Re: [asa] Religious brainwashing

One of the "bogeymen" that thinkers within a religious faith have to
face is that there is incredible motivation to believe in an
afterlife. C.S.Lewis points out that this motivation works both ways
as there is also much motivation to wish the afterlife were not so.
But I still wonder if the motivation for outweighs the motivation
against. Here is why: Economists/psychologists have discovered that
people do not always simplistically act in their own selfish interest.
E.g. This is demonstrated when two of us play a dictator/ultimatum game
where a thousand dollars is on the table, and I get to choose how much
of it goes to you while I keep the rest --- but you get to veto either
of us getting anything if you don't like my offer. You (meaning most
people) will likely punish me by refusing to accept the paltry $100 I
offer in order to prevent me from making off with the $900. You are
often willing to forgo your own reward on your own strong principle in
order to punish unfair behavior.

So put another way, we can't stand the thought that an unrepentant
Hitler or Pol Pot wouldn't suffer for their crimes any more than they
did if they just die. As a staunch Atheist friend of mine put it with
Shakespearian reference --- you have to have your pound of flesh, don't
you, Merv. This mysterious currency "of principle" runs stronger in us
sometimes than even our own desire to enjoy reward or avoid punishment
for ourselves. SO ... if such strong motivation does bear out under
demonstration, is my faith weakened because of this "alternate"
explanation for believing in the afterlife? Possibly. But there is
still an incredible cloud of witnesses that chose to forgo all present
rewards (forever if this life was all there was). And that vicarious
testimony still bolsters the faith of others. But our desire for
justice (especially for the "other guy") makes for a strong motivation
to hope against atheism. Of course, unexpected grace may deny us that
vengeful pleasure as well. That may be part of our answer as Christians.

I'll bet your Timothy already has a developing sense of "justice" just
by living in your family and watching you. He my understand punishment
even if he can't yet say the word.

--Merv

David Campbell wrote:
> Some time ago, there was a discussion of Dawkins' claim that religious
> teaching of small children amounts to religious brainwashing, typified
> by scaring them with images of eternal torment.
>
> Ecklund and Scheitle (2007, Social Problems 54(2):289-307) studied
> religious views of U.S. scientists and found that atheist and
> religious alike most frequently adhered to their parents' faith
> position. Globally, the largest number of atheists probably are those
> who adopted it becase a communist government said to. Unlike Dawkins,
> I recognize that does not tell us anything about whether the idea is
> true, nor even about how good an atheist they are; all it does is tell
> us about where they got the idea.
>
> Timothy, who will be three in November and is not yet reliably reading
> words longer than "no", wanted to look at the cover for a copy of
> Dante's Inferno that I was reading-medieval-style portrayal of some of
> the layers visited by Dante and punishments seen. He's asked again to
> look at it since, when the book was out of sight on the shelf. I
> explained that the people had been bad and were being punished, but
> did not specifically mention afterlife, etc. As it's of his own
> initiative, brainwashing doesn't seem like an appropriate term.
>
>

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Received on Thu Sep 20 19:47:50 2007