I thought this was interesting from Gregg Easterbrook's review of Richard Dawkins' book "The God Delusion" on beliefnet:
Let me offer a point on which The God Delusion hits the bull's-eye, then close with two on which the book seems to land well wide of the mark. I agree with the chapter about the way religion is taught to the young. Adults who are themselves full of doubt regarding the claims of faith routinely teach biblical stories and ideas to children as facts. The God Delusion is right to denounce this. Children are "natural teleologians," Dawkins says, wanting everything to have a purpose--wanting to believe that clouds exist so flowers will get rain. Teaching them religion as if its claims about the past were undisputed exploits the child's unformed power of critical thinking, and lessens the value of any future spiritual beliefs. It's ridiculous to teach children the story of the Loaves and Fishes, or any such item, as history, though it might be. Children should be taught, "This is what scripture says about our past, and whether this true is one of the big questions of life. You must decide for yourself whether you will believe these claims."
I've heard other non-believers (like Bill Maher) make this point: that children are basically brain-washed into religion. And it's true, we do indoctrinate our children...train them from a young age and that's a good thing. And of course, there are also plenty of Christians who came to Christ as adults without the benefit of having their impressionable young minds molded. But I'm intrigued by the suggestion that, at some point, there's room for a more honest and mature conversation between parent and child where we can admit that we do have doubts...that we believe and want God to help our unbelief.
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Comments
re: Big Questions of Life
We do teach our children what we feel is the truth. This is true of all religions (I would even include atheists). If they tell their child their is no God, it is also impressed upon them at a young age.
re: Big Questions of Life
If you believe that the miracle of the loaves and fishes is just a story, then how could you ever believe the virgin birth let alone the resurrection or the diety of Christ. The basis of christianity is faith. If you believe it is all made up stories, then you don't believe. So, why then would you even bother to perpetuate a myth by handing the "stories" down to your children. Teaching them the truth is not exploiting their unformed power of critical thinking - it is giving them the key to eternal life.
re: Big Questions of Life
I agree that the approach that some people take of dismissing miracles and other stories of the Bible while still claiming faith in the God of the Bible makes no sense. That's not the point Easterbrook was making, that it is "just a story"...notice the "though it might be" caveat regarding the historicity of the story.It's an aspect of the parent/child relationship regarding the passing on of faith from one generation to the next that I hadn't thought about before but find interesting. I'm pretty sure that most all adults have some measure of doubt that goes along with their measure of faith, yet I suspect that this is rarely acknowledged between them and their children. I don't think my parents have ever done so with me. I wonder, then, if as a child matures and experiences some doubt, as he naturally will, if he is more likely to take the path of doubt rather than faith because he doesn't know that even folks who have strong faith also have some doubt. Just wondering.
re: Big Questions of Life
Maybe your parents didn't have any doubts that's why they didn't mention them to you.
re: Big Questions of Life
Maybe we don't mean the same thing by "having doubts" or maybe I'm off-base regarding the typical experience of most believers...but I'm pretty sure that most people, at least at some point in their Christian walk, experience some uncertainties about exactly what they believe, experience some amount of doubt, entertain the possibility that what they believe may not be true.
re: Big Questions of Life
No one has perfect faith (if we did we could move mountains). Therefore that implies everyone has some amount of uncertainty, wonder, or "doubt". If we knew for certain that everything was true then there would be no need for "faith" because we would have "proof". I think the first comment said it right..."we do teach our children what we FEEL is true". The article is stressing the importance of acknowledging that we believe the Bible because we have faith, not because we know beyond a doubt that its true.
re: Big Questions of Life
The article isn't talking about perfect faith. The article states that Bible stories should be taught to children as "stories" and they decide for themselves if they are true. If you doubt the truth of the loaves and fishes as just a story or illustration, how can you believe anything else in the Bible. Parents would do a great disservice to their children if they teach them things that they themselves don't believe. Children know when parents are not sincere.
re: Big Questions of Life
Lisa wasn't saying the article was talking about perfect faith. She was supporting my claim that everyone has some level of doubt.There is room for disagreement, I think, regarding what the article is actually advocating. It does argue against teaching Biblical stories as "facts" or "history," but I don't think the article is actually advocating that parents teach their children something they don't personally believe. I'm sure some people do that, but that isn't what we're discussing.The article suggests that parents should teach their children the Biblical "stories" ("stories" in the sense of "an account of incidents or events" believed to be historical by the parent but difficult to establish as history because of their miraculous nature and because of their setting in the far distant past with no independent corroboration of their miraculous claims, not "stories" in the sense of "a fictional narrative shorter than a novel") while being straightforward about the fact that the parent believes the story to be true but that the child must ultimately decide for himself.I'm not advocating anything at this point, but I'm interested in this idea. Regardless, parents teaching stories and children deciding if they believe them is what actually happens in reality. The article is advocating an explicit dialogue between parent and child acknowledging that reality. I find that interesting.