(October 10, 2014 at 7:03 am)Raven Wrote: Chad32 said:Quote:Cultural snowball effect. You grow up doing what adults say, on pain of punishment, and maybe you respect the opinions of people who have been aroudn the block a lot longer than you. in general this is a good idea, because kids can learn a lot of things from adults.
I didn't question my grandmother about these things because I assumed if there were such obvious flaws in the book, she would have picked up on it. You would be shunned at best, and killed at worst, for rocking the religious boat too much, so people just go along with it.
Very good point. We should not forget the power of indoctrination from the very beginning. As my wife is so fond of saying, kids are like sponges. They just indiscriminately soak up whatever they find themselves in. Your whole life from even before you can remember you get the message that this book is the truth, you get the message from all these religious tchotchkes all over the house, not too mention the hard sell in my own case of 12 years of Catholic school. You haven't a chance. They are just repeating what happened to them. They don't doubt this is right, and they don't want you to.
For a long time I didn't doubt it. Then when I did, I became spiritually radioactive or something. They won't talk to me anymore. That's OK, they were boring anyway.
Your doubt becomes a challenge to their self-identity.
