Godless Children and the Future of Atheism: Raising Godless Children

I think it is the reactions of atheists who were not raised in environments of religious indoctrination that produce in my mind the starkest contrast to my internalization of my own indoctrination. What seems mundane and par for the course for me is shocking to them.

Something as simple as the doctrine of church shunning–which is common practice in many fundamentalist sects–is met with disbelief by my atheist friends who were raised in nonreligious environments. When I address issues of childhood indoctrination, the response is either someone writing to say “That’s what I went through as well, and I still feel angry about what was done to me,” or someone writing to say, “I just can’t believe people do that–it’s just nuts.”

I was recently thinking of the children’s Christian song that goes “Oh be careful little eyes what you see,” and “be careful little ears what you hear.” The refrain is “There’s a father up above, who’s looking down in love, so be careful little X what you X…”

The lyrics are disturbingly Orwellian. But what fundamentalist child doesn’t know that tune and those words. The message is clear–don’t listen to the wrong things, don’t see the wrong things–turn away from things “god” wouldn’t want you to be a part of. It’s mirrored in the song “Roll the Gospel Chariot Along” where one verse says, “If the devil’s in the way, we will roll right over him.” This is met with a fun and boistrous arm motion showing how you’ll run over “the devil.”

For smaller children, “the devil” is an obstacle in a very real (not as metaphorical) road. But the idea is to move to metaphor as the child gets older. “The devil” becomes, basically, that which is counter to the gospel/god–which is whatever the church tells the child it is.

So, ultimately you end up with children in the hands of adults who are laying the foundation blocks in their heads to inoculate them against anything contrary to “the truth”–which is whatever the church tells the child.

Don’t listen. Don’t look. God is always watching (in love of course–because you always have to “be careful what you do when someone who loves you is watching? No, let’s be honest, you have to be careful what you do when authority is watching and punishment is hanging over your head). And anything that is different than what we’re telling you is wrong and the work of pure evil/the devil.

In fact, it’s not uncommon for _adult_ Christians to call anything counter to their doctrines the work of the devil or the devil’s deceit–the “father of lies” they call Satan.

Considering that most fundy children go to church at least three times per week for a few hours a pop, I’m amazed that any of us actually escape the mind control. But honestly, I think that when you do come out of it and observe the difference between:

1. A belief you come to out of a solid grasp of reality and how it operates, versus

2. A belief you hold because it was drilled into your mind via brainwashing,

you realize that brainwashing is basically unstable, because it only holds as long as the person persists in avoiding and ignoring information. The more “reality” you have to disregard to hold to the belief, the more likely it will crack.

So, for example, if you’re white and raised in the deep south with racial prejudice, you might live for a lifetime never having much of a challenge to your prejudices. It would be easy to hold to them.

But if you are involved at all in society and have any amount of inquisitiveness about your world, it becomes very hard to disregard overwhelming mountains of information that contradict that the “nothing” you’re trying to label as god is actually “something,” or that gay people are bad and should be discriminated against legally and socially; or that premarital sex should be shameful and is wrong; or that a god-model based upon a brutal and bloodthirsty author of genocide and infanticide who demanded the human sacrifice of an innocent should be labeled as loving and worthy of worship.

I just watched the premier of the updated “The Prisoner” last night and was impressed with their portrayal of how unstable these sorts of brainwashed induced “beliefs” are compared to beliefs based in solid reality. The little bits and pieces that don’t make sense. I found myself wondering what questions I might ask the “villagers” if I were Number Six. One that I thought of was “Where does your food come from?” Where are the wheatfields that yield the “wraps” for the food? Where do you generate all the power that runs your cars, lights, stores, homes, etc.

There are these endless little “it just doesn’t add up” that become too nagging and too numerous to just ignore. I especially like the new character–Number Two’s son–who is the perfect child in the throes of indoctrination. He’s watching Number 6 closely–but, unfortunately, going to his father to ask about 6. And his father, as part of the facade, cannot be trusted to give a reliable answer. He only spews more indoctrination bunk.

You can see how fragile the boy’s “belief” is in this “reality,” that doesn’t always add up. But it’s the only reality he knows or remembers. And isn’t that how it is for every child in indoctrination? What world or reality do they have for comparison? None. They’re raised accepting nonsense as sense–and to them “down the rabbit hole” is very reasonable. I hear people ask, “Can’t these religious people hear themselves? Don’t they know what they sound like?”

No, they don’t. What is nonsense to you, is perfectly reasonable to them. In fact, I recently dialogued with a new atheist who just came out of fundamentalism. I told him that it’s hard to argue against the fundamentalist god, because they don’t offer any coherent defintion of what “god” actually is. He strongly disagreed. To him–it still made sense, he just didn’t believe it. So, I asked him to tell me what god is–to a fundy.

It turns out god is “male” without genitals, hormones or a material brain to assign sex role identity; god is a “formless thing”; god is “loving and has personality”–but, again with no brain.

I explained to him that “love” is the human label for the process of the brain producing certain emotions via chemical reactions–generally pleasant or reward-center based functions. When we get sufficient chemicals to produce affinity toward this or that, we say “I love” this thing. Love is a function of brain. I don’t know of any other sort of “love.” I’ve never seen any other sort of “love” demonstrated by anyone ever.

To say a being is loving, and then to add it has no material brain, strips “love” of all real meaning. I can no longer know what you mean by “love” in such a context. What are we talking about?

The Christian will say something like, “You’re just being difficult. You know perfectly well what love is.”

Yes, I know what “love” is–but not the way you’re using it. The meaning I assign to love is voided the moment you claim there is no material brain. Love is then not possible–as far as I’m aware. So, now you have to explain to me what you mean when you say “love” since it’s not any sort of love I have ever encountered.

I compared it to someone saying they have a wooden desk. I understand what that means. But let’s say I ask, “What sort of wood?” And they say, “What do you mean?” And I say, “What sort of tree did the wood come from?” And they say, “Oh, it didn’t come from any tree.” Well, then I must have misunderstood what you meant by “wood.” Wood to me is a tree product. To you it’s obviously something I’m not familiar with.

A person might say, “Don’t be an idiot! Everyone knows what ‘wood’ means.” Yes, but by saying your wood doesn’t come from trees, you’ve changed the meaning of the word to something I no longer understand. You’re using a familiar word, for sure, but in some odd way where it is incoherent to me. I don’t know what “wood” means–in the context of how you’re using it. And that’s the truth.

This sort of lunacy is sanity to the indoctrinated. And I’ve heard more than one person say that coming out of it is like “waking up from a dream.” They say it’s surreal when they consider how many minds are held sway by this delusion.

I hope these kids, raised secularly, know what they’re up against. And I hope they’re up for defending reality. It’s a real chore to try to untangle this knot that lives within the brains of the indoctrinated. But they are people and worth saving.

Sorry for the overlong post.