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May 18, 2005 One argument that is sometimes made by those who pretend that Christianity is divinely inspired or even just sensible and worthwhile is that a Christian upbringing inculcates in children those qualities that make for men and women who practise the kind of citizenship that we would like to see everyone practising. Children brought up under the loving influence of Jesus are more likely to be faithful, decent, honest, temperate, meek and modest, whereas children who have been allowed to run wild in godless homes are more likely to be sullen, lazy, irresponsible, addicted and disrespectful. I don’t know whether statistics have been compiled to bolster the Christian arguments, and, if there are statistics emanating from some religious group, whether they are unbiased and objective. After all, we don’t expect Watchtower or Awake to admit that Christianity doesn’t always work. If a Christian upbringing instils virtue in some cases, they would probably say, “Praise the Lord!” If it didn’t work in other cases, they would probably rationalize, saying that the families with reckless, unruly children had practised a stunted or tainted kind of Christianity. It wasn’t Jesus’ fault. Even if we allow, for the sake of argument, that Christianity does work wonders with some children, even most children, we shouldn’t be blind to the fact that some of the exceptions to this rule are shocking, appalling, horrid beyond belief, and do much more than just merely overshadow the other cases. They destroy the whole idea of the value of a Christian upbringing. Of course, I am thinking of Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin aka Josef Dzhugashvili, each of whom was given a Christian upbringing. Considering the 50,000,000 to 75,000,000 people who died as a consequence of their misdeeds, it would take many generations with billions of perfect Christians to compensate for the havoc they wreaked. Christians would probably hasten to say that Hitler and Stalin abandoned Christianity, and that’s why it didn’t work in their cases. But why then should we suppose it would work in anybody’s case? If the inculcation is that easy to set aside, if the principles and virtues are that easy to jettison, if the beatitudes and commandments are that easy to trample and crush, what good are they? Furthermore, it’s not really clear that Adolf Hitler did abandon Christianity. In an article I posted on April 29, 2005, I presented quotations and links to images that tend to support the view that Hitler was always a faithful Catholic. Admittedly, as a professional liar, he made contradictory statements, and the case is moot. But take a look at the images, and see Hitler coming out of a church with a prayerful look on his face. See him shaking hands with bishops and nuncios. http://www.useless-knowledge.com/1234/apr/article397.html Stalin grew up in a religious family and joined a seminary as a teenager expecting to enter the priesthood. In his late teens, dropping out of religious studies, he became an atheist and joined the Communist party, as the ruler of which he would go on to slaughter millions. Was his Christian education devoid of even a mitigating influence? Maybe, if, you tell me someone has had a Christian upbringing, I should run for cover. I posted an article on Stalin too, on April 7, 2005, but UK’s Craig Chamberlain quibbled with me about when Stalin became an atheist, which shouldn’t have been terribly important anyway, given Stalin’s Christian education. Anyway, according to Stalin’s biographer, Dmitri Volkogonov, Stalin sometimes in later life rued the fact that he had opted not to follow the priesthood. http://www.useless-knowledge.com/1234/apr/article095.html Hitler and Stalin make very unimpressive examples of the efficacy of a Christian upbringing, don’t you think? Or do you have some big, glorious rationalization that will explain it all neatly away? ------------ About the author Thomas Keyes: I have written two books: A SOJOURN IN ASIA (non-fiction) and A TALE OF UNG (fiction), neither published so far. I have studied languages for years and traveled extensively on five continents. Email: udikeyes@yahoo.com Comment on this article here! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
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