Richard Dawkins and "Child Abuse"

After Richard Dawkins wrote his best-seller The God Delusion there has been a rash of backlash by many theists who misrepresent his position about religion and children and what Dawkins calls "child abuse."

Throughout the reviews I've written of the books that misrepresent his position I've tried my best to foil such propaganda. Of course, not that Dawkins' position needs to be defended necessarily because he succeeds in expressing his views so clearly. Unfortunately, despite Dawkins' clear language theists still cannot help themselves but take him out of context, allowing their own bigotry and dislike to rule over their more rational state of mind (while at the same time accusing him of bigotry!). Of course, since when are theists highly rational (I should qualify this and say that many theists are good human beings and rational regarding many things, but most theists who write these lies about Dawkins are just plain dumber than dirt)?

In the very book these dumb theists are arguing against (The God Delusion), they often claim that Dawkins is comparing physical abuse to the mental abuse of telling children about hell, and since our culture takes children away from their parents for physical abuse, these morons misinterpret Dawkins' message, and think he wants to keep kids away from their parents if they're going to teach them religion! Nonsense!

Dawkins' entire point is that oftentimes mental abuse outlasts any physical abuse that might occur and he calls the teaching of hell to children child abuse and cites several letters he has received by individuals who are still terribly frightened of hell even in their adult years as evidence of this.

But the point I'm trying to ram home in this post is the fact that Dawkins does not want to stop religious parents from teaching their children. What he is doing is "consciousness-raising," as he calls it, to encourage people to stop labeling children with the religion of their parents because they are too young to know what they want to believe. But this isn't to say he wishes to ban the teaching of religion; as he says this is just "consciousness-raising" just as the feminists did in 'raising consciousness' about using the masculine sounding pronoun of 'history.' Similarly, just as the feminists didn't want to change the spelling of 'history' to 'herstory' neither does Dawkins wish to keep parents from teaching their children or calling them what they like (namely a christian child, or muslim child, etc.).

It's all about "consciousness-raising;" perhaps spread the idea around enough and maybe people will begin to dislike the labeling of children by the religion of their parents and realize that children have a mind of their own and should be free to believe what they want.

Throughout The God Delusion Dawkins makes this so very clear the only way a theist could misinterpret Dawkins' message is purely because of cold, hard bias.

This is never more apparent than in David Marshall's The Truth Behind the New Atheism (and let me tell you, "Truth" is so very far from what he presents) where he actually says that "Dawkins is more broad-minded: he thinks children have a right to be indoctrinated into thinking [religions are] all evil, no matter what their parents say" (page 185).

Several of the ideas Dawkins expresses in the ninth chapter of The God Delusion are so very clear, the above misinterpretation should be very easily seen.

On page 315 he has just finished telling his readers of the story about Edgardo Mortara, a six-year old boy who was taken from his loving jewish parents after being splashed with some water and told some supposedly magic words by his babysitter, and poof, the boy is transformed into a chrisitan, no longer fit to be raised by jewish parents, and says how,

"...[I]sn't it always a form of child abuse to label children as possessors of beliefs that they are too young to have thought about? Yet the practice continues to this day, almost entirely unquestioned."

On page 327 Dawkins expresses his views about how a child should be free to make up their own minds once they're old enough to understand:

"I thank my own parents for taking the view that children should be taught not so much what to think as how to think. If, having been fairly and properly exposed to all the scientific evidence, they grow up and decide that the bible is literally true or that the movements of the planets rule their lives, that is their privilege. The important point is that it is their privilege to decide what they shall think, and not their parents' privilege to impose it by force majeure...truly moral guardianship shows itself in an honest attempt to second-guess what they would choose for themselves if they were old enough to do so" (emphasis in original).

Again, another example of Dawkins expressing his view that it should be a child's right to believe what they want to believe and should be given the knowledge to make such a decision, is expressed after he tells his readers a story of a girl who was a victim of a child sacrifice after archaeologists found the remains:

"Humphrey's point - and mine - is that, regardless of whether she was a willing victim or not, there is strong reason to suppose that she would not have been willing if she had been in full possession of the facts. For example, suppose she had known that the sun is really a ball of hydrogen, hotter than a million degrees Kelvin, converting itself into helium by nuclear fusion, and that it originally formed from a disk of gas out of which the rest of the solar system, including Earth, also condensed...Presumably, then, she would not have worshiped it as a god, and this would have altered her perspective on being sacrificed to propitiate it."

Another example expressing the same idea, this time using an example of an amish community who took their children out of high school on religious grounds because they didn't want them having any more education. Dawkins expresses his opinion on page 330:

"Even if the children had been asked and had expressed a preference for the Amish religion, can we suppose that they would have done so if they had been educated and informed about the available alternatives?"

On page 338 Dawkins speaks of his "consciousness-raising" attempts:

"In an earlier chapter, I generalized the theme of 'consciousness-raising,' starting with the achievement of feminists in making us flinch when we hear a phrase like 'men of goodwill' instead of 'people of goodwill.' Here I want to raise consciousness in another way. I think we should all wince when we hear a small child being labeled as belonging to some particular religion or another. Small children are too young to decide their views on the origins of the cosmos, of life and of morals. The very sound of the phrase 'Christian child' or 'Muslim child' should grate like fingernails on a blackboard."

On page 339-340 he encourages his readers to raise others' consciousness when they hear others' speaking of a "christian child," etc. and to "raise the roof whenever you hear it happening."

Afterwards he says, "This...would be an excellent piece of 'consciousness-raising' for the children themselves. A child who is told she is a 'child of Muslim parents' will immediately realize that religion is something for her to choose - or reject - when she becomes old enough to do so."

Also on 340 Dawkins expresses his beliefs that children should be taught comparative religion; hardly the evil atheist so many ignorant christian apologists make Dawkins out to be in claiming he doesn't want children learning about religion because they're all "evil."

Dawkins says,

"A good case can indeed be made for the educational benefits of teaching comparative religion...Let children learn about different faiths, let them notice their incompatibility, and let them draw their own conclusions about the consequences of that incompatibility. As for whether any are 'valid', let them make up their own minds when they are old enough to do so."

Finally, near the end of the chapter, Dawkins expresses his thoughts about how the bible should be read for it's cultural significance:

"The King James Bible of 1611 - the Authorized Version - includes passages of outstanding literary merit in its own right, for example the Song of Songs, and the sublime Ecclesiastes (which I am told is pretty good in the original Hebrew too). But the main reason the English Bible needs to be part of our education is that it is a major source book for literary culture. The same applies to the legends of the Greek and Roman gods, and we learn about them without being asked to believe in them."

On page 344 Dawkins concludes:

"Let me not labour the point. I have probably said enough to convince at least my older readers that an atheistic world-view provides no justification for cutting the Bible, and other sacred books, out of our education. And of course we can retain a sentimental loyalty to the cultural and literary traditions of, say, Judaism, Anglicanism or Islam, and even participate in religious rituals such as marriages and funerals, without buying into the supernatural beliefs that historically went along with those traditions. We can give up belief in God while not losing touch with a treasured heritage."

Hardly the evil atheist so many christian apologists make him out to be, huh?

In my great attempts to fix this distorted image that so many stupid and ignorant theists have spread about Dawkins' views I've debated several theists about his views (and as I mentioned earlier have written about them while debunking what some christian authors have to say about the subject in their books) and even recently was in a debate at amazon.com with one of David Marshall's ignorant defenders.

Here is one of these confused bigots now in part of the recent debate I had with this moron. As usual, he dismissed my evidence with nothing but an argument from authority and talked down to me and called Dawkins a bigot. They don't get much stupider than this people:



This guy is truly a world class asshole (and dumb as shit to boot), but this post should clear up any argument this guy, or any other defender of stupidity, would like to say about Dawkins not wanting to allow children to learn religion.

As the quotes from his book show this is clearly not the case. With all of the quotes I pulled out of The God Delusion stating this fact I have to wonder if these theists even actually read it!

Now, what the asshole in the debate is referring to is a piece of evidence I provided, attempting to prove that Dawkins does not want to keep children from learning religion. Of course, all he had to do was open up Dawkins' ninth chapter in his book, but I guess he's too busy hurling insults at myself and Dawkins to do this very simple thing.

While trying to dig up more evidence (aside from what's in his book) that Dawkins doesn't care if parents teach their kids I came across this website. It's a copy of an interview with Richard Dawkins in The Guardian from February 10, 2003, given by Simon Hattenstone, called Darwin's child.

I need not copy it all, because the relevant part is this:

"I tell him I've been thinking about his point that children should not be defined by religion, and that I have a solution. Why not ban religion till you're 18? I expect him to be delighted by my initiative, but he looks horrified. "Oh no. I don't want to lay down a law that says when you get a driving licence, you can call yourself anything you like. It's a consciousness-raising issue."

What would he do if he had the powers of a dictator? He looks positively frightened now. He starts to stutter. "I, I, I don't want to be dictatorial about this, I don't want to legislate about this, I do think the nearest approach I would get to being, if you put me in the position of being a dictator, I would certainly abolish... " He pauses, and starts again. "I think I would abolish schools which systematically inculcate sectarian beliefs." But you've still got parents infecting the kids with their dogma, I say, playing devil's chaplain. "Well, I wouldn't want to have the thought police going to people's homes, dictating what they teach their children. I don't want to be Big Brotherish. I would hate that." He's talking faster and faster. "So I don't want to legislate about this, I keep coming back to this consciousness-raising thing. All I can do is write books and write articles."

Usually in debates I quote the following:

"Well, I wouldn't want to have the thought police going to people's homes, dictating what they teach their children. I don't want to be Big Brotherish. I would hate that."

He is clearly expressing the same ideas, though much more precisely than in his book, about not wanting to keep children from learning religion.

However, in a recent debate J.R. 'The Dumbshit' Fraser, looked at my source and quoted Dawkins as saying he would love to abolish "sectarian" schools, which can mean religion, but can also mean just a narrow-minded view. Despite the evidence that Dawkins doesn't care if children are taught religion (and while only zeroing in on that one bit and neglecting everything else) this ass says that he should go out and yell it from the rooftops that Dawkins is indeed the 'anti-religious bigot' he says he is. Well, not so fast. As usual these theists take Dawkins out of context.

Curious what Dawkins may have meant by "sectarian" I went to the RichardDawkins.net website to the discussion forums there and I posted a question to Richard directly asking him about this interview. I got a few replies and one especially helpful one by a guy who lives in England and he helped me better understand the context in which Dawkins was speaking of closing "sectarian" schools.

Well, first of all, J.R. was correct, in that context Dawkins did likely say it to mean religious schools but this requires some explanation.

England does not have a separation of church and state, as one of the replies informed me, and therefore there are many schools that are religious and teach the general curriculum along with the specific belief system of that particular school.

Now, after looking at the links provided I found that these schools often cause a lot of intolerance between the children of different schools (in fact if memory serves these are the schools Dawkins refers to in his series The Root of All Evil?) and a majority of people in Britain dislike the schools. In one of the links provided at the RichardDawkins.net forum, it explained the situation there with the "faith schools" and how according to critics of the schools, they educate children separately which can lead to social and religious divisions.

Ultimately what Dawkins meant was not that he wanted to stop religious instruction, since he even said he would not want to stop parents from teaching their children religion, he just said he wanted to abolish the "faith schools" that are in England (assuming he had the hypothetical power of a dictator) which segregate children by religion and close them off to other points of view, and the religious indoctrination often causes tension between children of other faiths, creating unnecessary tension and intolerance (and in my opinion possible violence).

Another aspect to this issue is the political climate. It's been estimated (according to the link about "faith schools") that 80% of the population of Britain disapproves of faith schools because of the problems mentioned above. The National Secular Society had this to say on the subject:

"School provides the best, and sometimes only, opportunity to teach tolerance, but only if children of all beliefs and cultures are educated together. The problems in Belfast, Bradford and elsewhere remind us how imperative this need is..."

It's clear that Dawkins is not some atheist who hates religion and wants to close religious schools. This is (or at least was at the time of the interview) a very heated topic where he lives where a majority agree that the schools tend to breed intolerance. So, given the power of a dictator (and taken in context) he is referring to Britain's "faith schools" and not banning religion outright or wanting to keep kids from learning religion, but expressing his frustrations (that the majority in Britain can sympathize with) about the divisiveness of those schools and how he would have them shut down.

Dawkins is clearly not speaking of the banning of religion, or the banning of the teaching of religion. He clearly expresses these views not only in his book but that interview as well. Once again, another quote of Dawkins' twisted completely out of context and the tunnel vision of stupid theists who want to see what they want, and when pointed out why they're wrong, insult you and talk down to you.

Another issue that's been brought up regarding Dawkins' opinions is also from the christian apologist David Marshall, who claims that the following quote means Dawkins wishes for kids not to be taught about religion until they've grown up:

"If, having been fairly and properly exposed to all the scientific evidence, they grow up and decide that the bible is literally true or that the movements of the planets rule their lives, that is their privilege" (emphasis mine).

Once again, it's a case of the stupid apologists having their blinders on and being infected with bigotry.

For one, Dawkins never specifically said at what age a child should be ready to learn about religion, but as he expressed in that interview, he doesn't want to make it a rule that parents not teach their children until they're 18 years of age, but just wait until the child is old enough to grasp what they're learning.

Though, from Dawkins' book, A Devil's Chaplain, in chapter seven, there is a letter he wrote to his own daughter when she was ten years old about "good" and "bad" reasons to believe things, and tells her the difference between good and bad evidence and how to tell the difference.

Just as he expressed in The God Delusion about how his parents taught him how to think, he is doing the same with his daughter. Now, who would consider a ten year old a 'grown up'? Anyone? If Dawkins teaches his own daughter about religion in a letter at ten years of age, then I'm sure his opinion (if he gave it) would be that the age parents could teach their children is ten. But again, this is all hypothetical; Dawkins has never said he wanted to keep parents from teaching their kids at any age. I'm just trying to prove Marshall's claim false by using as an example the letter he gave to his own daughter to teach her about evidence and religion, and that Dawkins' views likely are not that when a child is 'grown up' (as in a teenager I imagine Marshall meant) should they be taught religion.

To sum it all up, here is the last paragraph in A Devil's Chaplain from the letter to Dawkins' ten year old girl (page 248):

"...It is not easy for you to do anything because you are only ten. But you could try this. Next time somebody tells you something that sounds important, think to yourself: 'Is this the kind of thing that people probably know because of evidence? Or is it the kind of thing that people only believe because of tradition, authority or revelation?' And, next time somebody tells you that something is true, why not say to them: 'What kind of evidence is there for that? And if they can't give you a good answer, I hope you'll think very carefully before you believe a word they say."

Now, did Dawkins outright tell his daughter that all religions were stupid, wrong, and should not be believed? No! He taught her a basic principle of thinking! Something so many theists don't do, and just follow the first authority they come to. This mind set is all to apparent in the part of the debate I took a screenshot of (posted above) when J.R. was saying I'm stupid for not agreeing with a dictionary of philosophy on the meaning of atheism! Who gives a shit?! It's just one authority when others say the opposite, so you must take all the information you have and make up your own mind! Something this piece of shit clearly cannot understand, and Dawkins' ten year old daughter probably did.

As I go into the eighth page of this post I can't help but think how pointless this post is. Think about it. Richard Dawkins, as I've demonstrated, clearly made his views known in his book The God Delusion and theists still take him out of context. It's crazy.

These christian apologists are obviously blinded by their bigotry and their need to justify their "persecution syndrome", as I like to call it, and gripe on and on about how the "evil" atheists are attacking religion and how the "evils" of secularism are harming america. Give me a break.

There isn't one shred of truth to those lies about Richard Dawkins telling parents not to teach their children religion. Now, it's just a question if these same idiots will once again gloss over the same quotes Dawkins used to express himself in the book they already claimed to have read (and refuted! Bullshit!) or actually admit their bias and gross errors.

Aside from these false claims by theistic morons, this is yet another example of the undeserved respect religion gets from most people. To most individuals it's usually considered respectful to raise a child by allowing them to follow their heart and letting them choose their hobbies and not have the parents choose for them. Give them the freedom to experience all kinds of hobbies, and this should apply to ideas as well. If a parent forces a girl to go to piano lessons but she just pretends to like it, and if given a choice would choose something else, that's often considered bad parenting. But the same thing happens with religious beliefs and no one bats an eye.

As Dawkins has clearly expressed it's most respectful for a parent to allow their children to choose what they are to believe and this is no different then when parents chide other parents for making their children follow in their footsteps and no one sees that as threatening, but with religious beliefs they do, but there really is no difference between these two ideas. It's just that with the religious beliefs religion is once again given a free pass from criticism and religious parents are allowed to force their beliefs on their children. If a parent forces their hobbies on their child, it's often considered wrong, but not religious beliefs, so people must stop giving religion this very undeserved respect and we must "raise" parents' "consciousness" and allow all our children to choose their own path in life. This is truly all that Dawkins is asking for. Certainly not the banning of religion or the banning of the teaching religion to children, but respect for the childrens' minds.


Related Posts:

Richard Dawkins and "Child Abuse" Part 2
Richard Dawkins and "Child Abuse" Part 3