A colleague of mine gave me some really thoughtful feedback on my recent post, Should You Teach Religion to Your Kids? Please see below for part of our exchange (his comments are in blue).
“You draw a parallel between broadly-accepted high-risk
behaviors (not wearing a seat belt, drinking battery acid, and accepting strangers'
candy) and personally-perceived ones (specified in religion).
“These fit nicely together as
things-a-parent-feels-comfortable-advising-her-kids-against but they're
considerably distinct in degree of likely-to-harm-you: most all battery acid is
surely bad, while only some strangers' candy may have attendant risk, and
wearing a seat belt is a smart bet to protect against winning a long shot with
a big, sad jackpot. (And yes, I'm blending if-then positivism and statistical
probability here.)”
So far
I agree, while adding that parents are expected to protect their children from
all of these high-risk behaviors, however much they differ in terms of the
likelihood of actual ensuing harm.
“That a parent believes ill will befall a child who doesn't participate in the
same religious tradition as she does is justified quite differently, though,
no? At some level, this extension of paternalism is rooted in a different
logic: not protection from demonstrated harm, but protection from a believed
harm.”
To
some extent, I think you’re correct. Most religious parents, today, seek to
protect their children from a harm that they only believe in. However, as a “mystically-inclined” Christian
(I am, after all, Eastern Orthodox), I do believe that it’s possible to know of the danger, albeit in a way that doesn't necessarily demonstrate this truth to others.
Of course, whether the truth of a particular harm can be demonstrated to
others isn’t necessary to justify protecting one’s children from such
harm. I can legitimately use force to prevent
my child from delivering the paper to a person who I know through first-hand
experience is a child molester, even if I can’t, at least at that particular
moment, demonstrate that truth to others.
I can’t demonstrate that organic food is healthier than non-organic food
(at least as far as Wikipedia is concerned, the science hasn’t settled this
issue), but most people would recognize my right to act on my strong belief that it is healthier when
I make decisions for my children on what to eat.
“_If_
Dawkins is raising a concern that some religious traditions inflict some
inordinate harm (mental anguish, corporal punishment, enforced sacrifice) on
children, then the idea that parents ought not be given free rein to
"indoctrinate" would seem an appropriate extension of paternal
protection--if we extend the concept of 'paternal' beyond immediate families.”
I definitely
agree, although he doesn't seem to be as discriminating as you fortunately are. Especially in Chapter 8 of The God Delusion, he regularly
implicates moderate religion in all sorts of abuses inspired by fundamentalist
religion, as the very title of the chapter makes clear (entitled, “What’s Wrong
with Religion? Why be So Hostile?).
There
are many goals to which parents should aspire, even though the means with which
they attempt to accomplish those goals are often ineffective and even harmful to
their children. But I don’t think
teaching religion is necessarily unique in this regard. Let’s say that in my effort to protect my
child from the pernicious consequences of obesity, I inadvertently cause her to
become anorexic. In such cases, I clearly shouldn't be given free rein to protect her from what is otherwise considered a noble
goal.
“… are there religious groups who feel so
threatened by Dawkins or others that refuting their claims is important
business?”
I
think so. But, for me, the threat is not
so much that Dawkins and others will expose the perceived idiocy of religion, per se, but that they will convince
others that fundamentalist religion is a redundancy.
