"Indoctrination is the process of inculcating ideas, attitudes, cognitive strategies or a professional methodology (see doctrine).[1] It is often distinguished from education by the fact that the indoctrinated person is expected not to question or critically examine the doctrine they have learned"

Yes.

Why not say 'Bible' or Q'uran', why pick something so obscure? Were you trying to make it sound unlikely? If someone picked up a Bible and became a Christian, that wouldn't sound so ridiculous would it. The reason is wouldn't sound ridiculous is actually a demonstration of the very thing I'm talking about. Cultural influence.

There isn't a religious person on the planet who wasn't indoctrinated. Even though I played along with the 'what about the first person' pedantry, I think we know that religion didn't suddenly pop into someone's head fully formed from whence they began to indoctrinate others. It was undoubtedly a long process to get from the first vague imagining of divine explanations for natural phenomena to the first society or culture that formalised and organized that behaviour into what you could call a religion

Apart from the obvious one, you mean? That isn't quite my point, anyway:

I'm not denying there is a cultural element, I'm claiming your analysis neglects other more relevant and more easily rectified issues.

It may well be that we have evolved to construct spiritual answers to life's mysteries. Eliminating Christian influence in that case will just result in something new - not a world without religion. As you said - there's no point attacking the symptom rather than the root cause.

You picked a pretty terrible definition of 'indoctrination' if your response was going to be "yes". Notice there is no 'process' to speak of (unless you wish to describe the authoring of the book 'X' amount of years ago or the printing of the book a 'process'), and the entire last half of your definition isn't present in the yard sale example either.

I chose the Book of Mormon so you wouldn't sidestep the hypothetical by responding with the idea that the book alone wasn't *really* responsible for that person becoming a Mormon.

It doesn't matter that it's a long process or not. The fact remains, that by your definition, the first religious person wasn't indoctrinated.

I don't know what else there is apart from a cultural element. If any of the gods are real they aren't going out of their way to prove it, so it can't be that. How many religions have vanished because the cultures that propagated them vanished and where are those gods now? Is it Hubris or just desperation that causes modern people to believe their own gods real, or their own interpretation correct, whilst simultaneously believing so many others fake or wrong?

IMO religion can be simplified to being nothing more than going along with the crowd even though there are many people who have convinced themselves that they weren't convinced by others to believe what they believe, they were. They're simply victim to the magic act, misguided to a point where their minds fill in the blanks according to their own expectations and needs.

What are the "more relevant and more easily rectified issues"?

I included the entire definition because to do otherwise was to invite accusations of cherry picking or deliberate false representation. Can't win can I.

Of course authoring the book and having it printed is the process. What is the Bible if it isn't part of the christian process?

If the book was all the exposure that they had, how else would they have become Mormon? If they'd already heard of Mormonism then it would simply be reinforcement.

If they were walking along one day and Mormonism suddenly popped into their head complete and entirely accurate in all the details with no possible way for them to have known any of that information, that would be tricky to explain, in fact, it would the equivalent to my viewpoint that dropping a stone that flew up into the air would be to the theory of gravity.

There most likely wasn't a first religious person. There was more probably a slow, collective move towards divine explanations for natural phenomena that evolved into what we'd now consider religion. No one woke up and thought, 'ah, there are gods, better tell everyone else and make them believe too'.

It's more likely that a group of people inculcated the ideas amongst themselves in discussions about this new possibility that there are invisible beings responsible for all this stuff they didn't understand, you could say that they indoctrinated each other

Yeah it's pedantic but as your posts are full of logical fallacies, exaggerations and unproven and unresearched assertions, pedantry is required in order to force you to clarify your thinking.

Ok so now that your previous assertion has been shown to be false we can move onto some of the other parts of your argument.

Yes I can suggest other factors. Lots. And well-documented and appearing in peer-reviewed scientific journals. The question here though is why, given all the pushback you've received from fellow atheists on this subject, you apparently haven't been bothered to spend 10 minutes on google investigating other hypotheses. You know, like us rational, empirical atheist are supposed to do...

That's fine, but the definition you offered doesn't fit what you're promoting in this thread. Maybe you need a new word, because indoctrination certainly isn't it.

So, I believe 'X' to happen historically, and I write about it. By this very process I am indoctrinating anyone who should chose to read what I have written? By this definition, everything written is some form of indoctrination...

You're still conflating indoctrination and education.

Wow.

That doesn't change anything.

"More likely"? Good luck supporting this.

A psychological need for explanation, irrespective of evidence?
It can be if one of the putative properties of god is that they value faith.

By the way, you think the Christian god might exist, right? (I mean I don't, but I'm trying to keep clear on your views - I thought you were of the view that Christianity might be true?)
Most believers (especially around here) concede that their religion might be false.
Your opinion is clear - the challenge is to your arguments advanced in support of it. I don't see much support for your opinion that this is true other than you can't think of anything else.
Our innate love for teleological explanations. Cultural bias changes slowly (for example - we've known Newton was wrong for a century, yet even physicists still operate under predominantly newtonistic assumptions). Atheism is only just getting going. It's going to take ages before it makes the kind of inroads you are looking for, in my opinion.

any scientists ITT?

ganstaman, for one.

(you've graduated now, right?)

So a loving parent that familiarizes its children with a certain belief through their own example while not familiarizing them to every major other belief system is indoctrinating them.

And I was indoctrinated because there were people around who we saw as bumbling idiots and every now and than I couldn't help bumping into a church.

Glad we cleared that up.

Nothing is new under the sun boosh. do you know what that means? it means there isn't a truly original thing any of us here could say about anything, much less me about my beliefs. while many would not consider me belonging to any religious denomination (including myself), all of my beliefs can be found elsewhere, so none of them are truly original to me in that no human ever thought or felt them before. the question you have to ask yourself is this: how does that matter a bean?

it clearly doesn't.

now i could ramble (good word btw, it's part of my blog title) about a bunch of stuff you've never heard of, that doesn't fit in with any mainstream belief system, and i might even succeed in convincing you it is somewhat "original", but the truth is it isn't, it can all be cross-referenced using some book or other. Why do i believe it? because i was indoctrinated by some obscure 15th century tome on alchemical mysticism? Or to use asdfad's example, the book of mormon that i purchased at a yard sale? that's ridiculous.

should i contend that we all start making up our own unique mode of communication on this forum? because, well, english just isn't original enough, therefore it can't be true?

fwiw (absolutely nothing, but never mind) i don't believe in "one of the major gods" either. and this is another habit of yours that has been addressed all over by countless posters on here. i believe in one god, and i believe all or most religions and systems of belief that believe in one god are just different takes on the same thing, a result of human interpretation of something mysterious. so no i don't believe in "one of the major gods", and i wouldn't contend that i am right and that a foreigner of jewish or hindu inclinations is wrong (another one you like to throw out there) etc.

I don't believe that my post contain any logical fallacies, exaggerations and unproven and unresearched assertions. Nothing I've said is based on a misconception or a presumption anymore than any other theory, I'm not exaggerating and the proof is all around you in Sunday schools, religious parents of religious children, religion in schools, Talibs, Alter boys etc etc etc. I've even seen 'baby classes' on church websites.

What research have I missed?

No it hasn't, I was playing along with your pedantry. If you read my posts to asdf you'll see I don't believe that you can say with confidence that there was a 'first religious person'. That's quite possibly a fallacy, unresearched (probably impossible to research) and most definitely unproven.

Wood for trees syndrome. If you made the entire world population forget religion overnight, they wouldn't spring into existence the next day entirely identical to how they are now. The reason that there are 2.6 billion Christians is that they've been convinced that it's true.

Perhaps if we eradicated all the religions, new ones would emerge, it does seem to be a behaviour inherent to us. That doesn't change the fact that everyone currently alive who believes a mainstream religion has simply been sold a line and fell for it. The fact that Hainesy, who as a magician has no doubt caused people to mistakenly believe that they came to a conclusion on their own, would not see that the same thing has been done to him, is well... an example of why magic tricks work.

Religion - "a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things . . . that unite into one single moral community . . . all those who adhere to them."

I'm fine with 'indoctrination'.

"Indoctrination is the process of inculcating ideas, the indoctrinated person is expected not to question or critically examine the doctrine they have learned"

Since your hypothetical person became a Mormon, a reasonable assumption to make would be that they read the book, didn't criticise or question it and believed what it said. They were indoctrinated.

Nope, unless your intent was to cause the reader to believe what you wrote without question or criticism. You know, like religious literature.

Nope, see above.


Sorry, I didn't realise that you could prove that there was a first religious person. Wow to your wow.

Yes, it does. It means that religions could have evolved without their needing to be one person who wasn't indoctrinated and from whom all religions grew. A highly unlikely hypothesis. Do you have some Anthropological or Sociological theory that supports that?

And when I use certainty I'm lambasted for that, again, I can't win. Unless you can prove that it's 'more likely' that there was a first person who suddenly became religious and proceeded to indoctrinate everyone else, then this particular issue is going nowhere.

In any case, it's not disproving that indoctrination is taking place now and frankly is irrelevant, it's just Old prunes thinking that if he can prove me wrong on this point all the rest of the dominoes will topple and that's not the case.

However, it does suggest that persuading them of that fact wouldn't actually help eradicate religion. Show one to be a cultural phenomenon and a new "better religion" will arise.

Root of the problem and all that.

Couple of things. First, who sold me this line, and what line exactly was it? How has this influenced my beliefs, exactly? Three questions there.

Second, what mainstream religion do I currently believe? and which do i not? comprehensive list please.

Third, please don't take my superior knowledge and wisdom in an area (magic), and then haphazardly squeeze it through whatever mental sausage machine you have going on in your head to come up with an example of why i am somehow stupid and blind to a process which you have just accused me of being an expert in. that's utter nonsense.

but if you want to run with it, provide a statement you consider to be fact, of exactly what magic trick i have fallen for, and why, given my magic know-how, i fell for it.

i'm after specifics here boosh, don't just wheel out the staples, god knows i've read those enough times already. you are essentially accusing me of being stupid, so please get specific. you know what they say, "all generalisations are bad"...

That doesn't explain how there are 5 billion people on this planet who believe in 4 religions in clear geographical clusters as demonstrated by 'the map'. How did they all come to share the beliefs of others?

If everyone on the planet had their own unique version of spiritual beings that are responsible for creation and everything else, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

And how did the faithful come by their version of whichever god is failing to make itself known?


Anything could be true.

Not really. They can say the words because there's an onus here to be intellectually honest but they don't believe that their religions are wrong. If they do, then they're not believers are they.

No one can think of anything else. 2.6 billion Christians, how else does that happen? Coincidence?

Atheists uniting and doing what they can to prevent the urging of religious beliefs on the young and vulnerable would significantly accelerate that process.

If the gods are real, allow the children to come to them naturally, having been educated on all the belief systems and waiting until they're intellectually capable of making a judgement about what to believe, how could that hurt, right? How many religious people do you know that would take that chance? How strong really is their faith is they can't keep quiet about what they believe, or point out the alternatives, and let their children choose for themselves?

Yup. The familiarizing would be education, not familiarizing and instead urging a particular belief would be indoctrination.

You grew up in a world pervaded by religion and you ended up following one of them. If you weren't' indoctrinated then I'm fascinated to know how that could have happened? Did you invent Catholicism on your own? You must have been shocked when it turned out that there a hundreds of millions of people who believe exactly what you believe?

It means that we should tell all the scientists to stop trying to learn new things, there aren't any. lol.

The rest of your post basically boils down to you justifying to yourself how you weren't convinced of your beliefs by other people, which in fact you were. Just accept it, in the same way you trick people using misdirection in magic, leading them to false conclusions, relying on them letting their minds fill in the gaps, it's been done to you.

You told me that you're a Christian, or that you subscribed to the Bible, I forget exactly and can't be bothered to look up the exact wording when the meaning is clear.

Yes, your knowledge of the status that religion enjoyed in the former eastern bloc is truly riveting. It's not like "religion is the opiate of the masses" was the founding block of the entire socialist's hemisphere's attitude towards religion or anything. Grab a book, ffs.

Getting back to the OP, I read this tonight and thought it fit the subject

Apart fromt the fact that your reply isnt even a reply to what bunny was saying (bunny: they concede that theri religion MIGHT be false; you: they dont really believe that it IS) , who are you currently trying to have an honest argument with? Surely not the one's you've just accused of hypocrisy, no?

Obv. there's nothing contradictory in believing that the religion I believe in is the one and only true one, yet conceeding that there is a chance that it's all just an elaborate scam by Zeus or w/e. After all, it's called believing, not knowing.

You're forgetting the context. I don't think there is a single factor to explain everything about religion and didn't advance that example as a complete explanation for why everyone in a geographic area came to share similar spiritual beliefs. Here was my critique:
To which you responded:
So I suggested one further facet you should consider:
I was taking your comment of ignorance of other facets to consider at face value.

Context again. I was responding to this:
Your claim was that god being real couldn't be an explanation for why religion exists. Your question you claimed gods reality couldn't answer was:
My point is that, if god exists but doesn't want to prove his existence but has rather created us with the ability to turn to him in faith then we may see a gradual growth of religions with similarities as we slowly reach a "spiritual consensus".

I don't think it's true, but "it can't be that" is once more too strong a claim.

It's possible that you know their beliefs better than they do, but I consider it extremely unlikely. I think the best response here is to remind me how you respond when you consider people are putting words into your mouth. Shouldn't you avoid doing the same?

Also remember that "I might be wrong" doesn't mean I am wrong.

I believe I'm better at maths than you, yet I concede I might be wrong. That concession of uncertainty doesn't mean I don't believe it.