We all aim for a free world.
Freedom to be treated equally.
Freedom to believe or not believe.
As much freedom for women as for men.
As much freedom for children as for adults.
Freedom whatever the colour of our skin, or hair, or eyes.
Freedom to be the same.
Freedom to be different.
It is a tall order. To quote a line from Creme, Godley & Gouldman’s Ten CC track: “Everyone’s going to be free, but they’ll have to agree to be free.“
But children never get the chance to agree, they do what they are told, sometimes “Or else!”
One of the main prerequisites of freedom is choice, and for many people a freedom of choice is restricted by an inability to afford. The inequalities in the world with regard to economic conditions and vagaries of food supply cause problems almost too enormous to contemplate.
But these are conditions for the most part caused by situations out of the control of the individual. The one choice an individual retains, whatever prevailing economic or political climate they are born into, is the choice to believe or not in an external controlling being.
However, the complex religious systems which mankind has created over millennia preclude this choice for as many, if not more, than those suffering economic problems. Because these systems are designed to be self-perpetuating.
There are very few exceptions to this - although one was the Shakers who believed in abstinence for all. Small wonder then that their religious group died out.
The easiest way for a religion to be self-perpetuating is for the adult believers to inculcate their children with their own beliefs. And this is, of course, what happens in many religious groups in many countries. So the freedom of choice for children does not exist, and is not allowed to exist. There is never a question of children agreeing or not, they just follow where they are led.
I feel very fortunate, in the sense that although I am a victim of hereditary religion, my parents were gentle and loving people who sincerely believed they were sharing with me what was so important for them. There was no violence or outward form of cruelty. Nevertheless there was a level of control which was insidious, a control which I only became aware of with hindsight, much later in my life.
As far as I can make out from the distance of my 64 years there would have been no way to avoid this control. It was imposed on me from my earliest years.
My parents and grandparents went to church and I and my sister went to Sunday School with my father who was its leader. This began before the age of five, by which time the requirement was implicit in our very existence. On Sunday we went to Sunday School. We did not visit a shop. We did not play ball games. We wore our best clothes and we learned the bible.
So it started, and so it continued. I went to Sunday School twice every Sunday and was proud of the 104 stars accumulated annually on my attendance card.
I learned the bible, and my father was a very good teacher, so I learned it well. But I only learned it literally. There was no concept of interpretation. The bible told us what happened, and that was that.
It took me over 50 years of study and thought to come to terms with the fact that I did not believe in anything outside of myself. And when I look back from where I am now, I realise how stultifying was my upbringing. It gave me no understanding of what I am about, or what other people are about. No understanding of how to relate to the opposite sex, or of sex itself except in a totally repressive way. No understanding of how to be in the world; of how to stand on my own feet without the crutch of religion to lean on.
Now I have a difficulty knowing what to call myself. I am well beyond being agnostic - I passed that stage on the way out, as it were. I will not refer to myself as atheist as I believe the whole concept of a theism is based on a non-existent concept. How do I not believe in what does not exist?
I don’t like labels anyway, and I cannot understand the need for them when describing people. I am content to be me.
I now see religion, in all its forms, as the ultimate form of mind control. As such it is implicitly dangerous and to be avoided, but how to help children avoid a self-perpetuating concept is a challenge indeed, but one for which I am prepared to join.
