How To Help My Little Brother Think For Himself About My Mom's Indoctrination?

[Suzanne]

I don't live with my parents anymore, but my two younger brothers do. While my oldest brother doesn't really seem interested in religion at all, I feel that my youngest brother is really susceptible to the indoctrination that my mother is doing (all the young earth creationism crap, for instance, and Bob knows what else). In fact, I see much of myself at that age in him. Seeing as how this set me up for huge disappointment and pain a little later on, I want to be there for my little brother and gently show him that what my mother is teaching him is not the only way to believe in God, and just generally try to nudge him into thinking for himself. He is 15 now, in two years he'll go to university and is even planning to study something like physics or astrophysics, so I think it is important that he learn now, preferrably not with the slap-in-the-face feeling that I had. I'm thinking of giving him Bill Bryson's "A short history of nearly everything" for his birthday and telling him that he can come to me with any questions he has (even though I'm nowhere near an expert on these things, but I am being trained to think scientifically (am starting my second BA program next year) + have access to an entire university library so I could at least provide a different perspective).

 

Do you have any other ideas about how to talk to my brother about this, so that I can maybe help him through this in a relatively easy way? I feel that he will run into the limits of my mom's ideas sooner rather than later, and as I said, would prefer this not to be very painful for him.

[Legion]

"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance; it is the illusion of knowledge." - Stephen Hawking

 

I find this quote to be both accurate and ironic, seeing as Hawking is steeped in reductionism. But anyway...

 

I would ask my brother if he REALLY understands the world. And if he does believe he understands the world HOW does he know that he understands it.

[Suzanne]

It's a quote I can get behind nonetheless. Thank you for your advice, I might try that next time I'm there.

[♦ ficino ♦]

Hi again Suzanne, I don't know of good science books, but I think you've got a good idea in giving him something with real scientific content. I do think that if he's serious about going into science, there's a very good chance that he will slough off any young earth stuff he may have picked up. The young-earth notion that God created the earth with built-in age, so that dating rocks by radioactive decay and other methods is all an illusion, is simply absurd. Can he read things on a kindle or via computer? I don't know if he's too young for Darwin's On the Origin of Species... (also don't know if your mom censors what he reads)

[par4dcourse]

"I may make you feel, but I can't make you think."~~Ian Anderson

[Guest Babylonian Dream]

Find some really cool science magazines with awesome pictures and get him interested. It was astronomy that started me down the path to loving science. Tell him how all those tiny specks of light at night are gigantic suns, much larger than the earth. Also, get him interested in real history and archaeology, it will make him spot anachronisms, and in particular, Egyptology. Knowing that there was never a king/pharoah named Joseph will make things obvious, the story in Genesis is a fable.

[Galien]

If he is a thinker, the science stuff may convince him. If he is a feeler, you got no hope and he will have to sort it out for himself. I find thinkers leave the church over the science thing, feelers over the bad behaviour of other christians and the obvious dishonesty. Depends how he is connected to the religion and why. I would find out which he is, and ask him how he perceives HIS world, then go from there.

[Kurari]

Do you live close enough to visit him? If so, take him out for a fun day and give him a talk about things.

 

If not, I like the book idea. Also, be sure to chat with him through e-mail and send him articles regularly.

[R. S. Martin]

If he is a thinker, the science stuff may convince him. If he is a feeler, you got no hope and he will have to sort it out for himself. I find thinkers leave the church over the science thing, feelers over the bad behaviour of other christians and the obvious dishonesty. Depends how he is connected to the religion and why. I would find out which he is, and ask him how he perceives HIS world, then go from there.

 

Doesn't have to be science. It can be the simple inconsistency of the internal logic of the theology. I don't know if I'm a thinker or feeler but here's how my logic ran: If God is perfectly just and merciful, he will not require the death of anyone as a mere symbol of faith to allow people into heaven. There must have been a physical or literal object in the universe that prevented human souls from entering heaven. This object or barrier must have been such that only the soul of a perfect human could remove it. Since there was no such human, a god had to become human and die in order to remove it.

 

However, this line of logic did not receive any support. In fact, it was rejected by the one minister with whom I shared it. The others simply pointed me to the Bible or failed to address The Question. The Bible certainly didn't answer it so directing me to it was failure, too. My brain kicked in again: An all-knowing God would have answers. Maybe there is no God who could possibly provide The Answer.

 

One day when walking through the bush on my way home from yet another theology class, on a lovely summer day with dappled sunshine on the footpath and winged creatures--birds and insects--whispering and chirping in the leafy canopy, I felt the over-powering assurance that there is no god. Thinking? Feeling? Who knows. I was convinced but it was neither science nor the bad behaviour of Christians that did it.

 

From reading deconversion stories on these forums and elsewhere I conclude that each person has his or her own journey out of religion. There is no prescription or one-size-fits-all. We can feed information to our loved ones but we risk the chance that they will use it to strengthen any prejudice they may have for our position, or even create such prejudice in the first place. It forces them to consider topics they may not yet be ready to consider.

 

Then again, it may be the very thing they have been secretly yearning for in order to answer deep life-long questions.

 

Deconversion is so utterly unacceptable on the societal level that it is seriously difficult for seekers to come out and "be real" about their questions. This complicates the efforts of anyone wishing to help.

 

This is the way it looks to me. I don't know if I'm right. Possibly it differs from person to person, or with geographical areas.

[ConureDelSol]

Take him to a big exhibit at your local science museum or zoo. You could point out the qualities that support evolution in the animals at the zoo and I think the science museum would pretty much speak for itself. Keep in contact with him. Let him talk about his day and stuff.

 

Also, if he is really planning on studying astrophysics or something similar in college, I guarantee that the classes he'll have to take for such a degree would help to change his perspective drastically. Secular education is a wonderful thing. Just make sure you encourage him to not go to a Christian university or something crazy like that.

[SoftIce]

This is hard. IMO, I think more extreme someone's beliefs, the more extreme the reaction will be to finding evidence that one or more of them is false. It's what I personally call brittle faith, because of the idea that one crack (eg: creation is disproven by science) can cause the entire structure to shatter. I think it's why some of the more extremely religious will fight tooth and nail over the tiniest of details, because they feel that if one thing in their belief turns out to be mistaken, they think that their entire world view is threatened. This is just my theory, though, based on how I've seen some people react to things that they felt 'threatened' their religion.

 

There's also the element that many people see their parents as 'knowing everything' as small children, and in some ways, I think this concept is hard to escape. This could come into play with a parent that has beliefs that a child finds out differ drastically from reality. It's a feeling of great unease, to think your parents are wrong on something that they have drilled into your brain for years. You start to question their competency in general. At least, this is what I've seen happen to someone that I knew that had something similar happen, although it was unrelated to religion.

 

In my limited knowledge, I think you're going about things the right way, trying to ease him into things. For now, I think one of the more important things is to get him to a point where he does not feel that interpreting part of the Bible differently will cause his entire belief structure to crumple down around him. Because if he thinks that, he'll throw up his defenses, IMO.

 

I'm also unsure of how he views his mother, but if he was like me, you should try to also ease him into the idea that our parents can be wrong in some instances, but that doesn't make them less of a parent or a 'bad' parent, per say. I'm only going on personal experience with myself on this, though. I know at 15 I felt like my mom was my rock.

 

Good luck.

[Akheia]

I think it's so sweet that you're thinking of your brother like that. Would it be a good idea to just gently hint to him that he might find a lot of things at college contradict what your folks have taught him about religion? Does he know you're not Christian anymore? If he's that indoctrinated, just knowing you're non-Christian might harden his heart against anything you say, is why I ask.

[Suzanne]

You guys are great. Thank you for all the suggestions. I'm going to think about what to do for a bit longer because I think I should tread very carefully here. I'll keep your ideas in mind.

 

@Akheia, no, he doesn't know that, I think. I'm not sure whether it would help or hurt; it might also trigger curiosity about why I left the church. I really couldn't say which one it would be.

[Exevolt]

I would say if you have trouble speaking to the kids show them a youtube video or a website that explains the christian lies and so on that isn't just spewing hate mongering of christians with no evidence.