Indoctrination: The Fear

Being a good, law abiding citizen I have never been to prison. I don't think I'd ever like to go either. It seems like a dismal place that doesn't just take away one's freedom, but crushes their very soul literally obliterating all hopes and dreams. One word comes to mind when picturing the cold grey walls in a prison cell: institutionalized. And, when that eerie word creeps into my mind, a very moving film follows in my trail of thought. Shaw shank Redemption tells the story of a bank accountant falsely convicted of murdering his wife. It describes his time in prison, and of course, his heroic yet very rebel act in escaping from incarceration while taking the law into his own hands. It's a great movie in number of even greater ways. However, it isn't necessarily the protagonist that comes to mind when I recall the film. It's the librarian in the prison named Brooks Hatlen. The "old man" had been a member of the prison population for over 42 years when his parole finally came up and he was "set free". He bids farewell to the last group of friends he made during his strenuous stay there and heads out into world to find a job bagging groceries. Shortly after, Brooks hangs himself. On the surface it is the most confusing act one can take about after being granted their freedom back. However, if you dig a little deeper you can see that, after such a long time of confinement one develops a certain feeling of appreciation for their surroundings and grows comforted by the day to day schedule they are engrossed in. Sometimes it really is hard to change something when it literally becomes your life and everything about it.

Call me crazy, but there just might something in this admittedly extreme comparison between the dynamics of religion and prison life. Anyone will tell you that the way children are raised will greatly influence who they will become, what they will do and even how they will do it. This is one of the main facets of religion that I tend to strongly dislike; the indoctrination of young minds. I could even go as far as to say it's a form of brainwashing. I won’t slam on Christianity like I am usually inclined to do because every religion is guilty of this "sin". When you go about telling a child what to believe, you steal any and all forms of logic and objective reasoning from them. It goes without saying, but those are two key tools needed to get by in today's world.

I remember a few weeks ago watching the documentary series "30 days" by Morgan Spurlock. On that particular episode a women with atheistic convictions was sent to live with a Christian family in the hopes of breaking some barriers that exist in today's society by forcing the two groups to learn about one another. I won’t go into the details of the episode (although I strongly urge anyone interested in watching the episode) as only the beginning of it concerns this post. Before the women left her family to join her Christian hosts, the show filmed her having one last dinner with her family and also documented the last dinner the host family was having. Obviously, the Christian family said grace and played up to the camera while talking about Jesus and all that good stuff with their children. This didn't astound me as am cognizant of the indoctrination that occurs within religion. What amazed me was the so called "free thinking" atheist family was discussing the fact that there is no God to their 3 year old toddler! This blew me away in ways mere words will fail to describe. It sickened me. No child should have their parents' convictions forced down their throats at an age they cannot possibly comprehend such things as a God and the complexities of religion. A kid should be busy playing with Legos and being mischievous, not learning that there is no god or that if you don’t ascribe to calling him a particular name you will not be saved. There is something fundamentally wrong with this.

Best selling atheist author Richard Dawkins made a great point in his book "The God Delusion" when highlighting this phenomenon. He discussed the idea of labeling children with such terms as "Christian child" or "Muslim child". To me, it seems terribly mistaken to figuratively give each and every kid on Earth a name tag with their name, favorite color, whether they like Barney and, not neglecting the all important one, which god they supposedly adhere to! Think about it this way; minors, that is any person under the age of 18, aren't allowed to vote for the obvious reason that their minds aren't matured enough to comprehend such important matters as healthcare, taxes and going to war. But, what about most important issue of all: God! How can a minor be possibly able to decided what they believe about god if they can't decide whether Obama's healthcare reform was a good idea or not!? This troubles me greatly because I think there is strong evidence to indicate that it has harmed society greatly.

When someone mentions the word "hell", the first things that usually come to mind are a butt naked man with red skin and a goatee wielding a pitchfork surrounded by molten lava, fire and his demons, who all probably resemble him somewhat. To me, it's comical. For most people it is something obviously fashioned together by popular culture, such as television and the general media, and a couple religious verses here and there. But to children, it is the darkest of dark where the worst people of all go because they didn't listen to Jesus or Allah. I can't imagine what my current perception would be had I been coerced into contemplating the depths of hell an early age. The sad fact is that too many children today are forced to deal with that and comprehend that vile place created ever so beautifully by the master “story tellers” of religion. I believe it is terribly wrong and even "evil" to some extent to scare a child, willingly or otherwise, into a certain realm of belief. Apart from prematurely stealing the innocence I believe we should cherish and nurture for as long as society will allow, it distorts a person's reasoning in later life when they are forced to deal with the finer aspects of god and religion. Literally scaring a person into believing something will make them defend that particular conviction not because it necessarily makes sense to the logic God himself provided us, and most likely wants us to use, but because it is the one thing they have been "suffocated" by from as early as the time mommy told them about Satan and what he does to the "bad little boys and girls".

I remember hearing on a television documentary series that religion was, in all literal senses, the "enemy of logic and rationality". I also distinctly recall thinking that was a very bold and rather extreme statement for one to propose. Then I began debating some of the issues that seemed to stick out for me about religion in hopes of finding some sort of answer or explanation. Needless to say, for most of these issues, there was none. All I encountered was a bombardment of different interpretations by different denominations and, my personal favorite, the argument of context. I was astounded to find that so many people had to resort to such measures to defend what they believed. Surly, I pondered; there must be something more concrete and factual than this? There wasn't, or has not been yet. This was when I finally understood what that apparently extreme statement was trying to convey; once you indoctrinate a person into one, fixed set of beliefs, they won’t ever defend what they intuitively grasp by nature, but rather what they have been "trained" to adhere to. For example, a Muslim or a Christian will openly claim that they are prepared to defend anything in the Koran or Bible, even if they have not heard what it is yet, just because it is in their holy book. Normal reasoning and common sense must bow down before that particular person's "word of god". This goes back to the point I have tried to bring fourth in the blog as often as possible: in a world where everyone knows they possess the ultimate truth and all other possibilities are utterly mistaken, we will arrive at every possible outcome except "truth", all the while parading our arrogance to the world no matter how powerful the contradictory evidence may be.

Now, I would be foolish to claim that every religious person is this way. It's a matter of fact that there do exist, however small in number, a certain amount of open minded people who adhere to some sort of religion or other but do not make any claim to ultimate truth and inerrancy in their textual doctrine, but simply believe. This, I have no problem with. This is a display of grace and willingness to cooperate with other human beings and scientific evidence in arriving as close to "truth" as the big Guy in the sky will allow. I have no problem with calling God "Jesus" or "Allah" or "Buddha", but when one goes as far as invalidating everyone else's beliefs and claiming they know it all, that is when the world is faced with a problem. I don't see anything wrong with the idea that all the religions in the world are attempting to describe the same God, our creator. After all, don't they all claim he is "indescribable"!?

If all religions are as confidant in their truthfulness as they would proclaim, then why can't we spare the children of Earth the pain of indoctrination? I mean, if a religious family really does believe they have the ultimate truth, why not let their new born find it on their own? This is where the problem lies. All these people of faith seem to have everything but that. They don’t trust that a normal, rational and logical adult will arrive to the conclusions they have without "a little helping hand". Now, I’m sure many believers will cite "the great number of people who have converted to their way of thinking in adult life". To this I refer them to the equally great number that has converted away. All that proves is the message I brought forth in an earlier blog which said that we all need a father figure or protector in our lives and are willing to believe any number of theories or absurdities to gain that comfort. Indoctrination, as I have come to discover from talking and debating with religious people, is a tool used by religion to "boost membership" and keep everyone believing that faith has to be blind.