Meditation 1226
The indoctrinated Christian
by: John Tyrrell
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A picture of a bridge in Little Rock, Arkansas, lit in rainbow colours to celebrate a Supreme Court decision appeared in my news feed. I browsed through the comments just to see how inflammatory they became, and they did not surprise me. But that type of comment is not what I want to discuss here. Rather I'd like to look at part of a discussion between an atheist and a Christian.
At one point the Christian commented:
Like how u were indoctrinated to be a unbeliever? Lol.I was never forced my parents are Christian I was raised in church was never forced til this day I believe because I want to and I love to right or wrong it's apart of freewill u either believe or u dont
I just had to laugh. The writer's default assumption is that a person is indoctrinated into disbelief. And she see's that her decision to be a Christian is simply a matter of exercising her free will. No forcing involved. Just happening to have Christian parents and being raised going to church. And of course, that's not indoctrination as far as she is concerned.
The problem as far as I can see is a total lack of critical thinking skills that would lead a person to think this way - to write this way - in an open forum. And for most of us who classifiy ourselves as unbelievers, it is critical thinking that led us to disbelief and / or keeps us in that happy state.
Please, teach your children critical thinking. And do teach them the importance of the meaning of words and how to write a coherent sentence. But especially teach them critical thinking. Then you will not have to indocrinate them into unbelief; they'll find their own way there.
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