From: ald@clipper.ingr.com (Al Date)
Newsgroups: misc.kids
Subject: Re: Teaching Superstition     was God's Family Values
Date: 5 Sep 92 02:18:11 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Intergraph Advanced Processor Division - Palo Alto, CA

In article <1992Sep02.231012.2221907@locus.com> judy@locus.com (Judy Leedom Tyrer) writes:
>In article <1992Aug28.203355.29883@clipper.ingr.com> ald@clipper.ingr.com (Al Date) writes:
>>
>>I am very interested in the long term effects of teaching superstitions
>>to young children.  Superstitions are not confined to religious 
>>indoctrination, of course, but that is the area in which they seem to 
>>find the most common expression in this culture.
>
>Well, I have to question this assumption since I see superstition as things like
>knocking on wood, never walking under a ladder, carrying a rabbit's foot in
>your pocket, or my favorite, picking up found pennies and carrying them with you
>all day for luck.  So, to avoid the religious flame wars bound to come
>from this post, I will look at those superstitions and trust my personal knowledge
>of God to be real, and NOT superstition.  You may choose to disagree, but 
>that will serve no purpose for this discussion since it is not about the existance
>or non-existance of one or more deities.

Umm, I think there is an inherent difference in the psychology
generated by telling a child that
God is watching him, and telling a child that carrying a rabbit's foot
is "lucky."  But then again, maybe not.  I'm not trying to start
a holy war, either.

>
>Okay, so you were taught a religious belief that caused you
>nightmares.  Whether or not the belief is true is of less consequence than
>the effect it had.  So if you were taught that there are sexual perverts who
>sneak into unlocked windows at night and molest little children and had
>nightmares from that it would have had the same impact.  Correct?
>

No, because there is a difference in being afraid of self-verifiable
reality, and being afraid of ghosts, on the other hand.  I think
the difference that I am trying to pin down is the difference between
rational fear and irrational fear.  Something tells me that irrational
fear is not a good thing, perhaps the source of much psychosis.
I know that there are quite a few people who swallow religion so
hard that it cripples them in some ways.

>Are we still talking about teaching superstition?  Or are we talking about
>teaching things which will deeply disturb and upset children?  Because reality
>is, IMHO, scarier than any superstition created by man.

Perhaps.  Is that a reason to add irrational fears to the rational ones?


>Well, does it harm a child to believe in the tooth fairy?  

Probably only if the child REALLY believes in it...same with
Santa Claus.  We justify teaching the Santa Claus myth because
kids usually outgrow it later.  But what does that teach them about
trusting their parents?  (just asking here) 
And this is not the same as religious training, as we
DONT expect them to outgrow a  belief in God, do we...


>It doesn't cause
>nightmares.  It's a bit of fun which helps a child adjust to having her teeth
>fall out (scary stuff, having your teeth fall out - I have recurring nightmares
>about that one all the time).  
>

Gee, I never thought teeth falling out was scary, because I could see that
they grew back.


>So, religion aside, I don't think it "messes up children's brains" to learn
>about superstitions any more than I believe it messes up their brains to 
>engage in fantasy play.  

OK, but fantasy is DIFFERENT, because it is acknowledged pretendedness
upfront.  God is NOT pretend-play, or at least, that is what religious
training says.


>After all, if you PRETEND that a rock is hamburger
>when your child wants to cook you dinner, aren't you training them to ignore
>the evidence of their own senses?  

No, I would say that you are encouraging them to engage in a harmless
fantasy.  You are not asking them to bite the rock.  
I am not convinced that God-training is harmless, and I think
kids are kind of EXPECTED to "bite the rock of religion," if you will.


>But who would argue that when a child brings
>you a rock and says, "Here, Mommy, I made you dinner.  It's a hamburger" the
>parent should say "No you didn't.  This is a rock.  Quit pretending."?  

Reminds me of the meal scene from "Hook."   Again, I can only say that
religion is not presented as a fantasy.  It is presented as reality, 
and I think I have problems with that.
 

>>But on the other hand, another friend of mine believes that children
>>who are not indoctrinated in some conventional religion are easy
>>pray for Moonie or Krishna cults.  
>>
>
>Well, this is patently false.  Most of the children caught up in cults were from
>conventional religious backgrounds. 

Yes, but could that be because most kids are from conventional religious
backgrounds, thereby skewing the sample?


> They were enticed into the cult because
>they did not have the experience to recognize mental manipulation when they
>became victim to it.  

Perhaps they became acclimated to mental manipulation when their parents
convinced them about God in the first place, ever think of that?  (8-)


>They had ideals that the cults appealed to.  And once in,
>the most self assured, confident, and religiously grounded of people would
>find that they easily succumb to brain washing.
>

I found it much easier to resist these cults with a healthy dose of
agnosticism.


>>What is a parent to do?
>>
>This is, to me, the simplest of all questions.  The parent is to impart their
>own view of the world to their child.  It would be dishonest for a parent who
>did not believe in God to teach their child God.  And it would be dishonest for
>a parent who does believe in God NOT to teach their child about God.
>

Hmm, well it looks like my kids are going to get a different story
from Mom than they will get from Dad.  Any thoughts on the possible outcome
of this?  (I am hoping for solid skepticism to be the ultimate outcome.)


Btw, Judy, I agreed with your
potty-training advice--keep em nude, keep taking them to the
pot, and they learn to pee there.  That's how I single-handedly
(8-) trained my 3 year old boy, when my wife preferred to just 
keep slapping those diapers on him.  Now that's TRUE fatherhood!


--Al Date