Calling all Theists

[Flail]

There is no real topic for debate as I don't think debate about theism is possible with an indoctrinated theist....

But the question for 'discussion' is ....Will you share your indoctrination stories with us,honestly and in detail?....It would be interesting to know how we each became indoctrinated or ...otherwise....

[cnorman18]

There is no real topic for debate as I don't think debate about theism is possible with an indoctrinated theist....

But the question for 'discussion' is ....Will you share your indoctrination stories with us,honestly and in detail?....It would be interesting to know how we each became indoctrinated or ...otherwise....

I've seen this OP sitting here unanswered for the last 10 days or so, and haven't posted a response myself because my own story doesn't fit your assumptions; but I've noticed since that this theme of "indoctrination" seems to be showing up more and more often in your posts, to the point that it at least appears that you assume virtually all religious belief to be the result of it.

That isn't the case. Proof follows.

In my opinion, anyone over the age of 15 or so who professes a religious belief, barring members of out-and-out coercive cults like the FLDS and the People's Temple, professes that belief as a matter of free choice and not of being brainwashed.

If a kid isn't kept isolated within his religious community, he or she will come in contact with many ideas which are hostile, inimical, and most commonly and importantly, indifferent to religion. In adulthood, that is even harder to avoid. Given that virtually all kids go through the "rebellious teen" period at some time between 12 and 18, it is all but inevitable that whatever religious ideas the kid has been raised with will come under examination, usually with an eye to expressing defiance and independence. It's normal.

I will happily grant that some kids, most often fundamentalists of one variety or another, are so heavily indoctrinated that this never happens; but once again, not all, and not even most, religious people are fundamentalists.

Here's the proof I promised, twice: I was raised in a relatively liberal Methodist family. I chucked Christianity when I was 16 or so, and spent some time studying Buddhism and various other philosophies.

As a junior in college, I returned to the faith - as an Episcopalian at the time, though I eventually returned to the Methodist church - because of reading I had done on my own. It had occurred to me that before signing on as a full-out Buddhist, which was my intention, I really ought to check out the religion of my birth as a matter of intellectual honesty. My plan was to do some reading, dismiss the Christian faith, and then go into Buddhism with a clear conscience. Instead, I became intrigued, and then interested, and then knowledgable, and finally committed (though with reservations) - all without any "indoctrination" from anyone.

There are any number of non-fundamentalist liberal Christians with similar stories. I have known many. As a matter of fact, C. S. Lewis, one of the many authors I read during that time, was one with a similar history. I think that that sort of thing is more the norm than otherwise among Methodist, Anglican, Presbyterian, Reformed, etc. liberal Christians. That is no doubt partly because those denominations are more cerebral than emotional.

Again, my decision late in life to convert to Judaism happened without any contact with any rabbi or any Jew; I read more than 80 books on the subject before making that decision, withdrawing from the Methodist Church, and contacting a rabbi.

Indoctrination? From whom? Nobody even told me what books to read, or to read any at all.

Some religionists are no doubt such because of indoctrination of one kind or another. But to speak as if it were usual or routine just isn't accurate, particularly when speaking of liberal denominations or religions.

Full disclosure; very many strictly Orthodox Jewish communities fall under the classification of "cults" for the purposes described here. They are often self-isolated, have little contact with outsiders, their children are schooled separately, and social sanctions against deviation from the community's standards of behavior are severe. I do not speak for the Orthodox here, and never have; they are the Jewish equivalent of fundamentalists.

[Flail]

Indoctrination can come from many sources and include self indoctrination....and Judaism is a very thoughtful exception to the common practices to which I refer for the most part...from what I understand....and with any post it is easy to paint with too broad a brush....

but with a typical religious faith that is not based upon evidence or proof....but just religious promotional material and concocted rituals, what else could it be based upon if not indoctrination?

[cnorman18]

Indoctrination can come from many sources and include self indoctrination....and Judaism is a very thoughtful exception to the common practices to which I refer for the most part...from what I understand....and with any post it is easy to paint with too broad a brush....

but with a typical religious faith that is not based upon evidence or proof....but just religious promotional material and concocted rituals, what else could it be based upon if not indoctrination?

Self-directed wishful thinking? Starry-eyed idealism? The urge to join the local majority? Political advantages? You have the hots for a cute religious chick?

Any number of reasons. I don't say they are necessarily valid reasons; but even if we only talk about lousy reasons, there are plenty besides outright indoctrination.

[Zzyzx]

.
Cnorman,

You present a compelling argument against indoctrination – involving you personally. What you say can apply to people who occupy the upper one percent (or higher) range of intellect – and the upper one percent of determination / motivation. That is a pretty rare environment – one percent of one percent.

Not many of the other 99.99% (or whatever the actual numbers) show indication that they research their religion – but typically accept the beliefs of their parents, associates and society – learning to believe or practice what they are told by others, usually it seems, without involvement of mental processes other than memorization.

The Jesuit motto, "Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man," reflects the effectiveness of indoctrination (also euphemistically called "religious training"). That "mainline" attitude is verified by cult practices.

Adult onset religion appears to me to be often or usually a reaction to emotional and personal difficulties encountered by the individual – incarceration, addiction, failure, feelings of worthlessness, lack of fulfillment, etc – and acceptance of an "easy way" to rationalize or adjust to the situation – rather than being based upon deep study and reflection of religion in general, comparative religions, or even a specific religion.

You are an extremely "rare bird", Cnorman. What applies to you in regards religion does NOT apply to people in general or to most religionists (and certainly to none that I have known).

[cnorman18]

.
Cnorman,

You present a compelling argument against indoctrination – involving you personally. What you say can apply to people who occupy the upper one percent (or higher) range of intellect – and the upper one percent of determination / motivation. That is a pretty rare environment – one percent of one percent.

I dunno about all that, Z. No false modesty here - I acknowledge I'm a smart guy - but the top 1% of the top 1%?

To adapt the old saying - "If I'm so smart/determined/motivated, how come I ain't rich?"

This isn't about me, and that's not where my thinking comes from. See below.

Not many of the other 99.99% (or whatever the actual numbers) show indication that they research their religion – but typically accept the beliefs of their parents, associates and society – learning to believe or practice what they are told by others, usually it seems, without involvement of mental processes other than memorization.

I don't doubt that that's true of fundamentalists, but I don't think it is quite as characteristic for more liberal Christians. For one thing, those denominations involve a bit more cerebral activity just to belong to them - they generally acknowledge the human origins of the Bible, for starters.

That issue alone demands some rather serious thought. Those who do not subscribe to a literalist or authoritarian view of Scripture are obliged to find other reasons for the details of their beliefs. Ask a fundamentalist about "theology," and he'll hand you a Bible; ask a Methodist or Episcopalian, and pretty quickly you'll be talking philosophy and ethics.

The men and women I knew in seminary were not at all dependent on rote memorization or dogmatic belief; thinking, hard, was something of a requirement there - one can hardly approach Bultmann, Barth, Tillich, Ogden (who taught there), et. al. without a working brain. And some of those people, to be honest, were pretty dim bulbs and had a hard time of it. That was where I first discovered my own talent for making difficult ideas accessible, informally tutoring those who needed it.

Even in the churches where I served as pastor - small rural churches populated mostly by elderly farmers and ranchers, not the sort of people you'd expect to be deep thinkers or particularly theologically insightful - I rather often was asked questions that revealed a very sophisticated understanding of the nature of Scripture and a remarkable capacity for free thought, questioning settled "doctrines" and casually rejecting conventional Christian ideas (e.g., the teaching that faith in Jesus is the only way to Heaven - not to mention the issue of what "faith in Jesus" means).

The Jesuit motto, "Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man," reflects the effectiveness of indoctrination (also euphemistically called "religious training"). That "mainline" attitude is verified by cult practices.

I think much of this applies to lay Catholics as well, if not to the hierarchy, There is a wide spectrum of belief in the Catholic Church, and many Catholics are considerably less indoctrinated than many here seem to think. That is proven, right out front, by the fact that the great majority of American Catholics practice birth control in spite of the dire warnings of the Church.

Adult onset religion appears to me to be often or usually a reaction to emotional and personal difficulties encountered by the individual – incarceration, addiction, failure, feelings of worthlessness, lack of fulfillment, etc – and acceptance of an "easy way" to rationalize or adjust to the situation – rather than being based upon deep study and reflection of religion in general, comparative religions, or even a specific religion.

"Adult onset" religion? LOL! Makes it sound like an illness. No doubt sometimes it is.

That is often the case; but there are also many who switch religions in adulthood, as I did, as well as very many who became religious again after having rejected it long before, both for wholly intellectual reasons that are not related to emotional crisis; and they ought not be discounted. Those decisions were not made without thought, and I know very many such people indeed.

I really think that this is an area where, once again, all religious belief is being stereotyped as similar to fundamentalism. Conservative/evangelical/fundamentalist beliefs - and I am not saying that those are all the same - are indeed characterized by indoctrination, emotional involvement, and the "working up" of various emotional states; the more liberal varieties of Christianity and Judaism are not.

Some groups are more concerned with charitable work than with getting a "religious fix" of rapturous ecstasy or self-righteous satisfaction. Others are more involved with political action - and among the liberal churches (and certainly synagogues), that is at least as likely to be on the left as on the right.

What you say here unquestionably applies to mindless religion; but, contrary to nontheist stereotype, not all religion is mindless.

You are an extremely "rare bird", Cnorman. What applies to you in regards religion does NOT apply to people in general or to most religionists (and certainly to none that I have known).

Thanks, but I think that assessment is impaired by the fact that, in liberal Christian circles, frankly, you don't get out much.

That's not surprising, and in fact is almost unavoidable; like most Jews, the liberal Christians you know probably aren't given to talking about religion, and certainly aren't shoving it in your face. To find out what they think and how they got there, you have to ask.

Fundamentalists and evangelicals get maybe 90% of the ink and are far better known to nonChristians than the other kinds; but even in America, it's my understanding that they make up less than half of those who consider themselves Christians, and worldwide, very much less than that.

In truth, I feel about moderate and liberal Christians very much the same way I feel about moderate Muslims. By remaining reticent and not speaking out about their own more inclusive, less repressive and less emotionally dependent - not to mention less dependent on indoctrination - version of the faith, and by not disavowing and publicly disputing fundamentalism and fundamentalist efforts at indoctrination, they are allowing fundamentalists to become the face of all Christians. Even as a Jew, I think that's wrong.

Incidentally, Z, I am not as unique as you might think. I know of at least three other Methodist ministers wbo have converted to Judaism here in Dallas. One of them is now a rabbi.