My response to a journal entry.

So I was reading "An Atheist’s Philosophy"’s latest journal entry regarding specifically so-called Brain-washing and had/have many thoughts that are just too numerous to leave via note.

Below are the list of terms and his definitions therein and below that are my responses to each.

Evidence: the available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid

True: in accordance with fact or reality

Reality: the world or the state of things as they actually exist, as opposed to an idealistic or notional idea of them

Fact: a thing that is indisputably the case

Proof: evidence or argument establishing or helping to establish a fact or the truth of a statement

Idealism: the practice of forming or pursuing ideals, esp. unrealistically

Notional: existing only in theory or as a suggestion or idea

Superstition: excessively credulous belief in and reverence for supernatural being

Myth:  a traditional story, esp. one concerning the early history of a people or explaining some natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural beings or events.

Cults: a system of religious veneration and devotion directed toward a particular figure or object

Evidence: Accepted as is.

True:  Modified: The "truth" is created by a fact–not the other way around.

Reality:  Challenged.  Reality is somewhat subjective and reality can only be best described as the observations that are in direct accordance with the observations of others such that reality is defined as merely the sum of our experiences and is subject to change.  The world was flat, Pluto was a planet.  Is reality then the sum total of all things whether observable or not.  We cannot observe evolution only the effects of evolution and yet it is a part of reality.  All mathematical models are approximations of observation and all observations are limited by the fact that they come from the brain and the brain is something that we don’t fully understand.  For instance the same areas of the brain are activated when seeing as when picturing the image in our mind (I wish I could remember the name of the study this came from so I can quote it.).  Then, is there a difference between sight and imagination?  For example, pi=C/D, but, what is pi as a number?  Or the square root of two?  We can approximate it.  So perhaps perceivable reality is the approximation of our observations of Universal Reality.  But in the words of Robert Anton Wilson:  "reality is what you can get away with."  

Fact: Challenged.  A thing that makes a statement true is more accurate.   Though it is hard to talk about facts without talking about "Theories" which are things used to attempt to explain facts and may not be true.  But, importantly facts are derived from theories and if theories can be fallable then facts can be fallable and if facts can be fallable then the truth can be fallable.

Proof: Modified: Repeated observation producing evidence inspiring an argument to help establish a fact.

Idealism: Challenged:  The theory that base reality is based on minds or ideas as opposed to "realism."  Or, as followers of Kant’s philosphy claim–the only things that can be directly known are merely ideas.  So, the portion "unrealisitic" holds somewhat true.  Though, see Plato‘s Allegory of the Cave.

Notional: Accepted as is.

Superstition: Challanged: superstitions do not have to be "excessively credulous" nor do they need to have anything to do with a supernatural being, certainly belief in one can be seen as superstitious–however concepts such as "luck," "fate," and doing anything ritualistically, this can be seen in many of Skinner‘s experiments as to be instilled in animals and it seems to be a fact of conditioning.  Knocking on wood, saying "bless you" or "gesuntite" after a sneeze is superstitious.  Yet, more often than not so called "rational minds" preform superstitious actions.

Myth: Accepted as is.

Cult:  Challanged!: A cult is any group with that bands together with a set of beliefs outside of any previous standard set of beliefs.  Ie.  Buddhism was a Hindu cult and Christianity was a Jewish Jesus cult.  All religions (according to the previous definition) are then cults and while all religions started as cults once they garner enough support they are no longer a cult (ie their claims are accepted by a society as plaussable).

And, I’ll add one more:  Brainwashing.

Brainwashing: Efforts to instill certain beliefs in a person.

Brainwashing:  Challenged: by that definition parents, friends, books, schools, and in fact any form of media all use brainwashing.  Is that true?  We’ll discuss.

On to the actual entry.

While true a child is "basically a clean slate" they soon grasp on a very intuative level many things and come to their own conclusions about the way the world works and where things come

from as often attributed to "magical thinking."  Without instruction if a child asks a question such as "why is the sky blue?" and not given an answer but rather a question such as "I don’t know, why do you think the sky is blue?" they typically won’t respond with "I don’t know," but rather they will postulate their own theories and then when those theories are questioned they will defend those theories with other observations they have gathered.

Or more specifically they don’t stay agnostic for long.  My previous relationship was with a woman who had a child whom I raised from the ages of two until almost six.  And I often had philosophic conversations with this child as young as four.  They observe and form neural pathways much faster than I think AAP gives them credit for.

To teach a child morals is a rather base concept the only moral that needs to be activly instilled is to "pain not others with which that pains thyself."  (The Golden Rule)  Other than that I certainly agree that objectivity and using reasoning, logic, and critical thinking skills.  From those skills if the golden rule is in place than all other morals will be derived from the individual and not from externalizations.

If morals are instilled by the parent you have consequences for not following those morals as a child if you are taught to share and you view this as an abstract moral you are punished for not sharing, are you not?  As a young adult when the sense of self is developing there is always the fear of dissapointing ones parents and this fear drives us to follow on a moral and often Religous basis those beliefs of our parents.  A child who is raised atheist begins to see things that he cannot explain other than for the existence of a God and therefore begins to look into religious views until he finds one that approximates his view.  Yet, he knows that if he turns out to be a theist his atheist parents will look down upon him as being foolish for his theism and so will often continue to be atheist, just as any form of religous pressure.

And we are partially to blame for a child’s Magical Thinking.  We give them the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, we instill in them the basis for thinking of things that "do not exist" but to the mind of a child they are real, are they not?  You cannot argue with a child about the existence of Santa, who else would bring the presents marked from Santa that were on the list we sent to the North Pole?  And who would eat the cookies and milk we left out for Santa other than Santa himself?  Why do we do this to the Children?  Perhaps it is because we all must have something to believe in.  If so, then why is it no longer important as we reach towards adulthood?

And as they find these constructs to be false their faith in their parents, teachers, friends, and adults are all shattered.  And yet they still trust them.  Just because half a dozen of their statements were false does not outweigh the hundreds of statements that were true.  So, is it the truth of the statement that is important or merely just the belief of the statement?  We continue to believe something that goes against so called "rationality" because of hope.

Just because something is unobservable at present does not gaurantee that it will remain unobserable and is it those observations that give a thing existence, or is existence outside of experience?  Look at various subparticles, the quark, beta particles (positrons), leptons, the ilk, or black holes.  Is it then not possible for anything that has not been observed thus far to be observed?  It can be said then that a theist is more open minded than a Hard Atheist.

Most of the real world examples don’t go to show anything about Religion at all but rather power.  George Bush exerted force and power using the guise of Christianity, as did Palin, Hitler, those in power have the ability to corrupt and often use something intrinsic to the fabric of hope to attain this corruption.

It’s not the ones who know what God is and what He wants us to do that should be feared, but rather the ones who tell us what God is and what He wants us to do.

I feel that AAP falls into the traps of many atheists in strictly being atheistic from a Western Judao-Christian outlook and ignoring Taoism, Buddhism (A non-theistic religion–which bears the question, what difference is there between non-theistic and atheistic?), Jainism, and Confucianism.

Suggested Reading:

About Behaviorism
An Introduction to Jainism
Buddhism Plain and Simple
Hardcore Zen: Punk Rock, Monster Movies, & the Truth about Reality
Tao Te Ching: The New Translation From Tao Te Ching: The Definitive Edition
The Critique of Pure Reason
The Power of Myth
http://www.sacredtexts.org
http://www.taoteching.org

 

–RK