Sloppy Thinking

Imagine this scene.

You're with friends, people with whom you have more than a casual relationship. The conversation turns to contemporary America. Not necessarily politics but, you know, the "big picture" things - culture, social issues, etc.

Midway through the conversation, one of your friends says, "Well, as for being Americans, I'll let my children decide when they get older."

Afraid of giving offense (or because they just might agree), the comment is met with nods by the others in the group. As for you, your head is spinning. "What did I just hear? Why are my friends nodding?" You reach for the duct tape.

The statement "Well, as for being Americans, I'll let my children decide when they get older" is patently absurd on any number of levels. If the kids were born to American parents (or just born in the USA), they are already Americans. Does the speaker think that this doesn't matter - or that somehow her children are provisional Americans until they decide "when they get older." At school do they say "I pledge provisional allegiance to the flag..." What does "older" mean - 12? 16? 18? 21? Do they even know that Mom and Dad have given them this decision to make? Does the family sit around the dinner table each evening discussing the finer points of what it means to be a Canadian, Brazilian, Nigerian, Cambodian or any other -ian?  When they decide, will they pack their bags at [fill in the age] and head off smiling as citizens of their chosen country, filled with pride at the choice they made?

That scenario is so obviously absurd that it is unlikely to ever happen.  Few Americans trot off to other countries and even fewer (if any) parents would think of filling their kids with this sort of national agnosticism. (Er. . . well, maybe I am wrong about that. We'll leave that to a another time.)

Yet, the same sloppy, sophomoric thinking finds expression frequently in regard to religion. It goes, "Well, even though we were raised as [name a religion] we're not very religious now.  We'll let the kids decide what they want when they get older."

As in my fictional example, the empty-headedness is astounding.  Hearing that refrain, I once asked an acquaintance, "So, I guess learning about religion and theology occupies a lot of your family time, then?" The answer, was, of course "No." Neither religion nor theology, nor even philosophy were discussed around the dinner table (or any other table for that matter).  Save for the occassional wedding or funeral, churches or temples were never visited.  No discussions about what "faith" or "belief" or "God" or "G-d" means.  From what I could understand, the children's education in these matters was to be done by school (not much about religion going on there!), TV and some warm pablum around Christmas and Easter.

Leaving aside questions about this religion or that, it strikes me as very odd that otherwise intelligent people find this acceptable.  If you don't want to go to church or raise your kid in a religion, that's your choice.  Yet, if you then assert that it is their decision to make, equip them make it!   An examination of religion, theology and philosophy would at least help children gain an appreciation of history as well as develop critical thinking skills.  Isn't it a parent's responsibility to help them prepare to make choices intelligently?  We model behavior, discipline our kids when they err and send them to school and college to equip them with knowledge and tools to succeed in life; is this not the same?

When I raise these questions, the response I most often hear is that religion (and all that goes - or should go - with it like theology and philosophy) isn’t really necessary for them to be good people.  "You can be a good person without being a member of a church or being religious." True enough.  But "good" is fundamentally about values and principles that lay outside of the individual and, I submit, outside society. Communities, culture, can shape individual "goodness" because the "goodness" (whatever it may mean) has already shaped the community and its culture. Societies stand on the backs of what has gone before.  Our laws and the social behavior they enforce are based on principles about virtue and civility; principles about what is good and what is evil.

Here's the rub.  A lack of understanding of these principles gradually erodes society.  When a people cannot connect their laws with the principles on which they are based, the law and the people are debased.  Legal (some would say moral) relativism grows: what works for me may not work for you, but, hey, you're okay and I'm okay.  My friends are taking the easy way out - letting the cutlure and schools (which have no stake in individual behavior) - embue their kids with principles and values.  And if society, culture and school find those laws and the principles on which they are based inconvenient, they go ignored or unenforced. 

Principles, you see, are the tools by which we assess the morality of a situation, not the other way around.  What is wrong is wrong and shouldn't be call right or okay just because Billy had a tough childhood.

(As an aside, when my kids were teenagers, as a family we attended a school-wide meeting about a growing drug use problem in the high school.  One of the speakers had been graduated from the school and been a drug user as a student.  He eventually broke his addiction - bravo to him - but went on to tell the assembled parents and kids that drugs were everywhere and sooner or later, all kids - mine too! - would try them.  It was inevitable, he opined, and there was noting we parents could do.  Most parents sat there tsk-tsking then cheered the speaker for his candor and honesty.  Were these parents so detached from their children and their children so detached from the realities of right and wrong that all that was left is resignation and despair?  Full of applause for the druggie - albeit reformed - and his message but not one "How did you become such an idiot to try drugs in the first place!")

The "provisional American" kid will have at least grown up in the US and have both knowledge and experience of what being an American is all about. Sure, if he wants to reject it, fine. Stupid but fine. But that's the point: He (or she) is rejecting something about which they have some sort of understanding and knoweldge, however, skewed it might me one way or another. And before they head off to Swaziland or Norway, they know what they are leaving and, I would hope, what they are seeking.

If you want to allow you kids to make the choice to embrace a religion of any shape - or to be irreligious or even atheists - fine. But they can't do that alone. They need a foundation - take them to church or at least expose them religious history and thought.

So equipped, those children will grow into adults impatient with sloppy thinking.