Recently I read a few comments by Richard Dawkins on the phrase “a Christian child” or “a Muslim child” etc. he writes:
A phrase like “Catholic child” or “Muslim child” should clang furious bells of protest in the mind, just as we flinch when we hear “One man, one vote.” Children are too young to know their religious opinions. Just as you can’t vote until you are eighteen, you should be free to choose your own cosmology and ethics without society’s impertinent presumption that you will automatically inherit those of your parents. We’d be aghast to be told of a Leninist child or a neo-conservative child or a Hayekian monetarist child. So isn’t it a kind of child abuse to speak of a Catholic child or a Protestant child? Especially in Northern Ireland and Glasgow, where such labels, handed down over generations, have divided neighborhoods for centuries and can even amount to a death warrant?
Catholic child? Flinch. Protestant child? Squirm. Muslim child? Shudder. Everybody’s consciousness should be raised to this level. Occasionally a euphemism is needed, and I suggest “Child of Jewish (etc.) parents.” When you come down to it, that’s all we are really talking about anyway. Just as the upside-down (Northern Hemisphere chauvinism again: flinch!) map from New Zealand raises consciousness about a geographical truth, children should hear themselves described not as “Christian children” but as “children of Christian parents.” This in itself would raise their consciousness, empower them to make up their own minds, and choose which religion, if any, they favor, rather than just assume that religion means “same beliefs as parents.” I could well imagine that this linguistically coded freedom to choose might lead children to choose no religion at all.
There’s a certain disanalogy here with political points of view. Being a “Hayekian monetarist” or a “Leninist” is largely (or at least to some extent and in an important way) about cherishing certain values, whereas religious belief has more to do with affirming certain claims as metaphysically true.
But more importantly, Richard Dawkins is on record as treating all factual beliefs as “scientific” beliefs. There’s a factual answer to the question of whether or not the moon orbits the earth, or how many protons there are in an atom of lead. I doubt that Professor Dawkins would look kindly on the parent or teacher who answered a young boy’s question about the moon by saying “I’m sorry Timmy, you’re too young. I can’t possibly impose my view of the moon’s movement upon you. How dare I try to make you share my beliefs.” I’m interested in your thoughts. Do you agree with Richard Dawkins? Should fact claims that most people would consider “religious” be treated as exceptional – unlike all other beliefs – and excluded from the beliefs we share with our children? If so, why?
I do wonder, too, how Richard Dawkins would answer his own child (hypothically) if she asked him: Is there a god?
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Tags: atheism, Dawkins
Interestingly Ken, I find that the deepest and most honest sort of faith also thrives upon gaps, and does not try to fill them with simplistic explanations, and apologetics.
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Ken, well, I understand that quote from Dawkins, and in my longer post earlier I tried to explain why. Fulfilment isn’t just a feeling (e.g. a complete madman might say “I feel fulfilled”). Something like evolution just needs to be true, ebcause if it isn’t, then atheism has a gap not merely in terms of the ability to talk about how humanity got here, but a gap along the lines of “humanity could not have gotten here” (setting aside things like “the aliens put us here,” which just pushes the question into the world of the aliens).
It’s a rare moment, because I think Dawkins was right about this.
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Atheism has a gap about absolutely everything except the belief gods don’t exist. Similarly for theism except he opposite assertion.
Attitudes on other things require further development of a world view and are not included on the definitions.
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“Atheism has a gap about absolutely everything except the belief gods don’t exist.”
Excellent answer. I think it is important to separate atheism/theism from debates over matters which are perfectly compatible with both.
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It’s true that beliefs about God are not identical with beliefs about, say, evolution. But the fact that two beliefs are not the same doesn’t mean that there’s no important relationship between the two, as Dawkins saw.
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But knowledge (rather than belief) about evolution comes from objective reality. Sure one may wish to protect ones beliefs by refusing to accept objective evidence. But the fact is that people who have theist and people have non- theist beliefs can agree on objective evidences and the conclusions rationally arising from them.
Hence the overwhelming acceptance of evolutionary science across different religious beliefs. It’s a matter if scientific literacy rather than religious belief.
Now, I might feel that the philosophical conclusions which should be drawn from the facts of evolution make ideas like theistic evolution impossible. And Dan Dennett’s book does seem to indicate that.
But I personally don’t feel I have the right to talk for others. I don’t think it is possible for me to confidently put myself in a theists shoes, let alone their brain, so it would be arrogant for me to speak for them.
Similarly I think it is arrogant for a theist to make claims about how an atheist must think. About what knowledge choices they have.
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Well Ken, you might not feel comfortable talking about other people’s ideas and what they imply about their other beliefs or knowledge. That’s fine. One of the things emphasised in philosophy, however (which is the area where I did my doctoral studies) is that ideas – even if they’re not your own ideas, even if they are other peoples’ ideas – can be subjected to critical scrutiny without reference to who holds those ideas, and we can ask what they imply or presuppose. We can critically assess the compatability of belief sets and reach conclusions about whether some beliefs logically require other beliefs to be true (or if some beliefs, when true, make the truth of other beliefs more or less likely). I don’t see that as arrogant, but then, philosophy’s not for everyone.
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The arrogance if pretending to “know” the other’s mind, to dictate what choices they have, is the same arrogance of substituting wishes and prejudice for actual facts.
In the end this means one cannot really know the real world.
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Ken, nobody is claiming to know other people’s minds. I am only talking about ideas, and the implications of those ideas. Nothing personal, just ideas. If you are to be taken at face value, you essentially think that philosophy is an arrogant thing to engage in.
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I’m really lost about what Ken is on about. Way off topic, Ken.
But then again he’s done it in almost every similar articles that he’s on.
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Arrogant philosophy is an arrogant thing to engage in. Humble philosophy is a humble thing to engage in. The sort of philosophy which comes from a fundamentalist mindset is perhaps what Ken is talking about? Obviously not all philosophy – as he engages in much philosophy himself, and does not seem to consider it all to be arrogant.
I think the attitude of accepting that one doesn’t have all of the experiences of another person, nor all of their knowledge and expertise, is a valuable one to obtain. Paradoxically it will increase one’s knowledge because one will be more open to other ideas which a fundamentalist attitude might preclude.
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Glenn, again the old problem of you putting words into others mouths or minds.
No I I don’t “think that philosophy is an arrogant thing to engage in.” Arrogance comes form the person – the way it is used. And I think not listening to ones propositions but claiming you know how a whole group of people think (atheists have no choice about evolution) is arrogant.
Another sign of arrogance is to use the argument from authority and talk about philosophy as if it is one uniform school of thinking. We know that it isn’t. There are philosophies and philosophies.
The latter arrogance, I seem to find, is common with those who have a theological philosophy but don’t wish to acknowledge the adjective.
I might help if you sue the words “I think” a bit more.
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Ken, I seriously do not know what you’re driving at. I haven’t put words in your mouth. I was talking about the options that are available to a person who accepts atheism. You reacted, saying that you personally found it arrogant to talk about what options are available to other people.
All I have have tried to explain in response is that it is the business of philosophy to critically examine beliefs that people hold, and ask what those things imply. I said that if you find this arrogant, then you end up saying that philosophy is arrogant.
You can feel offended and accuse me of arrogance all you like. But it is simply not true that talking about another person’s belief and making claims about what that belief implies isn’t arrogant. If you insist on finding something nefarious in that, then knock yourself out.
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Should fact claims that most people would consider “religious” be treated as exceptional – unlike all other beliefs – and excluded from the beliefs we share with our children? If so, why?
I don’t think this represents what RD is talking about. What I believe that he’s trying to say is that the general assumption that your offspring share your beliefs is misleading and wrong. He’s attempting to challenge that generalisation.
I think that you’re also equivocating beliefs to fact claims. The moon orbits the earth is a fact claim. God is an omnipotent, omniscient omnipresence is a belief. The difference between the two is credible evidence. As such I don’t think we should enforce our beliefs on our children. It’s more important to teach them to think critically and eventually they will come to their own conclusion regarding such matters.
“I’m sorry Timmy, you’re too young. I can’t possibly impose my view of the moon’s movement upon you. How dare I try to make you share my beliefs.”
I think that human kind has settled the debate over whether the moon orbits the earth and as such teaching these facts as truth no longer runs the risk of polluting our (human kind’s) collective knowledge. The theological debate has been raging, for thousands of years, and is set to continue.
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