Posted for Matthew Case
My Final Post (Second Installment)
In this essay, Dawkins writes about faith and the dangers of it. In the opening paragraph, he refers to faith as “one of the world’s greatest evils, comparable to the smallpox virus but harder to eradicate.” He recalls numerous situations in which people have come forward to him and said, “Of course, your science is just a religion like ours. Fundamentally, science just comes down to faith, doesn’t it?” While I do not agree with everything that Dawkins says, for example, I do not think faith is a “brain virus.” I think that subscribing to a particular religion or becoming an atheist is up to each person to decide for themselves at the time that they see fit. However, I do agree with Dawkins’ point that science is based on tangible, verifiable evidence, which is much more impressive than hymnals and a book written thousands of years ago.
Dawkins continues to make a point about mental child abuse, in which he says, “Religion is the one field in our culture about which it is absolutely accepted, without question- without even noticing how bizarre it is- that parents have a total and absolute say in what their children are going to be, how their children are going to be raise, what opinions their children are going to have about the cosmos, about life, about existence.” I respect his point of view, however, I find it hard to consider it abuse. I say that because going to church and being indoctrinated as a child was not completely useless. I grew up in the church and attended every service, Sunday morning and evening, as well as Wednesday evenings, for years. As a young man it provided a place for me to be socialized and learn to interact with other people my age, which was a positive thing for me. However, another point Dawkins made is that children are given the title of “Muslim, Christian or Jew,” but we would never identify a child as a “Republican, neo-isolationist or economic monetarist.” This point I do agree with, because even though I was indoctrinated from birth and spent my formative years in the church, I was still able to see past God’s Holy Charade as a teenager. However, most of the people I know in Tennessee have not yet come to this conclusion. So, I guess the argument could be made that they were mentally abused, simply because they were not afforded the opportunity by their families to find out what religion worked for them. Instead, like me, they were informed immediately upon the acknowledgement of their consciousness that they were God fearing Christians, and that Jesus died for their sins. Not only because of the lack of choice, but because of the guilt that comes with being a Christian when you do certain things. Like sex before marriage, homosexuality, adultery, etc. Though being a homosexual is not a choice, most Christians believe that it is and are strongly against allowing an LGBTQ presence in their congregation.
In this essay, Dawkins provides a very interesting point of view about whether or not science is a religion, and I would recommend that all of you give it a read.
In this essay, Dawkins writes about faith and the dangers of it. In the opening paragraph, he refers to faith as “one of the world’s greatest evils, comparable to the smallpox virus but harder to eradicate.” He recalls numerous situations in which people have come forward to him and said, “Of course, your science is just a religion like ours. Fundamentally, science just comes down to faith, doesn’t it?” While I do not agree with everything that Dawkins says, for example, I do not think faith is a “brain virus.” I think that subscribing to a particular religion or becoming an atheist is up to each person to decide for themselves at the time that they see fit. However, I do agree with Dawkins’ point that science is based on tangible, verifiable evidence, which is much more impressive than hymnals and a book written thousands of years ago.
Dawkins continues to make a point about mental child abuse, in which he says, “Religion is the one field in our culture about which it is absolutely accepted, without question- without even noticing how bizarre it is- that parents have a total and absolute say in what their children are going to be, how their children are going to be raise, what opinions their children are going to have about the cosmos, about life, about existence.” I respect his point of view, however, I find it hard to consider it abuse. I say that because going to church and being indoctrinated as a child was not completely useless. I grew up in the church and attended every service, Sunday morning and evening, as well as Wednesday evenings, for years. As a young man it provided a place for me to be socialized and learn to interact with other people my age, which was a positive thing for me. However, another point Dawkins made is that children are given the title of “Muslim, Christian or Jew,” but we would never identify a child as a “Republican, neo-isolationist or economic monetarist.” This point I do agree with, because even though I was indoctrinated from birth and spent my formative years in the church, I was still able to see past God’s Holy Charade as a teenager. However, most of the people I know in Tennessee have not yet come to this conclusion. So, I guess the argument could be made that they were mentally abused, simply because they were not afforded the opportunity by their families to find out what religion worked for them. Instead, like me, they were informed immediately upon the acknowledgement of their consciousness that they were God fearing Christians, and that Jesus died for their sins. Not only because of the lack of choice, but because of the guilt that comes with being a Christian when you do certain things. Like sex before marriage, homosexuality, adultery, etc. Though being a homosexual is not a choice, most Christians believe that it is and are strongly against allowing an LGBTQ presence in their congregation.
In this essay, Dawkins provides a very interesting point of view about whether or not science is a religion, and I would recommend that all of you give it a read.
"I find it hard to consider it abuse"-abuse is a continuum of degrees. If you'd been raised in the Jim Jones cult and managed to survive, you might very well look back on your childhood indoctrination as abusive. I was raised in a Southern Baptist environment, and my parents were not "abusive" - but some of my Sunday School teachers sure were.
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