Difference between revisions of "Atheist indoctrination"

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Paul Froese in the ''Journal of the Scientific Study of Religion'' indicated:  
 
Paul Froese in the ''Journal of the Scientific Study of Religion'' indicated:  
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{{Cquote|Nevertheless, Yaroslavsky set out to demonstrate the League’s achievements by including a religious question in the 1937 Soviet census. The results were disastrous to the future of the League of Militant Atheists, which was disbanded in 1941, and religious survey questions never reappeared in subsequent Soviet censuses. Although no detailed results from the 1937 census can be reported because data analysis was quickly aborted, Soviet documents indicate that just over 56 percent of the population admitted to being religious believers (Corley 1996:76; Fletcher 1981:211). Yaroslavsky also ambiguously maintained that most (around two-thirds) of the religious believers resided in rural areas (Pospielovsky 1987:65). These crude results indicate a dramatic drop in religiosity when one considers that in 1900 nearly 100 percent of the people that lived in regions that would eventually constitute the Soviet Union were religious believers (see Barrett, Kurian, and Johnson 1980). Regardless, Yaroslavsky and Stalin viewed the number of atheist converts (even with probable inflation) as unsuccessful (Pospielovsky 1987:65).
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{{Cquote|Nevertheless, Yaroslavsky set out to demonstrate the League’s achievements by including a religious question in the 1937 Soviet census. The results were disastrous to the future of the [[League of Militant Atheists]], which was disbanded in 1941, and religious survey questions never reappeared in subsequent Soviet censuses. Although no detailed results from the 1937 census can be reported because data analysis was quickly aborted, Soviet documents indicate that just over 56 percent of the population admitted to being religious believers (Corley 1996:76; Fletcher 1981:211). Yaroslavsky also ambiguously maintained that most (around two-thirds) of the religious believers resided in rural areas (Pospielovsky 1987:65). These crude results indicate a dramatic drop in religiosity when one considers that in 1900 nearly 100 percent of the people that lived in regions that would eventually constitute the Soviet Union were religious believers (see Barrett, Kurian, and Johnson 1980). Regardless, Yaroslavsky and Stalin viewed the number of atheist converts (even with probable inflation) as unsuccessful (Pospielovsky 1987:65).
  
 
The findings were disappointing because the “science” of atheism had predicted a different outcome. Communists expected individuals to abandon religion with fervor. As it turns out, Russians did leave the Russian Orthodox Church in droves but did not abandon religion at the same rate.
 
The findings were disappointing because the “science” of atheism had predicted a different outcome. Communists expected individuals to abandon religion with fervor. As it turns out, Russians did leave the Russian Orthodox Church in droves but did not abandon religion at the same rate.

Revision as of 13:02, August 22, 2019

Dennis Prager

Research indicates that atheists are less open-minded (see: Atheism and open-mindedness).

Jewish columnist Dennis Prager has stated that a causal factor of atheism is the "secular indoctrination of a generation."[1] Prager stated that "From elementary school through graduate school, only one way of looking at the world – the secular – is presented. The typical individual in the Western world receives as secular an indoctrination as the typical European received a religious one in the Middle Ages."[2] Despite atheistic indoctrination in public schools in the United States, the United States remains very religious (see: Views on atheists). See also: Atheism and children and Atheism and critical thinking

In 2013, an study found that academia was less likely to hire evangelical Christians due to discriminatory attitudes.[3] See also: Atheism and intolerance

Atheists have focused considerable efforts on the public schools in order to indoctrinate young people into atheistic beliefs.[4][5]

Historically, as far as public education and other measures, although government sponsored atheistic indoctrination can have an effect on society, government attempts at atheistic indoctrination has not shown itself to be effective in eliminating theism in religious societies. For example, in Soviet Russia, despite great efforts as far as atheistic indoctrination by the Soviet government, the indoctrination efforts failed to eliminate religious belief in Russia (See also: Atheist indoctrination in the Soviet Union and its limited effectiveness).[6][7]

After the French Revolution, France has predominantly been a secular nation with a very secular educational system.[8][9]

Yet, in April 2010, the British academic and agnostic Eric Kauffmann declared that "the rate of secularisation has flattened to zero in most of Protestant Europe and France."[10] In 2012, French scholars indicated that evangelical Christianity was the fastest growing religion in France.[11] Much of France's growth of evangelical Christianity has been due to religious immigrants. In 2011, a paper was published entitled The End of Secularization in Europe?: A Socio-Demographic Perspective which indicated that immigrant populations tend to retain their religiosity.[12]

New atheists advocating for state protection for children in terms of being protected from religion and the religious beliefs of their parents

The new atheists Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss claim that children need state protection from religion/religion of children's parents.[13][14]

Economics, backlash and the growing popularity of vouchers and homeschooling

See also: Religiosity and the growing use of vouchers and homeschooling

The use of public school indoctrination is growing less effective for purposes of atheist indoctrination due to budgetary problems facing many governments in the Western World[15](per pupil it cost more to educate students via public schools than private schools),[16] the inferiority of many public school systems and the growing popularity of vouchers for education (which can be used for private religious school education) and the growing practice of homeschooling by parents.[17][18][19]

In addition, many public universities college are failing to educate students properly and many college students are jobless as a result.[20][21] An American study found that forty-five percent of students achieved no significant improvement in their critical thinking, reasoning or writing skills during the first two years of college. After four years, 36 percent displayed no significant increases in these so-called "higher order" thinking skills.[22] Students, particularly those who made poor curriculum choices, are increasingly angry that college does not adequately prepare them for the marketplace and leaves them with a pile of debt.[23] See: Academia and intellectual development

Furthermore, there appears to be a higher education bubble that will burst.[24] The Wall Street Journal reported in 2013 that the percentage of Americans going to college has been decreasing for 3 years in the USA.[25]

Aftermath of the fall of the Soviet Union and its atheist indoctrination

In 2012, a Georgetown University study was published indicating that only about 30 percent of those who grow up in an atheist household remain atheists as adults.[26]

In the United States, atheism has a low retention rate among those raised in atheist households. In addition, Christianity is exploding in adherents in atheistic China which has state atheism.[27] So it is not surprising that once atheist indoctrination ceases in a society which has had state atheism imposed, that a religious resurgence ensues.

The Soviet Union, which had state atheism of the militant atheism variety, existed from the years 1917-1991.

In 2003, the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University published a paper by Assaf Moghadam entitled A Global Resurgence of Religion?[28]

In that paper Assaf Moghadam wrote:

“ As the indications leave little doubt, Russia is showing clear signs of a religious resurgence. In fact, all seven criteria by which change in religious behavior and values are measured here confirmed that Russia is experiencing what could be called a religious revival. Since 1970, the nonreligious/atheist population has been on steady decline, from 52% in 1970 to 33% in 2000. Further, the percentage of this population is projected to decrease even further, possibly reaching the 20% mark in 2025. Between 1990 and 1997, belief in God has risen from 35% to a whopping 60%, while belief in the importance of God has climbed to 43% in 1997, up from 25% in 1990. More people have been raised religious in Russia in 1997 (20%) than at the beginning of the decade (18%), and 8.39% more Russians believed religion to be important toward the end of the 1990s, when compared to 1990. “Comfort in Religion” has also sharply increased within this time period, from less than 27% to over 46%. Finally, more and more Russians attend church services more regularly in 1997 than they did in 1990.

In the three Eastern European countries that were included in the WVS survey on belief in God, a drastic rise could be witnessed of respondents who answered this question in the affirmative. In Hungary, the percentage of believers in God jumped from 44% to 58% from 1981 to 1990, even prior to the collapse of the former Soviet Union. In Belarus, the number of people who believe in God nearly doubled over the course of the 1990s, from 36% to 68%, while in Latvia this figure almost quadrupled, from 18% to 67% in the same time period. Similar trends held true when it came to the importance of God, where there was a sharp rise in all three countries.[29]

”

Protestantism is growing in post Soviet Russia

In 2013, the website of Voice of America reported in an article entitled Is Russia turning Protestant?:

“ In 1990, an American anthropologist wrote a controversial book: “Is Latin America Turning Protestant?”

Two decades later, that same provocative question can be asked of Russia...

Despite the efforts of Russian police and prosecutors, Protestantism keeps growing in Russia...

In Siberia, long a land of dissenters and discontents, there are believed to be more Protestants in church on Sunday mornings than Russian Orthodox. On one recent visit to Khabarovsk, the second largest city of the Russian Far East, I went to a packed Baptist church, only a kilometer from a sparsely attended Russian Orthodox Cathedral. The massive Cathedral had been built with federal funds.[30]

”

Evolutionary indoctrination

See also: Evolutionary indoctrination

Evolutionist/atheists commonly attempt to censor the plain evidence for creation and against evolution (see: Suppression of alternatives to evolution). In addition, they commonly attempt indoctrinate children and the public into Darwinism using fraudulent means (see: Atheism and deception and Evolution and Cases of Fraud, Hoaxes and Speculation).

The evolutionist and immunologist Dr. Scott Todd, an immunologist at Kansas State University, perfectly epitomized the irrational evolutionary denial of the evidence for creation in his correspondence to the science journal Nature. Dr. Scott wrote: "Even if all the data point to an intelligent designer, such an hypothesis is excluded from science because it is not naturalistic".[31]
‎Since World War II a majority of the most prominent and vocal defenders of the evolutionary position which employs methodological naturalism have been atheists and agnostics (see also: Causes of evolutionary belief)[32] In 2007, "Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture...announced that over 700 scientists from around the world have now signed a statement expressing their skepticism about the contemporary theory of Darwinian evolution."[33]

Many atheists when faced with the compelling data for creation and against the evolutionary position irrationally attempt to suppress the evidence and engage in denial like the Charles Darwin (see: religious views of Charles Darwin ) who late in life is reported to often have overwhelming thoughts that the world was designed.[34][35] Creation Ministries International describes such irrational thinking in the following manner:

“ Underpinning this abandonment of faith in God is the widespread acceptance of evolutionary thinking — that everything made itself by natural processes; that God is not necessary. There is ‘design’, such people will admit, but no Designer is necessary. The designed thing designed itself! This thinking, where the plain-as-day evidence for God’s existence (Rom. 1:19–20) is explained away, leads naturally to atheism (belief in no God) and secular humanism (man can chart his own course without God). Such thinking abounds in universities and governments today.[36] ”

The evolutionist and immunologist Dr. Scott Todd, an immunologist at Kansas State University, perfectly epitomized the irrational evolutionary denial of the evidence for creation in his correspondence to the science journal Nature. Dr. Scott wrote: "Even if all the data point to an intelligent designer, such an hypothesis is excluded from science because it is not naturalistic".[37]

Evolutionism is established in people through indoctrination and not evidence. In January 2012, the Journal of Research in Science Teaching published a study indicating that evolutionary belief is significantly based on gut feelings.[38][39] A January 20, 2012 article entitled Belief in Evolution Boils Down to a Gut Feeling published by the website Live Science wrote of the research: "They found that intuition had a significant impact on what the students accepted, no matter how much they knew and regardless of their religious beliefs."[40]

In May 2011, Creation Ministries International launched the Question evolution! campaign which is a grassroots campaign encouraging students and others to "question the evolutionary pseudoscience peddled to them". The focus of the Question evolution! campaign is on 15 questions that evolutionists cannot answer. (see: 15 questions that evolutionists cannot satisfactorily answer).[41]

For more information please see: Evidence against evolution

Evolutionist indoctrination losing its effectiveness

Johns Hopkins University Press reported in 2014: "Over the past forty years, creationism has spread swiftly among European Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Hindus, and Muslims, even as anti-creationists sought to smother its flames." Picture above was taken at Johns Hopkins University

Johns Hopkins University Press reported in 2014: "Over the past forty years, creationism has spread swiftly among European Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Hindus, and Muslims, even as anti-creationists sought to smother its flames."[42]

On February 24, 2015, the Science Nordic website declared:

“ Creationism, the belief that a god -- not evolution -- shaped life on Earth, is ... spreading in the very stronghold of evolution, Europe. That’s the conclusion of five years of research that’s been put into new book on creationism. The book details how creationism is on the march throughout most of Europe.

"Creationism is most dominant in Eastern Europe and Turkey, but even some schools in the Netherlands are teaching creationism," says one of the book’s authors Hans Henrik Hjermitslev, University College South Denmark. "Politicians in some German federal states are advocating that schools use creationist books alongside those about evolutionary theory in their lessons. This kind of struggle is going on on a small scale in many places."...

"Over the last ten years we’ve seen the emergence of big-city creationism. London is a good example," says Kjærgaar.

Here, noticeably more young people have been signed up to various local and religious groups.

"And this doesn't just apply to young Muslims as many people might think. Christian groups are also recruiting young people...

Creationism has particularly been on the rise in step with the internet, which according to Peter Kjærgaard has made it much easier for people to become activists...[43]

”

Government indoctrination and the sovereign states losing power

The historian Martin Van Crevel points out that sovereign states are losing power/influence due to technology democratizing access to information, welfare states increasingly failing, fourth-generation warfare being waged against countries and sovereign states increasingly losing their ability to maintain internal order.[44][45]

The trend of sovereign states losing power poses potential difficulties in terms of atheists using the power of the state to indoctrinate (public schools, etc.).

Atheist mass murders in history and the historical illiteracy of many atheists/agnostics

As far the history of atheism in the 20th century, many atheists are not aware of the many murderous atheist regimes which inhabited this historical period (see: Atheists and historical illiteracy). Part of the reason why many atheists are unaware of many atheist atrocities during this period is due to atheistic indoctrination in public/secular schools.

Atheism and illegitimate historical revisionism

Atheists commonly engage in historical revisionism in order to illegitimately distort the historical record (see: Atheism and historical revisionism).

Atheist indoctrination in the Soviet Union and its limited effectiveness

See also: Soviet atheism and Militant atheism and Atheistic communism and torture

The above photograph shows the Russian Nikolai Khmara, a new Baptist convert in the Soviet Union, after his arrest by the KGB. He was tortured to death and his tongue cut out.[46] See: Atheistic communism and torture

The persecution of Christians in the Soviet Union was the result of the violently atheist Soviet regime. In the first five years after the October Revolution, 28 bishops and 1,200 priests were murdered, many on the orders of Leon Trotsky. When Joseph Stalin came to power in 1927, he ordered his secret police, under Genrikh Yagoda to intensify persecution of Christians. In the next few years, 50,000 clergy were murdered, many were tortured, including crucifixion. "Russia turned red with the blood of martyrs", said Father Gleb Yakunin of the Russian Orthodox Church.[47] According to Orthodox Church sources, as many as fifty million Orthodox believers may have died in the twentieth century, mainly from persecution by Communists.[48]

In addition, in the atheistic and Communist Soviet Union, 44 anti-religious museums were opened and the largest was the 'The Museum of the History of Religion and Atheism' in Leningrad’s Kazan cathedral.[49] Despite intense effort by the atheistic leaders of the Soviet Union, their efforts were not effective in converting the masses to atheism.[50]

Paul Froese in the Journal of the Scientific Study of Religion indicated:

“ Nevertheless, Yaroslavsky set out to demonstrate the League’s achievements by including a religious question in the 1937 Soviet census. The results were disastrous to the future of the League of Militant Atheists, which was disbanded in 1941, and religious survey questions never reappeared in subsequent Soviet censuses. Although no detailed results from the 1937 census can be reported because data analysis was quickly aborted, Soviet documents indicate that just over 56 percent of the population admitted to being religious believers (Corley 1996:76; Fletcher 1981:211). Yaroslavsky also ambiguously maintained that most (around two-thirds) of the religious believers resided in rural areas (Pospielovsky 1987:65). These crude results indicate a dramatic drop in religiosity when one considers that in 1900 nearly 100 percent of the people that lived in regions that would eventually constitute the Soviet Union were religious believers (see Barrett, Kurian, and Johnson 1980). Regardless, Yaroslavsky and Stalin viewed the number of atheist converts (even with probable inflation) as unsuccessful (Pospielovsky 1987:65).

The findings were disappointing because the “science” of atheism had predicted a different outcome. Communists expected individuals to abandon religion with fervor. As it turns out, Russians did leave the Russian Orthodox Church in droves but did not abandon religion at the same rate.

In 1900, non-Orthodox Christian groups represented around 10 percent of the Russian population (Barrett, Kurian, and Johnson 2001). These groups included Baptists, Evangelicals, Flagellants, Mennonites, Old Believers, Pentecostals, and Tolstoyans, to name a few that were most visible at the beginning of the 20th century (Corley 1996). By mid century and toward the end of the Soviet era, Hare Krishnas, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Seventh Day Adventists, and various “charismatic” sects entered the religious landscape. Quite interestingly, data confirm that while membership in the Russian Orthodox Church rapidly declined under communism, Protestants and various Christian sects slowly proselytized new members (see Figure 1). From 1900 to 1970, the percent of non-Orthodox Christians (not including Roman Catholics) went from 11 to 31 percent of the Russian population...

Soviet society clearly contained numerous incentives to relinquish religious belief and membership. First and foremost, the costs of religious belief and membership were extremely high because, in many instances, religious individuals could be executed or sentenced to decades of hard labor. Religious groups were the victims of extreme violence immediately following the 1917 Russian Revolution. In the Civil War that followed the Revolution, Bolsheviks targeted Orthodox churches, monasteries, and clerics as potential sources of anti-religious activity. Church property was seized and religious leaders, monks, and nuns were often killed in the process. The terror of the Civil War sometimes spun out of control as murderous gangs took advantage of the melee: “in many cases the tortures, murders and vandalism were the autonomous initiative of local anarchistic bands of army and naval deserters calling themselves Bolsheviks” (Pospielovsky 1988:1).

More systematic religious persecution began in the 1930s and reemerged periodically according to the whims of Soviet leadership. Anti-religious propaganda grew in the 1920s but the unfavorable results of the 1937 census marked a turning point in Soviet religious policy. Because religion was thought to be the result of social inequality and an opiate of the oppressed masses, the League of Militant Atheists was in a bind to explain the endurance of religion within a socialist utopia. Therefore, “they made a tactical move of proclaiming religion as a cause and not merely the symptom of social problems... religious practices became the scapegoat of the Soviet ideological machine, they became the only readily admissible reason for the failure of the complete re-education of the masses” (Pospielovsky 1987:26). According to this argument, Communist society did not secularize because religious believers prevented communism from attaining perfect social justice, which, in turn, would effortlessly secularize society. To end this cycle of religion, Yaroslavsky declared that “several hundred reactionary zealots of religion” needed to be exterminated (Pospielovsky 1987:65).

The failure of scientific atheism in Russia is interesting because it had every advantage. First, the Soviet government generously financed atheists while brutally suppressing religious advocates. For this reason, scientific atheism should be considered the equivalent of a religious monopoly. Second, scientific atheism was promoted throughout Soviet Russia in schools, workplaces, and the community.

Finally, scientific atheism offered rituals, ceremonies, and the promise of a utopian society as a direct alternative to religious offerings. The most generous estimates of atheistic belief show that less than one-quarter of Russians were atheists and this number dramatically drops to around 5 percent of the population after the fall of communism. In other words, scientific atheism was surprisingly unsuccessful when one considers all its competitive advantages.[51]

”

After the fall of the Soviet Union there was a religious resurgence (see: Collapse of atheism in the former Soviet Union).

See also

External links

References

  1. ↑ How atheism is being sold in America
  2. ↑ How atheism is being sold in America
  3. ↑ Suspicions Confirmed: Academia Shutting Out Conservative Professors
  4. ↑ The atheist indoctrination project
  5. ↑ Atheists to do religious education in schools by Dr. Don Batten
  6. ↑ Forced Secularization in Soviet Russia: Why an Atheistic Monopoly Failed
  7. ↑ Hamblin & Peterson: Hamblin and Peterson: Anti-theists can't erase Christianity, By William Hamblin and Daniel Peterson, For the Deseret News Published: Sunday, Aug. 26 2012
  8. ↑ The deep roots of French secularism, BBC News online by Henri Astier. September 1, 2004
  9. ↑ The values of the French school system
  10. ↑ Shall the religious inherit the earth?, by Eric P Kaufmann, April 6, 2010
  11. ↑ In a France suspicious of religion, evangelicalism's message strikes a chord, Christian Science Monitor, By Robert Marquand, Staff writer July 12, 2012
  12. ↑ Religious immigrants will alter the religious landscape of Europe
  13. ↑ Richard Dawkins: The state needs to ‘protect’ children from religion…and their parents, LifeSite News
  14. ↑ “Children need to be protected” from religious parents, Salon
  15. ↑ The agnostic Bill Gates presents data supporting the idea that public schools are facing increasing funding issues. Good news for cost effective creationist private education
  16. ↑ Anti-evolution religious private schooling and homeschooling will see big growth worldwide
  17. ↑ The collapse of Darwinism promoting public schools has begun just like we predicted. 61 Chicago public schools are closing their doors
  18. ↑ Politico’s Voucher Story Is Bogus
  19. ↑ Homeschooling continues to grow in popularity
  20. ↑ Study of college education and critical thinking skills
  21. ↑ Forbes - Higher education bubble
  22. ↑ Study of college education and critical thinking skills
  23. ↑ Forbes - Higher education bubble
  24. ↑
  25. ↑ College enrollment shows signs of slowing which means less post high school evolutionary indoctrination. Also, the ever shrinking role of tenured evolutionist professors and evolutionary biologists
  26. ↑ http://www.christianpost.com/news/study-atheists-have-lowest-retention-rate-compared-to-religious-groups-78029/ Study: Atheists Have Lowest 'Retention Rate' Compared to Religious Groups
  27. ↑ China's atheist leaders and intellectuals are panicking about the rapid growth of Christianity in China
  28. ↑
  29. ↑
  30. ↑ Is Russia turning Protestant? by James Brooke - Posted July 30th, 2013
  31. ↑ https://creation.com/a-designer-is-unscientificeven-if-all-the-evidence-supports-one
  32. ↑
  33. ↑ http://www.discovery.org/a/2732
  34. ↑ http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/teleological-arguments/notes.html
  35. ↑ The Berkeley "Understanding Evolution" website and the Wikipedia evolution article are prime examples of liberal denialism when it comes to liberals denying the clear evidence for creation.
  36. ↑ https://creation.com/images/pdfs/cabook/chapter1.pdf
  37. ↑ https://creation.com/a-designer-is-unscientificeven-if-all-the-evidence-supports-one
  38. ↑ Belief in Evolution Boils Down to a Gut Feeling
  39. ↑ Feeling of Certainty: Uncovering a Missing Link Between Knowledge and Acceptance of Evolution
  40. ↑ Belief in Evolution Boils Down to a Gut Feeling
  41. ↑ Question evolution! campaign
  42. ↑ Creationism spreading in Europe
  43. ↑ Scientists warn: creationism is on the rise in Europe, February 24, 2015 - 06:25
  44. ↑ The Fate of the State by MARTIN VAN CREVELD
  45. ↑ Martin van Creveld interview
  46. ↑ Double references:
  47. ↑ Ostling, Richard N. (December 4, 1989). "Cross meets Kremlin: Gorbachev and Pope John Paul II". Time. Time magazine website.
  48. ↑ Moore, Rev. Fr. Raphael (October 1999). "In memory of the 50 million victims of the Orthodox Christian Holocaust", Spiritual Nourishment for the Soul, Serfes, Rev. Archimandrite Nektarios, compiler.
  49. ↑ Humphrey (December 16, 2008). "Merry Anti-Christmas!" Quodlibeta.
  50. ↑ Multiple references:
  51. ↑ Forced Secularization in Soviet Russia: Why an Atheistic Monopoly Failed by Paul Froese, Journal of the Scientific Study of Religion
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