[HeavyDluxe]

Just a quick comment here... I get frustrated at these conversations because we fail to see the indoctrination that lies on *both* sides.

For example, I choose to indoctrinate my kids into a rigorously religious mindset/worldview. I teach them, both in lesson and modeling, a particular way of viewing the world and processing problems. They are, at least as much as we can enforce, made to approach the world through a particular set of presuppositions.

However, if I were a non-religious, free-thinking type I'd be no less ideological. Think about it, I still am indoctrinating my kids into a particular worldview. The presuppositions are obviously vastly different, but the bottom line is the same: "We Who-ze-faces view/approach the world this way."

So, it's worth noting that the A/B distinction here is a bit of a straw man.

Sincerely,
The resident fundie, homeschool brainwasher and family

[blackshoe]

beatrix45, on Dec 30 2007, 07:46 AM, said:

Maintenance of racial purity is too important to be left to outsiders.

Oh, certainly. No one should teach their children, or allow them to be taught, to be other than human.

[kenberg]

sceptic, on Dec 30 2007, 12:22 PM, said:

Quote

You apparently would regard it as a very bad thing if your kids grew up religious

Not sure how you come to that assumption

Sorry if I am jumping to conclusions but the fact that you keep referring to religion as all that crap and simultaneously discussing religion and racism was, I thought, a clue. But then I am always misguessing queens also.

[Al_U_Card]

Completely
Realistic
And
Practical
?

[barmar]

EricK, on Dec 30 2007, 05:26 AM, said:

Teaching kids just one religious or one political view as if it were the correct one might be called "brainwashing", but teaching them the current scientific consensus (and why it is the consensus) can hardly be considered the same thing. If you use the same word for both then the language becomes next to useless.

The point I've been trying to make is that the line is not so black and white. If religion is correct, then teaching kids scientific theories that disagree with the religious viewpoints would be "brainwashing". The difference between teaching and brainwashing is all in your point of view about the particular subject being taught.

To a KKK member, all those bleeding-heart liberals in the ACLU are just a bunch of fools, the Black Panthers were a terrorist group, and it was clearly their duty to pass on this "truth" to their children (and anyone else they could get to listen to them). The concensus isn't always right -- there was a time when the concensus among highly educated people was that the Earth was the center of the universe.

[EricK]

kenrexford, on Dec 30 2007, 02:52 PM, said:

I find this humorous, EricK.

Don't brainwash your children to your own views.

To accomplish that, don't take them to listen to people who will lie to them and not admit that their views are wrong.

Instead, teach them about how the other group is wrong.

Use your own viewpoints as to what is true because your group has said that their truth is THE truth, as a concensus opinion of your group.

Cite your method of analysis as proof that your world view is internally consistent.

Really amazing.

I happen to agree with your conclusions, for the most part, as to what is TRUTH, but I find your analysis of "brainwashing or not brainwashing" humorous.

I don't think you are quite accurately reflecting my opinion.

I don't think an opinion is true because it is the consensus opinion; I think it is true based on the method that was used to arrive at the opinion. It just so happens, that for scientific ideas, that method will be sufficient to convince the majority and so will coincide with the consensus.

What is so annoying with most religious and political views is that the people who espouse them are quite content to use the scientific method when it comes to most other things, but as soon as that method leads to something which disagrees with their pet theories, they suddenly discard it. It is this incosistency which is evidence that they have, in some sense, been brainwashed.

[EricK]

barmar, on Dec 31 2007, 03:04 PM, said:

EricK, on Dec 30 2007, 05:26 AM, said:

Teaching kids just one religious or one political view as if it were the correct one might be called "brainwashing", but teaching them the current scientific consensus (and why it is the consensus) can hardly be considered the same thing. If you use the same word for both then the language becomes next to useless.

The point I've been trying to make is that the line is not so black and white. If religion is correct, then teaching kids scientific theories that disagree with the religious viewpoints would be "brainwashing". The difference between teaching and brainwashing is all in your point of view about the particular subject being taught.

To a KKK member, all those bleeding-heart liberals in the ACLU are just a bunch of fools, the Black Panthers were a terrorist group, and it was clearly their duty to pass on this "truth" to their children (and anyone else they could get to listen to them). The concensus isn't always right -- there was a time when the concensus among highly educated people was that the Earth was the center of the universe.

It's not a question of whether the something is true or not; it's more a question of how you arrived at that opinion, and what methods you use to perusade someone that they should hold those views.

You can brainwash someone into believing something that happens to be true, and conversely, you can persuade something of something which happens to be false without brainwashing them (if what evidence there is isn't quite conclusive).

[kenrexford]

Merely assuming that the world is governed by logic is an assumption that is not provable.

Sure, you can establish consistency of observations within the bubble, to a degree. However, all that does is to establish that your method of viewing the interior of the bubble is reliable, not that it is truth.

I know this is weird, but consider the concept behind "The Matrix." A computer-generated reality is internally consistent, because of programming rules, but not "real" in a sense. A person can pop in and out of the program and affect that artificial world in a way that is played out with internal consistency but by way of an external trigger.

Whatever caused the "Big Bang" is unknown, but it may well be an "external trigger." If a Big Bang is possible, resulting in a flow of what we consider "reality," why is implausible for a "lesser bang" to affect our reality?

Take a situation that might be described as a "miracle" by a believer, such as the parting of the red sea by the hand of God. The water sloshes around at the end. However, no explanation for its parting is possible. Nor is anything internally inconsistent a result, at least that we can measure. The water dries up. We assume, after the fact, that the conditions a posteriori were arrived at by conditions a priori, but we know so little about the conditions a priori that we cannot prove that assumption, at least with the knowledge that we have.

Now, if someone really did have a peek outside the bubble, or a message sent to them from outside the bubble, then how could we prove or disprove their claims while inside the bubble? We do not know the rules outside of the bubble, nor can we test anything outside of the bubble.

Suppose you wanted to reverse this thing. Suppose that you could download an artificial intelligence into an otherwise-functioning human with all intelligence wiped clean from the brain of the human, or perhaps never present (yet) in the human (an embryo, perhaps). Might you create an artificial world for that AI to develop in, with multiple AI's interacting? That artificial testing world might allow you to pick one or more AI's that suited you as prospective children. When you find one, after running the simulation, you download that AI into the brain of the developing embryo and have your child of choice. You of course create a fake myth within the system, to avoid a child freaking out when he is born into this new body in a new existence.

If we could, in theory, do this, then why not the other way?

[kenberg]

This is somewhat piggybacking on what KenR just said how assuming that the world is run logically is an assumption.

Let's take a specific example, the Virgin Birth.

You hardly need advanced scientific training to realize that virgins don't generally give birth. It's fundamental to many Christian belief structures that it happened. It was a miracle, or it was a Divine Intervention, or something on that order, but it happened. Since I don't, myself, believe that it did happen I may be misstating their view but I think I have it about right. One of my college professors (John Berryman) remarked: I don't believe in miracles but I have more respect for those who do than for those who are absolutely certain that they cannot happen.

I think that properly approaching this would, or at least could, defuse a lot of tension. No one, as far as I know, suggests that in medical school students be taught that the reproductive theory they are learning is only a theory and there should be equal time allotted for the theory of pregnancy by divine intervention. The doc may or may not believe in the Virgin Birth, that's his business, but he teaches the standard theory. So it can be with evolution. A person may believe that God created man. Perhaps by setting the evolution in motion, perhaps in other ways, but at any rate, God was somehow behind it all. This need not lead to demands that some spurious theory with, at best, little scientific merit be given prominent place in a biology curriculum.

In short: A person may believe in the Virgin Birth and in God and he need not give up his career in science. He should not try to represent his religious beliefs as scientific fact. Then we can all get along.

[blackshoe]

re: Virgin Birth. How long had Mary and Joseph been married at the time Jesus was born? How long was she pregnant? And how in the Hell did Mary convince Joseph to set aside his marital "right" to have sex with her?

I don't believe it either.

[kenberg]

blackshoe, on Dec 31 2007, 01:01 PM, said:

re: Virgin Birth. How long had Mary and Joseph been married at the time Jesus was born? How long was she pregnant? And how in the Hell did Mary convince Joseph to set aside his marital "right" to have sex with her?

I don't believe it either.

Removed

[pclayton]

Which reminds me, I heard a great one about a Hindu in a barbeque restaurant.

Can we just stfu about the religious jokes? It amazes me how people can be tolerant toward every sub-section of society, but Christians are somehow fair game.

[kenberg]

pclayton, on Dec 31 2007, 02:08 PM, said:

Which reminds me, I heard a great one about a Hindu in a barbeque restaurant.

Can we just stfu about the religious jokes? It amazes me how people can be tolerant toward every sub-section of society, but Christians are somehow fair game.

I apologize. I meant no ill, but I take your point. Still, it would test the limits of a guy's trust in his wife. I took it with that in mind. No offense intended.

[Al_U_Card]

Just replace Christian, Muslim or Hindi beliefs with Set, Osiris, Ra etc. Where is the difference? In what you make of it. They are all the same.

[kenberg]

No, I was wrong

[kenberg]

To say maybe one more word. My religious friends and I can share a joke and quickly correct bad feelings. We trust each other. That's not the same as an online comment that is picked up by folks I don't know at all.

My regrets, Phil.

[EricK]

kenrexford, on Dec 31 2007, 04:39 PM, said:

Merely assuming that the world is governed by logic is an assumption that is not provable.

True enough. But this can't lead you anywhere. If you accept the world is governed by logic then you can deduce things about the world. If you assume the world isn't governed by logic then ... nothing.

As I said in an earlier post, what annoys me is the use of logic most of the time, except when that would lead to their having to discard their pet theory.

[pclayton]

kenberg, on Dec 31 2007, 12:45 PM, said:

To say maybe one more word. My religious friends and I can share a joke and quickly correct bad feelings. We trust each other. That's not the same as an online comment that is picked up by folks I don't know at all.

My regrets, Phil.

No sweat.

[barmar]

EricK, on Dec 31 2007, 04:52 PM, said:

kenrexford, on Dec 31 2007, 04:39 PM, said:

Merely assuming that the world is governed by logic is an assumption that is not provable.

True enough. But this can't lead you anywhere. If you accept the world is governed by logic then you can deduce things about the world. If you assume the world isn't governed by logic then ... nothing.

As I said in an earlier post, what annoys me is the use of logic most of the time, except when that would lead to their having to discard their pet theory.

The problem is that religion is, by definition, not provable, it's based on faith. So if you're religious, you are essentially required to believe that there are things about the world that are beyond the reach of logic and the scientific method.

And not only do these things exist, many of them are some of the most important things in life, such as morality, purpose of living, etc. So how can you really expect a devout person to stick only to the scientific concensus when deciding how to raise their children?

This is what makes it so pernicious. If you're religious, you practically can't help trying to pass it on. And most kids will accept the transfer. This is why religion is one of the most successful memes in the memetic pool (there's also a conjecture that we're genetically predisposed to accept religion -- I've mention the justifications for this over in the other thread about religion).

However, as you point out, even religious people will use logic when it serves their purposes. If there were no rules to life and the world, nothing would make sense and it would be hard to live. Also, it's hard to argue with success -- scientists have managed to build lots of devices that work, so there must be something to what they're doing. They just argue that it's not the only source of knowledge about the world -- religion provides a second source. And when they conflict, religion holds the trump cards (oops, we're not supposed to talk bridge here, are we?).

[EricK]

barmar, on Jan 1 2008, 06:47 PM, said:

However, as you point out, even religious people will use logic when it serves their purposes. If there were no rules to life and the world, nothing would make sense and it would be hard to live. Also, it's hard to argue with success -- scientists have managed to build lots of devices that work, so there must be something to what they're doing. They just argue that it's not the only source of knowledge about the world -- religion provides a second source. And when they conflict, religion holds the trump cards (oops, we're not supposed to talk bridge here, are we?).

Indeed they do say they have an alternative source of knowledge. The trouble with their alternative method of arriving at what they would claim to be truths is that it is functionally equivalent to the methods of rival religions which arrive at rival truths. So it is clear that their's is not a method which arrives at truths after all.