Disabling the Religious Replicators
Part One
Note: This is a continuation from the page Bad
Religion - Can It Be Stopped?
Religious replicators are covered here: Natural
Selection in the Viral Spread of Religion.
How do we stop religion from spreading further and causing
more damage? By understanding the religious replicators, the
ideological replication strategies which keep religious faith
alive. See how they work, and we can find ways to disable them
or diminish their effect.
Replication Strategy: High Birth Rates
A high birth rate among the faithful helps spread religion.
We might wish that those with more rational ideas would start
having many children, while the religious slow their rate of
reproduction, but this isn't likely. What we can do though, is
expose children to better ideas, so that the religious nonsense
is not carried on to the next generation.
The idea of purposefully countering the religion of children's
parents may seem shocking at first, but let's look at it closely.
Imagine parents who taught their children sugar is health food,
bleeding is still the best medical treatment, and red is green.
We might not take the children from the home for such bad parenting,
we but certainly would not feel obliged to perpetuate these lies
in the classroom. We would contradict them with the truth. Why
do religious beliefs which are clearly wrong deserve any different
treatment?
They don't. And of course, we do teach children about evolution,
archeology, paleontology and other things that are offensive
to the fantasies of the religious. But what about teaching epistemology?
Why not encourage the discussion of questions such as "What
is knowledge?", "How is knowledge acquired?",
and "What do people know?"
Any rational person, for example, can agree that observation,
empirical evidence and logic are better means than faith for
determining what to believe. Let's look at two simple examples
to understand this more clearly.
Suppose a man's religious faith teaches him that sickness
is caused by "evil spirits" or spells cast by Satan
worshipers. Because of his belief, he seeks out the "witches"
who caused the disease, and kills them after extracting a confession
through torture. In the past, this seemed like a reasonable belief
to many people. But it didn't do much to stop illness.
Eventually a more scientific man observes the spread of illness,
notices that washing hands seems to stop the spread, and develops
the germ theory. Others eventually even identify germs under
a microscope. This man believes that germs cause illness, and
teaches how to prevent them with good hygiene.
Now, which man's beliefs are more in line with reality, and
therefore more useful to human life? The second man's ideas are
clearly superior, but why? This is the important point.
They are superior because they are based on honest observation
and evidence. Also, like most scientists, he would alter his
beliefs if new evidence suggested better explanations, an approach
which keeps our knowledge growing and prevents us getting stuck
with less useful ideas and theories. This, unfortunately, is
an approach which is forbidden by religious faith, at least for
anything related to religious dogma.
Why, when this is so clear, can't we teach this clear and
honest and truthful thinking to children? We can. We can justifiably
show the danger of faith in the classroom and teach the value
of reason. It is the right thing to do.
A more specific recommendation? We might use stories. For
example, one in which the man who tries to accomplish something
based on "silly faith" (no need to attack specific
religions) fails, while the rational man reaches his goal. Older
children can be taught more directly the value of evidence and
the dangers of belief which is based on faith.
That parents would object so strongly to this approach is
a testament to the frailty of the ideas they teach their children.
They would not fear their children being exposed to new ideas
if they were certain that their own religious ones could compete.
Since the value of faith itself would be clearly challenged,
children might start to trust their own minds, which surely would
be devastating to religions.
Continues here... Wishful
Thinking |
