One of the things that my co-host Jason and I had to come to an agreement on in episode 13 before we could have a productive conversation about indoctrination was what was meant by the word itself. As it turns out, any dictionary will give you some form of what is clearly expressed in the Merriam-Webster definition of indoctrinate: “to teach (someone) to fully accept the ideas, opinions, and beliefs of a particular group and to not consider other ideas, opinions, and beliefs.” Most other dictionaries have similar definitions. For example, Dictionary.com defines indoctrinate this way: “to instruct in a doctrine, principle, ideology, etc., especially to imbue with a specific partisan or biased belief or point of view.” The feedback I’ve received since our initial podcast on this topic is that religious people either don’t accept that definition of indoctrination or don’t like it or both.
Once the definition was established, Jason made the following observation in episode 14: “It’s a power play. It’s a linguistic power play to define indoctrination in such a way to target religious people… The definition that is offered for indoctrination is set up in such a way as to trip up religious people from the get go.” For the record, and I’ve said this a couple of times, I don’t believe that only religious people are guilty of indoctrination. Jason mentioned in podcast 14 that I had written that very thing on our blog, but that’s not what I said. What I said was, “It seems to be that it’s mostly religious people who are resistant to the idea of recognizing a difference between teaching and indoctrinating.” Big difference. Of course non-religious people can be guilty of indoctrination. However, going back to Jason’s point, I can understand, as a liberal, religious person, why he’d be unhappy with the definition of the word.
On the other hand, if what a religious person believes is actually the absolute truth, then is indoctrination, even with its accepted definition, a bad thing? If humans are sinful and headed towards eternal torment and God sent his son as a sacrifice for their sins and they can avoid hell by believing in him, then would indoctrinating your child into that belief be a bad thing? As a matter of fact, I think you can make a case for indoctrination from the Bible itself. Deuteronomy 6:7-9 says, “And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” These same principles are found all throughout the Bible, and let’s be honest, it sounds an awful lot like indoctrination, and it sounds like it’s a good thing according to the bible. Maybe religious people shouldn’t reject the definition of indoctrination. Maybe they should embrace it!
Of course, from my point of view, the main problem with this is that Christianity isn’t the only game in town. Sure, Christians believe that they have absolute truth handed down to them from God, but so do Muslims, Jews, Mormons, Buddhists, Hindus, etc. Since most of these are mutually exclusive, at the very least, a large portion of the population of our planet is being indoctrinated into a false belief system, and many of them will never break free of it because of how they were raised. Even from a Christian viewpoint, this can’t be a good thing. In other words, if indoctrination is to be embraced, the very nature of it would include the belief that it’s only valid for that particular person’s religion. People with other beliefs shouldn’t indoctrinate their children because their beliefs aren’t true. Even within Christianity (and this applies to Islam and others as well), beliefs are so varied and mutually exclusive that even Christians would disagree with other Christians about how and what they should teach their children. For example, Jason thinks the way I was raised at Calvary Chapel was wrong, both the content and the methods.
I have other questions about indoctrination. Why is it necessary? If you have access to absolute truth from a real God who answers any prayer asked in his name and who truly desires all men to be saved, why be fearful of other beliefs? Why indoctrinate? Why not fairly allow consideration of different belief systems? The truth should win out, shouldn’t it? Especially with God on your side. If you do indoctrinate and raise your children to believe the same things as you, is that even a good way for them to learn things? Will they be prepared when presented with other beliefs? Will they truly believe the things they were taught, or will they just be repeating what they were taught to believe without having ever challenged it? Wouldn’t a belief be stronger if it’s been legitimately challenged? I think so, but God and I seem to disagree on the topic.
Look, there are definitely degrees of indoctrination, and everyone is probably guilty of it to some extent. Personally, I want to teach in a way that steers as clear of indoctrination as possible. The issue becomes much more complex if you’re religious. The more you believe that you have absolute truth handed to you from God, the more likely you are to indoctrinate, and that might even make God happy.
Episode #13: Repeat After Me. Indoctrination. Indoctrination. Indoctrination.
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Yes. It would still be a bad thing.
There is supposedly plenty of evidence of Christianity. Give the kid that. Let him make up his own mind. Show him the gospels. Let him read the words of Jesus. Teach the life that Jesus lived. Jesus wanted disciples to emulate him, not converts.
And you can do that without filling his head with images of a monstrous God who is pissed at him because he wasn’t born perfect and will throw him into an eternal torture pit while mommy and daddy look on from heaven and kick off another chorus of Amazing Grace. Or a God that killed Jesus because little Timmy’s sin of impure thoughts about a girl in class meant that God had to kill somebody and it was him or Jesus. And God might still kill Timmy if he lies like Ananias and Sapphira or isn’t sufficiently holy to take communion. Or God might just let a bus crash into his car and paralyze him to ‘get his attention.’
I still have a fucked up image of God in my head that I’ve been trying to deprogram.
As you know, I can relate.
However, the objection to what you’re saying would be that it “begs the question.” If there really is a monstrous God who is going to throw him into an eternal torture pit, then wouldn’t indoctrination in that case be the responsible thing to do? Speaking from that point of view, of course.
If such a god truly existed, signing on with him would mean becoming a monster or a puppet that could look upon the suffering of others (including people you loved dearly) forever with a smile and a song in your heart.
And in that case, I think the responsible thing to do would be to dive into ancient mythology and the occult with Timmy and try and find a weapon you could use to fight that god.
To be fair, and as someone who posted vehemently against Christian indoctrination in previous threads, I do believe the intent of most Christian parents is good. I was raised in an indoctrinating Calvary Chapel household. I raised my own kids in basically the same way until I broke from Calvary in 2002. My intentions were always good. I loved Jesus and I believed in the Bible as the word of God. I truly believed I was offering my children the way to a fulfilled life in Christ. Hell was not my motivator. It was never part of my Christian elevator speech. For me it was always about the love of Christ. But even with love as the focus, the concept of hell always exists in the back of the Christian’s mind, especially as a child, and it serves as an almost unbreakable tether.
I readily admit that my point of view regarding Christian indoctrination might be somewhat biased now that I’m on the outside looking in, but even so, I have little bitterness or anger toward my upbringing. And while I find indoctrination at this point in my life to be fairly distasteful, intent keeps it from being wholly unpalatable.
Well said, Heather, although I don’t believe intent justifies the means by any stretch, but I don’t think you do either. I get what you’re saying.
No, the intent most definitely does not justify the means. But the intent does keep me from throat punching a lot of people.
Not on indoctrination specifically but on ep 13 (maybe I should comment on the podcast thread instead?) Jason makes the point that Neil deGrasse Tyson could be placed in the same category as Richard Dawkins or Chris Hitchens and I just wanted to say that NdT (from the limited exposure I have had to his views) would disagree that his methodology is indoctrination as defined here and in the podcast. In fact, as a scientist, whose entire raison d’être is to poke and prod and question, NdT would encourage people to question and that he does not present his own atheism as doctrine or the absolute truth but that thus far, there has been no evidence to support the belief of the existence of a/the God.
BTW, recently discovered you guys on Pocketcast’s (podcast app) directory and have gone back and devoured your archive and am loving it. Keep up the good work!
Thanks for the kind words, Greg ,and for listening!
I agree with you about NdT, and wish I had said what you said in the podcast.
Guys I’m a relatively new listener (thanks Susan Mosman Taylor) and working through the older podcasts. As a former christian with a fundy(ish) background I’m finding a lot of the discussions very interesting.
I wanted to pick up on one of the points made in the discussion on indoctrination (sorry probably ancient history for you now). The point was made about conservative christians exhibiting insecurity about their beliefs by not wanting exposure for themselves or other from conflicting viewpoints (my paraphrasing). My take on it is that it’s mostly about a belief in the weakness of people and a view of the power of enticement of “wrong” thinking than a lack of belief in the rightness of their own beliefs. Same general reasons that I don’t generally keep junk food in my house, other foods are better for me but I don’t always choose whats best for me. Not sure if you will ever revisit that indoctrination discussion but if you di I’d be interested in your thoughts about that mindset.
Bob
No! Not indoctrination again! 🙂
Hi Bob! Thanks for listening. I think if people are really that weak and the fear is that they will be drawn away by false arguments, then how can they be sure that what they currently believe is true anyway? If people are that weak, then they should be examining their beliefs and comparing them to other systems because they may have been duped. I see what you’re saying with the food analogy, but in my opinion that analogy falls apart early on. We know that whole foods are healthier for us than junk foods, but that junk foods usually provide more immediate gratification. We don’t have that benefit with our beliefs. Another belief or doctrine may actually be healthier for us and yet we’re clinging on to our “junk food” beliefs instead. In other words, with food we generally know what is healthy and what is junk. With doctrine, it takes actually looking into it to know.
Christian, sorry (a little bit) to be dragging you back into that topic. I agree that its’s an approach thats weak but from my own recollections in that space I tend go with the view that it may have a more to do with motivations for fundies than lack of confidence in their own beliefs. I was obviously not a very good fundy as I managed to move away from most of it.
The point you make about the weakness of the argument reminds me of one that’s regularly had online in interactions with a particular christian who routinely focusses on the lack of absolutes underlying non thiest ethics/morals. He will not address the point that there is an underlying lack of absolutes in the decision to accept a particular view of God as an absolute (let alone the vast differences in interpretation of the Bible that exist now and across history). Eg a deeply flawed approach but one that appears to me to be core to what it takes to be a fundy. Bob
Bob, most likely both motivations play a part, depending on the culture of the church. Fundamentalists usually act overly confident in their dogma, but I still think that’s at least partly betrayed by a fear of what else is out there. If someone believes something to be absolutely true, they shouldn’t fear other ideas.