I often ponder over religion with a scientific context. I suppose that’s expected, given the scientific way in which I live my life. However, a recent tweet by Richard Dawkins prompted me to think about religion and religious indoctrination from an evolutionary perspective. Granted, this is not a traditional evolutionary perspective, but it intrigued me so I thought I would share:
If we think of religion as its own species, rather than a trait of our own species, what would the natural environmental hazards be for religion? All of the following come to mind:
education, knowledge, intelligence, logic
So, from an evolutionary perspective, any given religion would be more likely to survive “as a species” if it had a way to nullify or reduce the impact of these hazards. That’s where the tweet comes into play:
Why can’t you just let your kids discover their own world view?
The answer to this question is obvious enough, although I don’t think we take it seriously enough. Indoctrination brings me to anger as fast or faster than most other offensive things I can imagine. What could possibly be worse than stripping a child of their ability to think, learn and grow? To quote a sign from a protester: “We should teach children to think – not what to think.”
It seems to me that in the context of our analogy, indoctrination is an advantageous trait for a religion, to ensure its survival. It supplants education and knowledge with willful ignorance and falsehoods, and taints a child’s intelligence and logic with faith. In other words, indoctrination eliminates or impairs the environmental hazards that endanger religion.
I would encourage everyone in our community to consider indoctrination as one of, if not the most important foe we face in our effort to stifle religion’s influence on our world. I believe public education is our best weapon against indoctrination, and supporting the separation of church and state is paramount to making education an indoctrination-free environment.
Here are some organizations that are fighting for this cause daily, that could use your support:
Richard Dawkins has also recently released an excellent paper book and interactive iPad book that you may be interested in providing to children that are a part of your lives:
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Discover Magazine has posted a blog called “Why Science Can’t Replace Religion“.
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