Promoting the 'Child Abuse' Meme in the US
by JoyOver on his blog PZ Myers is doing his job of spreading Richard Dawkins' religion = child abuse meme in this thread.
Interesting to me is that it's finding a lot less knee-jerk support among Myers' amen choir than I would have expected. Sure, there are lots who don't mind asserting their authoritarian tendencies with vigor, and the situation in question (another young street corner preacher) is certainly debatable.
But notice the immediate tack of going after home schooling as something that might actually be made illegal here in the US, as opposed to just the 'family activities' of this particular family. Strangely enough, some of the commenters are not so anxious to legislate against home schooling either.
Looks to me like Dawkins' grand plan to equate religious upbringing with child abuse - and to have religious 'indoctrination' declared illegal, at least until he gets caught promoting such action - simply doesn't translate well to the Colonies, where people are generally more tolerant of individual rights.
Perhaps this is a good sign?
June 21st, 2007 at 11:35 am
Going after home schooling makes sense from PZ's point of view. PZ wants a cookie cutter society where modes of thought are dictated from academia and other sources of authority. Hitler outlawed homeschooling because he recognized it as a refuge from the auto-thinking process instilled in public schools.
Homeschoolers are better educated than their public school counterparts. They consistently outscore them on standard tests. They are also free of much of the dysfunctional atmosphere, including the violence and apathy, pervading our public school systems.
Interestingly the PZ types of the world see a need for a higher power. In their case it usually comes down to large instititutions like government in all its many forms, special interest groups and more. Perhaps a grant, funding attempts to locate the evolutionary cause for this, would be in order.
Comment by Bradford — June 21, 2007 @ 11:35 am
June 21st, 2007 at 11:44 am
I think it is a good sign, Joy, though admittedly a small one.
I wonder what ol' P.Z. would say about homeschooling if the shoe were on the other foot, i.e. the AMERICAN THEOCRACY (translation: society goes back to the pre-1960s) reared its ugly head and allowed school prayer or some such horrid, despicable nonsense. All of a sudden, homeschooling would look a lot better to him, I bet. If he even has kids, that is.
He's all for outlawing it because he's fairly sure his jackbooted thugs are going to be running the country before the hardcore "theocrats" are.
I don't homeschool, but I do have to dislodge a lot of the junk that the government schools figuratively ram down their throats.
Comment by angryoldfatman — June 21, 2007 @ 11:44 am
June 21st, 2007 at 1:09 pm
Bradford:
Hahaha! Wouldn't it be fun to get paid for putting Dawkins, Harris, PZ et al. under the microscope for a change? See if we can figure out what's wrong with THEIR wiring! Since atheism is a minority belief system (and radical atheism even more so), why is it the majority belief system that garners all the research grants?
Comment by Joy — June 21, 2007 @ 1:09 pm
June 21st, 2007 at 1:10 pm
angryoldfatman:
Yeah, I know just what you mean. All wannabe mind tyrants are eager to limit liberty when they're the ones who get to do the limiting. Hardly any of them are smart enough to understand that once liberty is limited in their own favor, their own liberty will be equally limited when the next mind-tyrants inevitably come into power.
Fortunately, our founding fathers understood this quite well. They reserved certain liberties to the people, forbidding governmental interference. The Constitution has been under mind-tyrant attack of late, but it's not too late to take it back.
I don't think the 'New Atheists' will get their dream-world any time soon. It's sometimes humorous to watch them squirm, though. §;o)
Comment by Joy — June 21, 2007 @ 1:10 pm
June 21st, 2007 at 2:16 pm
The sad thing about this child abuse belief is that it has nothing going for it but prejudice. Absolutely no data whatsoever to support it–and there have been many relevant studies. This is what these "supporters of science" want to peddle: science, if it agrees with their prejudices.
Comment by TomG — June 21, 2007 @ 2:16 pm
June 21st, 2007 at 2:59 pm
Actually, I am not thrilled with this kind of parenting. I do wonder about deleterious effects. But, is it worthy of anthoritarian intrusion? The real issue here is not metaphysics. PZ is an atheist. These folks are theists. PZ is also an authoritarian. This is a personality trait and it's found everywhere. And everywhere it is found, it must be resisted.
Comment by bj — June 21, 2007 @ 2:59 pm
June 21st, 2007 at 3:32 pm
I think that maybe we should give P.Z. some benefit of the doubt. I just returned from seeing my niece graduate. Because she and her brother (he graduated two years ago) were both home schooled I have at least a little first hand knowledge of what it really means to be home schooled. So be prepared. Be prepared for the truth. Be prepared to be shocked!
Like I said I just retuned from seeing my niece graduate. Some of you might be curious how this is done, after all, if you are home schooled and there is only one of you how much of a graduation can you have? Actually my niece and her mom (my sister) were part of a large home school association. This group planned and organized a full scale high school graduation complete with caps and gowns, diploma's commencement speakers and hundreds of friends and family in attendance. There was even a home school orchestra of underclassmen which played that music that they always play graduations. (What is that called? Someone help me out here.)
Afterward, I was looking through my niece's year book. (Oh yes, the association published one of those) There were pictures of my niece's high school/home school prom and her high school/ senior class trip. (It sounds just like regular high school, doesn't it?) There were also pictures of her as a member of the drama club which did a couple of publicly performed plays and the inter-scholastic volleyball and basketball my niece played on. Yes, I said inter-scholastic. The home school teams competed and played against some actual high schools. I'm not bragging but the home schooler's held their own. One of the criticisms of home schooling is that it retards social development. Maybe there is some truth to that. My niece only had 20-30 of her home school/high school classmates show up at her graduation party.
Then there are those all important academics. I suppose my niece could have done better, but she did do very well on her SAT and got a full four year scholarship, but she could have done better. Her brother, who graduated a couple years earlier, didn't do quite as well on the scholarship end but he did come in third in the National Geography Bee. Even third place carried some pretty good scholarship money with it.
Like I said at the beginning I think we should give P.Z. some benefit of the doubt. Okay, I was being facetious. Finally, if this is child abuse I think we need more of it.
Comment by JOHN_A_DESIGNER — June 21, 2007 @ 3:32 pm
June 21st, 2007 at 3:38 pm
bj:
Amen to that! Wannabe mind-tyrants come in all colors, shapes and sizes. There exist a minority of them in every generation, relative 'success' at gaining power depending on where the sociological psyche happens to be during that generation. Hitlers and Maos are always available. Most of them just practice their evils in more localized environments.
But we sure shouldn't use fear of tyranny as an excuse to impose a tyranny. Freedom and liberty and things like rights are not concepts that mean anything in a society of well-mannered conformists. If what you want to do with your life is just what the government (or some other authoritarian mind-tyrant) wants you do, then you're perfectly free to do what you want. You don't even know what the concepts really mean, much less practice them in your own life.
We do not have to approve of other people's choices. They just have to fall within the boundaries imposed by society in our laws. My husband was beaten up by a policeman in Tulsa back when we were just married, for hitch-hiking in the city limits. Actually it was because his hair was long and he was young and it was the 1960s. Turned out it wasn't even illegal to hitch-hike, so there were no legal ramifications. It's just stuff we suffered for not being well-mannered conformists in America in the 1960s.
Society - and law - finally caught up with us. Once they started shooting American students for protesting an unequal draft in an endless war that was killing thousands of American no-longer students (they did away with the student deferment that year), America had to stop kissing authority's butt and take a good, hard look at what was happening.
The rights to freedom and liberty (or just being left alone) were there in the charter all along. It just took some pain and suffering to make the resident power-holders respect them in the young and the less-than-white. It's a constant struggle. Perhaps well designed to be, just so the incoming residents don't forget too easily the price that's paid.
PZ Myers never paid the price, or he's forgotten that a bill ever came due. Things have been fairly quiet for a generation and a half, so some skated into power without ever confronting the struggle. Ripe pickin's for some up-and-coming tyrant.
Comment by Joy — June 21, 2007 @ 3:38 pm
June 21st, 2007 at 3:39 pm
Yes - something I've noted on my own blog. The militant atheists don't believe in the power of moral persuasion, or the force of truth and logical argument; hence they substitute the "big stick" of legal coercion in its place.
David
Comment by DavidAnderson — June 21, 2007 @ 3:39 pm
June 21st, 2007 at 4:36 pm
JOHN_A_DESIGNER
My wife was homeschooled and was a part of home schooling associations. Through her I know a lot of home schooled children and adults who were formerly home schooled. I would have to say that on average they are better adjusted, happier, and more successful than the public school educated friends I know.
PZ Myers and his ilk trade in the worst kind of stereo types and anecdotal evidence to construct their world-view. It is pathetic.
And let me say this as one last thing. In contrast to the home schooled people I have met, I have never known an "intellectual athiest" whose life was not so empty, disfunctional, and trivial that I did not honestly pity and feel sorry for him. It as if the meaning and purpose of life has completely passed them by and they are left bitterly clutching to their own feelings of superiority.
Comment by Jehu — June 21, 2007 @ 4:36 pm
June 22nd, 2007 at 2:37 am
I hated public school, and I hate it far more now. I could barely stand to let my kids finish high school. When I would get mad enough at the schools I would urge them to drop out.
I had every intention of sparing them the experience, and started home schooling them, but I have to admit home schooling and divorce don't go well together.
Don't worry, they all went to college.
No two parents tried harder to screw up their kids than their dad and I, but we did not succeed.
Comment by onething — June 22, 2007 @ 2:37 am
June 22nd, 2007 at 2:51 am
In defense of Dawkins, I looked into what got him started on his child abuse theme, and it was a woman in her thirties who recounted to him the emotional trauma she underwent when, as a teenager, she had a close friend to die suddenly in a car accident. While she was in grief, the adults in her life assured her that at that very moment, her friend was most assuredly being burned in hell, as she had been an unbeliever, or the wrong religion, or something.
I don't confine that sort of thing to child abuse, I call it human abuse, human psychic abuse.
At the same time, I have very strong reservations about children being raised in a nonreligious or nonspiritual atmosphere as well. It might not qualify as abuse, but perhaps neglect. An area of interest to me is how the brain relates to spiritual experience. It looks like when people have a strong spiritual experience, they are forever changed. They never completely lose what they gained; their spiritual perception becomes more acute. The best example is the near death experience. But other experiences can qualify as well. And there is some indication that the right temporal lobe area of the brain becomes 'activated' . What we know about brains is that there are three main developmental stages in a child's life aside from infancy itself, at two years, at seven years, and about 12 years. But at any rate, the child's brain is developing and pathways get lain down, others don't, depending upon what gets stimulated. Now, the spiritual perception in we human beings seems weak enough. It lies all but dormant. If it is allowed to lie unstimulated throughout childhood, it may actually atrophy, and I am really talking about the brain, not just the soul.
Comment by onething — June 22, 2007 @ 2:51 am
June 22nd, 2007 at 4:06 am
Lots of people raised in non-religious homes later have intense spiritual experiences and become very religious.
Based on the people I know, I would say there is zero correlation between age of conversion and intensity of religious experience and devotion.
The most dramatic examples that come to mind are friends of mine in the former Soviet Union who were raised as athiests under the state system and later had spiritual experiences so intense that they were willing to put their lives at stike for their religious beliefs.
If PZ Myers and his ilk think that religious conviction is the result of being raised in a religious home, they will be sorely disappointed.
Comment by Jehu — June 22, 2007 @ 4:06 am
June 22nd, 2007 at 6:23 am
Jehu:
First you deride PZ and his ilk for presenting anecdotal evidence and then you continue with a bunch of anecdotal "evidence" of your own. Now that is pathetic.
According to a recent scientific (as in: not anecdotal) study by UNICEF (yes, with the black helicopters), the happiest children in the world live in the Netherlands. The inhabitants of this country are also among the least religious. The country was founded on the ruins of religious wars between catholics and protestants, and it was one of the first parliamentary democracies in the world. Home schooling is not allowed there for obvious reasons: parents are not qualified teachers in general. Some parents are simply too stupid to perform even the simplest of arithmetic. Others insist on telling their children lies about science. You can't let people like that ruin their children's future. Most children in the Netherlands do not go to public schools. Most go to so-called christian schools because they are usually the highest quality for some reason. All christian, jewish, muslim, buddhist, you name it schools are 100% financed by the government. They can teach children creationism as much as they like (and boy, they do) as long as they teach them the stuff (including evolution) they need to know to pass the nation-wide exams. Pass the highest-level exam and you can go to any university without aditional testing. So what's wrong with that?
Comment by Raevmo — June 22, 2007 @ 6:23 am
June 22nd, 2007 at 6:53 am
Parents unable to do simple arithmetic rarely homeschool but some are too ideologically blindsided or too stupid themselves to recognize this.
And some insist on telling the public lies about home schoooling. Home schoolers consistently outscore public schoool pupils on SAT and other standard tests. They know more about evolutionary biology as well. Their teachers are not in it for the paycheck.
There are legal obstacles to financing private, religious schools with public funds in the USA. I agree with excelling at the requisite exams and going onto university studies from there. A public school education is not the best way to do that.
Comment by Bradford — June 22, 2007 @ 6:53 am
June 22nd, 2007 at 7:41 am
Bradford:
Do you or do you not agree that some people are too uneducated themselves to give their children a proper education? There is a reason why school teachers need formal qualifications (or is that not necessary in the US?) What is your explanation for the fact that home schoolers outperform (on average) in SAT tests? They are obviously not a random sample of the population, nor are public school children. Could that be an explanation? Your pathetic suggestion that teachers are in it for the paycheck is offensive to earnest teachers and to families with two working parents that cannot afford to homeschool. I hope this arrogant attitude doesn't rub off too much on your own children when you homeschool them.
Comment by Raevmo — June 22, 2007 @ 7:41 am
June 22nd, 2007 at 9:13 am
Raevmo, the reason homeschoolers outperform public schoolers on standard tests is because they are better educated. Students receive one on one attention from an intensely interested and loving teacher and that makes a huge difference. Homeschooling is not a lone ranger activity. It is done within the context of support groups in almost all cases. If one adult within the group is strong in mathematics that could be the adult instructing the child in this subject. The bottom line is results. That should be something empirically oriented, reality based types should understand. Results in this case translate to perfomance, not just on standard tests, but beyond that into higher education where homeschoolers have done well. Arrogance lies in attempting to judge homeschooling while being unfamiliar with its details.
Comment by Bradford — June 22, 2007 @ 9:13 am
June 22nd, 2007 at 10:01 am
Yes Bradford, I can see why homeschooling might be superior, and I am not against it in all cases. But surely not everybody should be allowed to school their children, because some parents are not fit to do so. Do you agree with that or not? There has to be some oversight in order to protect children.
Comment by Raevmo — June 22, 2007 @ 10:01 am
June 22nd, 2007 at 11:05 am
Raevmo wrote:
Do I agree? No. If you are fit to be a parent, then you are fit to educate your child.
Notice I said "fit to be", not "physically capable of becoming". Ability to produce gametes does not equal childrearing capability.
If you have all of the responsibilities of raising your child, then you should have all of the accompanying privileges. If the government holds you legally responsible for your child, then it should allow you to raise your child in most any way you see fit.
The only fair way to eliminate this freedom is to eliminate the corresponding responsibility. Is this not what you're advocating, Raevmo? The much hackneyed and naïve Platonian ideal?
Comment by angryoldfatman — June 22, 2007 @ 11:05 am
June 22nd, 2007 at 12:16 pm
Angry dude:
So they could be raised in a satanic cult where they teach that x+y=666, regardless of x and y? Or you would have illiterate parents teach their children how to read? If prefer to live in a community of people that takes the the responsibility to see to it that all their chidren get a proper education. And medical insurance to boot.
Comment by Raevmo — June 22, 2007 @ 12:16 pm
June 22nd, 2007 at 12:40 pm
There are already laws on the books that protect against extreme possibilities. But if you are looking for abuse a great place to start is the public schools. It is there you are most likely to encounter real (not imagined) abuses.
Comment by Bradford — June 22, 2007 @ 12:40 pm
June 22nd, 2007 at 4:02 pm
Jehu,
You could be right but I get a different anecdotal picture. I think the stats would show that nonreligious tend to stay that way. Of course there are exceptions, and if you are meeting the exceptions at your church, then you don't have a representative sample. If what you say is true, then we might as well not raise our children with religion at all.
Sure, the people in the soviet union are going to church a little more since they can, but the religious life of the country seems broken to me. At any rate, it will be interesting to watch.
Raevmo,
Very few people will homeschool who aren't going to be good at it.
As to the public schools, they bored me to death and punished me for reading. I spent 4 nights a week doing spelling homework for my Friday spelling test in the 5th grade even though I knew every word in the book and the teacher knew it. She wouldn't even let me do more interesting homework.
I rememeber the day I taught my daughter in 2nd grade in under an hour the entirety of all the math that I myself had learned in 2nd grade. Sure, she's bright but the point is that the public schools spent an entire year grilling me on what I taught my daughter in an hour. Of course, some repetition and practice is needed, but c'mon!
And frankly, I was pretty incensed at the sexual-emotional abuse the public schools doled out to the middle schoolers.
Comment by onething — June 22, 2007 @ 4:02 pm
June 22nd, 2007 at 7:38 pm
Raevmo,
I don't think that there should be any dispute to that. However. . .
Actually, it is not necessarily the case. In many school districts in the US, you have teachers who are conducting classes that they clearly do not have any formal background (heck, my 11th grade english teacher was a sports coach).
Further more, the quality of instructors depend greatly on school district, the community, the amount of funding for the school and the support. Generally speaking, schools in wealthier areas tend to have better instructors than poor areas. However. . .
I don't think that there is any intended malice to teachers and working families in general by anybody here supporting home-schooling. However, at the same time, there are teachers out there who care more about a paycheck than teaching - and they are almost impossible to get rid of in quite a number of cases, since they are protected by school unions in many parts of the country. And there are parents who really don't care about their children's education - and since children are legally obligated to go school, in many cases, those kids go and make trouble for everybody else in school.
Dude, take a step back and look up some information about the state of public education in the US and you will understand why some people (religious and non-religious) go out of their way to get their kids out of there. It's pretty bad.
Comment by Blackadder — June 22, 2007 @ 7:38 pm
June 23rd, 2007 at 12:18 am
Yes. Belloc points out some evils of utterly homogenous state education in his book Survivals and New Arrivals. But you can look at today's examples in asian countries. For example, in Korea, and especially Thailand, the state pre-determines everything about a child's education, down to what names of flowers he shall learn. The result of this is a citizen who believes that whatever he was not taught simply does not exist. We can see evidence of this in western countries too. Almost universally in western schools, nothing at all is taught about history from the fall of the Roman Empire to the Reformation. Not only are students utterly ignorant of this period, they grow up to think that nothing could have possibly happened during this time, other than, say, the burning of thousands of scientists like stacks of cordwood or some such stupidity. Mention to him that gothic cathedrals, universities, and hospitals are medieval inventions, and he draws a blank. It's simply impossible for him to understand or even process that statement, due to the nearly perfect homogenization of educational silence on this topic.
So, it is important to teach Darwinism and only Darwinism in schools, and it must be enforced by the state on all children. Because in doing so, the group-reinforcement effect of perfectly homogenous education makes any alternative to the Darwinian world-view unthinkable and incomprehensible.
Comment by Vladimir Krondan — June 23, 2007 @ 12:18 am
June 24th, 2007 at 11:37 pm
Jehu's post didn't strike me as hypocritical as you see to imply. PZ Myers was wishing harsh treatment on others based on a stereotype. Jehu, on the other hand, wasn't wishing harsh treatment on anyone. He was only making the observation that if you're going to judge by anecdote, then there's plenty of anecdotal evidence to condemn atheists. Anyway, that's what I understood his post to be saying.
Comment by russ — June 24, 2007 @ 11:37 pm