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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
 Posted - 11/21/2008 : 09:37:36
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Read all about it on WND:A New York man is linking the suicide of his 22-year-old son, a military veteran who had bright prospects in college, to the anti-Christian book "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins after a college professor challenged the son to read it...
"One of his friends, and his uncle (they did not know each other) both told me that Jesse called them hours before he took his life and that he had lost all hope because he was convinced that God did not exist, and this book was the cause," Keith Kilgore told WND...
He suggested the moral is for Christians simply to abandon public schools wholly.
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- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 11/21/2008 : 10:11:03 [Permalink]
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Well, I'm sure that it's true since it talks about Christianity. Those kinds of things always are true. And, I'm certain that veterans don't commit suicide unless they have their morality ripped away by reading BOOKS. Certainly not Christian veterans.
I'm glad that Jesse's friends spent their lives being taught about the Bible, rather than what to do if a friend seems suicidal. Who knows what might happen if Jesse called the satanists at 800-273-TALK, or 800-SUICIDE. |
I know the rent is in arrears
The dog has not been fed in years
It's even worse than it appears
But it's alright-
Jerry Garcia
Robert Hunter
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 11/21/2008 : 12:36:44 [Permalink]
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Well, I imagine it can be pretty traumatic to discover your entire life has been a lie. Clearly the people who filled that young man's head with religious nonsense should be ashamed, but they're too indoctrinated to ever it see it that way.
But considering the source, I'm hesitant to believe that atheism played any role at all. The article does state that the young man was a "military veteran," and we all know that suicide rates are much higher among former servicemen. Who knows what this guy was going through, really. Just because his father found a book on atheism and freaked out doesn't mean there is a connection there. It reminds me of those parents who tried to blame their children's suicides on song lyrics. In their grief, they look for something to project their anger onto, because acknowledging that they failed as parents would be too painful to consider.
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"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
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Simon
SFN Regular
USA
1992 Posts |
Posted - 11/21/2008 : 13:55:17 [Permalink]
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The guys was raised by a right-wing religious, probably surrounded by a family of friends of similar minded right-wing Christians.
Apparently, this indoctrination did not last being confronted by a coherent argument. Apparently, Jesse's personality was constructed onto a fragile scaffold or religion, when it collapsed, so did Jesse.
It's sad. Not sad that Jesse was confronted to Dawkins' book. Not sad either than the book won over a life-time of indoctrination.
No, the real tragedy was that Jesse's family failed him by not helping him flourishing into a complete individual, rather than a puppet on a cultic skeleton...
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Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
Carl Sagan - 1996 |
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 11/21/2008 : 18:00:28 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Ricky
You believe it is wrong to share your beliefs with your children? |
If those beliefs are factually wrong, yes, I find it morally wrong to indoctrinate children with them.
| I agree, there is certainly a line, but I haven't seen any evidence to show that his parents crossed it. |
He was raised to be a young Earth creationist. Part of the young man's stress seems to have come from taking a biology class in college and realizing that everything his parents and elders taught him on the subject was completely untrue.
As a commentator said in the UTI thread Dave linked: | If we all lived in an insular little tribe where everybody thought the sun revolved around the earth, and a young man killed himself after a visiting scientist revealed that the situation was different, would it be the scientist -- who was only reporting on the facts of the real world -- at fault? |
Of course it wouldn't. It would be the fault of the people who raised their children in ignorance of the actual workings of the world. I'm not saying parents don't have a right to raise their children how they choose, Ricky, I'm just saying those choices carry moral consequences with them. And in this case, his parents clearly did a horrible job preparing their boy to deal with the real world. In many ways, their untenable religious beliefs led to the death of their child. And they should be ashamed of that.
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"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
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astropin
SFN Regular
USA
970 Posts |
Posted - 11/22/2008 : 10:28:47 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by H. Humbert
Originally posted by Ricky
You believe it is wrong to share your beliefs with your children? |
If those beliefs are factually wrong, yes, I find it morally wrong to indoctrinate children with them.
| I agree, there is certainly a line, but I haven't seen any evidence to show that his parents crossed it. |
He was raised to be a young Earth creationist. Part of the young man's stress seems to have come from taking a biology class in college and realizing that everything his parents and elders taught him on the subject was completely untrue.
As a commentator said in the UTI thread Dave linked: | If we all lived in an insular little tribe where everybody thought the sun revolved around the earth, and a young man killed himself after a visiting scientist revealed that the situation was different, would it be the scientist -- who was only reporting on the facts of the real world -- at fault? |
Of course it wouldn't. It would be the fault of the people who raised their children in ignorance of the actual workings of the world. I'm not saying parents don't have a right to raise their children how they choose, Ricky, I'm just saying those choices carry moral consequences with them. And in this case, his parents clearly did a horrible job preparing their boy to deal with the real world. In many ways, their untenable religious beliefs led to the death of their child. And they should be ashamed of that.
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You don't really believe that do you? I agree it's morally wrong to knowingly teach a false belief, but we have no evidence of that. For all we know his family really believes what they taught him. |
I would rather face a cold reality than delude myself with comforting fantasies.
You are free to believe what you want to believe and I am free to ridicule you for it.
Atheism:
The result of an unbiased and rational search for the truth.
Infinitus est numerus stultorum |
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 11/22/2008 : 11:14:38 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by astropin
You don't really believe that do you? I agree it's morally wrong to knowingly teach a false belief, but we have no evidence of that. |
I'm not talking about passing along a few false facts unknowingly, but about total brainwashing. You don't think there's a difference?
For all we know his family really believes what they taught him.
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That's not an excuse to me because quite frankly, in this day and age, they should know. They have an ethical duty to know. To just excuse the parents' ignorance by saying "they chose to stick their heads in the sand" is not something I'm willing to do. Yes, they made a choice to be ignorant creationists, and I think that makes them immoral people. And when one chooses to indoctrinate a child into that type of reality-denying cult, they absolutely should be held morally accountable for the mental harm that causes.
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"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 11/22/2008 : 11:20:40 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Ricky
You're holding everyone up to an impossible standard. We must teach to the best of our knowledge, and we can do no better than that. You are considering it morally wrong for them to do the best they can. |
I didn't say teach, Ricky, I said indoctrinate. There is a difference between transmitting inaccurate knowledge to a child and inculcating them to believe in the absolutely unerring truth of something widely proven to be wrong.
Let's say I was an atheist all my life, raised and "indoctrinated" by my parents, then when I reached some age I realized that I believed unquestionably in the Christian god. I was so ashamed of the sinful life I lead that I decided to kill myself, though my religion is strictly against suicide. Would you then blame my atheistic upbringing?
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You can't just put "indoctrinated" in quotes like that. That's the whole issue. I think there's valid and justified reasons to assume that god is an invention. Hopefully any child I raise would be made aware of them. But hypothetically, if we assume that somehow an atheist brainwashed a child into thinking there was no god solely on the basis on some provably false fact, like say that the Earth was triangular, then yes, that parent will have done a spectacularly bad job of raising their child and should ashamed by the mental harm they caused.
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"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 11/22/2008 : 12:06:06 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Ricky
So we are agreed that teaching a child YEC is not morally wrong, but that you can reinforce these beliefs to a point where it does become indoctrination, which is morally wrong. Is this correct? |
No, teaching YEC is wrong by definition. I only meant to point out that not every little thing that gets taught incorrectly is indoctrination. But to get an entire field wrong, to teach things counter to all mainstream findings, to ignore verifiable facts and to manufacture evidence--all of that is deeply unethical behavior, and it intrinsic to the creationist movement. There is no way to teach YEC in an ethical manner, just as there is no ethical way to teach Holocaust denial.
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"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
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Simon
SFN Regular
USA
1992 Posts |
Posted - 11/22/2008 : 13:06:17 [Permalink]
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The most serious fault of the parents, in this instance, is not as much too teach the false belief of creationism, it is their failure to actually teach him how to deal with conflicting evidences.
Rather than acknowledge the conflicting opinions, the parents build themselves a comfortable shelter where they would never have to even consider being wrong so, when the absurdity of this beliefs were exposed, the kid just plain did not know how to deal with it. |
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
Carl Sagan - 1996 |
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 11/22/2008 : 13:37:30 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Simon
The most serious fault of the parents, in this instance, is not as much too teach the false belief of creationism, it is their failure to actually teach him how to deal with conflicting evidences.
Rather than acknowledge the conflicting opinions, the parents build themselves a comfortable shelter where they would never have to even consider being wrong so, when the absurdity of this beliefs were exposed, the kid just plain did not know how to deal with it.
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That's assuming that any of this had anything to do with his death, isn't it? |
I know the rent is in arrears
The dog has not been fed in years
It's even worse than it appears
But it's alright-
Jerry Garcia
Robert Hunter
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Simon
SFN Regular
USA
1992 Posts |
Posted - 11/22/2008 : 13:43:14 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Gorgo
Originally posted by Simon
The most serious fault of the parents, in this instance, is not as much too teach the false belief of creationism, it is their failure to actually teach him how to deal with conflicting evidences.
Rather than acknowledge the conflicting opinions, the parents build themselves a comfortable shelter where they would never have to even consider being wrong so, when the absurdity of this beliefs were exposed, the kid just plain did not know how to deal with it.
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That's assuming that any of this had anything to do with his death, isn't it?
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Well; all the articles seem to think that it was the kid's way of (not) dealing with his loss of faith, so yeah. |
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
Carl Sagan - 1996 |
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Suicide blamed on ‘God Delusion’
