From: Chris Taylor (chris.taylor@ebi.ac.uk)
Date: Mon 23 Jan 2006 - 10:39:53 GMT
Hiya.
I found myself in a list of people who are on the 'declared
atheist' side; now this I of course do not contest, but the
follow up was that I therefore think that religion should not be
taught to children, but...
Preamble: We have seen Father Christmas and the Tooth Fairy put
in cameos here of late, and they are relevant to my point: I
actually favour their inclusion in child rearing for a
principled reason; essentially to inoculate kids with some
attenuated cultural confectionery in preparation to face a
rather false world where stylised rituals are very common (and
clearly these little occasions are key to our well being whether
'principled' or contrived). Now that's a minor point but I feel
compelled to demonstrate that the post-hoc rationalisation of my
accidental self is holding together :)
Anyway I favour inoculating kids with religion because, given
that it is a little early in life to be dealing with Kant and
Bentham, it provides a moral code that can be enforced based on
a believable fiction (forgive me Kate...). Sloughing this
carapace later in life is usually unproblematic as I'm sure the
other atheists would agree; in fact there is more than a frisson
of excitment to be had in realising that fundamental existence
is completely baffling! However (the clincher), what I've found
in my self analysis (not very deep) is that I spend most of the
time firming up my predispositions with rational argument and
this was true of morality. Mostly because of the way I was
raised, but probably in part because of the code I got through
my religious education, I ended up moral (mostly), then cast
about for a rational basis for that, which I found through
philosphy and evolutionary biology (as applied both in biology
and memetics).
So (to go back to the subject line) the point is that different
memes are valuable at different times in mental development:
Each of the memes that goes into and out of our selves has an
effect on the environment (all-meme) and substance of subsequent
memes (whether from outside or from recombination of residents).
When microbes are used for bioremediation, we do not want that
to be the climax fauna for that environment; they prepare the
way for other tenants. Religious memes can help make a child
moral and whether retained or cast off, their imprint is indeed
lasting, but I'd argue broadly speaking beneficial (qualified by
all the observations about nutcase extremists).
Cheers, Chris.
P.S. In court, swearing on the bible doesn't seem to stop
believers lying. And anyway it is an archaic ritual; a little
drama to make you more aware of the impac of lying than signing
a declararion that you know what perjury is would do.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
chris.taylor@ebi.ac.uk
http://psidev.sf.net/
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