More from my response to Parsons' thread on the Secular Outpost.
Any world view, except the sunniest forms of theistic universalism, I take it, commits you to unpleasant realities that you probably are not going to be too eager to teach to your children, and if you do teach them to your children, you would have to do so in a gingerly way, exercising a certain amount of caution in making sure that the teaching was done in an age-appropriate way. A Christian who taught the doctrine of hell to a five-year-old, or a Christian who used made a special effort to present the doctrine of hell in an especially terrifying way, with the intent of scaring the child into proper behavior, would be teaching the doctrine abusively. But an atheist who constantly emphasized to their children that their Christian schoolmates who hope for an eternal life in heaven are deluded, and that when you die you rot, rot, rot, would be teaching the atheist view of death in a way that seems to me abusive as well. If you had someone who, through no epistemic fault of their own but due to some unfortunate intellectual circumstances, came to hold that the Jews controlled the banking industry and that black people were inferior (Darwin seems to have held that latter belief), then one would have to teach those beliefs to one's children in some sort of appropriate way. You can't teach your children what you think isn't true, you have to teach them what you think is true. That's what makes this nonsense about "teaching falsehoods to children" nonsense. I have trouble believing that an educated person today could hold those kinds of beliefs without some sort of culpability, just as I am sure Dawkins doesn't think that anybody could believe in the doctrine of everlasting punishment without some culpability.
18 comments:
I think you have a reasonable point when you discuss not whether, but *how* one should discuss the unpleasant realities of one's worldview with children and I agree with your evaluation of what would constitute an "abusive" teaching of the doctrine of hell. But your further comments lead me to wonder whether you would consider there to be a moral difference between teaching that after death one could be tortured for eternity OR cease to exist? IOW, do you view these two possible "unpleasant realities" to be morally equivalent (i.e., cessation of existence and eternal suffering)?
It seems to me that an argument could be made (and has, I'm quite sure) that the doctrine of hell *in and of itself* constitutes a moral evil (or is at least morally unjustified), but I don't see how an equivalent argument could be framed for "rot, rot, rot" (to use your words). Even granting the two positions equal epistemic status, it would not seem that they are morally equivalent and thus it would seem to be possible, at least in principle, to denigrate the teaching of one while believing the other to be neutral.
Oops...meant to say, "*not* morally equivalent"... ;)
Not every version of the doctrine of hell entails that God is torturing someone. Sometimes a separation from God is thought of as the natural consequences of a life of disobedience, which cannot be corrected by God without a violation of a person's free will.
In other understandings of the doctrine, hell is deserved punishment for sin against an infinite God.
There are, of course, arguments to the effect that a morally perfect God would not permit the damnation of anyone. Trouble is, it takes a further step to say that no person can, in a morally innocent way, come to believe that God will damn people. Thus, if you made the case that the doctrine of hell involves some moral incoherence, you would still have not made the case that someone who believes in hell is somehow morally culpable for doing so.
And if someone believes in hell, it then gets problematic to argue that they ought not to teach the doctrine at all (keep it secret?). At most one is left with the constraints about age-appropriate teaching, which I was trying to cover in my post.
I'll teach my kids about the permissibility of genocide when it's age-appropriate to do so, too -- and of course, in the most tactful way possible. It is permissible if God says so. What's the alternative? Keep it a secret?
If you believe in genocide then I have a LOT of trouble believing that you came by that belief without being culpable in doing so.
As opposed to "rot, rot, rot", I generally tell my kids they our bodies will become part of the world aound us. We have a few fish buried under a tree, and now the fish are a part of that tree.
I agree that the abuse is as much, probably more, in the "how" than the "what".
VR: "A Christian who taught the doctrine of hell to a five-year-old, ... would be teaching the doctrine abusively."
I don't agree with this blanket statement.
For one thing, even the typical five-year-old is going to have heard something about hell ... from slightly older kids, if from nowhere else. Far better to teach the truth about the doctrine (in an "age appropriate" manner, as you say), than to say nothing and therefore allow him to hold the childish *misunderstanding* he will otherwise inevitably have.
But, of course, determining just what is "age appropriate" can be tricky.
VR: "... or a Christian who used made a special effort to present the doctrine of hell in an especially terrifying way, with the intent of scaring the child into proper behavior, would be teaching the doctrine abusively."
This is quite a different matter from the first; this is, in fact, *not* "teaching the doctrine of hell."
One Brow "As opposed to "rot, rot, rot", I generally tell my kids they our bodies will become part of the world aound us. We have a few fish buried under a tree, and now the fish are a part of that tree."
So, rather than teach them what you believe to be the true answer to the question you know they are asking, you give them some fluffy mystery-mongering distraction?
But, also consider what this answer may say about you: do you *really* believe the worldview you assert? I rather doubt that you really do (few 'atheists' do actually believe atheism and its logical entailments).
VR: "And if someone believes in hell, it then gets problematic to argue that they ought not to teach the doctrine at all (keep it secret?). At most one is left with the constraints about age-appropriate teaching, which I was trying to cover in my post."
I don't find it problematic at all to argue that people who believe in morally repugnant notions ought not to teach them. If a concept is morally evil, then it shouldn't be taught as good, period. Whether a person believes that concept to be good is wholly beside the point.
Parents who are KKK members and believe that miscegenation is morally evil should not teach such rubbish to their children. That they disagree is beside the point.
Your point about different views of the doctrine of hell is well taken, I think. However, if we were to agree that a doctrine of eternal torment was morally repugnant, would we not also agree that it should not be taught to anyone (as true), much less children?
ilion: "So, rather than teach them what you believe to be the true answer to the question you know they are asking, you give them some fluffy mystery-mongering distraction?"
Um..what's not true about what OB said? When we die, our bodies do become part of "the world around us." That's even part of Christian doctrine (Read Ecclesiastes lately?).
As VR noted, there are unpleasant realities in virtually every worldview and the question isn't always so much "what" to teach, but "how". Finding age-appropriate ways to discuss death is no less a difficulty for the theist than it is the non-theist.
One Brow: "As opposed to "rot, rot, rot", I generally tell my kids they our bodies will become part of the world aound us. We have a few fish buried under a tree, and now the fish are a part of that tree."
Ilíon: "So, rather than teach them what you believe to be the true answer to the question you know they are asking, you give them some fluffy mystery-mongering distraction?"
Bill Snedden: "Um..what's not true about what OB said? When we die, our bodies do become part of "the world around us." That's even part of Christian doctrine (Read Ecclesiastes lately?)."
I suppose you could try to read what I actually wrote. Or is that expecting too much ... even though you *quoted* it? (Also, you appear to seriously misunderstand Ecclesiastes and Christian doctrine.)
ilion: "suppose you could try to read what I actually wrote. Or is that expecting too much ... even though you *quoted* it? (Also, you appear to seriously misunderstand Ecclesiastes and Christian doctrine.)"
You know, before you engage your snark mode, you might try to imagine that the person to whom you're replying just may be interested in a real conversation...
You took OB to task for supposedly not teaching his children his real belief, but instead giving them some feel-good answer. The point of my reply was that his answer isn't just "feel-good"...it's true. Our bodies *do* return to the earth. It rots and the physical material disperses into the environment.
And I certainly know enough of orthodox Christian doctrine to know that Christians don't deny that this is *exactly* what does happen to the body. That Christians believe there's more to the story is irrelevant to this discussion. And the same goes for Ecclesiastes: "All come from dust and to dust all return" is an accurate description of what happens to the body after death setting aside the larger meaning of Ecclesiastes which is also irrelevant to this discussion.
So, if I have in fact misread your meaning, what did you actually mean? Certainly you weren't denying the reality of decomposition or the ultimate end of the physical body, so if I've still missed it, what was the point of your response to OB?
Concerning "becoming part of the world (i.e. fertilizer):" Dane Cook, and "God Bless You" (warning: language; and some silly, yet common, beliefs about the content of Christian theology)
Ilíon: "I suppose you could try to read what I actually wrote. Or is that expecting too much ... even though you *quoted* it?"
Bill Snedden: "You know, before you engage your snark mode, you might try to imagine that the person to whom you're replying just may be interested in a real conversation..."
I'm sorry; apparently you don't understand: I make a conscious effort to avoid projecting my imaginings onto other persons; I make a conscious effort to draw rational/logical inferences to what I actually experience from others and try to avoid seeing in others what I might want or prefer to see.
So, if you don't want to get snark from me, then don't go out of your way to earn it, as you did here, via disingenuity. It's simple, really.
Bill Snedden: "You took OB to task for supposedly not teaching his children his real belief, but instead giving them some feel-good answer. The point of my reply was that his answer isn't just "feel-good"...it's true. Our bodies *do* return to the earth. It rots and the physical material disperses into the environment."
Please! If you want to misrepresent the exchange, you'll have to try it with someone else. I mean, good night! I was right here.
I'll remind you again of what I said to One Brow (and which you quoted): Ilíon: "So, rather than teach them what you believe to be the true answer to the question you know they are asking, you give them some fluffy mystery-mongering distraction?"
When children ask: "What happens when you die?" they are not asking: "What will happen to my corpse when I die?" Rather, they are asking: "What will happen to *me* when I die? What will happen to the 'self,' to the 'identity,' to the 'mind,' to the '*I*' that is me, when I die?"
The *only* answer consistent with atheism which an 'atheist' can give to the question being asked is: "When you die, you will cease to exist. The end."
Bill Snedden: "You took OB to task for supposedly not teaching his children his real belief, but instead giving them some feel-good answer."
I pointed out to One Brow that he's not telling his children what he believes to be the truth (albeit that his belief is actually false), and therefore he is lying to them. It's not that what he's telling them is not his comple set of beliefs which makes what he's telling them a lie; it's that the answer he's giving to the question he *knows* they're asking is directly contrary to what he believes to be true.
He *knows* that his children will trust that Daddy is answering the question they are asking. He *knows* that the answer he is giving implies (and especially to a child, for children are not yet subtle to see that the question he is answering is not the question they asked) that the 'self' continues to exist after biological death.
Bill Snedden: "The point of my reply was that his answer isn't just "feel-good"...it's true."
The point of your reply was to engage in disingenuity. And, if you haven't figured it out yet, I generally reply to disingenuousness with "snark."
Bill Snedden: "So, if I have in fact misread your meaning, what did you actually mean?"
You could have *read* what I wrote: you're an adult, you appear to be literate in English.
ilion: For someone who claims to avoid projecting, you certainly seem to be doing a lot of it. You claim I'm being disingenuous, but there's no way you could know such a thing unless you were me, your ability to draw "rational/logical inferences" notwithstanding (especially as, in this case, they were drawn incorrectly).
And as with me, so with OB. To someone who believes that the "I" is a type of illusion, the matter that comprises the brain IS the identity, the mind, everything that makes us who we are. It's certainly within the realm of possibility that this is what OB meant. But you apparently couldn't be bothered to clarify; you just rained down the snark.
And this statement: "The *only* answer consistent with atheism which an 'atheist' can give to the question being asked is: 'When you die, you will cease to exist. The end.'" is simply false. Taoism and Buddhism are both non-theistic belief systems (in the sense of Western theism) and that statement does not apply to either. Neither is an afterlife of some sort necessarily inconsistent with atheism. The only thing inconsistent with atheism is theism, therefore an atheist may consistently give all kinds of different answers including, "I don't know." or "go ask your mother."
Victor: my apologies for clogging the commentary on your post.
So, rather than teach them what you believe to be the true answer to the question you know they are asking, you give them some fluffy mystery-mongering distraction?
Actually, the answer that I give is what I believe to be the true answer, put in a manner they can understand and that I think is age-appropriate. After all, rotting is the process of having a body be re-integrated into the rest of the environment. The roots of the tree do indeed feed off of some of the decomposed parts of the fish, and incorporate those parts into the tree itself.
That you consider such an obvious truth to be "some fluffy mystery-mongering distraction" is a curious reaction. Why did you happen to see mystery in a statement about basic chemistry?
But, also consider what this answer may say about you: do you *really* believe the worldview you assert?
Yes.
I rather doubt that you really do (few 'atheists' do actually believe atheism and its logical entailments).
Feel free to ask concerning (on my blog, if you are worried about not polluting Dr. Reppert's, or here if he has no objection). However, I doubt we will agree on every logical entailment of even materialism, much less the virtually non-descriptive term atheism. No doubt this will at some point be to various premises that you accept and I reject, which are not currently established.
When children ask: "What happens when you die?" they are not asking: "What will happen to my corpse when I die?"
Actually, what most young children are asking with *that* question is if they will be safe. They are looking for reassurance, not intellectual information. So when they ask about themself (or me) dying, I usually tell them that they will be alive for a long time.
Rather, they are asking: "What will happen to *me* when I die? What will happen to the 'self,' to the 'identity,' to the 'mind,' to the '*I*' that is me, when I die?"
I don't know many 7 or 9 year olds who have an abstract concept of what a "self" is.
The *only* answer consistent with atheism which an 'atheist' can give to the question being asked is: "When you die, you will cease to exist. The end."
Except, everything that I am, they are, or the fish was continues. The physical parts get reused, the mental parts have left their impact in the memories of others. So, I cease as an integrated being, but I also continue.
I pointed out to One Brow that he's not telling his children what he believes to be the truth (albeit that his belief is actually false),
Another Christian decides to tell me what I believe. How dull.
and therefore he is lying to them. It's not that what he's telling them is not his comple set of beliefs which makes what he's telling them a lie; it's that the answer he's giving to the question he *knows* they're asking is directly contrary to what he believes to be true.
Except, it isn't.
He *knows* that his children will trust that Daddy is answering the question they are asking.
I also know the question they are asking better than you.
He *knows* that the answer he is giving implies (and especially to a child, for children are not yet subtle to see that the question he is answering is not the question they asked) that the 'self' continues to exist after biological death.
Since I think everything that we actually are does continue (in a disintergrated fashion), why would I say otherwise simply to conform to your view of how I am supposed to understand things?
@OneBrow:
"Except, everything that I am, they are, or the fish was continues. The physical parts get reused, the mental parts have left their impact in the memories of others. So, I cease as an integrated being, but I also continue."
So you are asserting:
(1) That you, OneBrow, and by extension every human being, is the bundle of atoms that constitute your body (discounting for now the addition of causal relationships such as "the impact of memories on others").
(2) That in as much this bundle of atoms continues to exist, you, and by extension every human being, continues to exist.
You have not explained in what this mode of existence consists exactly. But a few conclusions can be drawn from this: you assent to some sort of bizarre mereological essentialism, from which the following conclusions flow:
(1) Since you are the atoms that make you up and that in the measure that these atoms continue to exist, it follows that every atom that ever entered your body is also part of the entity known as OneBrow.
(2) From (1) it follows that the entity called OneBrow does not have a delimited spatial existence; since atoms that were in the make up of OneBrow are now in other places of the Earth (say in a tree, in the ground or in the atmosphere). If an atom formerly in the makeup of the entity known as OneBrow had the "misfortune" to escape Earth's gravity, then we can say that the entity known as OneBrow is now currently floating in space.
(3) From (1) it also follows that OneBrow has no temporal limits; given that he is the atoms that make him up and that his atoms existed long before the entity known as OneBrow ever graced the Earth, it follows that OneBrow existed long before the entity known as OneBrow ever graced the Earth.
(4) Since what applies to OneBrow applies to all human beings, it follows not only that human beings have no spacial delimitations, they are extended in space and are part of other entities, and there is no clear separation between two human beings since they can have "swapped" atoms that formerly belonged to each other. They also have no time delimitations in the sense that they are co-eternal with the universe, since the matter and energy that is or ever was the make up of OneBrow is coeternal with the universe (by conservation of matter and energy).
As an avid reader of the ancient Gnostic heresies, I find that the modern crop of atheists, while lacking the imaginative power of a Valentinus, do offer such bizarre theories that for their sheer entertainment value it is worth analyzing.
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