Recently, we attended a Friday night concert at our Temple. An outside musical group came in to lead services in a lively, exciting fashion. The music played, people sang, and it was an uplifting experience for many of the people there. I fought the urge to wince many times, but I maintained a polite demeanor throughout. In fact I even managed to bite my tongue during a particularly despicable exchange as we left the sanctuary.
A woman was walking next to me, still riding the endorphine high she had experienced during the service. She looked to me and remarked, "wasn't that wonderful?!" with a broad smile on her face. Not wanting to appear as the resident Grinch, I replied, "um, sure, yeah."
"It's so great to see so many children here too, isn't it?" she continued.
I maintained silence at that remark, while she appeared to have inferred an agreement by my blank stare.
She shook her head in wonder and continued, "it's so important to get 'em while they're young."
To a true believer, this may seem to be a sensible statement. To somebody like myself, it sums up the main reason why the world is so hesitant to turn it's back on religion. I picked up my pace and walked ahead so I wouldn't have to reveal my disgust so clearly.
When I was a child, I asked my father why the moon had phases. He replied very quickly with an explanation that the hidden part of the moon was shadowed by the earth, which is why we cannot see it. Instead of asking how the earth would cast a crescent shaped shadow during fuller moon phases, I accepted that his explanation was fact, and I resolved to better understand one day how the spherical earth could cast a non circular shadow. In my first year in college, I took an Astronomy class from a professor who was internationally respected, and had indeed written the very textbook used by many Astronomy professors around the world. He quickly glossed over the very obvious fact that the moon's phases were caused by the angle of the sun's light shining upon it as seen from our perspective. Dumbfounded, I actually summed up the nerve to raise my hand in order to correct this professor on his misunderstanding. In retrospect, the ensuing exchange should have been far more embarrassing than I felt it to be at the time. How was it that I was so convinced that my father's explanation to my childhood self was absolutely correct, even though I found immediate problems with it as a child? On top of this, why would I have assumed even for a second that my father's explanation was the correct one in contradiction to this respected Astronomer on such an elementary question? My father was in marketing, and had no science background beyond high school.
As children, we believe what we are told by our elders. It's that simple. In our cave dwelling days, this would have been a critical aspect to survival. The natural rule of thumb would have been "believe what your parents tell you without question." Why is this? Well, the children who unquestioningly believed what their parents told them were far more likely to avoid the crocodile infested waters and lion scoured savannas. They were more likely not to eat the deadly berries from certain bushes, and less likely to poke at the snakes slithering along the ground. The children who decided to test out the teachings of their parents generally did not live long enough to reproduce to pass along that skeptical default mindset. While this tacit acceptance of parental teachings had a clear survival advantage, it also has significant drawbacks that come along for the ride. Children cannot distinguish between which teachings they should believe and which they should not, so "Don't swim near those crocodiles" sounds just as plausible as "dance around the fire just like this in order to make it rain."
At dinner a few years back, a friend brought along his new girlfriend to meet the rest of us. She was a delightful and intelligent woman who we all took an immediate liking to. As a professional, college educated person, she was exactly the type you would think would have a rational mindset. A few days later, I commented to this friend on how much we all enjoyed meeting his new love interest. After thanking me, he mentioned that something about her seemed a bit odd to him. When I asked what he was referring to, he explained that every night before bed she placed a cup of sand on her bedroom window sill. I had no response, as this did in fact seem to be an odd behavior. Then he proceeded to explain.
"Before a witch enters your room as you sleep, it is obliged to count every grain of dust or sand on the window sill. By placing a cup of sand there, the witch will pass by your room so as not to be stuck there indefinitely counting the grains of sand. It's essentially a guard against witchcraft." Look it up folks. This truly is a belief held by many people.
If this intelligent woman continued to believe this tale well into adulthood, how much harder must it be for so many others to let go of beliefs that are constantly reinforced by millions of other devout followers? As long as the religious can still "get 'em while they're young," I predict that rationality will have little hope of prevailing in the near future.
