Do atheists indocrinate their children into their belief system?

[sowhatifit'sdark]

If not hearsay, where did it come from ? Experiences don't explain and attribute themselves, normally. Everyone has experiences. What they believe in consequence is culture mediated.

I'm glad to hear you think so, but there is little reason to focus this on theists. All of us base most of our beliefs on hearsay. Hearsay that fits (and likely creates or selectively edits) what we experience.

We weren't bothering about the names.
We find in practice their experience is not merely amended, but identified, by the local religion. For example: But if your sense that it was an entity that pushed you down, rather than an epileptic fit, depends completely on a stranger's account of what the stranger did not even witness, but heard themselves from others, I will consider evidence - and if it looks like a fit, rather than an assault, I will keep in mind that the stranger's account - and therefore your own - was hearsay.

Do you see what you did? You identified with a third party. If you were the person knocked down you might take on the idea that the pusher was a male, but you damn well know that someone pushed you down and you would not take your own belief as hearsay. I think it is very important you consider the jump you made in the way you used that example. You went to a third party. For the one knocked down their belief is based on vastly more than hearsay. God, in this case, may not be male, but someone pushed them down.

That is not the common form of the argument from sincerity, no. Commonly, they are defending their own belief from what they regard as too casual dismissal or disrespect, and claiming that it should be taken very, very seriously, and receive lots of respect and deference in its content, because they and all these other sacrificing people are sincere. Commonly, they are claiming (in various ways) that the sincerity and strengh of their beliefs makes them more likely to be true - not so much that I should believe, but that I should acknowledge the much greater plausibility so created.

Well, you start this paragraph in basic agreement with me. The fact is that in terms of belief they are not expecting you to believe because of their experiences or conviction. Period.

 

[sowhatifit'sdark]

Thats a cultural divide, service is the highest form of devotion there is.

To serve selflessly without expectation of reward or gratitude is an achievement of the spirit.

Blah, blah. I don't want that noble shit from those around me.
Of course I am not expecting returns. If my wife gets tapped by a car and falls down, I rush over to her and help her up. I do not say 'REmember to put this on the list of things I did for you.'

If a third party walked up to us and said 'Oh, look how wonderful how he served you.' We would both look at them like they were an idiot. And the same if I spent two weeks caring for my wife when she is sick. Or whatever.

I really think there is something sick about this notion of service, it has that smack of self-sacrificial pride about it

and

SAM

it is hardly restricted to a specific culture or set of cultures and it is all over Western religions

or JFK's

Ask not what your country can do for you, etc.

I do not need that word to do the same things.

Ugh. It makes me sick just thinking about it.

It's like things I would do naturally suddenly become signs of nobility or spirituality. Makes me want to vomit. I would not want that attitude from those I love. And I don't get it.

They do, however, care for me and help me and love me.

 

[Repo Man]

And your point is...?

That it it isn't really "their" version at all. Objective reality doesn't belong to atheists. Unless you consider logic and reason indoctrination.

 

[(Q)]

Thats exactly what believing is...merely a choice.

Unless the belief was indoctrinated, then it was never a choice.

 

[Varda]

You would be teaching them a life of silent despair.
And then they would take guns, shoot other people and themselves.

There are things that must be believed dogmatically, if the person is to survive. Like believing about oneself that one is a worthy person and has the right to live.

ignorance

 

[Varda]

All rhetoric. Not a single athiest here with theist children.

that's because children who are taught to think for themselves tend to pick the logical option

 

[S.A.M.]

that's because children who are taught to think for themselves tend to pick the logical option

Of course, nothing to do with their parents not believing in God.

 

[S.A.M.]

You would be teaching them a life of silent despair.
And then they would take guns, shoot other people and themselves.

There are things that must be believed dogmatically, if the person is to survive. Like believing about oneself that one is a worthy person and has the right to live.

It could also go the other way. Think they are better than everyone else and consider other people stupid and delusional. This would be followed by undermining the choices offered by these stupid people and then by imposing your own dogma for living on them, through re-education or "I am God" ideologies.

 

[Varda]

Of course, nothing to do with their parents not believing in God.

of course it does

but I'm sure you can tell the difference between that, and indoctrination

 

[Varda]

It could also go the other way. Think they are better than everyone else and consider other people stupid and delusional. This would be followed by undermining the choices offered by these stupid people and then by imposing your own dogma for living on them, through re-education or "I am God" ideologies.

oooor, it could go a third way and create nice, perfectly normal people


awful generalizations on your part

 

[greenberg]

oooor, it could go a third way and create nice, perfectly normal people

If by "normal" and "nice" you mean neurotic, "unhappy in the common way" as Freud would have it.

 

[Roman]

You would be teaching them a life of silent despair.
And then they would take guns, shoot other people and themselves.

There are things that must be believed dogmatically, if the person is to survive. Like believing about oneself that one is a worthy person and has the right to live.

Yeah, it's true.
I was raised like Repo Man would raised his kids, and it's been a life of misery. I read Neitzshce every day and weep silently. Which is a bummer, because it makes my eyeliner run.

Then I put on my trench coat and go shoot people and feel bad some more.

 

[greenberg]

Blah, blah. I don't want that noble shit from those around me.
...
I do not need that word to do the same things.

Ugh. It makes me sick just thinking about it.

It's like things I would do naturally suddenly become signs of nobility or spirituality. Makes me want to vomit. I would not want that attitude from those I love. And I don't get it.

I can relate to this very well. I cringe when I hear such fancy words coming from someone I thought was a friend.

One reason for this distaste for fancy words for everyday things might have to do with the overjustification effect.

Although the overjustification effect is usually linked with material extrinsic motivation, the distaste for fancy words for everyday things might operate by a similar principle.

Greene, Sternberg and Lepper (1976) played mathematical games with schoolchildren, which the children seemed to enjoy. After a while, they started giving rewards for success. When they took away the rewards, the children quickly gave up playing the games.

The explanation was that the children had decided that they were playing for the reward, not for the fun.

http://changingminds.org/explanations/theories/overjustification.htm

Similarly, one enjoys being kind and loving, and expresses it in plain everyday words.
But when pressed to put it into fancy words, the once homely and familiar love and kindness are presented in an externalized manner (ie. it's not really your language), as something foreign - and one loses interest in it, because it's made external, foreign.


But then again, some people simply are used to use big, fancy words.

 

[Varda]

If by "normal" and "nice" you mean neurotic, "unhappy in the common way" as Freud would have it.

how are you going to back this up?

can you prove a correlation between secular education and... "despair" ?

 

[Roman]

Does it matter? All she has to do is believe, and that's good enough for her. If she had to present evidence, she may sink into despair!

 

[Roman]

Or shoot someone!

 

[Roman]

Or heroin!

 

[Varda]

I'm pretty sure a person can learn to be respectful without being raised in "church".
And I'm pretty sure that love, not brainwashing, is what children need to become nice and normal.

 

[Roman]

And discipline.

 

[lightgigantic]

Blah, blah. I don't want that noble shit from those around me.
Of course I am not expecting returns. If my wife gets tapped by a car and falls down, I rush over to her and help her up. I do not say 'REmember to put this on the list of things I did for you.'

If a third party walked up to us and said 'Oh, look how wonderful how he served you.' We would both look at them like they were an idiot. And the same if I spent two weeks caring for my wife when she is sick. Or whatever.

I really think there is something sick about this notion of service, it has that smack of self-sacrificial pride about it

and

SAM

it is hardly restricted to a specific culture or set of cultures and it is all over Western religions

or JFK's

Ask not what your country can do for you, etc.

I do not need that word to do the same things.

Ugh. It makes me sick just thinking about it.

It's like things I would do naturally suddenly become signs of nobility or spirituality. Makes me want to vomit. I would not want that attitude from those I love. And I don't get it.

They do, however, care for me and help me and love me.

so you can't conceive of anything that could possibly transpire which would make you divorce your partner or your partner divorce you?
IOW it doesn't take too much imagination to see the limits of one's "service attitude" to another in this world.
I only mention this to indicate the fallibility of material relationships (they are inherently temporary/limited)