Are Children Naturally Religious

[Dekan]

Suppose, as an experiment, we set up a community, where none of the adults ever talked about religion.

 

A community competely isolated from any mention of God, or religion. Self-contained, and self-sufficient. Food, water, and all other material requirements, supplied by the work of the people in the community.

 

They would make their food, by ploughing the land, sowing seeds, and reaping the harvest. They would make their houses, by baking clay into bricks. And furniture would be made of wood from trees. The trees would be cut down by axes, made out of flint. And perhaps from bronze or iron - the necessary ores would be available for mining and smelting.

 

The mining and smelting would of course require knowledge of how to do it. But this knowledge would be given to each generation of children, by the adults - without mentioning anything about religion. Everything would be explained scientifically. For example, the germination of seeds would be explained as a natural process. As would the origin of the rain which falls from the sky to fertilise them.

 

These, and all other matters, would be explained in strictly rational scientific terms - with absolutely no reference to supernatural entities like Rain-Gods, Zeus weeing through a sieve, Earth-Goddesses, or anything in any way smacking of mystery.

 

In such a community, would the children still start developing religious beliefs, or would the idea of religion never enter their heads?

[immortal]

One can set up a community in such a way that they are completely isolated from the outside world and make them breed with themselves with in their small world and we can assume that there are a few adults who act as though they have never heard of religion and they would never give such a knowledge to the children, so they never went to temples or churches and never heard about Gods or unicorns.

 

Now even if you assume that all observed phenomena will be explained through scientific models this doesn't prevent children from becoming philosophers and ponder over questions like why we are here? what is our purpose in our cosmos? what's the point of ploughing seeds and cultivating crops? So its inevitable that the children would question such things to adults and when the adults fail to satisfy their intellect with a rational answer they start looking somewhere else.

 

This is what happened in our history, there were few philosophers who were atomists or reductionists, somewhere platonists and others thought that we should understand ourselves to know our purpose here.

 

So I think its inevitable that the children are going to have thought experiments of an anthropomorphic creator.

Edited March 4, 2012 by immortal

[iNow]

It really depends on how one defines religion. In the absence of any teachings, it's been shown that... yes, children will tend to self-generate religious beliefs and create (independent from adult intervention) a belief in deities or magical powers to explain things. Part of this is due to how how we've evolved and what environmental challenges we've faced in the past. For example, we're really good about rehearsing interactions with unseen others. We can imagine a friend or a person or an enemy or a prey and how they will react to something. This allows us to be better prepared for when we encounter those circumstances and be more successful. This tends to make it easier, though, to imagine an "unseen other" which is a deity.

 

We also have a tendency to apply causes where often none exist, and to apply patterns which are entirely arbitrary. These lead to religious practice and beliefs, and do so in the absence of teaching.

 

However, the likelihood that these beliefs and practices are sustained depends entirely on what the group expectations are in your local community... what is needed to "fit in" and maximize survival potential. It depends on how their pack or tribe reinforces those stories, as well as how much they are able to learn about better explanations to replace them.

 

In the situation you describe above, where there are teachings about how things actually work, the likelihood of religious belief still prevailing seems rather low, but is not impossible. It really depends on the local group circumstances, and what stories/fictions gain the most traction as they're imagined and shared.

[Appolinaria]

Suppose, as an experiment, we set up a community, where none of the adults ever talked about religion.

 

A community competely isolated from any mention of God, or religion. Self-contained, and self-sufficient. Food, water, and all other material requirements, supplied by the work of the people in the community.

 

They would make their food, by ploughing the land, sowing seeds, and reaping the harvest. They would make their houses, by baking clay into bricks. And furniture would be made of wood from trees. The trees would be cut down by axes, made out of flint. And perhaps from bronze or iron - the necessary ores would be available for mining and smelting.

 

The mining and smelting would of course require knowledge of how to do it. But this knowledge would be given to each generation of children, by the adults - without mentioning anything about religion. Everything would be explained scientifically. For example, the germination of seeds would be explained as a natural process. As would the origin of the rain which falls from the sky to fertilise them.

 

These, and all other matters, would be explained in strictly rational scientific terms - with absolutely no reference to supernatural entities like Rain-Gods, Zeus weeing through a sieve, Earth-Goddesses, or anything in any way smacking of mystery.

 

In such a community, would the children still start developing religious beliefs, or would the idea of religion never enter their heads?

 

 

Why would they specifically need to be in such a community? Are they somewhat isolated, without knowing that for example- the world is round, what the stars are, etc ?

Edited March 4, 2012 by Appolinaria

[afungusamongus]

Would it prove the validity of any religion if they did or did not.

 

What would be the point of such a experiment?

 

To prove that God does not exist because only children believe in him?

 

The OP seems to insinuate that Christianity does not try and defends it claims with rationality.

 

The scientific atheist should not think he has sole rights to rationality and reason. It is demeaning and shows a lack of understanding about the claims that Christianity makes and the manner in which it defends the truth of its claims.

[iNow]

It`s athought experiment to try to better understand our nature, people. Chillax, will ya?

[Fuzzwood]

The OP seems to insinuate that Christianity does not try and defends it claims with rationality. <-- it does? So far I only heard things along the line of God did it whenever I tried to engage in such a discussion.

[John Cuthber]

I was very puzzled by the title of this thread. I always thought that we scientists were the childish ones.

We never stopped asking " Yes Mummy, but why?".

 

 

On the other hand, children are relatively easilly misled into believing that there are tooth fairies and bogeymen so perhaps , if not religious per se, they might be particularly susceptible to its pernicious influence.

[zapatos]

At one time there were no religious beliefs and now there are. So except for some of the details, I'd say this experiment has already been done.

[Appolinaria]

We never stopped asking " Yes Mummy, but why?".

 

Philosophy***

[John Cuthber]

Philosophy***

Fair point, but the scientists also keep playing with things just to see what happens which is fairly childish.

(obligatory XKCD cartoon)

http://xkcd.com/242/

[SeptemberMoon]

Let us teach love, respect, and freedom to the new generation. Let them know from the time they are born that they are sovereign and worthy of a good life. Teach them to think and evolve from babies into fully conscious, creative beings. Let us teach this to EVERY single one that is to be born on earth. This will solve alot of problems in the world.

[iNow]

Let us teach love, respect, and freedom to the new generation. Let them know from the time they are born that they are sovereign and worthy of a good life. Teach them to think and evolve from babies into fully conscious, creative beings. Let us teach this to EVERY single one that is to be born on earth. This will solve alot of problems in the world.

That's a nice sentiment. How is it related in any way to the question posed by the OP, though?

[iNow]

Dekan - There was a great article over at Parenting Beyond Belief today that I think you will enjoy. Looks like it will be part 1 of a 2 part series. Enjoy.

 

http://parentingbeyondbelief.com/blog/?p=6622

[imatfaal]

Dekan - There was a great article over at Parenting Beyond Belief today that I think you will enjoy. Looks like it will be part 1 of a 2 part series. Enjoy.

 

http://parentingbeyo...om/blog/?p=6622

 

Will look out for the second part. The article's reasoned tone and lack of stridency reminded me of an article in New Humanist a few years ago about secular literature for children

 

http://newhumanist.org.uk/2087/good-books-by-danny-postel-julyaugust-2009

[iNow]

Dekan - There was a great article over at Parenting Beyond Belief today that I think you will enjoy. Looks like it will be part 1 of a 2 part series. Enjoy. http://parentingbeyondbelief.com/blog/?p=6622

 

 

Will look out for the second part.

Here's a link to Part 2 (along with a small tidbit quoted below):

 

http://parentingbeyondbelief.com/blog/?p=6622

 

Secularism, comfort with difference, tolerance of recreational sex, a reasonable relaxation of vigilance, the blurring of categories (sex, gender, race, etc), the willingness to disarm ourselves and to challenge authority — these are all unnatural, recent developments, born in fits and starts out of the relative luxury of a post-Paleolithic world. I’m sure you’ll agree that they are also better responses to the world we live in now — at least those of us privileged to live in non-Paleolithic conditions.

 

Of course our limbic brain differs on that, but it would, wouldn’t it?

 

Now — the astute reader may have noticed that the things that kept us alive a million years ago line up incredibly well with the nationalistic, anti-immigrant, anti-abortion, anti-gay, pro-gun, pro-authority, pro-gender-role, anti-diversity talking points of social conservatives. But if you think my point is to belittle conservatives by calling them cavemen, not so. I think there’s a lot to be gained by recognizing social conservatism, including religious conservatism, as the activation of ancient and natural fears, and to respond accordingly.

 

So why am I not a social conservative? Because my circumstances have allowed my Paleolithic buttons to remain unpushed. Growing up, I was made to feel safe. I was not frightened with Satan or hell or made to question my own worth or worthiness. I was given an education, allowed to think freely, encouraged to explore the world around me and to find it wonderful. Unlike the vast majority of the friends I have who are religious conservatives, I never passed through a disempowering life crisis — a hellish divorce, a drug or alcohol spiral, the loss of a child — that may have triggered that feeling of abject helplessness before I had developed my own personal resources. So I never had to retreat into the cave of my innate fears.

 

In short, I’ve been lucky.

 

A lot of people with the same luck are religious. But in my experience, those strongly tend toward what Bruce Bawer has called the “church of love” — the tolerant, diverse, justice-oriented side of the religious spectrum, grounded in a more modern perspective but still responding to the human problem that science, admittedly, has only partly solved.

 

It’s rare for a person with all of the advantages listed above to freely choose the “church of law” — the narrow, hateful, Paleolithic end we rightly oppose. Those folks, one way or another, are generally thrown there, like the girls in the photo. Sometimes they find their way out, but their road is tougher than mine was. <continue reading>

[iNow]

I was surprised to see a Part 3 today, but alas... Here it is:

 

http://parentingbeyondbelief.com/blog/?p=6989

 

We’re born with brains wired up for the Paleolithic, not for the world as it is today. We’ve developed better ways of knowing and controlling the world around us, but the fears and behaviors that protected us in that era — fear of difference, hypervigilance, out-group aggression, love of clear categories and authority, magical thinking — are still with us, even though they’ve now become either pointless or dangerous.

 

I want to help my kids let go of those fears so they can have a better life.

 

Religious and social conservatism are symptoms of those fears, reactions to the problem of being a Stone Age human. For the half of the planet still living in marginal conditions, that problem is mostly unsolved. For the rest of us — thanks to agriculture, germ theory, separating our drinking water from our poop, the scientific method, and a thousand other advances, we’ve made some serious progress. And that partial solution has made all the difference, freeing us up to live better lives than we once did.

 

I want my kids to get that very good news.

 

Education, experience, and parenting take a child from Stone Age newborn to modern adult in about 6,000 days. Or so we hope. In addition to shoe tying, the five-paragraph essay, algebra, good oral hygiene, the age of the universe, the French Revolution, and how to boil an egg, there’s something else we need to help them learn, or better yet, feel — that life is better and you have more control than your factory settings would have you believe.

 

At a convention five years back... <continue reading>