I haven\u2019t blogged in the past couple of weeks because my family and I were on vacation. We went on a wonderful trip to the island of Grand Cayman! I successfully managed to avoid email while I was there, but that made for quite a backlog by the time I returned.<\/p>\n
As I started going through the emails to my blog address, I was struck by comment after comment left by atheists on various old blog posts while I was gone: one emotional attack after another and not a single discussion of evidence for\/against the truth of Christianity.<\/p>\n
I actually get such emails all the time and am very used to it. But seeing them all piled together made me realize how often the objective of skeptics is to shame Christians, rather than to engage in fair-minded discussions about evidence \u2014 something highly ironic given how much skeptics talk in theory about how important evidence is.<\/p>\n
Shaming can have an especially negative impact on kids, who are very susceptible to believing emotion-laden statements. This is something we can (and should) prepare them for. While shaming comes in many forms, I can roll 90 percent of skeptics\u2019 comments into three general claims.<\/p>\n
Here is what your kids are most likely to hear \u2014 and what you can do about it.<\/p>\n
The Implied Shame Claim: You\u2019re just parroting what your parents have drilled into your head throughout your childhood. You\u2019ve been brainwashed and can\u2019t even think for yourself. If you\u2019re brave enough to look at [evidence\/science\/common sense] instead, you\u2019ll see how crazy Christianity is.<\/p>\n
I probably receive at least one blog comment each week about how I\u2019m indoctrinating my kids simply by raising them in a Christian home. Skeptics love to say this. The problem is, it betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of what ‘indoctrination’ even means. As I explained in this post, indoctrination is \u201cteaching someone to fully accept the ideas, opinions, and beliefs of a particular group and to not consider other ideas, opinions, and beliefs.\u201d In other words, indoctrination is a problem with how you teach someone something. It\u2019s not inherently related to any particular belief system, though religion is one type of belief system where indoctrination is possible. Atheists can indoctrinate their kids as well.<\/p>\n
So, unless a skeptic has been inside the homes of every Christian in America, seen how we are teaching our kids Christianity, and then had appropriate reason to conclude we don\u2019t collectively expose our kids to other ideas, it\u2019s utterly meaningless to say that \u201cChristians indoctrinate their kids.\u201d<\/p>\n
What parents can do: Make sure you\u2019re not actually indoctrinating your kids. Make sure you are teaching them what other people believe. That doesn\u2019t mean you should teach them that what everyone else believes is true (that\u2019s not logically possible). It simply means you\u2019re appropriately comparing and contrasting other ideas, opinions, and beliefs.<\/p>\n
Make it explicitly clear to your kids that you don\u2019t want them to believe in Jesus just because you do. (Read why this is so important in my post,\u00a0Six scary but important words every Christian parent should say to their kids about faith<\/em><\/a>.) When you\u2019ve actually demonstrated that it\u2019s important for them to own their spiritual decisions, they\u2019ll have no reason to later question whether they\u2019ve been \u201cindoctrinated\u201d when someone suggests it.<\/p>\n Teach your kids the evidence for the truth of Christianity. (You\u2019re going to see a recurring theme on this bullet point.) In that very process, you\u2019ll be comparing and contrasting truth claims from various worldviews, and your kids will know firsthand that you didn\u2019t \u201cindoctrinate\u201d them.<\/p>\n The Implied Shame Claim: Don\u2019t you want to be a critical thinker? Someone who is rational, reasonable, and uses their brain? If you have faith, you\u2019re throwing all that out the door. You\u2019re choosing to believe something in spite of all evidence to the contrary.<\/p>\n \u201cCritical thinking\u201d is a buzz phrase today. Technically speaking, critical thinking is the \u201cobjective analysis and evaluation of an issue to form a judgment.\u201d The funny thing is, skeptics always assume that such thinking necessarily leads to their own conclusions. The logic goes like this: (a) Critical thinking means forming beliefs based on evidence. (b) There\u2019s no evidence for God. (c) If you believe in God, you\u2019re not thinking critically.<\/p>\n The problem with this logic is the second statement: the foregone conclusion that there\u2019s no evidence for God. A more honest assessment would be that Christians and atheists disagree over what constitutes legitimate evidence for God. As much as many skeptics would like to make critical thinking their own domain based on this implied argument, the reality is that neither Christians nor atheists are willing to believe in something without evidence. Christians believe there is evidence for God. That\u2019s why conversations about who\u2019s thinking more critically are absolutely pointless. There are Christians who think well and Christians who think poorly, just as there are atheists who think well and atheists who think poorly. This says nothing about the evidence itself.<\/p>\n What parents can do: Be intentional in talking to your kids about definitions. So many times, Christians and skeptics talk right past each other with conflicting meanings of the same words. In this case, discuss the words ‘critical thinking’ and ‘faith.’ Skeptics incorrectly assert that faith means believing something in spite of evidence. (See chapter 8 of my book for help with this conversation.)<\/p>\n Discuss the implied argument of the three points listed above and explain that this is the logic behind skeptics\u2019 claims that Christians don\u2019t think critically. When you expose your kids to the thinking behind the shame claim, they won\u2019t be fazed by it later.<\/p>\n Teach your kids the evidence for the truth of Christianity. (Yup, here it is again!) It\u2019s one thing to show them the faulty logic (see the point above); it\u2019s another thing to teach them how to combat a faulty premise themselves.<\/p>\n The Implied Shame Claim: You\u2019re stupid if you\u2019re a Christian, and that\u2019s not just my opinion \u2014 it\u2019s been proven.<\/p>\n You may be surprised to hear that a number of studies have found a negative relationship between intelligence and religiousness. In other words, they suggest that the more intelligent a person is, the less likely they are to be religious. Many passionate atheists are well aware of these studies and use them as ammunition for their arguments that religion is for the poor, ignorant, or unintelligent.<\/p>\n My professional background is in market research (I have an MBA in marketing and statistics), so I decided to personally review the studies that are constantly referenced by skeptics. I explained my findings in detail in my post,\u00a0Are Christians less intelligent than atheists? Here\u2019s what those studies really say<\/a>\u00a0(and further in Chapter 16 of my book).<\/p>\n Here\u2019s the bottom line: Over the past 80+ years, many studies have been done on the relationship between intelligence and religiousness. In 2013, researchers pulled together all the ones that quantified that relationship. Of the 63 studies they identified, roughly half showed no relationship at all. The other half showed at least some kind of negative relationship (the more intelligent you are, the less likely you are to be religious). That said, statistically speaking, it\u2019s not very helpful to simply know there is \u201csome kind\u201d of relationship. You have to know how strong the relationship is to know if it matters. So researchers combined the results of all these individual studies to evaluate that question overall, and found the strength of relationship to be very weak. What do I mean by very weak? A -.17 or -.20 correlation, which is considered a trivial or negligible relationship by most statisticians. In other words, hardly worth mentioning. There is no reasonable basis for suggesting Christians are less intelligent than atheists, according to this data.<\/p>\n What parents can do: Give your kids an appropriate framework for considering this kind of claim before you even discuss specific studies. Even if we could reliably measure which group is collectively smarter (we can\u2019t), the answer wouldn\u2019t tell us anything about the truth of Christianity. Intelligence doesn\u2019t equate to always having the right answer. The important question we must constantly point our kids back to is “Which worldview is an accurate picture of reality?” (Not which worldview theoretically has the smartest adherents.)<\/p>\n If your kids are teens, take the time to read my summary of these studies and findings and then discuss.<\/p>\n Teach your kids the evidence for the truth of Christianity. (I told you this would keep coming up!) How else will they know how to set aside distracting claims like this one about intelligence and answer the key question about which worldview is an accurate picture of reality?<\/p>\n So, you must have caught the recurring solution that combats all of these attempts at shaming: Teach your kids the evidence for the truth of Christianity.<\/p>\n Consider for a moment why that in particular is the antidote for almost any shaming attempt. Shame by definition is \u201ca painful emotion caused by a strong sense of guilt, embarrassment, unworthiness, or disgrace.\u201d In other words, the root of shame is feeling inadequate.<\/p>\n In order for our kids to feel (more than) adequate when they encounter shaming attempts, they need to have the deep conviction that what they believe is really true. Only then will they be able to fully see these shame claims for what they are \u2014 shallow and baseless emotional attacks \u2014 and be able to say confidently with the apostle Paul, \u201cI am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes\u201d (Rom. 1:16).<\/p>\n This post is used with permission from Christian apologist Natasha Crain. You can access more great posts like this one by visiting her blog,\u00a0ChristianMomThoughts.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I haven\u2019t blogged in the past couple of weeks because my family and I were on …<\/p>\n2. \u201cIf you allow yourself to think critically, you\u2019ll see there\u2019s no reason to believe in God.\u201d<\/span><\/h3>\n
3. \u201cChristians are less intelligent than atheists. Studies show it.\u201d<\/span><\/h3>\n