Okay, I’m not gonna deal with Karl Giberson’s multi-part attack on me soon to appear at BioLogos, but you have to grant him this: the man is all over the place attacking atheists and defending faith. (Would that he were so active in damning creationists!) And, at the ever-reliable HuffPo, he wrote yesterday that there’s nothing wrong with cramming religion and its doctrines down the throats of your kids. No, you see, because we atheists just completely misunderstand religious education in the home and church:
Most recently we saw a lament on Coyne’s blog about proselytizing down under, which he labeled “a particularly noxious specimen of religious tomfoolery” that makes him question whether “the U.S. is the worst in cramming religion down the throats of its kids.”
This language evokes the harshest of images. What is a secular reader, unfamiliar with how religious children are actually raised, to think? They have never seen a Christmas pageant where dozens of happy children sing cute choruses under the direction of dedicated volunteer staff; they have not seen teenagers gathered in prayerful support around one of their friends whose little brother was just killed in a terrible accident; they have not seen older teens holding bake sales so they can raise enough money to spend two weeks in Haiti helping people in need. Instead, they must picture stern-faced parents dragging kids against their will to indoctrination sessions where they sit on hard wooden chairs until they affirm a set of beliefs in settings reminiscent of A Clockwork Orange. After years of such training, the once-open-minded children mature into narrow-minded adults who carry out the narrow-minded agendas of their parents — oppose healthcare, gay marriage, stem-cell research, Muslims, and anything else they can think of — and begin the process of having their own kids, with a new generation of throats down which more toxic ideas will be crammed.
But that’s all bogus, because in Giberson’s personal experience, that’s not what he sees:
My students don’t look like this to me, however. As far as I can tell, they are all religious, to varying degrees, but their religion doesn’t look harsh and judgmental as though it were forced on them. None of them seems interested in mounting crusades, bashing sinners, or signing up for witch-hunts. Whatever they had crammed down their throats, like the bland vegetables in their baby food, doesn’t seem to have made them unhealthy.
In the end, he sees religion as just one more thing that parents pass on to their kids.
Parents put lots of things down the throats of their children — religion, language, vegetables, ice cream, bacon, tofu, ideas of race, politics, gender and economics. This complex mix is occasionally toxic. But in the complex mixture that produces good citizens, there is no reason to single out religion as problematic. I am quite content to turn the future over to my students.
Well, I could talk about the thousands of kids warped forever by Catholic guilt and the fear of hell, ranks of people living in closeted shame because they’ve been taught that their homosexuality is wrong, thousands of little Muslims-to-be rocking back and forth in the madrasas, imbibing jihad with their Qur’an, little girls taught to be subservient (and having acid thrown in their faces if they’re not), other little girls having their genitals mutilated (because, after all, that’s part of religious indoctrination), thousands of people turned sexually dysfunctional (or not enjoying the pleasure of sex), all those people getting AIDS and other STDs because they were taught that using condoms was a sin, other children mentally warped and sexually abused by priests designated to teach them morality, and umpteen numbers of kids taught to hate other kids because they’re of the wrong faith.
I could talk about these things, but I don’t need to, because the commenters on Giberson’s post are handing him his tuchus on a salver. Some were personally injured by religious brainwashing, and describe their experience. (If you want to feel heartened at all the unbelievers out there, read through a couple pages of comments!) Another person mentions Jesus Camp. Have a look at that, too, if you haven’t already. It’s pretty damn close to Giberson’s nightmare scenario of “stern-faced parents dragging kids against their will to indoctrination sessions where they sit on hard wooden chairs until they affirm a set of beliefs in settings reminiscent of A Clockwork Orange.” Have you seen that, Karl?
Read and weep, oh clueless Giberson. Your liberal and sophisticated students aren’t the only ones who have learned their faith.
“They have never seen a Christmas pageant where dozens of happy children sing cute choruses under the direction of dedicated volunteer staff”
That sounds like torture to me…
There was a discussion about intellectual honesty recently and reading Giberson (and apologists in general) really brings that up. I don’t think he cares about portraying an accurate reflection of the world, I don’t think he cares about educating people, instead I think his sole goal is to convince people to agree with him. He may not outright lie but he will dissemble, obscure, evade, and skirt.
Not to be to fanboi-ish, a great counter-example was Jerry’s recent post replying to a Christian asking about the evolution about sex. He presented the case, presented counter-arguments, explained the current state of knowledge and far from trying to claim certainty he went out of his way to emphasize the uncertainties and remaining unknowns. I must be hanging around with the wrong group of people but when I see someone displaying that degree of openness, that dedication to the truth instead of blind advocacy, well it gives me chills.
Giberson may have some insights but because he’s so willing to deceive us it’s hard to trust him farther than I could comfortably spit a cat.
As already noted, Giberson blithely dismiss the many atheists and agnostics that have been raised with one or more religious parent. That is but one mistake that I assume earns him ire over at HuffPo.
The more intellectually problematic error is that he doesn’t see the process of indoctrination in indoctrination. Churches builds on this self-perpetuating characteristic!
I wouldn’t have accepted such immoral behavior. I have always been able to see tragedies and sorrows as exclusively human characteristics, not something that religion should meddle with and ride on.
They also use such indoctrination tricks as to phone the kids and simulate Jesus, IIRC.
Oops! This was meant to be a stand alone comment. Sorry!
Hoo boy, former Catholics. It seems like most of those I’ve known either became atheists or pagans. My mother probably doesn’t consider herself an atheist, but she hates religion and religious people, and places much of the blame on having attended Catholic school.
This ex-Catholic became a Satanist.
Yeah, Karl, I could take you to visit a family I know whose lives have been ruined by Catholicism – they continued to pump out children until the one with a progressive, heritable drawn-out neurological defect which has consumed their lives in caring for the child, now approaching 20.
Another single woman I know ditched Catholicism, but couldn’t grasp the concept of choosing none of the above and went of into some Indian mysticism. A single mother, and in hock to triple digits with student loans etc, she nevertheless got a master’s in the foreign diplomacy area but while job hunting got pregnant again thanks to rejection of IUDs because of good old Catholicism, and now is highly unlikely to rise beyond substitute teaching. Oh, and prayerful support after the death of a child, did you say? Try this one for size: some 50yrs ago a friend’s brother drowned at an early age. What does the motherfucking priest say to her grieving mother? “God must be punishing you for something you did. Go off and think what that might be.” I would happily piss on his grave if I knew where it was.
I think Karl Giberish is a masochist. His writings are so bad and so wrong that everyone, everywhere tells him so. I think he enjoys the embarrassment and the humiliation.
Yeah. And like all apologists, he probably sees it as a kind of vindication of his ideas. E.g., the way Sarah Palin goes around saying crazy, demonstrably false things, and when someone in the media calls her on it she basically says “You see—I mean do you see how ‘They’ target me! I must be one heck of a truth-teller, no?” Her “elite” critics get all bent out of shape because she says stupid things, not because she says truthful and righteous things, but she presents it as if it were the opposite. Apologists are the same way: criticize your critics as if they were the ones who are nutty and unreasonable. Call it Rovian Jiu Jitsu—and apologists like Giberson are black belts.
The problem here is that everyone’s talking past each other.
You’ll never convince a religious person that indoctrinating children in their religion is a bad thing. This is because they believe in an ideology which claims that all good things flow from belief in said ideology, and all bad things flow from rejecting it.
That’s really all there is to it, and that’s all there is to Gibberson’s reply.
But because blatantly referencing your own religious dogma to justify your behavior isn’t a reason likely to persuade anyone not already convinced by your doctrine, Gibberson feels obliged to try to offer a public reason that isn’t the real reason he believes what he does.
I like how Karl doesn’t grasp the fact that most current atheists were raised in religious families, and thus have a very good idea of how religion is crammed down the throats of children, having gone through that themselves.
Perhaps it’s because the idea of actually converting is so alien to him? After all, the best predictor of your religion is your parent’s religion – very very few people ever actually convert between religions after reaching adulthood.
Jerry,
To be fair, don’t you think he is protesting that all religious people are being painted with the same brush? I haven’t had a chance to go read his entire post, but I suspect he does not deny the existence of the abusive forms of religious child-rearing. Although perhaps he, and moderate/liberal religionists in general, need to be made much more aware of the existence and prevalence of the more extreme forms. Having grown up in a fairly moderate religious environment I know that I had no clue about the batshit craziness of other denominations.
If Jesus Camps are abusive, target them for scathing criticism and ridicule. If some organizations and parents’ versions of religious child-rearing are abusive, single them out and appropriately condemn them.
If you think moderate and liberal religions provide “cover” for the more extreme versions, then criticize them for that, but don’t lump them in with the more scathing criticisms of the extremists.
Why not be a bit more careful in making qualified statements so as not to lump liberals and moderates in with the child abusing wackos?
And if you feel that the liberal and moderate religious parents are still guilty of a modest degree of indoctrination that is still ‘wrong’, then make that a separate statement.
For the most part, Gnu Atheists I think are aware that such distinctions exist, but there is a lot of carelessness in making sweeping generalizations that are neither accurate nor fair.
You should actually read Giberson’s article. He is not protesting sweeping generalization. He is saying religious indoctrination is not a problem at all. He doesn’t even take it seriously. He caricatures the criticism.
Jerry was writing about Christian proselytizers having access to public schools in Australia. Giberson was just pretending that he was painting all Christians with the same broad brush.
Dr. Coyne did not mention masturbation; all traditional religions seem to be screwed up over this archetypal adolescent behavior.
Why is that?
And dirty jokes. Why the religious taboo on profanity? And provacative dress. Another no, no.
And manners. All religions insist that interaction is to be characterized by good manners.
As an agnostic, I visited a mosque yesterday (on invitation from an imam) and what I found interesting was how clean things were, how warm people were toward one another, and how civility and kindness seemed to reign there. And it was the United Colors of Bennington: everyone of every race and ethnos was together (this was in Los Angeles County). And knowing how chaotic so many peoples’ lives are, I looked at the people there and thought, “They could do worse for themselves and their children.”
Whatever else religion is, it’s a source of order and civilization (even if it’s psychological techniques for keeping people behaving in a civilized manner are crude and repetitive).
But maybe the techniques are crude and repetitive (hell threats, parental God watching if you’re naughty or nice, repetitive bowing, etc.) because, well, human beings in a natural state are crude and disorderly, and reasoning with them from other vantages simply doesn’t work as well to achieve the result you’re shooting for.
It’s just a thought.
—Santi
Yourbelief in belief is touching. So now that we know that moral reactive behavior is innate and in its basic does not differ between groups, somehow culture is not a general human characteristic.
I would say that this can be rejected on two accounts.
First, modern anthropology shows that gene-cultural evolution is strong and fast, and its results (such as adaptation to specific foods) are mostly independent of religious rituals.
Second, there are plenty of finds that support that H. sapiens, one of the most cultured apes, are innately social. For example, IIRC finds of Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, where old, toothless and partly crippled members have been cared for.
Religious traits have not been found to be decisive for human culture. It’s just a fact.
On the other hand, it would be difficult to make a case against the following:
Belief in an invisible lawgiver and law-enforcer almost certainly makes one more likely to follow the laws one believes the lawgiver has given.
Thus, although we deem the religious to be no more moral than secular due to the immoral ways in which they treat “out-groups”, within heir own group, completely false belief in morality enforcing god(s)/spirits/bogeymen would increase intra-group cohesion, cooperation, altruism, and so forth.
Because it is necessary to imagine and anticipate the possibility of real people (fellow tribesman) who *might* be watching, it is not a big stretch to imagine that natural selection could, exaggerate this mental trait to the point of belief in non-existent rule-enforcers. The genes responsible would flourish due to the tremendous advantage gained from increasing cooperative behavior.
In other words a strong case can be made for the possibility that natural selection (acting on genes) specifically favored the tendency to believe in imaginary entities that provide moral guidance and enforcement.
This is independent of, and in addition to, all the evolved ‘pyschological predispositions’ mentioned by Richard Dawkins and others which memes may subvert to create religions.
What on earth is a “strong case” for a “possibility”? Where is the evidence, besides your finding your own concoted scenario a congenial one? Others, such as Pascal Boyer find this idea implausible, and suggest religion, like masturbation, is simply parasitic on other evolved features.
As I’ve already indicated on this website, there’s not an iota of evidence that evolution has installed in our genomes stretches of DNA that compel our belief in the supernatural. Earlier suggestions of “God genes” have fallen by the wayside. Without evidence for such genes, you hardly have a “strong case.” In science, there is no strong case without data.
That scenario, by the way, posits that if children were brought up in semi-isolation, without any contact or learning about religion or the supernatural, they’d all spontaneously start believing in God.
Words like “not a big stretch” and “plausible” have always been used to lend versimilitude to the most bald and unconvincing of sociobiological narratives. What we need is data, not unsupported speculation and hand-waving assertions of “plausibility.”
Excuse me if you don’t like my choice of words. “Strong case” for the “possibility”, means, to me, “this is a worthy hypothesis to be considered”. Hmmm… I can see the ambiguity in my wording here — my intent was that there is a case for the “possibility” itself, whereas you took “possiblity of X” to mean “X, which happens to be possible” and I will concede that that is a common way in which my phrasing could be interpreted.
In any event, this is not an “orbiting teapot” hypothesis. Short of some logical fallacy by which you can rule it out, it has roughly the same merit as its negation. Whether you say 90/10, 50/50 or 10/90 is a quibble until data becomes available.
Sure there is a lot of sociobiological nonsense in which their hypotheses fail on the face of it because they don’t bother to make a connection to why the genes involved would be favored. Or they take a good hypothesis for granted without evidence.
I doubt very much that there would be “stretches of DNA” dedicated to belief in the supernatural. It would result from the interaction of a great many genes, all of which had other duties, most of which relating to the necessary and obviously extant functions of imagination, formation of beliefs, and evaluation of social obligations.
Do you have some particular point in my line of reasoning to which you object? Can you point me (link, reference, or keywords) to Pascal Boyer’s argument for the implausibility of this hypothesis?
And yes, the hypothesis would predict a high probability that a group of children in semi-isolation and without prompting from adults, would invent imaginary agents (not necessarily “God” per se… could be ‘spirits’, ‘bogeymen’, etc. — since they are unprompted, they would invent their own words for whatever-it-was). We already know that children have a strong tendency to create imaginary friends, and in general to blur the distinction between pretend and real.
Also, the evolutionarily stable solution for the “believer” trait might not be 100%… rather it might work best if there are a few who are less (or un-)susceptible, who use this trait in the others to keep order and promote consensus around plans and goals.
But Boyer’s thesis would provide a high possibility that isolated children, say, as in The Lord of the Flies, would have developed invisible agents and associated rituals. There is no reason to link this to natural selection. And since, in any event, primitive man probably had religious beliefs and rituals, and yet was very dangerous to his neighbours, there is no reason to suppose that it would provide suvival advantages.
In fact, if you read Hector Avalos’ bok on religious violence, Fighting Words, there is every reason to think that religions do create situations in which violence is most likely to occur. The imaginary idea that belief that God issued commands that thus assisted in forming more cohesive, law-abiding societies is, to anyone who has read through the Bible or the Qu’ran, one of the most implausible theories around. Doesn’t stop the pope from telling the British that, but it’s still one of the sillier of religious claims.
I should qualify this. There is no reason to link this to natural selection except that predator detection is very important for survival, so that it is probably selected for, and Boyer thinks that religious beliefs are a spin off from this.
The notion that we evolved a predilection to believe anything as specific as “God issued commands…” is of course just silly. And that goes double for anything as specific as the content of the Bible or Koran.
As to religion & violence, how is violence necessarily bad for the any gene that leads to it? Successful violence against strangers, or “the tribe in the next valley” lets you steal take food, take their women, expand into their territory… all things that would benefit your genes at the expense of their genes. If nothing else, religions tap into our instincts for tribal cohesion.
You have to think about the evolution of any psychological predispositions that allow modern religions to flourish in a modern (circa past 10,000 years) environment in terms of the primitive tribal/extended-family-group existence of the preceding millions of years all the way back to Lucy and beyond.
I just don’t think we can rule out that selection pressures may have favored psychological predispositions for believing in invisible, omnipresent agents who enforce moral rules. This would be concomitant with and mutually enhanced by similar predispositions to perceive agency and intent behind anything that moves or changes, including non-living phenomena (wind, rain, floods, thunder, earthquakes…).
“Because it is necessary to imagine and anticipate the possibility of real people (fellow tribesman) who *might* be watching, it is not a big stretch to imagine that natural selection could, exaggerate this mental trait to the point of belief in non-existent rule-enforcers. The genes responsible would flourish due to the tremendous advantage gained from increasing cooperative behavior.”
I think that is a very big stretch. Hasn’t conventional anthropology already studied how we internalise the real onlookers who shame us, to create guilt? No need for imaginary onlookers. Didn’t the notion of gods start with the idea that any action presupposes an actor (an idea children commonly maintain), hence gods for the weather, astronomical motions, etc? Presumably the first worship was propitiation: we’ll sacrifice this to you in the hope that you will call off your flood/plague etc. Sometimes it would have seemed to work, resulting in people imagining the gods cared about human affairs in more detail.
“Thus, although we deem the religious to be no more moral than secular due to the immoral ways in which they treat “out-groups”, within heir own group, completely false belief in morality enforcing god(s)/spirits/bogeymen would increase intra-group cohesion, cooperation, altruism, and so forth.”
Not necessarily. Remember also how religion is used to enforce hierarchical and exploitative relationships between clergy/witchdoctors and laity. That provides a powerful motivation for it to begin and continue.
I may have made a big leap myself with “Presumably the first worship was propitiation: we’ll sacrifice this to you in the hope that you will call off your flood/plague etc.” Gifts/offerings would come before sacrifices. Burning the gift might have initially just been the most practical way to send it into the spirit world.
[oops didn’t finish]
“Didn’t the notion of gods start with the idea that any action presupposes an actor”
This is pure speculation. Where is the evidence?
It is, however, a worthy hypothesis. A good case can be made for it’s being probable. But it does not exclude my hypothesis, unless you insist specifically and strictly that this is how the notion of spirits and gods ‘started’.
“…we internalise the real onlookers who shame us, to create guilt? No need for imaginary onlookers.”
Not quite. An imaginary onlooker can be omnipresent, whereas the absence of real onlookers can be confirmed beyond reasonable doubt. A proto-human faced with the decision of whether to hide or share a cache of food will be much more likely to share if they literally believe there is an inescapable onlooker.
Didn’t the notion of gods start with the idea that any action presupposes an actor
This is a really fancy collection of assertions.
This is demonstratively false. For example, nowhere are rates of teen pregnancy higher than in religious communities that think that premarital sex is a sin. Christians are not an under-represented population in prisons either (but atheists are). So no, it is not hard to make a case against your argument.
Thanks, Deen. You saved me a reply.
Your rebuttal is both obvious and wrong. Your statistics are not relevant for the following reasons. Modern society, with its mish-mash of cultures and conflicting value systems and conflicting loyalties, is *nothing* like the context in which these mental traits would have evolved. Christian teenagers are not growing up in a small, homogeneous, close-knit family group
You are not related to Billy Graham, perchance?
Your claim was that belief in an invisible law-gvier and law-enforcer makes people more likely to obey those laws. This is directly refuted by the evidence I mention. Your claim did not contain the qualifier that this would only be true in pre-modern times. So in effect, your reply is a case of moving the goal posts.
It also makes your assertion completely unsupportable. We have no idea what the beliefs were throughout most of human evolutionary history, nor do we have statistics on how often these people broke their invisible law-givers laws. We may have records from more recent history, but they don’t seem to support your assertion either.
Actually, Christians are probably the teenagers most likely to grow up like that, and still premarital sex is higher than anywhere else. But even if you were right, that these bad statistics are caused by a lack of close-knit homogeneous families, then it would still refute your assertion. If belief in an invisible law-giver and enforcer hasn’t changed, but the family environment has, then it wasn’t the belief that was the relevant variable for in-group morality after all.
So you are only making my case easier for me. When is this really going to get difficult?
Deen, you are interpreting your statistic extremely superficially.
(1) I have not “moved the goal posts”. My original point was about the possible evolution of psychological predispositions for believing in invisible/supernatural morality enforcing agents. This implies the time period (hundreds of thousand or millions of years)prior to the dawn of civilization.
(2) No one in modern societies is growing up in a close-knit homogeneous group, including extremely conservative Christians, that is anything near being like a primitive hunter-gatherer tribe. They are in constant contact both in person and through the media with persons of quite different values and beliefs. They live under secular governance. Even sects, like the Amish, which try to seclude themselves, must deal quite regularly with the rest of society.
(3) The statistics are not ‘bad’ because of a lack of tribal life. Rather, (a) The implication is that the teenagers are exposed to many belief and value systems. Of necessity this will result in much less certainty than if they were exposed to only one belief system supported by *all* adult authority figures, all of whom are closely related and completely trusted. (b), even if (a) is not the case, there are other variables that can account for your statistics even if my hypothesis is true. Typically, Christian teenagers are taught not only ‘no sex out of marriage’, but also they are not taught about condems. Further, they are taught to trust inner ‘feelings’ which they believe come from the holy spirit. So when they become infatuated, it is easy for them to interpret the intense feelings as a “sign from god”, “destiny” and other silliness, think they will marry this person, “so it’s ok, or not as bad”. They don’t use condemns (because that would be sex purely for lustful pleasure, another sin)… so more likely to get pregnant. (c) if they are simply overcome by lust (lust conquers all, doesn’t it?) they won’t have condemns on hand… so more likely to get pregnant. By comparison, infatuated or lustful teens might have sex much more often, but have no compunctions about using condemns or other prophylactics.
It is entirely possible, and I would say likely (until I see evidence to the contrary), that Christian teens have sex less often, but have unprotected sex more often. Since the ‘rule’ is about having sex, not about getting pregnant, they would be demonstrated a greater likelihood to “not have sex” because they believe in a god who says “don’t do that”.
Re: evidence of beliefs and statistics on obeying rules by pre-historic humans. I’m discussing a freaking *hypothesis*, not claiming an established fact.
Finally, can you explain why a person, who genuinely believes they are being watched by someone who will punish them if they do X is not going to be less likely to do X? This is not different than Richard Dawkins pointing out (correctly, I think) that the beliefs of Muslim suicide bombers that they will be rewarded with 72 virgins is entirely relevant to why they choose to become suicide bombers. If people do not modify their behavior according to their beliefs, what is the function of belief, what does ‘belief’ even mean?
Michael Kingsford Gray:
“You are not related to Billy Graham, perchance?”
Why yes, he’s my 13th cousin, 4 times removed.. and also my 22nd cousin twice removed.
Seriously? It’s not like there are a few hundred thousand Grahams running around.
But I’ll do you one better: Joseph Smith Jr. (of Mormon fame) is my Great^3 Grandfather. So you better watch out — I’ve got prophet’s blood. 😉
If there were they would have to be put back in the boxes before crumbs got everywhere!
In my last reply to Deen, the sentences starting “By comparison…” should have said “…*secular* teens…” not simply “…teens…”. that should make more sense.
@S.K. Graham:
1) Not moving goal posts? Not buying it. See your repeat in your final point that this is supposed to be a general principle, with no reason given why it should no longer apply today.
2) Have you ever talked to someone who grew up in a fundamentalist Christian community? Do you have any idea to what length they go to make sure that you only get access to pre-approved sources? To make sure that anyone else is seen as an enemy who is out to corrupt your faith? These communities are clearly among the most tribal that you can find in western societies. And you have completely missed my point. If tribalism were a factor, which you appeared to claim (but appear to be backpedaling from now), we should still see that more tribal communities follow their own rules more closely. And we just don’t see this.
3) You made a simplistic claim, so you got a simplistic refutation. Now you want to pull in all sorts of confounding factors. That is fine by me – it only makes your hypothesis more difficult to defend. With all these confounding factors, there is absolutely no reason left to assume that a belief in a law-giver has any significant effect on lawfulness. Definitely not one that is big enough to be selected for.
And why would contact with people with other beliefs matter? The only way it could help you, is if you’d argue that the outside influence or lack of authority caused them to no longer really believe in an invisible law-giver – which makes it a sort of No True Scotsman fallacy. This is another way you appear to try and make your hypothesis unfalsifiable.
Yes, Evangelical Christian teens do have unprotected sex more often, and do use condoms less often. But the same statistics also show that they have sex at an earlier age, and tend to have more different partners. So there is plenty of evidence to contradict that Evangelical teens have sex less often.
And what’s up with your statement that there is a rule against sex, but no rule against getting pregnant? How did you think they got pregnant in the first place?
With all your arguments, you are pretty much admitting that instilling a fear of an invisible sky policeman is much less effective than giving kids a thorough understanding of the consequences of their actions. Why don’t you think evolution must have selected for this trait?
You are still expected to back up your hypothesis, not make it unfalsifiable.
Because people, throughout history, and everywhere in the world, always tend to think the rules don’t apply to them or their situation. Either they think they didn’t break any rules at all, or they think that God will understand their special circumstances. For example:
– “Thou shalt not kill” didn’t apply to witches – which means you could kill anyone (and get their belongings) as long as you could convince yourself (and others) they were a witch first.
– The many stories of anti-abortion protesters, who went from picketing at abortion clinics, to getting abortions themselves, because for them it was “different”. And went straight back to picketing without seeing a problem.
People are really good at finding loopholes and otherwise rationalizing why what they did was entirely justified, even in the eyes of God.
Deen, did you even *read* the article you linked? It makes the same points I have made in rebutting your statistic, including (a) how difficult it is for even the most conservative parents to insulate their children from broader societal influences, which (b) influences how seriously those children take dogma of the religion they are raised in. The ones who strongly believe do have sex less often and lose their virginity later:
(emphasis mine)
I’m not going to bother rebutting you point by point.
NewEnglandBob:
If I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard a cracker joke… 🙂
Yes, I did read the article. You wanted evidence that evangelical teens did not have less sex than other teens, and I gave it to you. I can quotemine it too:
And even then, in these groups, it clearly is not fear of God that is the factor, but status and peer pressure.
Your second quote is an anecdote from the author, not part of the research the article refers to.
Fine, don’t discuss all of my points. Best for you to stop digging anyway. But at least have the decency to respond to my last point, in which I answered your direct request for an explanation of why people ignore the commands from their invisible lawgiver. I gave you one (and I’d say a rather plausible one too), and you chose to ignore it completely.
Inversion of the burden of proof. I should have noticed this sooner, but if you put it this way, there’s no way I could miss it. No, you make the positive claim, you show me the evidence.
But, as you so eloquently point out, all else is not equal. And you keep saying it as if it is a problem for me, but it really isn’t. They only make it less likely that belief in a lawgiver is such a strong factor that it would be evolutionary selected for.
Don’t bore me with hypothetical situations about shark meat. Show me some evidence. (If I’d had to guess, though, I’d say that if eating shark meat is really taboo, the non-believer won’t eat it either. No sky policeman is needed to enforce taboos.)
Which makes your claim unfalsifiable again. If someone does something you’d not expect based on previously stated beliefs (like having premarital sex or getting an abortion), you’ll just argue that they either didn’t truly hold those beliefs in the first place (like with the Evangelical teens), or that this behavior must have been part of their belief system all along (like you are doing here). Pretty much all your arguments have been of this type, and it’s just not convincing.
Here’s something that you don’t seem to have considered: the fact that God’s Will appears to be remarkably similar to a person’s own opinion, and will even change accordingly.
So tell me, do people do what they believe
Godthe invisible lawgiver wants them to do? Or will they do what they already want to do for other reasons, but adjust their beliefs about the invisible lawgiver accordingly?Your volcano sacrifice example invokes a god who punishes and demands a certain ritual for his own pleasure, not a god who dictates (moral or social) laws. And even if it did, you still are left to explain how sacrificing virgins provides an evolutionary advantage, or promotes in-group morality. Surely this can’t be your best example?
Your hypothesis is still not looking strong, despite how obvious its truth may seem to you.
I’m not sure where this will fall in the series, but thanks for the interesting, if not always congenial, side discussion of the evolution of religion. All human cultures, even the most primitive (aust. Aboriginal, !kung bushman) have belief in an unseen creator, life after death, and communication with the unseen agent through trance, dreams, etc. Thus the origin of human religion lies prior to the African exodus (50,000ybp) possibly prior to H. Sapiens. This to me argues against the collaboration/cooperation hypothesis as the origin of religion. The “spandrel” hypothesis alows the origin of “belief in unseen creator agents” to precede Human culture. I wonder what chimps would say when asked “why is there a world”? Of course there are studies which demonstrate the social benefits of behavior constrained by fear of punishment by an unseen omniscient agent, and this obviously may have played a role in perpetuating these beliefs even when evidence contradicts them.
@MuD PhuD: no, not every culture has a belief in the afterlife – the Hadza tribe, for instance, don’t seem to have such a belief. Listen to Gregory S Paul explain why religion is not universal.
MuD PhuD:
“All human cultures, even the most primitive (aust. Aboriginal, !kung bushman) have belief in an unseen creator…”
Not quite true, I’m afraid.
The Pirahã tribe in the Amazon have no such concept, it seems.
Mud Phud, thanks for the input. I was beginning to fear this side-topic might be getting annoying to non-participants, so it is good to know someone is finding it interesting.
I think the others are right about the non-universality of afterlife.
And to all: I just noticed how the blockquotes got screwed up a few posts back… making for 1-word-wide columns. My apologies. And to anyone who actually read through it, my hat is off to you. 🙂
GSPauls only argument for non-universality is the Hadza;
“The Hadza have acquired very little of their neighbors’ religions.Their own religion is minimalist. They do have a cosmology and men can tell endless stories about how things came to be. They do not believe in an afterlife and there are few religious restrictions. There are few rules in general, and what few there are often go ignored with little consequence, except for the rules about eating the men’s special epeme meat. Illnesses may be attributed to violation of these rules (Woodbum 1979).The most important ritual is the epeme dance. Ln camps with enough adults this takes placeafterdarkonmoonlessnights.Menwearbellsontheirlegs,afeatherheaddress, a cape, and shake a maraca as they sing and dance one at a time in a call-and-shout manner, inspiring the women to sing and dance around them. The other main ritual is the Mai-toh-ko,or female puberty initiation… ” from Frank Marlowe 2002
So, although minimalist, they do have at least one GOD (the sun), creation myths, a belief that not following the rules may cause illness, and a couple rituals…
Sounds like religion to me!
Bullshit. Your rebuttals require just as much evidence, if not more, than my initial statement. If anything, your claim that a belief with an obvious motivational component does not increase the likelihood of the motivated behavior is an *extraordinary* claim.
This is just silly. The reasoning you apply here could apply to reject any and all traits that is claimed to have been selected for by evolution. One compares the benefit minus cost (net gain or loss) of the trait, “all else being equal” as averaged over the population. All traits evolve among the noise of many other traits and variables. Evolution depends on statisitcal trends.
“Evidence” is so commonly played as a trump card in these sorts of discussions. It’s almost as if you are proving your rational/skeptical cred by demanding evidence.
My hypothesis vis-a-vis evoution is just that, a hypothesis. My supporting point vis-a-vis belief in a rule-enforcing-agent is patently obvious — it is almost true by definition. Your objection to this point is an *extraordinary claim*, so you give your freaking evidence. Oh you did. But the article you presented actually backed me up. Stop whining about reversing burden of proof, and make a rebuttal that can stand up.
Mind you, it’s fine to say “nice hypothesis, but I don’t think so”… however, you seem to think you have grounds to dismiss out-of-hand both the hypothesis and the supporting point, which is a far stronger claim than I have made in the first place.
It is not a question of betting what the believer and non-believer would do, it is simply a question of which of them is more likely to break the taboo (it does not matter if it is 60% vs. 50% or .3% vs. .26%). But you dodge the question.
You have a very strange notion of “unfalsifiable”. The article you cited — I almost misread, at first glance, the part I quoted, since I expected the article to actually in some way back up your position. If the article has said “…those with very strong beliefs, who take those beliefs most seriously were more likely to have sex, to have more sex, and/or to start having sex earlier…”, then I would have had to concede that you have a point. I would have my doubts about the validity of the study or its interpretation, but I would concede that you have an understandable reason to doubt my assertion about belief in a rule-enforcer.
You don’t get to make assumptions about ‘beliefs’ based on categories or labels, like “conservative Christian”. Beliefs are specific to the individual. Evidence for or against my assertion requires knowledge of both belief and behavior. You provided hypotheticals and examples in which the behavior is consistent with belief. That is a problem for your position, not mine.
If you had some experiment (or survey) where behaviors and beliefs of large number of people were shown to be inconsistent, then an important question to ask about that experiment would be whether the beliefs were accurately established. Again your cited article makes precisely that point, presumably because the researchers also make that point, which is why the researchers looked more closely at what was actually believed and how strongly. As beliefs are a state of mind, just establishing what people believe and how strongly, for purposes of an actual experiment, is tricky and at best uncertain.
It is your rebuttals that are entirely unconvincing.
We are talking about a god which does not actually exist. There is nothing surprising that people might change their belief’s about “God’s Will”. The questions are: have we evolved a predisposition to certain kinds of beliefs and how would those beliefs influence our behavior.
Most modern monotheistic religions teach equivalence between “God’s will” and “good”, so it stand’s to reason that people raised in those traditions will ascribe their particular moral views to God. And if experience causes them to change their moral views, holding on to the “god is good” belief forces them to change what they believe about god’s will, or else they start thinking “maybe god is not good”, which is often the first step towards rejecting religion.
In any event, I’m not making a case for a predisposition to believe in something like modern montheisms. I am making a case more generally for a predipostion to believe in non-exstent agents who enforce rules. And, before you cite the existence of atheists as a counter-example, ‘predisposition to believe’ does not mean the belief is guaranteed to be formed or maintained by all individuals.
You keep saying “do” as an absolute, when I have talked exclusively about probabilities. In answer, generally yes, they are more likely to than not. This will depend on both the certainty of the belief, and the specifics of the belief (i.e. is a it the most important law? or a minor law? How severe is the punishment? Maybe it is ‘wrong’ but there is no punishment. Etc.)
This does not mean that they act according to what *you* think they believe. It does not mean they will act according the the predominant dogma of whatever group(s) or categories they belong to. It does not even necessarily mean they will act according to what they *say* they believe. It means each individual will act according to what that individual genuinely believes. This makes my hypothesis difficult to test, but it does not make it unfalsifiable in principle.
In a primitive tribe, where there is exposure to only one belief system which is is repeated and reinforced by every adult authority figure, near homogeneity of individual beliefs within the group is a reasonable assumption, so I would accept ‘group belief’ as a close approximation to ‘individual belief’ withthe possibility of a few exceptions. If you have some data on the rates at which isolated Amazonian tribespeaple adhere to their ‘rules’ that refutes me, then that would be interesting.
And let us clarify. In the context of this conversation “act according to one’s beliefs” does not expressly mean “act according to one’s moral code”, it refers to taking into account one’s beliefs about reality and about real *consequences* (“if I do X then Y will happen”) when choosing actions. You are trying to argue that for some reason, genuine beliefs about the consequences of angering gods/spirits/faeries/whatever in the matter of moral rules, will not be factored into decision making. That is just preposterous.
Sure, if the ‘beliefs’ are not very certain in the first place, this is quite likely. But here you are using ‘belief’ as in moral code. So if you are going to cite some research example of this being common, it is only relevant if the test cases were people who genuinely believed in an enforcer who would punish them for breaking the rules which they then “adjusted”.
If a person genuinely believes in an actual agent who will punish them for breaking certain rules, and especially an agent who will punish them for simply changing their beliefs about said agent, then it becomes far far less likely that they will break rules and subsequently adjust their beliefs. If they break a rule due to other motivations (lust) they are going to feel guilty, be fearful of retribution, and seek to ‘atone’ or ‘repent’.
The volcano god & virgin sacrifice is an example of beliefs about an agent and the consequences of pleasing/angering that agent and how people factor that in to their decisions. You are apparently trying to make a special exception for beliefs about agents who enforce moral rules.
At the outset, I said “possible” (in reference to the evolution hypothesis) and I gave the range 90/10 to 10/90 when questioned as to what I meant. By the degree to which you dismiss the supporting point about the effects of a certain kinds of belief, let alone the original hypothesis, I can only assume you would put odds on both my hypothesis and the supporting point well below 1%. You are making the stronger claim, and your position is extremely weak. In regards to your rejection of the supporting point your position is ludicrous.
OK, we’ve filled up the comments here enough with this off-topic. And I am sick of these ultra-narrow columns. If you want to get the last word and declare proof by exhaustion, fine. Delude yourself all you like.
Excuse me, I wasn’t aware that this had become a pissing contest.
“Belief in an invisible lawgiver and law-enforcer almost certainly makes one more likely to follow the laws one believes the lawgiver has given.”
I find this incredibly offensive. Lots of cultures (for example, asian countries) never developed the idea of a law-giving God. Are you implying that their societies are in lawless chaos?
First, did I say “god” in that sentence? This is a very generic concept. It could be nature spirits, faeries, the ghosts of ancestors. The bogeyman can be an enforcer, but does not make much of a lawgiver. Hell it could be Santa Claus. It could even be a real person but with greatly exaggerated abilities to invisibly be anywhere/everywhere. Or all of the above.
Second, the ways in which various meme complexes have co-opted all of our psychological predispositions since roughly the start of the Holocene and in particular is not in question. In question is the evolution of psychological predisposition long prior to the start of civilization.
Sorry, I have lived in Japan for 30 years, have Chinese and Balinese (Hindu) friends, and have some knowledge of anthropology. You don’t know what you are talking about.
What on earth are you going on about? Are you trying to say Japanese culture has not had belief in spirits? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinto). Are you saying that Shinto believers are not worried about offending various Kami in various situations? They are unconcerned with ancestor Kami and the possible retribution if they do something which brings dishonor? You are taking “law-giver” way too literally. The Kami may not be “law-givers” in the manner of western deities, but the Kami have expectations and failure to please various Kami has its consequences.
If a man points a gun at you and says “Do X, or I will shoot you” what will you do? Almost certainly you will do X. If the man does not have a gun, but you believe that he does, you will still almost certainly do X. And if the man does not exist, but you believe he is there, hiding somewhere with the gun, and you believe he wants you to do X or he will shoot you, again you almost certainly will do X.
How is this in the least bit controversial? And how on earth can you find such a statement offensive?
You are going to have a tough time reconciling your idea with the number of christians that commit crime S.K.Graham.
“more likely” does not mean “always”… and as I pointed out to Deen in the example of Christian teen pregnancies, these kinds of statistics are not so simple.
Also see my “man with a gun” reply above.
There is a higher percentage of atheists in the general population than the percentage of atheists in the prison population.
To put it in the most favorable context for christians – christianity does no good.
Notagod,
I’m not talking about whether christianity does any ‘good’… I’m talking about evolution of psychological predispositions. It’s a bit off-topic since Torbjörn Larsson’s comment above.
I mainly agree with you… but I do think such statistics are far too simplistically interpreted. For example: is the disproportionate percentage of christians in prison due to christian morality? Or is it due to their lower average IQ? Or lower education levels?
My reply was to your comment at:
September 18, 2010 at 1:31 pm
Your attempts to move the goal post does not support your invalid claims.
By necessity the culture of christianity requires lies and deception which reverberate throughout society. People get frustrated by the injustice and some turn to crime as an outlet. Christianity is a large part of the problem, christianity is not the answer.
IQ is mostly a measure of what a person has learned and is able to regurgitate, it doesn’t effectively measure the ability to learn nor does IQ effectively measure an ability to apply knowledge to solving problems. Some criminals are very smart but don’t necessarily have a high IQ.
Education does seem to produce good results but christianity doesn’t support quality education, quality education tends to get in the way of mythology.
Read the whole post. The point or conclusion of that post is in the last two paragraphs. An that post is in reply to the preceding post, which makes claims vis-a-vis religion and evolution.
It is not “moving the goalposts” to point out that I have not made the assertion you seem to think I have made.
I certainly have not proposed that Christianity is an “answer” to anything.
My point regarding your statistic can be summed up more simply: correlation is not causation. Anyone considering themselves a skeptic or rationalist already knows. Some Christians often use the same kind of bad reasoning to justify their own twisted morality (example: “gay people disproportionately commit suicide, therefore homosexuality causes depression and suicide”)
I agree that a secular world view and a humanist value system are quite superior — lead to better results.
But I think you are being grossly simplistic about your prison statistic. Just as Deen was being simplistic about his teen pregnancy statistic.
You haven’t shown that your silly idea actually works and you ignore evidence that contradicts your idea.
You would do well in the mormon cult.
He doesn’t even spell Dennett correctly which irks me. Reminds me of PZ “Meyers”.
I’m grouchy today, so maybe this isn’t well-thought out or insightful… but here goes.
My take on Giberson’s thought process is this: He is in love with religion and religiosity and so the first thing that comes to his mind when he thinks about “religious upbringing” are smiley faced children who love to participate in the rituals of their loving elders and love to hear about their loving God who lovingly looks down a everyone.
To be sure, all of that really happens but it just doesn’t occur to Giberson that certain religious subcultures are at the same time intensely focused on policing the lives of people, on controlling society, and on excluding or ostracising those who are deemed immoral or evil based on ridiculous and morally superficial features such as sexuality or (the lack of) particular supernatural beliefs. Such parents and clergy may or may not treat the children in their care well but they do instil a vehement moral disgust at the ways of life that fall outside the narrowly defined morality of their group. They may not do this in a way that’s overtly abusive but it is thoroughly vicious (towards outsiders), paranoid, and totalitarian. Children can easily grow happy under such circumstances (if by biological accident, say, they are able to stay within the bounds of what is considered good and true by their elders).
But that’s not the point! That doesn’t excuse religion. People can be perfectly, nauseatingly happy and self-righteously cruel and despicable at the same time. It seems people like Giberson just can’t imagine that those apparently opposed properties can apply to the same person. But who cares if these children grow up happy and confident if their whole culture and customs are fundamentally undemocratic, intolerant, and immoral? Whatever the answer; no one should care, I say. What we should care about is discussing the merits of all the kinds of moral judgements, political ideologies, and values that or on offer in public discourse. In this respect religion has always come up short.
Giberson is wrong about how we (or I, at least) imagine religious upbringing. We just have better priorities than him.
/Rant
“People can be perfectly, nauseatingly happy and self-righteously cruel and despicable at the same time.”
Do you really think so? I can’t help feeling that most cruel people are very unhappy. I would be really interested to know how many of the pedo priests were abused themselves as children. Especially in places like Ireland where being sexually abused by a priest seems to have been more the rule than the exception. When I visited Ireland in the mid nineteen-eighties I got the very strong impression that the whole country was quite insane, in a pleasantly kookie way but definitely nuts. I now wonder how much of that had to do with generations of ongoing sexual abuse in childhood, along with the more widespread religious abuse of being told every week that you’re going to hell if you’re not careful!
I do think so, but I also think there are cruel unhappy people. What I wrote should not be read as a description of personality traits of religious people but rather of the quality of their behaviour and treatment of various people and groups. (In general I’m sceptical of trait theory in personality psychology but that’s an aside.) In other words, my point was just that people can feel great about themselves and treat their friends and loved ones well while feeling justified in hating and mistreating (as a form of divinely sanctioned punishment) those they consider immoral.
Ireland I don’t know about. I’ve never been there. Obviously child abuse does mostly result in messed up adults. You could be right but I don’t think it’s been proven that sexual abuse was the rule rather than the exception, just much more wide spread than anyone imagined.
In the Aljazeera interview with Geoffrey Robertson, the human rights lawyer who wrote the book, The Case of the Pope (which is very good by the way, and you can access it here), Robertson says that we have to ask the church “whether it is right, at such a young age, to indoctrinate children to believe that the priest is the agent of God.”
The answer, of course, is no, and this applies to any church situation. And it is simply foolish of Giberson to list off a bunch of sentimental stories about children in church settings, and ignore the fact that children are simply taken advantage of by parents and the churches they belong to, many of them, despite Giberson’s sentimental catalogue, to their great disadvantage.
I can speak personally, as someone who was sent away to a church school at 6 (and spent 12 years there), and childhood became a terrifying experience. For years I though that I might have committed the unforgiveable sin, and would therefore suffer an eternity of hellfire. It increased my piety and my devotion, but did not take away the fear, a fear that the word ‘hell’ can still raise the ghosts of from time to time. These things are very real to children, vividly, potently real, and adults often have no idea how their teaching of children is being absorbed by minds that are indiscriminate sponges, and designed to respond obediently to authority.
It is nothing short of a scandal that this frightful man is let loose on the public to pour his vile imaginings into such willing minds, who, even if they have reservations about the limits of religious education — and some parents, clergy and teachers do — are looking for confirmation that they are right to convey their faith — which is so often mindless and cruel — to their children.
But children, though indeed parents have some right to convey to them traditions and cultural practices that are life enriching, should not have a carte blanche to convey just anything at all, but they often think that they do, and so many children are harmed, a harm that, in so many cases — in my own not least — is borne into adulthood and blights lives and opportunities.
It’s just another one of those “oh, but that’s not my religion you are criticizing” arguments.
Little Girl Brings Down the Glory
I take Karl Giberson to be a nontheist Christian, of which he is constantly dropping hints.
Not “I can understand why some reject belief in God,” but there are solid and defensible reasons. No actual believer writes like that.
Consequently, Giberson has no personal understanding of what it means for parents to actually raise their children to believe, and to insist that those who do not are condemned. For Giberson, Christianity is all about community and values. If his virtuous daughter revealed her own unbelief, he would be fine with that, oblivious to the many daughters disowned by their families for revealing the same.
Somebody needs to do an intervention for this guy. It probably wouldn’t work, though. Most heroin addicts aren’t employed by their dealers. (Oops, I just invoked…)
I wonder how many of Gibbering’s male pupils have been genitally mutilated?
Most of them, is my guess.
Now tell me that religion is benign, Uncle Karl.
Well, Gibberish describes his belief quite accurately as a primary school Christmas pageant.
Maybe he got stuck playing a shepherd year after year.
Yeah, that’s explains it.
I know exactly what kind of “indoctrination” he speaks of.
It mirrors my own experience. There were no threats of hell, no fanatical brow-beatings, nothing of that sort.
Merely the nice Sunday school lady in a floral print dress who taught us nice stories from the bible.
I’m sure *this* is the indoctrination he has in mind.
Funny, though…when I was about 8, that nice lady told us a story about how god flooded the whole world, except he saved mankind by having Noah build a big boat and bring every kind of animal into the boat two-by-two.
“That couldn’t have happened,” I thought to myself.
Instant atheist.
After that, I went through the motions for a long time, but never believed in any of it.
I wasn’t “damaged” by that indoctrination. Merely not persuaded that any of it was true.
I guess I was precocious.
As one who had a child die may I might point out that the friends of his siblings gathered around and provided wonderful support over a significant period without a prayer in sight. And from what I have seen of the friends since they all manage without fairies in the garden.
Gordon. I’m sorry you lost a child. That in itself is pain enough. I am also glad that you could find comfort without referring to a sky deity.
When my wife died in 2007, it was her express wish that her ashes should be buried without any religious ceremony, and that the word ‘god’ should be used to raise questions, not to express faith or to practice it. Interestingly, though I had been a priest for many years in the Anglican Church, it was, without doubt, the most meaningful memorial service I had ever attended or participated in, and far more comforting that any religious service could have been. My wife herself helped to plan the service. It reflected our sense of loss, and we celebrated her life and her accomplishments, the love we had for her, and not some silly dream about her going on ‘to a better place’ — which is, after all, no more than a pious dream.
At the time of death, after whatever period of suffering may have been involved, the idea of god raises more questions than it provides answers. It is then, especially, that the conflict between religious belief and reality is most stark, and all the promises of religion flee away. Many religious believers, at the time of death, try stoically to hold onto faith, but it is extremely fragile, and very few actually believe the promises that they hold with such desperate tenacity. Self-deception is really the order of the day, and remains so until they can lapse back into the half-held beliefs which keep them in a semi-hypnotic trance until the next tragedy of their life supervenes. Much better, I have found, to face the world without false hope and promises.
“…though I had been a priest for many years in the Anglican Church…”
I am truly glad to hear that you were cured of the parasitic kuru-like mind-virus.
Giberson ever hear of a little place called Northern Ireland? Estimates of that particular little dust up are at 3,700 casualties.
The reason it’s an estimate, is that there was so much carnage that many of the events left the bodies so demolished that they could not actually count the dead. And that’s a relatively small conflict as bloody conflicts go.
Jerry, good work on getting Gibberson to show that he doesn’t care about reconciling science and faith.
Your original piece was focused on how the gang in NSW were openly dismissive of science:
http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2010/09/13/aussie-christians-nix-ethics-classes/
and the specific point was that the leaders of the anti ethics group were anti darwin:
http://statereligionvic.posterous.com/think-hostility-to-evolution-is-just-for-amer
seems to me that Gibberson is totally ignoring your point, painting you to be uncivil and anti religious, when really you were just showing how religion leads to hurting kids by keeping them ignorant of science.
You had a reason for being critical, Gibberson ignores that and focuses on your tone. Typical.
Jerry – there are allegations near the end of this thread over at Biologos -ihttp://www.biologos.org/blog/doing-battle-with-jerry-coynes-army-of-straw-men/ – suggesting “hypocrisy” in your policy excluding certain posters from this site. What’s the truth?