Cognitive dissonance, logic, and protecting our children

Cognitive dissonance presents a very salient problem with which many of our brother and sister humans are faced every single day. There is also the problem of not understanding why it is important to value logic, reason, and evidence.

As Sam Harris puts it: "If someone doesn't value evidence, what evidence are you going to provide to prove that they should value it? If someone doesn't value logic, what possible logical argument could you invoke to show the importance of logic?"

This is, to put it mildly, quite the conundrum. I am not willing to give up on someone who makes faith claims and engages in mental gymnastics in order to reconcile their beliefs with the nature of reality; I would be lacking in my obligation to fellow members of my species were I to do so.

The only way we are ever going to rid ourselves of baseless supernatural claims is by relentlessly pointing out how ridiculous these ideas are and how delusional are those who hold them to be true. We must shame people, if we have to, into letting go of these beliefs.

What's more, we need to protect the children of our species. Here is something the faithful do not seem to understand: Your children are not your property. You don't, in fact, have the right to teach them whatever you want; you are simply custodians of their fragile, growing minds. And while you have considerable leeway in choosing how to raise them, forcing them to believe as you do, about things which you cannot possibly know, is a most egregious infraction on their personal and psychological integrity.

You are hijacking the mind of a child to conform to a worldview which is patently false. Is it not obvious from their incessant questions that your answers and circular logic are grossly inadequate? If you teach a child arithmetic, the child will question until he or she receives a sufficient answer. You can see for yourself that two and two make four; it is a fact, based in reality.

Children need to know as much about reality and the way things work in this reality, the only reality we know of. It is detrimental to confuse them with supernatural claims based on no evidence. You don't need religion to teach your children morality. In fact, religion is probably the worst way ever thought up to teach morality.

Please, stop lying to your children; we need them. We need them for the next great discovery, to keep moving humanity forward, and to ensure that all we've accomplished isn't lost. I implore all of you to think on these things.