Atheists After Your Kid
A few words from a recent Dennis Prager column struck a chord. Why have atheists such as Sam Harris, Dawkins, Dennett, etc., received such a broad hearing? Why are they being listened to so widely, and why are people falling for such weak secular arguments? Prager answers, we cannot overlook the effects of generations of secular education:
"The secular indoctrination of a generation that has grown into adulthood is bearing fruit. Unless one receives a strong religious grounding in a religious school and/or religious home, the average young person in the Western world is immersed in a secular cocoon. From elementary school through graduate school, only one way of looking at the world -- the secular -- is presented. The typical individual in the Western world receives as secular an indoctrination as the typical European received a religious one in the middle ages. I have taught college students and have found that their ignorance not only of the Bible but of the most elementary religious arguments and concepts -- such as the truism that if there is no God, morality is subjective -- is total." (Full Artilce)
Hearing Prager’s comment reminded me of the 45-minute lecture I gave at American Vision’s recent Worldview Super Conference. The argument is right on. While it will be a few weeks before DVD’s of the conference are available, DeMar has given me permission to share my full-text manuscript with my blog audience (see link below).
The speech, entitled "There’s an Atheist After Your Kid," covers the current push among atheist promoters to do everything necessary to usurp total control of the education of your children, even to the extent of coercing the content of home-school curricula, if they could. With Dawkins constantly saying that religious education is a form of child abuse, and that atheists need to unite and form a political lobby, it behooves us as Christians to question the wisdom of secular education, as well as the failure of many Christians to get involved in politics. There are many reasons for this negligence, and I talk about the biggest one in the speech. I also give a Biblical view of educational authority, over against the atheists, and call for Christians everywhere to return to our covenantal commitments to Christian culture, of which the education of children is the beginning.
Some theologians of the late nineteenth century saw the path secular education would lead us down. Reformed giants such as A. A. Hodge, as I quote in the speech, clearly saw that atheism would be the result, and thus he argued against public schooling. Now that we can see Hodge was right, isn’t it time to take his advice before it is too late?
DOWNLOAD THE FULL LECTURE in PDF:
Atheists After Your Kid.pdf
"The secular indoctrination of a generation that has grown into adulthood is bearing fruit. Unless one receives a strong religious grounding in a religious school and/or religious home, the average young person in the Western world is immersed in a secular cocoon. From elementary school through graduate school, only one way of looking at the world -- the secular -- is presented. The typical individual in the Western world receives as secular an indoctrination as the typical European received a religious one in the middle ages. I have taught college students and have found that their ignorance not only of the Bible but of the most elementary religious arguments and concepts -- such as the truism that if there is no God, morality is subjective -- is total." (Full Artilce)
Hearing Prager’s comment reminded me of the 45-minute lecture I gave at American Vision’s recent Worldview Super Conference. The argument is right on. While it will be a few weeks before DVD’s of the conference are available, DeMar has given me permission to share my full-text manuscript with my blog audience (see link below).
The speech, entitled "There’s an Atheist After Your Kid," covers the current push among atheist promoters to do everything necessary to usurp total control of the education of your children, even to the extent of coercing the content of home-school curricula, if they could. With Dawkins constantly saying that religious education is a form of child abuse, and that atheists need to unite and form a political lobby, it behooves us as Christians to question the wisdom of secular education, as well as the failure of many Christians to get involved in politics. There are many reasons for this negligence, and I talk about the biggest one in the speech. I also give a Biblical view of educational authority, over against the atheists, and call for Christians everywhere to return to our covenantal commitments to Christian culture, of which the education of children is the beginning.
Some theologians of the late nineteenth century saw the path secular education would lead us down. Reformed giants such as A. A. Hodge, as I quote in the speech, clearly saw that atheism would be the result, and thus he argued against public schooling. Now that we can see Hodge was right, isn’t it time to take his advice before it is too late?
DOWNLOAD THE FULL LECTURE in PDF:
Atheists After Your Kid.pdf
14 Comments:
Joel,
Actually, we are entering our third generation of secular schools, if by that you mean after organized state-sponsored prayer was removed. And it's even longer if you're referring to the teaching of evil evolution in most schools. Yet, there has been a strong stift to the religious right in the last generation despite this, arguably more than at any time in our history. Atheism is thriving now because of G. W. Bush who went too far mixing politics with fundy religion and people are finally getting fed up with it. I think you know this is at least partly true. But as usual, you want to play the embattled minority victim. I call it victimfoolery.
What is your specific solution Joel? Do we need organized prayer back in public schools? Bible classes? Christianity courses? Public funding of religious schools? The appointment of religious leaders to select public school textbooks and/or the removal of secular professional educators? What do you want?
I am so glad I homeschool my children!!
Jane,
Perhaps you didn't download the lecture and read the whole story. Dennett was after Christian children already in 1996, long before GWB was elected the first time. Since then he has made it clear that he wants secular control over even home-school curricula.
Perhaps Bush's LaHayism (of which I am no fan, as I write in Village Atheist near the end) did provoke and add to the fire, but it was hardly the cause of it. 9-11 had much more to do with it - both Dawkins and Harris open their books with references to Islamic terrorism, Dawkins 9-11 in particular.
Fair point about the multiple generations; but very little every changes overnight. There has been a great spread of secularism in this country due to Marxism in the universities, and Freudianism and Higher Criticism in most of the mainline churches. Rushdoony called this "capturing the robes" - clergy, academic, and judicial.
My solution? It has nothing to do with the string of nonsense you prattled - a few of which ideas I find quite offensive. We don't need any of those things in public schools. We need the abolition of public schools. Home-schooling and private schools are the only options that befit a society which calls itself free.
Ah, the abolition of public schools... we can dream, can't they?
Joel,
The thing I object to most is that you quote a few prominent atheists and in some cases, their off-the-cuff provocative remarks without clarification or sufficient context, and try to make the case that they are somehow pulling evil strings and having a significant influence on America’s educational system, curricula, funding etc. That simply isn’t true. The teaching of evolution in the schools would have been extinguished long ago but for the leadership of enlightened Christians. If atheists were in charge of and deciding the fate of such ideas, the public’s enmity towards atheists would probably hurt the cause of teaching evolution. Do you think there is some hidden atheist conspiracy using Christian front-men as puppets?
I don’t personally share the views of the atheists you quoted concerning various aspects of control and intervention over parental rights and you would find many atheists who would agree with your views. In fact, I've heard and read interviews with both Dennett and Dawkins where they backtrack significantly themselves from the admittedly overly strident provocations you quoted.
”Perhaps Bush's LaHayism (of which I am no fan, as I write in Village Atheist near the end) did provoke and add to the fire, but it was hardly the cause of it. 9-11 had much more to do with it - both Dawkins and Harris open their books with references to Islamic terrorism, Dawkins 9-11 in particular.
Yes, Joel, you’re right, 9-11 did have a lot to do with it. In the circles I move in, the GWB-religious right fiasco we’ve witnessed is more responsible but you could be right. What I think we can both agree on is that many Amercans saw religious excesses from all sides, Christian and Muslim, and threw up their hands and said religion is getting out of hand. Hence the willingness to consider alternatives – even atheism.
”Fair point about the multiple generations; but very little every changes overnight. There has been a great spread of secularism in this country due to Marxism in the universities, and Freudianism and Higher Criticism in most of the mainline churches. Rushdoony called this "capturing the robes" - clergy, academic, and judicial.”
The influence of Marx and Freud especially, is no longer a factor. Milton Friedman and his progenitors and progeny won. Freud’s theories were unscientific and largely fraudulent and I know of nobody of scientific prominence who still promotes them. These things did have their heyday in liberal thought over a generation ago but no more. I would argue that Marx and Freud were never the prime movers of secularism anyway. Ironically, I and most of my atheist friends lean towards Libertarianism. The positive power and popularity of science and openness to the plurality of other non-religious views and philosophies (and the embracing of other faiths as well) have much more to do with it just as the negative influences of popular culture, derived largely from capitalistic excess and the idleness of affluence do.
”My solution? It has nothing to do with the string of nonsense you prattled - a few of which ideas I find quite offensive. We don't need any of those things in public schools. We need the abolition of public schools. Home-schooling and private schools are the only options that befit a society which calls itself free. “
Well it may surprise you to know that I’m for vouchers and choice and believe home-schooling can be great (as well as abused). I think that there have to be standards and that we have a responsibility to teach the truth. As much as you deny it, evolution is the truth and you simply can’t be properly educated in science today without being taught it, any more than you should teach that 1+1=4 or pi=3 (as the bible days). I know we will never agree on that and don’t intend to make an evolution argument here.
I’m glad to hear you don’t want to institutionalize religion in public schools. But what do you propose for the large number, perhaps the majority, of families with two working parents or single-parent households who cannot afford to private school or home-schooling? What standards, if any, do you believe all schools must follow?
> With Dawkins constantly saying that religious education is a form of child abuse
What a fantastic example of contextomy! What Dawkins said was the Catholic Church has traditionally taught children
that unbelievers (even, in some cases, Protestant Christians) will spend eternity in a fiery Hell: "The mental abuse constituted by an unsubstantiated threat of violence and terrible pain, if sincerely believed by the child, could easily be more damaging than the physical actuality of sexual abuse. An extreme threat of violence and pain is precisely what the doctrine of hell is".
For Dawkins, "The threat of eternal hell is an extreme example of mental abuse, just as violent
sodomy is an extreme example of physical abuse".
Of course, one could reply that the
Tina, I trust that your children won't some day come to despise you when they realise that have been supplied with very prejudiced information.
Maalie,
First of all, I love the pictures on your blog site - beautiful.
Secondly, my reference to Dawkins on child abuse is hardly contextomy. He says it every chance he gets: that for a parent to merely label their child "Christian" is a form of child abuse (doctrine of hell withstanding).
Do a simple google search for "Dawkins" and "child abuse" and you will find countless references (on my google search I found the quotes you used in a article by Peter S. Williams - second link in the list). Add to this the numerous interviews on TV and other venues in which Dawkins says the same thing forthrightly. My comment stands on solid evidence.
Joel,
You are right about Dawkins saying that labeling a child with a religion is a form of child abuse. But I'd like to hear you explain why he believes that. I would even like to hear you make Dawkins' answer to your crticism since I'm sure you must know it.
for the record I don't spend much time talking about hell and judgement to my children. I don't try to scare them into believing, nor do I think that should be a motive for coming to Christ.
The Bible says that God's goodness will lead people to repentance. Once a person sees what a sinner he is, God's goodness in sending His Son to die for them becomes very clear. I know I don't deserve it.
Joel, I received my copy of Biblical Worldview today, and I very much enjoyed your article on Russell's "celestial teapot" analogy. Excellent writing and great analysis.
Yup, the new atheist mantra should be, "Get 'im while they're young!"
Well to say Richard Dawkins considers Religious education to be child abuse is either dishonest or completely missing the point.
I could give you examples of Dawkins saying that to label a child an 'Atheist' is just as wrong as labelling a child 'Christian' and of him suggesting that Religious education is a good thing.
There is however a world of difference between 'Religious Education' and telling your child 'These are the facts, Christ was born of a virgin etc' If you'd actually bother to look into these things you'd know that Dawkins promotes the idea of teaching your children that 'Some people believe this, others believe this' or to put it another way, to teach Children that there are many different Religions in the world and they all believe different things.
It seems when you say, 'Religious education' you actually mean 'Religious indoctrination' which is something else entirely.
Instead of American Vision attacking a theist like Robespierre who hated atheists, it should target a real French atheist, Baron d'Holbach. But unfortunately for you, he was not a tyrant.
"All children are atheists - they have no idea of God."
(Paul-Henri, baron d'Holbach / 1723-1789)
Also,
"If we go back to the beginnings of things, we shall always find that ignorance and fear created the gods; that imagination, rapture and deception embellished them; that weakness worships them; that custom spares them; and that tyranny favors them in order to profit from the blindness of men."
(Paul-Henri, baron d'Holbach / 1723-1789 / System of Nature / 1770)
That about sums it up.
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