Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Tradition and Culture In Families and Society.

Tradition and culture is fine individually. As long as it harms no one other than yourself, go ahead.
However, when it is forced upon others, that is when it becomes a problem. This is most commonly seen in the form of indoctrination.
Indoctrination is the forcing of a religion, tradition, or culture on an innocent child. In today's society, this should be unacceptable. But, it happens regularly. A child is labelled as a 'Catholic child' or a 'Muslim child'. These phrases should cause outrage, as Dawkins rightfully points out. Why would you force something - something that will usually shape the way someone lives - on a child unable to think properly for itself? This is where indoctrination becomes harmful.
A child does not have the ability to decide for themselves whether a particular religion, tradition, or culture is sensible, right, or moral. What should be happening is this: parents should raise their children to think for themselves, to accept scientific evidence as right, and to discard views proved wrong by said evidence, even if these views happen to be justified by previous outdated scientific evidence.
Unfortunately, parents are bringing up their children to blindly believe in a faith which is unproven, and even has evidence disproving it. These children are left vulnerable for the rest of their lives. They are taught that blind faith is a virtue.
Some parents, surely the worst kind, even send their offspring to schools that teach false science. Schools that tell children that the earth is less that 10,000 years old. The amount of evidence against this is overwhelming. These schools are even funded by the British government!
Surely, children brought up to believe in something that has been disproven by significant amounts of reliable scientific evidence are not the way of the future, but rather, a step towards the past. These false teachings are only marginally better than teaching children that the world is flat.
A common argument for the indoctrination of children is as follows:
"This religion and it's holy book teaches us morals, and the difference between right and wrong."
This is usually said by Christians, the holy book being the Bible. In order to fully rebunk this argument, I shall direct you towards Richard Dawkins' masterpiece "The God Delusion". But, I shall also attempt my best here.
Those of you who have actually read the bible will know that there is as many, if not more, parts in it which would be seen as unacceptable today. Now, in relation to the moral Zeitgeist, which I shall not even try to delve into here, the 'morals' found in 'the good book' may have been acceptable at the time(s) of writing. Now, however, they are frightfully out of date.
Also, religion is not our source of morals. The 'moral lessons' found in the bible are mixed with many pitifully wrong and sick lessons. In order to choose right from wrong, as many theologists say they do, you need a basis to. . . base them on. A moral basis. You cannot try to say that religious people have an external source of morals that atheists simply do not have. Even if they did, the morals would originate from there, not the bible.
Without religion, we surely would still have our morals. Some religious apologists try to say that the existence of a god is our reasoning behind good and bad. So, according to these people, without a god, the world would be in chaos. How deluded these people are. If a god did exist, surely he would not accept people who are good simply because they are being watched. The most convincing argument against these people are atheists. Their very existence argues against that theory. Atheists do not believe in a god, and yet, the majority are still good people. They still have a very good sense of right and wrong.
Dawkins makes these points and many more. For fuller, better reasoning, read his books, The God Delusion in particular. Also, google him. Find his website. Tis very good.
So, I've gone from culture and tradition in family and society to an argument against religion. I couldn't help it. But, religion is probably the biggest source of culture and tradition in the world. And, as I have tried to point out, if only briefly, as there are many more arguments, religion is not necessary, and certainly not a good thing. Especially when indoctrinated at a young age.
So, it is my strong view that you are entitled to have your own culture, tradition, and religion. As long as your actions due to them do not harm others, and especially, I cannot emphasise this enough, as long as you DO NOT  force these views on others, ESPECIALLY young children, even if they are your own. Let them think for themselves. Don't subject them to your views.
They are human too.
They have a right to make their own decisions.

5 comments:

  1. THANK YOU!
    You have just explained, in essence, the way I feel about religion.
    I agree with almost all you have said.

    The one thing I must bring up is that, I believe religion (or at least a belief in a being who may pass judgment, deciding what is right or wrong) to be one of the only ways for a growing child to LEARN their own morals.

    Slowly, as a child grows, they may become independent from that religion just as the child would from his/her stuffed bear.
    Religion is just a TOOL to help one learn about morals.

    Once entering adolescence, I believe one should discard their religion they were brought up with in search of individuality.
    Without this individuality we wouldn't have the motivation to go learn things about the world (science), which is where we get these non-motivated religious fanatics from (the ones that DON'T let go).

    TL;DR
    Religion means nothing to the mature lest it is adapted and/or evolved.

    ~CJ

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  2. All I can see religion as, is a coping mechanism.
    A way for us to explain things and to deal with the fact that maybe life is just made up of a series of random events leading up to the evolution of humanity.

    Because indubitably, people would go crazy if it were proved that life was just as I described it.

    Starting to read God Delusion now, looks good from where I'm standing

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  3. Matt, Dawkins even disproves that theory. We don't need religion whatsoever. All it is, is the byproduct of a gene that natural selection chose to survive.
    Dawkins uses the examples of moths. Moths seem to endlessly commit suicide by flying into lights. Kinda like religion, killing oneself for no reason. Anyway. Moths only do this because of a gene natural selection chose to survive. They use lights in the sky, the stars, the moon, to navigate. They set it in a particular part of their eye, and keep it there, to fly in a straight line. However, this only works when the light is at a near-infinite distance. Anything closer, like a candle or lightbulb, and the light simply moves. This causes them to spiral directly into the light, killing themselves. We tend to notice this, and wonder why they do it. We don't notice the millions of other moths who do the same thing to navigate, because the suicide is only a byproduct of the useful gene to navigate.
    Religion is the same thing. A byproduct of various genes we need or needed to survive.
    ~Ashm

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  4. It's all about the memes baby. I think lending you The God Delusion was the best thing one Radical Atheist can do for another

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  5. Yes, Cosmo. I thank you. Very much. I finally finished it, by the way. I'll bring it back tomorrow.

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