Are most aspies Atheists?

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Why? Why indoctrinate your children if you believe they would naturally come to the same conclusions as adults?

I've responded to this twice now. You must have missed it. The adolescent mind is extremely gullible, and the vast majority of people as adults believe what they were instructed to as children. Statistically, and from a psychological viewpoint, you ARE making them make the same decisions.

No. It is not. That's all I have to say. You're misinformed.
Atheism is a lack of a belief in a god. It is only a very specific type of Atheist who makes the assertion that there can be and is no god.

See the above. You are misinformed about what "atheist" means- it is NOT anti-theism.

An atheist who lacks belief, with the exception of strong atheists, ARE agnostics. "Agnostic" refers to a lack of KNOWLEDGE. Gnos = knowledge.

Thank you. I'm well-schooled in philosophy. You, evidently, are not, if you are under the impression atheism and agnosticism are exclusive. The majority of atheists are agnostic.

There is no SCIENTIFIC evidence to suggest there IS a "creator", so naturally such notions are not taught in SCIENCE classes.

They aren't.

If by "indoctrination" you mean "teaching the facts indifferently to the absurd beliefs of Christians, Pagans, and Jujuists", I agree.
A lack of indoctrination is not indoctrination.

One has a basis in observable empirical reality, the other only ancient absurdities.

No strangle hold is required. Merely by hint or suggestion, parents have the power to steer their children toward a lifetime of irrationality.

We're not speaking of religious dissidents, but whether people should be allowed to teach nonsense to their children.

I made no assumptions- I stated a fact that definitively refuted your notion that people raised in one religion and indoctrinated as children are just as likely as anyone else to make a different choice. "They're indoctrinated, and a few woulda chosen it anyway" isn't an ethical argument FOR INDOCTRINATION.

Oh wow! You didn't end up rejecting your childhood indoctrination?! How shocking.
We're discussing the propensity for people to believe in laughable fairy tales, so yes, I think it's safe to say I do have a low opinion of human intelligence in general.

Yup. And they've all been refuted. If you disagree, provide one. Just one.

Of course there is. The roundness of the world is empirically-observable and mathematically provable.
Without having it forced down their throats when they are young, people in contrast generally don't see any of the above for sky men who whisper to everyone.

They do, empirically. There is no evidence for a god.

You should disbelieve everything that is not supported by a shred more evidence than Lord of the Rings and Star Wars.

No evidence to support it, therefore made-up nonsense de facto.

I can assert based only on your being a professed Christian maybe a dozen laughable absurdities you by definition believe.

I'm sure "no evidence" is the abbreviated version.

I know what Christianity is.

As opposed to YOUR bias that what you believe isn't INHERENTLY hilarious to anyone who doesn't subscribe to it.

Say it another ten times, maybe that will change what I KNOW Christians believe, and that I KNOW it's based on no evidence.

Reason is not founded on wildly-tangential POSSIBILITIES. There's no EVIDENCE for it. Are you really implying believing absurdities is rational until said absurdities are proven wrong?
Do you know NOTHING of logic?

That the Flying Spaghetti Monster was and is the most noodliest of all pasta creatures, and she touches those with good hearts with her noodly appendages....

"Sin" is a religious concept. It doesn't exist scientifically. "Destined for destruction without atonement"? What scientific theory is that, exactly?

"So basically, based on my absurd beliefs about talking sky men and Jewish zombies and armageddon hysteria, and our SURVIVING OUR OWN DEATH, it makes better sense to me to indoctrinate my children to believe the same silliness."

Gotcha.

If you'd like to focus, I'll give you a syllabus for your next post:
FAIL: Child Psychology- indoctrinating children IS making their decisions for them.
FAIL: Persecution Complex- maintaining a secular education is not religious persecution, nor is teaching facts versus fiction "indoctrination"
FAIL: Basic Philosophical Consensus- there exists no unrefuted logical "proof" of god.
FAIL: Basic Philosophical Terms- Atheism.
FAIL: Basic Knowledge of Science- Assertions are de-facto false until well-evidenced
FAIL: Analogy- beliefs which are well-evidenced (numbers, round earth) are very likely to result without indoctrination, fantasies are NOT.
FAIL: Deductive Reasoning- I can safely call a notion "nonsense" when I know what that notion is, and whether any data indicates its validity

Do you teach your children Greek mythology or what the Muslims or Buddhists believe? Do you worry that they will become a Muslim?

OH NOES!! ! PEOPLE DECIDING FOR THEMSELVES WHAT TO BELIEVE!! ! SH*T THEIR PARENTS MIGHT NOT APPROVE OF!

ARMAGEDDON!

Reread what you quoted me to say. It's either one or the other. If you are against indoctrination and proceed to "teach" your children to decide for themselves, you are by default promoting your own view. Let's say, for example, atheism--whether strong or weak--you're risking the POSSIBILITY that your children will follow some actual religion. But we've also established in this discussion that children are more likely to believe what they are taught by adults--if I understand Bethie correctly, we disagree on whether being taught a certain way is a guarantee of accepting one system of belief/disbelief or another. Assuming a certain level of adamance, you either indulge your children in what you believe is nonsense and compromise your own ideology, or you actively oppose what your child believes. But if you DON'T push your child in one direction or another (or any at all), you are by necessity teaching by example what you believe, even if only tacitly. One way or another, if "indoctrination" is the issue, you can't avoid it. If you rail against indoctrination, then it's absurd if you honestly believe this is something you yourself do not do. I don't know if "hypocrisy" is the right word here, but you get the idea.

My response to you is this: I don't see how raising a child the way you as a parent see fit as a problem. If you want to raise your children with an ecumenical approach, that's your business. If you want them in church every time the doors are open, that's your business. If you want to raise them atheist/apatheist/antitheist, that's--say it with me--your business. It's not my place to tell you what to do. If you really care to know, I plan to keep my kids in the church because I see that as the best approach in line with my own faith and consistent with the conclusions I've drawn over the years. The odds are in my favor that they will share my faith. But the "odds" are not a guarantee. THEY are the ones who have to choose to follow Christ. I can't make that for them. While it is true that I have control over them until they age out of my care, I can't MAKE them believe ANYTHING, even if I drag them kicking and screaming to church. When they attain the age of majority, what happens is MOSTLY out of my hands and all I really have left is the hope and faith that I did the best possible job as a parent. Either they will continue in faith or not, but as I've said before, that is not for me to decide.

I'm curious about something. To be more direct about answering your question, right now my kids are too young to understand all that, anyway. Greek mythology factors heavily into the history of the West. You really can't get very far in life without having to learn that stuff anyway, whether they are taught that in school or whether we discuss it at home. Am I going to actively teach them Greek RELIGION? No. For starters, ancient Greek religion is pretty much dead except for a few Orphic cult revivals here and there. You might know of others, but that's it as far as *I* know. So teaching them Greek religion is beyond my area of expertise, though I am familiar with a wide variety of myths (NOT the same as the actual religion, btw). Islam? I really don't mean to sound condescending, but again, I don't KNOW Islam and from what I've seen of it in recent decades I'm not sure I really WANT to. I've read enough of the Koran to know how scary it is and its call for believers to either convert or force into submission other people to Islamic rule. I would imagine both Christians AND atheists would find that horrifying, but that's just my opinion. I can't advocate for something I don't believe in. Buddhism, as I understand it, has perhaps the least amount of outwardly destructive influence on the rest of the world, and no doubt there is a lot of wisdom in Buddhism. It's a kind of non-religion in a way. But I don't know it well enough to competently teach it as an ongoing part of life. I have other objections to Buddhism, but that's really not relevant to the discussion at hand.

That said, what I'm curious about is statistically how many "Christians" (using that term loosely here) leave Christianity in favor of other religions or no religion at all. My hypothesis is that you find more Christians leaving the faith as opposed to adherents to other religions/philosophies leaving their faiths/non-faiths. I don't have time at the moment to do the research or dissect Bethie's response, but if you can I think you should check it out. Just guessing here, but I'm thinking that Christians will more often leave because they are aware that they CAN. Christianity does not have a hold on its adherents (well, it DOES, but that's theology and not what I'm referring to here). To be fair, the numbers of people leaving their religions for Christianity is probably underreported. But seriously, see what you can find on Christians leaving the church. If I'm right, then that shows that people DO think for themselves, they DO make the choice to reject their childhood teachings, and that being brought up Christian is no guarantee of acceptance.

How do you define 'teaching' and 'indoctrination'?

It is a fact that the Koran claims that Mohammad is the true prophet etc. and many people believe that (and many don't). How is telling these facts advocating or indoctrination?

That's what I call the Gospel. We need more people leaving the faith.

A lack of indoctrination is not indoctrination.

NOT raising one's children in an environment where they're told magic stories are truths is not an indoctrination.

Did you "indoctrinate" your children with your omission of Bast, Egyptian cat goddess?


It isn't, unless it involves abuse-
telling a small child, for instance, that the entire world is doomed, and that he or she will survive their own death and spend eternity suffering if they don't profess belief in a being he or she cannot perceive qualifies. I imagine that a Schizophrenic would have their children promptly removed if it was found he was teaching them to live in fear of the characters in his own head, and rightfully so.




They virtually are, statistically, if you choose to brainwash them as children.
The original premise (mine) was, in essence "Those who are brainwashed as children almost ALWAYS continue believing the same nonsense into adulthood."
Your "Oh, but not EVERY single one!" is not a refutation.
(We seem to be having trouble with this point, so if it comes up again, I'll continue posting this until it's clear.)

If you didn't think it your place to decide, you wouldn't indoctrinate them as children.

This atheist finds the rape, genocide, infanticide, and slavery advocated by the Christian god doubly terrifying.

Whether that's true or not, the vast majority of them do not leave the faith, if indoctrinated as adolescents.

No, it shows that Christianity AT THIS POINT IN HISTORY, IN THIS AREA OF THE WORLD does not KILL people for leaving, as does much of Islam. It says nothing of the power of childhood brainwashing, and how it virtually guarantees that that person will believe the same nonsense as an adult as a result of that brainwashing at such a formative psychological time.

Last edited by Bethie on 22 Apr 2011, 9:25 am, edited 1 time in total.

I can't really explain why. Being faithful just gives me comfort.

"Indoctrination" usually means to program someone with ideas which they are not allowed to question.

Forcing one's children to go to church and telling them bronze age fairy stories as if they were true qualifies.

As evidenced by this conversation, I can only imagine what the poor children in question will be taught about science and current scientific theory.

Last edited by Bethie on 22 Apr 2011, 9:27 am, edited 1 time in total.

I'd love to believe there was some good, powerful figure protecting me. That would give me immense comfort.

But how does wishful thinking translate into actual belief?

What's the etymological meaning of indoctrination?

Well there's also the Catholic teaching telling you to choose the long and hard road over the easy and short one. Essentially, it can be very easy for me to just stop going to church. However, it gives me a huge sense of pride that I am able to keep my faith, despite being uncertain.

Religion is designed to make you think uncertainty is a bad thing. Any intellectually honest person who is uncertain holds no position, until such a time that they are certain beyond reasonable doubt. Uncertainty isn't something to be avoided, it's something to admitted.

I can't fathom being proud of an ability to suppress rational thought.

Wouldn't jogging every day give a similar sense of pride, though? You wouldn't be uncertain about the benefits of jogging either.

I also never understood that particular Catholic teaching, short and easy is clearly better than long and hard (not an innuendo).

USUALLY? I'm not challenging that, I just want to point that out for the sake of clarification. I tend to think it's something that happens in a much more subtle way.

I don't believe that questioning something necessarily leads you AWAY from it. I think something that might be a turnoff in terms of church/religion is that in some congregations you aren't encouraged to question ANYTHING, and I don't think this attitude is helpful. Protestant churches that do this kind of thing, I think, have forgotten their roots. I think a questioning mind is an opportunity to discover something a lot deeper than just the surface, and I think in the past those who have questioned Christian teachings/church doctrine have often ended up either diametrically opposed to the church OR the most steady in their convictions. There are those of us who have really had to WORK at our faith. and for some that has really made the difference.

Whereas some churches tend to be authoritarian, I'm not convinced this is really the case in many places. The pastor at my church actually encourages us to read the Bible and challenge anything he's said in his sermon if it is Biblically incorrect. My personal feelings on "indoctrination" as "programming" is it really applies more to politics and society than religion. As children get older, they can judge for themselves what is real and what are "fairy tales." I'm not going to kidnap them and send them to "deprogramming" if they decide something differently than what I taught them. I'm not going to murder them "for their own good" if we disagree on something. I think the kind of "indoctrination" that's a worse fear would be incrementalism, which is not something you see in religion as a means of attracting or keeping members. That would be a sort of "programming" by gradually convincing people on very minor points until a greater, radical change is brought about at a much later time. Influence is gained "incrementally," in other words, and very often the people group doesn't even realize that the change is even happening.