination literally was worse than sexual fondling.

Dawkins, and I, acknowledge that this girl got a relatively mild case of priest sexual abuse - she got fondled, which is gross and disturbing. But according to this girl, it wasn't the fondling that bothered her. It was being told that her best friend was roasting in Hell and being tortured for all eternity for the crime of being Protestant. Even though she was a child.

And this shit gets taught to children all the time. Children at the age of five should not be told they deserve death, or that they'll be tortured forever in Hell if they don't obey, or that the friends they hang out with at the playground are evil because they don't go to the same church. But they do get taught that. And this sort of teaching is psychologically abusive and leaves lasting scars.

[rug]

16. Sorry about your experience but I won't extrapolate from it.

[Goblinmonger]

14. You do know the one calling it "yucky"

was the one that suffered it and not Dawkins, right?

[rug]

18. You do know she was writing in the voice of a seven year old, right?

And Dawkins repeated that horrible experience to a seven year old as a platform to make a broad unsupported claim against an entire group. Oh, I think he was 70 when he said that.

[Goblinmonger]

22. That's a reasonable voice and expression for a seven-year-old.

So are you arguing with her experience or are you just mad that Dawkins repeated it? Because if you are mad at Dawkins for repeating it, then fine. But stop using the phrasing as a slam against Dawkins. If you don't agree with the assessment of the experience, then take it up with the seven-year-old that lived through both.

[rug]

23. But not for a 70 year old ideologue.

I'm more bemused than angered by Dawkins.

[Warren Stupidity]

44. Um uh, what?

The women recounted her emotional reaction to an incident of sexual abuse, characterizing it as "yucky". That was not Dawkins. Nor does logic enter into it, it was her reflection on her emotional reactions to two different types of abuse. One made her feel "yucky", the other terrified her and filled her with dread.

[rug]

47. Read the subthread.

[okasha]

49. Frankly, I doubt the whole story.

I have never been a Roman Catholic. I did, however, attend Catholic school both before and after Vatican II. We were never taught that non-Catholics went to hell for being non-Catholic. Nor were we taught that anyone «burns eternally in the fires of hell.»

As for the categorization of sexual abuse as merely «Yucky,» that's simply nauseating. I know women in their sixties who were abused in much the same way Dawkins describes. They're still suffering the aftermath, up to and including PTSD.

Dawkins strikes out on women's issues yet again.

[Goblinmonger]

51. I went to Catholic school in the 80s.

High school seminary. Love that you doubt the whole story. We were taught that non-Catholics are going to hell if they have the ability to become Catholic through exposure. Those not exposed to Catholicism would end up in Purgatory.

I will agree that people do not burn in hell though many Catholics do use that phrase.

And you do know that the categorization of sexual abuse as "yucky" was NOT that of Dawkins but the categorization by the person that was abused. Do are you going to declare that the person that was abused "strikes out on women's issues"? Because I'm sure she'll be interested to hear that.

[okasha]

54. Whoever taught you must have been caught in a time warp,

somewhere in the vicinity of the Council of Trent. Too bad Ursulines weren't your instructors--mine were righteously kick-ass ladies.

It's the very fact that the characterization of the experience as «yucky» is attributed ro the victim that makes me doubt the story. Women who have been molested as children invariably describe the experience as «terrifying,» «humiliating,» «shaming,» «too horrible to talk about.» «Yucky» usn't anywhere near the reality.

[Goblinmonger]

60. Council of Trent?

From the Catechism of the Catholic Church

There is a literal hell and "eternal fire" is mentioned as a punishment.

1035 The teaching of the Church affirms the existence of hell and its eternity. Immediately after death the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into hell, where they suffer the punishments of hell, “eternal fire.” The chief punishment of hell is eternal separation from God, in whom alone man can possess the life and happiness for which he was created and for which he longs. (393)

To commit a mortal sin, you need to have knowledge of it. If you know of the RCC and don't follow, that's a mortal sin. Those never exposed would not meet the requirements for a mortal sin.

1859 Mortal sin requires full knowledge and complete consent. It presupposes knowledge of the sinful character of the act, of its opposition to God’s law. It also implies a consent sufficiently deliberate to be a personal choice. Feigned ignorance and hardness of heart do not diminish, but rather increase, the voluntary character of a sin. (1734)

[Act_of_Reparation]

63. "Too bad Ursulines weren't your instructors--mine were righteously kick-ass ladies."

And mine were sadistic banshees.

[Mariana]

17. I think the victim gets to decide

if sexual abuse she endured was a "yucky" thing to get over, and whether the mental and emotional abuse was worse. Don't you?

[rug]

19. That's for her to decide not for him to exploit.

[Mariana]

21. Did she want him to publish

her opinion of her experiences? I don't know the answer to that question. If she gave permission, then he's not "exploiting" it. She may have wanted her story to be told in the way that it was.

[rug]

24. That I don't know.

[Warren Stupidity]

45. But you have no problem insinuating that which you don't know.

That's for her to decide not for him to exploit.

Your haste to indict Dawkins in this thread has you stumbling all over yourself.

[rug]

46. Do you know>

In your haste to inject petty ad homs, do you have any information?

[skepticscott]

26. Yes, the person who experienced it

And who expressed their feelings about it. Despite your attempts to attribute that expression to Dawkins.

I know you may feel the need to misrepresent what Dawkins has actually said on this subject, especially given that the most blatant liar on the subject isn't here to take up the slack, but try to be just a teensy bit less blatant and shameless about it. Backpedaling isn't good for your health.

[rug]

28. I see you haven't read the subthread before responding.

Again.

[skepticscott]

33. How do you think I knew

You were backpedaling like mad? Again

[rug]

36. Once more you confuse what you think with what you know.

[Humanist_Activist]

2. Watch Jesus Camp, and tell me many of those kids aren't abused...

or watch "God's Army" and many other religious specials, and tell me its not child abuse.

[rug]

3. Let's apply social science.

Do you not see traits in those groups that are particular to those groups and not general to religious groups?

[Humanist_Activist]

6. I see it in differences of degree, not kind...

It may be dependent on what religion it is as well, but in Christianity, for example, you have a judgmental God, who may be loving and/or wrathful, but still judgmental, that you should both love and fear. No matter how liberal your theology, to the point where God is a hippy, there's still that tinge of fear, even outside of adding hell to the mix.

Indoctrinating a child into this is just messed up, and guaranteed to mess them up.

[rug]

8. That's an important distinction.

But I see unique characteristics is these hate groups.

I don't see God as something to fear. To paraphrase Kirk, "What does God need with fear?"

[Humanist_Activist]

13. Do not reference the Movie that shall not be named(TM).

But frankly, those aren't unique characteristics of those hate groups, I was taught such things in PSR, are you going to call the Catholic Church a hate group too?

[rug]

20. What is PSR?

And no I do not call the Catholic Church a hate group even though there are hateful individuals in it and even though it has committed hateful corporate acts.

Check the SPLC list and criteria.

[Humanist_Activist]

27. Parochial School of Religion...

Where I was taught Catholicism, and how I got confirmed.

ON EDIT: Also, you are the one calling certain sects hate groups, frankly, in this discussion, that isn't needed or necessary, I'm referring to core beliefs shared by all of Christianity.

[rug]

29. Well, one of the great tragedies of recent decades is poor catechesis.

I wasn't taught that.

[Humanist_Activist]

34. To be honest, if it wasn't for my restless need to read and learn...

I'd be in your position today, and talking about the poor religious education of many young Catholics.

I think the biggest difference is this, instead of struggling against the doubt I had, I embraced it instead, and now live within it. Faith is, after all, just struggling against critical thinking.

[rug]

35. You can't have faith without doubt.

If you did you'd have knowledge.

I learned that in parochial school.

[Humanist_Activist]

37. Of course not, but you struggle against the doubt, and find justifications for your faith...

whereas I embraced the doubt, and followed it to its logical conclusion.

[rug]

39. How can a doubt have a logical conclusion?

Every conclusion starts with a datum, an accepted fact.

Doubt leads to more doubt or faith. Sometimes both.

Facts lead to conclusions.

[Humanist_Activist]

40. Doubts can lead to further questions and inquiries that lead to facts, or even the lack of facts...

which itself is illuminating, leading to the conclusion, ultimately, of "I don't know" so therefore "I don't believe".

[backscatter712]

43. Star Trek does have an excellent message about omnipotent beings.

Be skeptical of them.

From time to time, Kirk, Picard or Cisko run into omnipotent beings (who have Sufficiently Advanced Technology), but frequently, those beings turn out to be not so benevolent, and not so moral, behaving often like the jealous asshole god of the Old Testament. Examples: "God" from Star Trek V, Q, Trelane... Babylon 5 also has examples: the Vorlons - they literally represented themselves as angels, but they didn't turn out to be acting in the proper interests of the younger races.

[Thats my opinion]

66. H-A You just about frightened me out of my faith!

I know PSR as the Pacific School of Religion, a large multi-denominational seminary in Berkeley.---progressive to the core.

[Thats my opinion]

67. Wow!

Whatever religious indoctrination (education) you got certainly messed with your mind.

Narrow religion such as you were dealt is not the whole or even the substantial story.

[Humanist_Activist]

70. The things that most messed me up, were the concept for original sin...

the idea that a savior is needed, and that we are somehow "damaged" at birth because a supposedly perfect being fucked up, oh, and we are being punished for this, but he forgives us. Yeah, when I was a child, it caused fear, as an adult, I realized these beliefs are downright evil.

[Thats my opinion]

68. Youk bet. That is real child abuse. nt

[longship]

5. This isn't a new claim by Dawkins.

He writes about it in The God Delusion and has been saying similar before that.

As others have pointed out, watching Jesus Camp one pretty much has to come to the same conclusion as Dawkins.

I am with him on this. Threatening children with Hellfire is nothing but abusive.

Thanks, rug.

[rug]

9. I find it more effective to threaten my children with spiders.

[longship]

10. ROFL. Thx for that one. nt

[struggle4progress]

15. The Magic of Reality by Richard Dawkins – review

... When The Magic of Reality was published in hardback, it was lavishly illustrated: a coffee-table book for kids. Now, with a beige cover, no pictures and 257 pages, it becomes a less enticing proposition ...

Dawkins defines reality as what can be perceived with the senses, detected with scientific instruments, or predicted with models, such as black holes. He also adds "jealousy and joy, happiness and love," as they "depend for their existence on brains". While it could be retorted that zombies depend for their existence on brains too, and it doesn't make them real, Dawkins is simplifying. He means that there's no more to feelings than the physical state of our brains and bodies: a belief as unverifiable as anything about Huitzilopochtli.

Dawkins is currently battling against the teaching of creationism as fact in faith schools, and in that context his endorsement of the scientific method is important, but he fails to acknowledge that religion and science aren't always trying to answer the same questions. His simplification of religious belief puts him in danger of preaching to the converted, at best, and, at worst, suggesting to kids that their Christian, Muslim or Jewish peers must be either ignorant or stupid.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/jun/24/magic-reality-richard-dawkins-review
Richard Dawkins's child-friendly endorsement of science is both enlightening and controversial
Jessica Holland
The Observer, Saturday 23 June 2012

[rug]

25. This bears repeating:

His simplification of religious belief puts him in danger of preaching to the converted, at best, and, at worst, suggesting to kids that their Christian, Muslim or Jewish peers must be either ignorant or stupid.

[Daemonaquila]

30. They are.

It's time to call it what it is - brainwashing. Religious kids are ignorant and/or stupid, though it's not entirely their fault. You have to give them the benefit of the doubt that they might figure it out.

I had some kids in my school trying to "save" me. They deserved every bit of nasty response they got. In college, I cheered when a religious studies prof, teaching a course on who wrote the bible, told a young idiot who tried to get his agreement that the class could "assume that the bible is the word of god," the "I am not here to make this easy for you."

I am happy to see kids scrag their pushy religious peers when they try to make it part of the educational conversation. Certain idiocy should not be tolerated, even if it was inflicted by parents. If a parent taught a child to bully, hate, or rape, that child's "right" to believe and act upon the teaching would not be defended. Religious fantasy is as toxic, and should be treated the same.

[rug]

32. They are what? Ignorant or stupid?

Congratulations. Your indoctrination is complete.

[okasha]

56. The whole point of this line of argument

is to assure the arguer of his own superiority.

[struggle4progress]

38. You're painting with a pretty broad brush, aren't you?

Last edited Mon Apr 22, 2013, 07:24 PM - Edit history (1)

"Religious kids are ignorant and/or stupid" seems to be a statement about most of the kids in the world, and the under-fourteen crowd is quite large: it comprises over a quarter of the world's population. One should expect it to be a rather diverse group,with widely varying abilities, education, and views

What actual evidence do you have that a "irreligious" child is generally smarter or better informed than an "religious" child?

Of course, if you find certain religious views rather strange, I might agree with you: I, for example, find Isaac Newton's religious texts odd, or even unpalatable, but he was also an extraordinarily creative and influential early modern physicist. The proper reaction here (I think) might not be that Newton was ignorant or stupid but rather that he was in some ways a towering genius while also holding some eccentric views. A appropriate slogan for such cases might be: We all have our peculiar little ways!

I am quite sure I have my peculiar little ways, and I suspect you do too, regardless of how intelligent or well-educated you are. I once knew a very competent and very successful lawyer who used to hang magnets over his bed to increase his brain power: I thought that a very bizarre theory of his, but his abilities as a lawyer seemed undiminished by the fact that he held some views that I regarded as crazy

[2ndAmForComputers]

41. ...

[rug]

42. ...

[MellowDem]

48. Indoctrinating children in anything is child abuse...

and religion does it as a matter of course every day. It's disgusting. It's shameful. It needs to be called out, and the parents who indoctrinate their children, and their church and the leaders, need to be ridiculued mercilessly for their abusive behavior, to be embarassed and ashamed for manipulating little children. It's horrible and ruins many a life.

[rug]

50. What do you consider the difference between indoctrination and teaching them your beliefs?

[MellowDem]

52. It's the difference between indoctrination and education...

Indoctrination is telling your child there is a God as a matter of fact, when it's a matter of belief. Indoctrination is done with the intent that the child won't question what is being told to them, and in fact will be discouraged from questioning it, and when they do question it, will not get any real answers.

One can educate children on what various religions believe, and is probably necessary and helpful to do so, and if you subscribe to one, telling your child you believe that way is fine, and even why you believe that way when they're old enough to understand and think critically, but you should be mindful you don't tell them that's the only way to believe, or that if they don't believe that way they're going to hell, those are all forms of indoctrination, through threats or otherwise.

As for bringing them to any religious institutions, I don't know of many who don't do indoctrination 24/7, so bringing them is simply exposing them to indoctrination by third parties.

[rug]

53. The righteousness of your indignation depends then on the accuracy of your observation.

I think it's overstated.

I do agree though with your first two paragraphs.

[MellowDem]

55. Why is it overstated? nt

[rug]

59. Because it's not accurate and exaggerated.

Anecdotes and cherry picking outliers makes poor data.

[MellowDem]

62. What anecdotes or cherry-picking did I provide?

I think it's perfectly reasonable to say that the vast majority of religious institutions out there state "God exists" as though it were fact as part of their religious services, at the very least, which is of course indoctrination. Some go a lot further than that, a lot do actually, but just at the basic level, I can't think of many that don't. Unitarians maybe?

You only have to look at the official creeds of religions, which they often state at religious services, to see that almost all of them present God as fact. I think that's perfectly logical, resonable evidence, one that does not have any cherry picking outliers or anecdotes as part of it.

[rug]

64. You posted nothing in particular.

The commen was directed at the talking points that have grown up around this pronouncement of his that was originally made some years ago.

The claim that raising children in a religion is child abuse is as unsubstantiated then as it is now.

[MellowDem]

69. If you believe indoctrinating children is child abuse...

then religion does it quite often.

What qualifies as "child abuse" is subjective, but most would see the indoctrination of children in most anything other than religion as a form of it, but religion gets a pass, mainly because of tradition, and because many people view it through a rather slanted worldview in the US.

[cleanhippie]

61. Because rug says so, thats why.

Don't you get it?

[rug]

65. I see. So religious indoctrination is child abuse because you say so.

Well, maybe with the assistance of a cartoon.

I get it.

[goldent]

57. I think the "teaching religion is child abuse" thing

is loosing its shock value, and now seems like the comparison of God to Santa Claus - sort of ho-hum.

[LostOne4Ever]

58. I think

I think that children should be raised knowing their parents religious views, but not forced to engage in them. When they get older maybe even convince them to go and visit some of the reilgious institutions so they know what they offer and when they are old enough allowed to choose their own faith.

Belief should be something we all think long and hard about and allowed to develop on its own. This is the way my mother was raised, and in the end she chose Catholism because that was the only church around that in our hometown did not try and trash the other churches. I was brought up in the Catholic church, but was allowed to find my own religious beliefs (or rather my lack of beliefs).

I also know many Christians who raise their kids as members of their church who all grow up to be kind, courteous people. I don't view it as child abuse when the parents are not physically harming the children or scaring their children by constant threats of hellfire. However, as with all things it can be taken to an extreme. This is why I think the best way to view it is on a case by case basis.

To the parents, im sure they think they are protecting their children's souls by indoctrinating them at a young age. To Dawkins he sees religion as a great evil so im sure he actually believes it to be on par with child abuse. I just disagree with his methods. His method helped us gain wider acceptance, but those tactics have also made it look like we are all smug jerks. Even worse, I fear his methods will lead to both sides dehumanizing the other.

You can disagree with people without calling them dumb or accusing them of child abuse. Seeing everyone who disagrees with you as being stupid, evil, or ignorant is the start of dehumanizing them. Not seeing each other as human has been the cause of many atrocities and something we should all avoid at all costs.