Pearson Edexcel Level 3 Advanced GCE in Religious Studies – Anthology
148Faith is infantile
As anyone familiar wit h ant ireligious polemic s knows, a rec urring at heist c rit ic ism of
religious belief is t hat it is infant ile—a c hildish delusion whic h ought to have
disappeared as humanity reac hes its maturity. Throughout his c areer Dawkins has
developed a similar c rit ic ism, drawing on a longstanding atheist analogy. In earlier
works he emphasized t hat belief in God is just like believing in t he T oot h Fairy or
Santa Claus. These are childish beliefs that are abandoned as soon as we are
capable of evidence-based thinking. And so is God. It's obvious, isn't it? As Dawkins
pointed out in his Thought for the Day on BBC Radio in 2003, humanity "c an leave
t he c rybaby phase, and finally c ome of age." T his "infant ile explanat ion" belongs t o
an earlier, superstitious era in the history of humanity. We've outgrown it.
Hmmm. Like many of Dawkins's analogies, this has been c onstruc ted with a
spec ific agenda in mind—in t his c ase, t he ridic uling of religion. Y et t he analogy is
obviously flawed. How many people do you know who began to believe in Santa
Claus in adulthood? Or who found belief in the Tooth Fairy c onsoling in old age? I
believed in Santa Claus until I was about five (though, not unaware of the benefits
it brought , I allowed my parent s t o t hink I t ook it seriously unt il rat her lat er). I did
not believe in God until I started going to university. Those who use this infantile
argument have t o explain why so many people disc over God in lat er life and
c ert ainly do not regard t his as represent ing any kind of regression, perversion or
degeneration. A good recent example is provided by Anthony Flew (born 1923), the
not ed at heist philosopher who st art ed t o believe in God in his eight ies.
Yet T he God Delusion is surely right to express c onc ern about the
indoc trination of c hildren by their parents. Innoc ent minds are c orrupted by adults
c ramming t heir religious beliefs down t heir c hildren's t hroat s. Dawkins argues t hat
t he biologic al proc ess of nat ural selec t ion builds c hild brains wit h a t endenc y t o
believe whatever their parents or elders tell them. This, he suggests, makes them
prone to trust whatever a parent says—like Santa Claus. This is seen as one of the
most signific ant fac t ors involved in sust aining religious belief in t he world, when it
ought to have been wiped out ages ago. Break the intergenerat ional c yc le of t he
transmission of religious ideas, and that will put an end to this nonsense. Bringing
up c hildren wit hin a religious t radit ion, he suggest s, is a form of c hild abuse.
There is, of course, a reasonable point being made here. Yet somehow, it gets
lost in the noise of the hyped-up rhet oric and a general failure t o c onsider it s
implic at ions. Having read t he misrepresent at ions of religion t hat are suc h a
depressing feature of T he God Delusion, I very muc h fear that sec ularists would
merely forc e their own dogmas down the throats of the same gullible c hildren—who
lac k, as Dawkins right ly point s out , t he disc riminat ory c apac it ies needed t o evaluat e
the ideas. I do not wish to be unkind, but this whole approac h sounds
unc omfort ably like t he ant ireligious programs built int o t he educ at ion of Soviet
c hildren during the 1950s, based on mantras suc h as "Sc ienc e has disproved
religion!" "Religion is superst it ion!" and t he like.
There is indeed a need for a society to reflect on how it educates its c hildren.
Yet no case can be made for them to be force-fed Dawkins's favored dogmas and
dist ort ions. T hey need t o be t old, fairly and ac c urat ely, what Christ ianit y ac t ually
teaches—rather than be subjec ted to the derisory misrepresentations of Christian
th eology that litter this piece of propaganda. T he God Delusion, more by it s failings
than its ac hievements, reinforc es the need for high-qualit y religious educ at ion in