Coming…

Coming…

So, your little Joe asks you why his little friend, Abby, wears a head scarf.  You could reply with:

a) she’s very shy

b) she’s hideous

c) her religious beliefs insist she cover up

Little Joe then goes on to ask, “why doesn’t her brother Abdul, wear one?”  Now the issue has become way too hard and it’s probably better to distract little Joe with the promise of pizza or extra time playing video games.  This is by far, the best solution, and I implore you to consider it. 

The alternatives to such cowardly diversionary tactics are; to accept Abby’s faith and chat about how great it is, condemn her faith and become similar via narrow-minded proxy, or question her faith and risk… well heaps. I prefer the latter option, which unfortunately stems from chronic stupidity and a weird desire to evolve.

My little Joe became a Catholic of his own accord.  To say I was disappointed, is an understatement.  More like devastated. I think the glow-in-the-dark madonna he purchased with my hard-earned cash turned his hardly-earned pocket money, was a low point in my life as a parent.  I begged him to buy lollies instead.  Thankfully, the little fella saw the atheist light not long after his fervent yet brief dalliance with religion, but the experience still haunts me and each day I am grateful for his sins.

Obviously, I’m an atheist.  Often I’m a practicing atheist and other times I can’t be bothered practicing anything.  I idly harbour hopes that atheism will one day reign supreme, but even this is too extreme an ideal to promote.

For me, the decision to support religious freedom comes down to the practicalities of self and society. I find sprituality of any ilk highly impractical on a personal and societal level (not to mention, dull) since humans tend to take just about everything too far and inevitably someone gets hurt, killed and/or brain-washed and on a grand scale, nothing good ever comes of it.  Basically (and ironically), religion is considerably self-serving and somewhat dangerous.

Here are some reasons why I reckon we shouldn’t bother with it, that I found on the BBC website under ethics, religion and atheism (I removed the first two points listed on the site because I didn’t really like them):

• Religion stops people thinking in a rational and objective way
• Religion forces people to rely on outside authority, rather than becoming self-reliant
• Religion imposes irrational rules of good and bad behaviour
• Religion divides people, and is a cause of conflict and war
• The hierarchical structure of most religions is anti-democratic, and thus offends basic human rights
• Religion doesn’t give equal treatment to women and gay people, and thus offends basic human rights
• Religion obstructs scientific research
• Religion wastes time and money

I concede there are positives, such as (again, I removed a point because it was crap):

• Art and music
• Charities and good works
• Human fellowship and togetherness

But, I believe these benefits are better achieved via other means. 

I have a grossly generalised and unsubstantiated theory that belief in god(s) taught from birth, activates a part of the brain that will forever require a ’spiritual’ connection - to what or whom, is irrelevant.  Kind of like smokers needing to feed particular receptors in their brains.

In support of this excellent theory, there is (scant, though increasing) neurological evidence to suggest religiosity is a temporal lobe thing and that our capacity to believe in ‘nonsense’ is merely a by-product of our intelligence. 

Perhaps with a little more independent thought applied to our daily lives, instead of resigning ourselves to dogmatic and insular customary obligations because that’s what we’ve done for ages, we might find that, in general, religion causes harm to women, homosexuals, and people who wear unnatural fibres, and we should probably let it fall by the wayside.

I think it’s a better bet, contrary to Pascal’s Wager, that we ditch teaching our kids spirituality or religion and go for something more helpful.  Like learning the 34 possible uses for glow-in-the-dark madonnas. 

Parenting tip – instead of the bible, offer up, Sophie’s World and read it together.

Smiley

ps you might like to read Charles Bradlaugh’s essay, Humanity’s Gain From Unbelief, which is bloody great.  Even better, read the extras available in the book - he interviews a few religious blokes and intellectually smites them.

Firstly, what are your thoughts on swearing and do you swear? If you do, do you swear in front of your offspring? If you don’t, why?

Personally, I swear like a trouper, mostly because a well-placed profanity can be pretty funny, and other times, slipping one into an argument really hammers my point home. But, I am aware that many people think swearing should be off limits to their kids.

My mother thinks it’s disrespectful to swear in front of her, yet when I asked her whether she thought I disrespected her, she said, no. This conversation would assume that swearing has little to do with respect, because I can quite obviously respect someone whilst spattering my conversation with colourful expletives. Perhaps, disrespect is perceived by my lack of concern for my mother’s preferred conversation code? But, I have my own code, in which she played a part in establishing (albeit a small one), that should also be allowed to be expressed if it causes no real harm.

Let’s look at the word, ‘respect’.

Dictionary.com sites the meanings of respect to be;

3. esteem for or a sense of the worth or excellence of a person, a personal quality or ability, or something considered as a manifestation of a personal quality or ability: I have great respect for her judgment.

4. deference to a right, privilege, privileged position, or someone or something considered to have certain rights or privileges; proper acceptance or courtesy; acknowledgment: respect for a suspect’s right to counsel; to show respect for the flag; respect for the elderly.

Number three, in regard to how I feel about my mother, is… how I feel about my mother. I have high esteem and a sense of great worth for her, including all (well, most) of her personal qualities and abilities.

Number four gets a bit hazy for me when I am quite unsure of the ‘rights’ and ‘privileges’ ascribed to parenthood, if there are any, and if in deed, there should be any, as well as who should appoint them and who should abide by them. I am more concerned with the experience of being myself in the presence of my parents. And, I am more concerned with my child being himself in mine.

This doesn’t mean that I condone three year olds sprouting profanities at their relatives and the rest of the world… but I think this is another issue, although granted, it is related. Kids usually mimic the language they hear at home and it’s pretty damned confronting when a todler tells you to piss off… but if I happen to tell my dodgy uncle to shove his bloody opinion up his backside within earshot of my sweet, little sponge, then I should expect to hear it relayed to me verbatim when I tell said sponge to stop picking his nose. Washing his mouth out with soap is ludicrous as is any kind of punishment considering I am to blame for his linguistic indiscretion, and, considering I think swearing is fun.

A little chat is probably all that’s required, explaining the pitfalls of free expression, particularly in front of grandma. And maybe an apology for providing him with a new attention-grabbing vocabulary, without the common approval to use it.

Teaching kids to think for themselves, I feel, is far more important than imposing hypocritical language limitations and espousing parental rights and privileges. I know my son, now that he is a teenager, swears, and I know it because he swears in front of me. He has chosen not to swear in front of his grandmother, his friends’ parents, people in ‘authority’, and well, just about everyone except me and his close friends. He has taken my advice and chooses his audience carefully, and for me, that’s a huge win. He got where I wanted him to be without coercion. If he does slip up – he knows the consequences and is prepared to accept them.

Swearing often causes no harm, so when it doesn’t, it’s fine with me. When it does, it’s not fine. Grice’s notion of conversational implicature purports language as packed with meaning, depending on linguistic context, the utterer’s agenda, and the situation in which it was uttered.  Go figure! So, when swearing slides dangerously into the realm of abuse it has become something else entirely and shouldn’t be fobbed off so flippantly, so I won’t. Verbal abuse is a serious matter that involves serious psychological issues. My hope is that by teaching kids how to think critically, we might just head those psychological issues off before they become a real and social problem. But, if your child is abusive in any way I’d suggest you seek professional advice and quickly.

Don’t beat your kids up (metaphorically) for swearing if you swear. Think about your reactions to children’s swearing and how you could respond more appropriately by taking responsibility for your part in their verbal achievements and by providing them with the tools to make better decisions. As adults, most of our kids will swear, so I think it would be a much better option for us to learn to be okay with that and happy that our children are comfortable enough around us to be themselves. I want to know my son as the person he is out there in the world, not the pious and proper version he is for my mother.

I respect her wish to be protected from his potty-mouthed reality, but it’s not for me.

Smiley