gha5t (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} gha5t) wrote,@ 2006-10-25 14:50:00 |
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shocking, I posted something! :P
So I was discussing faith and religion after having started reading The God Delusion, and I came to a few realizations.
First religion itself is not the problem, religion is byproduct of faith. Also religion is no different from any other kind of faith. People seem to have the need to identify with a group and have a simple metric for making decisions. This can be seen by people identifying themselves as communist, capitalist, liberal, conservative, etc.
The common thing is that the brain seems to create reasoning patterns and apply them to situations, that way one does not need to make a deep analysis of each situation, and can quickly apply the appropriate pattern. The problem of faith occurs when people continue applying these patterns in the faith of contradictory evidence. Once it is demonstrated that a belief is flawed it must then be discarded. When a person fails to discard flawed beliefs then the mechanism which allows them to make quick decisions breaks down.
Therefore it seems to me that a person should be taught logic from the young age, so that they are able to identify the cases where their automated reasoning is no longer applicable and have the ability to adjust their reasoning patterns accordingly. On this note I'm curious how harmful exposure of young children to religion is. Since religion teaches faith, which is an act of non-thinking where the person learns that it is good to accept ideas without questioning them. It would seem to me that introducing this element into the environment when the brain is still developing could have adverse effects on the reasoning ability of that person throughout their lives. If this is the case should religious indoctrination be considered harmful to children and as such discouraged?
To make it clear, I have no issue with children learning about religion, I only see potential problems with religious indoctrination of children, where they are taught to accept things without reasoning them through.
Curious what people think of this, do leave comments :)
So I was discussing faith and religion after having started reading The God Delusion, and I came to a few realizations.
First religion itself is not the problem, religion is byproduct of faith. Also religion is no different from any other kind of faith. People seem to have the need to identify with a group and have a simple metric for making decisions. This can be seen by people identifying themselves as communist, capitalist, liberal, conservative, etc.
The common thing is that the brain seems to create reasoning patterns and apply them to situations, that way one does not need to make a deep analysis of each situation, and can quickly apply the appropriate pattern. The problem of faith occurs when people continue applying these patterns in the faith of contradictory evidence. Once it is demonstrated that a belief is flawed it must then be discarded. When a person fails to discard flawed beliefs then the mechanism which allows them to make quick decisions breaks down.
Therefore it seems to me that a person should be taught logic from the young age, so that they are able to identify the cases where their automated reasoning is no longer applicable and have the ability to adjust their reasoning patterns accordingly. On this note I'm curious how harmful exposure of young children to religion is. Since religion teaches faith, which is an act of non-thinking where the person learns that it is good to accept ideas without questioning them. It would seem to me that introducing this element into the environment when the brain is still developing could have adverse effects on the reasoning ability of that person throughout their lives. If this is the case should religious indoctrination be considered harmful to children and as such discouraged?
To make it clear, I have no issue with children learning about religion, I only see potential problems with religious indoctrination of children, where they are taught to accept things without reasoning them through.
Curious what people think of this, do leave comments :)
