SnakeLord, maybe you're missing what I mean by the word 'belief', because you seem to take it to mean something outlandish or ridiculous. So I am chalking up our impasse to a communication failure. The onus is on me to make myself clearer.
By belief, I mean anything that is held to be true. Think of it in an epistemological sense. Indoctrination must occur with any child simply for the fact that he or she is born without knowledge and without a means of qualifying the claims of others. Until one becomes experienced with critical thinking, one appeals to authority for facts. It is inevitable, then, that this tendency to appeal to authority, this "epistemic naivete," will be exploited. For the child, it is impossible to tell for sure whether what he is being told is true.
I'm sure you feel a responsibility to not betray your daughter's trust in your word. Therefore you teach her things that you believe to be true. It is this same responsibility which drives the religious to indoctrinate their children with a belief in God. The two processes are in fact one and the same. I imagine your primary objection to this will be your assertion that your beliefs actually are true, but this ignores the possibility that you could be wrong about something. Epistemologically, the vast majority of things taught to any child go equally unjustified.
Back to group cohesion. It's not that difficult to see how, in a religious community or family, religion plays a major factor in gluing the group together. A Jew among devout Catholics will have that much less in common. This doesn't mean that a child brought up with a different religion (or none at all) than the local norm will have no friends. I actually never claimed that; you assumed that I meant to imply it.* It does, however, pose a social disadvantage, amplified when a common religion really is central to the entire community (which is why I thought the example of the tribe would starkly illustrate the mechanics of it). Modern society is secular, so it poses much, much less of a disadvantage than it used to. But even without the social impetus that has historically preserved the religions of the world, belief alone is enough to perpetuate itself.
The central question is whether it is wrong to impart an unjustified worldview, e.g. religious beliefs, unto a child. A state, especially in secular society, has no business doing such a thing. However, for a parent, some indoctrination is natural, inevitable, and generally good. Considering a child hasn't got the proper tools to find most things out for himself, he needs the parent to be a factual authority to give him a reliable foundation of knowledge. It is one of the crucial functions of parenting.
* It was entirely my fault for appearing to defend a claim I didn't make by not stopping to correct you on my premise. Sorry about that.
By belief, I mean anything that is held to be true. Think of it in an epistemological sense. Indoctrination must occur with any child simply for the fact that he or she is born without knowledge and without a means of qualifying the claims of others. Until one becomes experienced with critical thinking, one appeals to authority for facts. It is inevitable, then, that this tendency to appeal to authority, this "epistemic naivete," will be exploited. For the child, it is impossible to tell for sure whether what he is being told is true.
I'm sure you feel a responsibility to not betray your daughter's trust in your word. Therefore you teach her things that you believe to be true. It is this same responsibility which drives the religious to indoctrinate their children with a belief in God. The two processes are in fact one and the same. I imagine your primary objection to this will be your assertion that your beliefs actually are true, but this ignores the possibility that you could be wrong about something. Epistemologically, the vast majority of things taught to any child go equally unjustified.
Back to group cohesion. It's not that difficult to see how, in a religious community or family, religion plays a major factor in gluing the group together. A Jew among devout Catholics will have that much less in common. This doesn't mean that a child brought up with a different religion (or none at all) than the local norm will have no friends. I actually never claimed that; you assumed that I meant to imply it.* It does, however, pose a social disadvantage, amplified when a common religion really is central to the entire community (which is why I thought the example of the tribe would starkly illustrate the mechanics of it). Modern society is secular, so it poses much, much less of a disadvantage than it used to. But even without the social impetus that has historically preserved the religions of the world, belief alone is enough to perpetuate itself.
The central question is whether it is wrong to impart an unjustified worldview, e.g. religious beliefs, unto a child. A state, especially in secular society, has no business doing such a thing. However, for a parent, some indoctrination is natural, inevitable, and generally good. Considering a child hasn't got the proper tools to find most things out for himself, he needs the parent to be a factual authority to give him a reliable foundation of knowledge. It is one of the crucial functions of parenting.
* It was entirely my fault for appearing to defend a claim I didn't make by not stopping to correct you on my premise. Sorry about that.
