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From: christian@topaz.UUCP
Newsgroups: mod.religion.christian
Subject: Tunnel Vision
Message-ID: <10785@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU>
Date: Tue, 7-Apr-87 05:35:15 EST
Article-I.D.: topaz.10785
Posted: Tue Apr  7 05:35:15 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 10-Apr-87 00:28:58 EST
Sender: hedrick@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU
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Approved: christian@topaz.UUCP

The other night I was coming home on the bus, and there were a couple
of teenage girls sitting behind me, talking about this and that.

Their discussion turned to the subject of friends of theirs who had had
babies, and were married, and how it had changed them, and so on. It
didn't sound to me like they thought it was such a bad thing.

I have known women in their mid to late twenties who had had
children when in their teenage years, and I know how badly it screwed
up their lives. Never being one who was smart enough to keep his mouth
shut, I turned around and said "It has always seemed to me that that
was a real tragedy", and turned back around. A young lady (about my
age, 33) sitting next to me said to me "I agree with you, but what
do you base that on?"

My response was "Pure pragmatism. It isn't based on anything religious,
I'm an atheist."

Two responses immediately: From the young woman "Why are you an atheist?",
from one of the teenagers "What is an atheist?"

My answers, respectively, were "That is an evening's discussion." and
"An atheist believes that there are no gods."

The subsequent discussion with the young lady followed typical paths, which
you have all heard before, and it wasn't particularly extraordinary. However,
the subsequent discussion with the teenager (which came first) was
very startling, to both of us I think.

Teenager: "Where do you think you come from?"

Me: "Where do YOU come from?"

[quick timeout while she consulted with her friends, and I exchanged a couple
of comments with the young woman. I overheard words like "sperm" and "egg".]

Teenager: "You mean, you just think you come from your parents? Where did
they come from?"

Me: "Same place."

Teenager: "All the way back to Adam and Eve, in the Bible?"

Me: [Desperately wanting to avoid mentioning the word "Evolution"] "I
don't believe in the Bible."

Teenager: "Where do you go when you die?"

Me: "When I die, I'm dead. I don't believe in souls, either."

[At this point, the young woman said something like "That seems like a
pretty hopeless world-view." and my answer was something like "It
depends on your point of view - I prefer to work to make this world
better than to live for some hypothetical bliss in another life." which
brought a comment like "That's not what it is like for a Christian at all!"
and so on. You have all heard it before.]

Teenager: [Stunned silence, then mutter of "I don't understand this."]

Then it was her stop, and she got off. My subsequent discussion with
the young woman followed well-worn paths, and was totally unremarkable.

Understand that all this is from memory a few days later, so I am probably
coming off as more witty and erudite than I actually was.

Here's the final kicker: Where did this take place? Birmingham AL? Iowa?
5 miles from Jerry Falwell's home? No, it took place in Cambridge, MA,
about 5 miles from Harvard University - one of the most liberal and
purportedly well-educated places in the US.

Now, there are many aspects of this which could spawn endless discussions
here, and let's not get into them:
	Let's not discuss the morality of teen-age pregnancy.
	Let's not discuss why I am an atheist.
	Let's not discuss whether atheism is a religion.

Instead, to me the most striking and disturbing aspect of this was the
fact that the teenager didn't know what an atheist was. I admire her
faith (in whatever faith it was - she never said.)

Understand: I am not criticizing her faith, nor am I decrying her keeping
it. I don't think she should become an atheist. Instead, I wonder
seriously why it is the only faith she knows anything about.

In 'On Liberty', John Stuart Mill argues that any belief should be
exercised vigorously by seeking out someone who holds a conflicting
belief. Whether anyone gets convinced or not (experience suggests
an overwhelming tendency for no-one to change their mind) the act
of defending a belief causes you to understand it. Mill contends that
without this, the belief becomes dogma, and the belief system rots
from within.

This is one of the reasons that I think the Mormon "mission" is a good
thing for the faith - when the men come out of it, they truly understand
WHY they are Mormons. (It makes them grow in other ways, too - let's not
discuss THIS either.) This particular teenager would have an extremely
difficult time seeking out any non-believers, because evidence suggests
that she isn't even aware that they exist!

Therefore, my question, which I submit for reasoned debate: (FINALLY,
something you can debate!) Should Christian churches teach knowledge
about other faiths in Sunday school?

Yet another subject to NOT get into: I am not interested in whether the
PUBLIC schools should teach knowledge of many faiths.

I contend that the churches should do so. A good Christian should grow
up understanding that there are other faiths besides their own (though
the other faiths may be misguided and/or wrong) and should have at
least some knowledge of where those faiths came from. Inevitably such
knowledge will be slanted - I think this is acceptable.

But I think there is something scandalous when a 17-year-old doesn't
even know what an atheist is. She had been taught that the Bible was
true (OK, I accept the right of her parents/teachers to tell her that)
and that EVERYONE ELSE believe it (WRONG!). Thus from her point of
view, I was someone who knew about the Bible but disagreed with it
for no good reason. Logically, therefore, I was either evil, or perverse,
or stupid. Based on this, it was reasonable for her to be perplexed.
How can anyone believe in the Bible and be an atheist at the same time?

Whether you agree with her or not, I don't consider myself to be any
of the three. Perhaps I am misguided - that is for the future to divulge
(and not this news group, PLEASE!). Had she understood a bit more of
the world outside her religion, she wouldn't have been so shocked by her
encounter with me.

More important: Hypothesize that I AM evil AND perverse AND stupid,
and am part of some cult which she doesn't know about. If I wanted her,
her ignorance makes her vulnerable to my attempts to convert her into
my cult, with negative consequences for everyone except the rich guru
on the top of the pyramid. If she knew about me before encountering
me, then she would be better equipped to defend herself against my
attempts to convert her.

I have reasons why I think it would be better for the U.S. were the
churches to teach about other religions, but
I am deliberately trying to demonstrate that it would be better for
Christianity itself. I was raised Christian, and the only other
religion that we were taught about was Judaism (for obvious reasons,
since the Old Testament is rather difficult to understand without
the Jews...). I have always thought that the reason that the Methodists,
at least, didn't show us any other sides of the issue was that their
side was too shakey - if we saw opposing arguments we might leave the
faith. (In my case, that is in fact precisely what happened, only it
happened to me in college. However, I know other people exposed to
exactly the same information who became even more fervent in their
faith - ONCE THEY UNDERSTOOD IT!)

Are the Christian leaders so insecure about their faith that they
fear to let their children see the opposite viewpoint? If not that,
then why do they not teach about them as I propose? I suspect the
reason is actually: "We have the real truth here, and it won't
change - so there isn't any point in teaching the other viewpoints."
If indeed this is the real point, then the religion has ALREADY
become dogma.


    Steven Den Beste
    sdenbeste@cc5.bbn.com   ARPA

[I hope that this experience was not representative of the products of
 our Sunday Schools.  I can't speak for every possible church,
 but the official Sunday School material in the churches I have been
 involved in (Methodist and Presbyterian) attempt to give kids a
 feel for the variety of cultures and religions in the world.  There
 are several problems with this:
   - often kids stop going to Sunday School at about the age where
	they are ready to think critically.  This means that they haven't
	run into the more critical part of the curriculum yet.
   - the teachers are generally untrained.  They may not feel
	comfortable in dealing with viewpoints other than the ones
	they know.  Thus this material may tend to get skipped.
   - it is no easier to get kids to think about alternatives to
	long-held beliefs than anyone else.  Sunday School suffers
	the additional disadvantage that it looks like a school, but
	doesn't give tests.  With a generation of kids that only take
	something seriously if it is going to appear on an exam, this
	presents certain problems. (I say this as a long-time college 
	teacher.  "Professor, is this going to be on the exam?")
 --clh]