Religion vs. Atheism in Parenting

A few weeks back, I read Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion say:

I want us to flinch when we hear of a ‘Christian child’ or a ‘Muslim child’. Small children are too young to know their views on life, ethics and the cosmos. We should no more speak of a Christian child than of a Keynesian child, a monetarist child or a Marxist child. Automatic labeling of children with the religion of their parents is not just presumptuous. It is a form of mental child abuse.

I’ve been thinking about this ever since, when I was asked the following questions by Ashok in comments on his Temple Matters post:

1) What is your opinion on children being taken to temples but not encouraged to ask why?

2) At what point do you think parents/elders should leave the decision of finding personal meaning in religion to the individual? What would you do with your children?

For a novice parent, these are profound questions, and it is important for any parent to think about these.

To start with, there is no doubt in my mind in fully agreeing with Dawkins. I was indoctrinated as a Hindu child, and chose atheism only in my teens, after I discovered and studied other philosophies. I did not have to go through a tenacious struggle myself, but I can well imagine different experiences for others. I would disagree with indoctrination of any kind. One must encourage one’s children to think for themselves, and choose what they think is right.

Given that religion is based on blind faith and not reason, it is hardly surprising that most religious parents blindly indoctrinate their children in what they themselves believe is the best for their children’s good. But what about atheists? Do atheists equally provide an open environment for their children to let them choose between religion and atheism?

Even as an atheist, I believe that I should not indoctrinate my child with atheistic principles. Even if I was raised as a Hindu, I will let my child attend a Christian convent school if it offers quality education, even though it may expose her to Christian traditions. I will let her grandparents take her to Hindu temples and let her see and have that experience. I will teach her not to discriminate among her friends based on religion if I find hints of any such thing. Over time, I would encourage her to think critically for herself.

So my response to Ashok’s questions is: #1 is pure indoctrination. Not encouraging children to ask questions is bad parenting. Not allowing them to, is mental child abuse, as Dawkins points out. #2: From the birth of the child. You can provide facts, information, and knowledge. But the decision of finding personal meaning in religion or elsewhere is a birthright of the child.

Of course, it’s not as simple as it sounds (who said rational parenting was easy?). When she asks me for the first time (whenever that is), “Dad, what is God”?, what will be my response? Will it be “Dear, God is a fictitious entity that many people believe in?” No, I suspect I will point at an idol somewhere and say “That is what people call God”, and thus side-step the question of his existence. If after a couple of years she asks “Dad, where can I find God?”, I’ll say “I don’t know dear. I haven’t found him yet. If you do, please let me know.” As she grows up, I will continue to encourage independent thinking. When she is mature enough to understand how different people can have different values, I can then explain what my values are. Well, I hope so!

What are your thoughts?

Update: 11th Oct: I realize that comments section on this post can be too restricted a space for many people to espouse their ideas. I have also learnt that this is a universal topic for parents who think. Hence, as can be seen from the comments section below, this topic is now a meme, open to all.

It has already been taken up by The Rational Fool, La Vie Quotidienne, and AgelessBonding. Feel free to take up this meme on your own blog and write on this topic.

Cartoon Credits: David Horsey, via The Primate Diaries

Parenting the next generation

I continue to be amazed by our precocious children. And I’m sure every generation before us has gone through the same amazement. What’s unique about our children? Nothing unique, in my opinion, just that as the rate of technological advance increases exponentially, the degree of difficulty in parenting increases exponentially as well.

I was chatting with a colleague over lunch about her kids - a 6-year old son, and a 3 year old daughter. Her son had an account on Orkut. She discussed it with him and convinced him that he was not old enough to have an Orkut account. He finally consented and they deleted his account. Her daughter wanted an account too, as her brother had one. Sure, there are Parent’s Guides to Social Networking, but in India, in many cases, the parents are not knowledgeable about how to use the Internet, whereas the kids are!

Her 6-year old son can take you anywhere in Chicago - in Midtown Madness. You name the place, he’ll drive you there. Her 3-year old daughter can drive you to Crooked Street in San Francisco in Midtown Madness 2, and shriek in joy by tumbling the car over Crooked Street.

Her son creates Powerpoint slides with ease, and is now dabbling in Excel by helping his Dad create his “weekly schedule” of play time and homework.

In the traditional heart of Pune’s Laxmi Road, a woman wearing a halter top with her bra straps visible happened to pass by. After she was gone, a 3-year old boy smiled and remarked “Sagla distay ki ticha!” (”She’s showing everything”). I remember being at least 12-13 years old before noticing such things - that’s a 10 year difference!

It is not just that children are smarter and more intelligent. That has been true throughout history. It is the access to technology that makes all the difference - it is the combination of enhanced intelligence and powerful tools like never before that is fueling the extraordinary achievements of the next generation.

It is difficult being a parent today, more difficult than it was before, because of this reason. And it is not just your own child’s security that you need to worry about. Your own child’s behavior can also affect another child’s security. Prerna writes about this delicate balance with sensitivity - where exactly do you draw the line between protectiveness to safeguard your child’s safety and freedom, so as not to stifle the child’s growth?

One of the core difficulties regarding parenting is of course, sex education. With sex education being banned in more and more states in India, this is becoming more of a parenting issue rather than an academic one. Nita points out: “it is a known fact that Indian parents neglect to do their duty when it comes to teaching their children about sex…and the consequence is that kids turn to pornography.” Paul has a thought-provoking post (NSFW) opining that it is better to allow children access to tasteful nudes that can deter them from tasteless porn.

I sought the opinion of a professional psychological counselor on this topic. She said that the right age to educate your child about sex is completely flexible and dependent on the child and the social circumstances. The education itself should, of course, be incremental and in appropriate stages. It begins with education about gender identity. Boys want to know how girls are different and vice versa. That’s where sex education begins.

From her experience as a counselor, she shared the fact that the most common question children ask is “where did I come from”. Looking at the fact that this question has made human beings build telescopes, launch satellites and planetary explorers, and write philosophical treatises, it seems this is the most fundamental, quintessential questions man has ever asked!

Related Reading: A nice, wide angle view of the Age of Consent, by Nita.

Photos: Copyrighted to me, of my daughter.

Technorati Tags: india, pune, parenting, sex education

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Yearning for Sense Beyond the Earth

At the start of the day, I was almost sure I was going to write about how the world doesn’t seem like a place that I’m proud to be in.

Depressing Scene

The Indian Left wanted India to be Left behind. The Indian Right didn’t know what was Right anymore.

China, a communist nation, seeks to achieve a nuclear deal with Pakistan, a military dictatorship, which has a proven record of having proliferated nuclear weapons technology.

A group of eight Indian men were attacked violently in what appears to be a racist crime against Indians, not a common occurrence in recent times. But the media headlines in India and the Indian blogosphere continue to be obsessed with whether one Indian, once accused of a crime and now acquitted, gets a visa or not. Controversial racist slurs against Indian celebrities paid to act in shows abroad get wider attention in India than actual racist violence against innocent Indians in a foreign country.

It is at such times, that I feel the world is hopeless. It is not a place where I would be proud to be living. These are the times when I yearn for meaning; I’m yearning for sense, to make it all meaningful, somehow.

My mind becomes very unquiet. That’s when, like rays of sunlight in a darkened room, comes news like this.

NASA Audio Video History on the Web

I used to watch Carl Sagan’s Cosmos series on Doordarshan during the 1980s. I read Cosmos and many other books that increased my fascination of astronomy. I constructed my own homemade telescope in my school days, getting Rs. 75 from my father, and using paper calendar rolls for the tubes. I used it to watch the craters on the Moon and the satellites of Saturn.

With select friends, I used to marvel at the NASA Apollo and Russian Sputnik launches. It was not until 1997 however, that I was able to watch the real action. I used to monitor the Mars Pathfinder’s movement across the Martian landscape with bated breath and indescribable excitement. Every movement of the Pathfinder against a rock, crater, or soil sample was relayed by NASA over the web, and we were enthralled by it all.

For all such aficionados, there is great news. Decades of NASA photos and videos are coming to the web!

The space agency and the Internet Archive said Tuesday that they plan to scan and archive more than 12 million NASA photographs and 100,000 hours of film and video footage for free access online, under an exclusive five-year agreement. As part of the deal, the Internet Archive will host the media album on a new Web site, Nasaimages.org.

Free Home Planetarium: Google Earth is now Google Universe!

This is absolutely wild. I used to have a DOS 3.1 based program in the late 1908s, that depicted the stars in the sky above your actual location, depending on your latitude and longitude. Now, it’s for free. Google Earth has now launched Google Sky! I think it puts the Earth in perspective!

How fascinating and unbelievably true?! Imagine, you can now traverse 100 million stars and 200 million galaxies from your desktop! I’ve spent numerous hours teaching friends, colleagues, and relatives, about the constellations and galaxies, and nebulae during cloudy skies. Imagine being able to do it using your net-connected-PC! Teach your children using Google Sky about astronomy. They might one day become Sunita Williams!

It’s often said that Google Earth and Google Maps took Cartography to the masses. TechCrunch says “Google Sky could well do the same for Astronomy.”

I do not know if this is going to bring Astronomy to the masses. There was once a time, when it was also often said, that looking at the heavens brings mankind closer, as he realizes he’s just a speck of dust on an insignificant planet, on an ordinary sized star in one corner of not just his galaxy, but completely irrelevant as far as the universe is concerned. There was a time when this thought did bring men together, either in the spirit of fear, or in the spirit of science. I don’t know if this is going to mean anything at all in today’s world.

In fact, I’m inclined to think quite the opposite. Rather than studying the stars, mankind will be more interested in how the stars positions affect his or her chances of making it with that other person, how his or her chances with this particular career lie, and so on. Will astrologers use Google Earth to pinpoint horoscopes? Is this going to be the modern panchang or Vedic calendar?

Making Sense

I’m sorry this is a long post. My point is, when such news about such great initiatives by human beings come along, I feel hopeful about this world again. That there are some people who understand what it all means. And then I’m proud to be living in this world again! I’m not sure if anyone will understand what I mean, so I guess I may be writing just for myself.

Images Credit Myself (of objects seen by naked eye myself)

Technorati Tags: india, nasa, politics, astronomy, google, carl sagan, cosmos, science

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Fork Spoon Puzzle Solution

Here’s the solution to the Fork Spoon Puzzle.

1. Hook the fork and spoon together, such that the outer prongs are on the outside of the spoon, while the inner prongs are on the inside. Make sure the interlocking is firm. They should now be like a single, boomerang shaped object.

2. Insert the matchstick from the center of the fork prongs. Position it so that it also touches the spoon’s edge.

3. Balance the fork-spoon object by placing the matchstick on the edge of the glass.

4. If you’re showing this off to your friends, you can also burn the ends of the matchstick for added effect!

Here’s the YouTube video:

Technorati Tags: science, puzzles, fun, riddles, children

Fork Spoon Puzzle Update

Almost a month back, I’d posted the Fork Spoon Puzzle. As far as I know, only Rambodoc attempted a solution. He sent me a solution I had also come up with, that didn’t satisfy the real rules, so it again proved that we’re one of a kind!

That post wasn’t meant to be a popular post that would get the highest number of hits, and appear on the WordPress ‘Top Posts’ list. Why? Because nobody these days is interested in science, in teaching rationality to their children, or learning about basic science stuff all over again! “Oh my god, we went through this in school already, not again!”

But aren’t bloggers different from this public? The puzzle doesn’t require any sophisticated equipment, just basic kitchen stuff. It is not in any kind of specialized domain like music or finance, where you need some background knowledge. You apply scientific principles when you load your luggage onto the airport cart. Put the heavier and bigger bags first, and towards the handle, then heavy bags next to it farther than the handle, then the lighter bags on top of them. We do it, because we need to carry our luggage; who needs to solve a puzzle?!

But think about the scientists who go on experimenting and experimenting. How many years did Descartes spend experimenting with light? How many years did Nash struggle with mathematics and play games to come up with Nash equilibria? How many years did our beloved Kalam spend trying to figure out missile trajectories that are now used by ISRO to send satellites in space?

We ordinary folks spend hours reading books about such great folks. We spend time writing about our love of them. The blogosphere is teeming with its love and praise for Kalam. Why can’t we spend a few minutes trying to practice what he and others preached?

This is not experimentation where you don’t even know if the solution exists (which was what these pioneers were mostly faced with). It is a simple puzzle, with a known solution.

Why I write so passionately about this is because I believe that only if we instill the scientific spirit in ourselves, can we pass it on to the next generation. We’re becoming a populace who abhors any kind of mental effort, reveling in popular music, popular customs, popular cinema, popular beliefs, and so on. What about classical stuff, that requires some effort? Isn’t it rewarding? But I digress.

As I said in the puzzle post, you can choose to cheat and find the solution quickly using the Internet. You would then be missing the whole point. Try to spend time and a little bit of effort. You’ll appreciate the results much more! Let us teach our children and the next generation how to go about applying the unquiet mind.

I will reveal the solution to the puzzle in the coming week, depending on the response to this post. Do use the comments section to vent out your frustrations, your questions, your criticisms. They’re all welcome!

Technorati Tags: science, fun, puzzles, riddles, children

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When will this stop?!

Disturbing news broke out to start the week:

Thirty polythene bags stuffed with the body parts of female fetuses and newly born babies have been found in a dry well near a private clinic in the east Indian state of Orissa, police said on Monday.

Police suspect the body parts - mainly skulls and bones - were dumped in the well shortly after birth or abortion at the clinic in Nayagarh district, 90 km (55 miles) southwest of the state capital, Bhubaneswar. The manager of the clinic has been arrested.

“Prima facie seems to indicate female feticide but we can’t be sure until forensic examinations are conducted,” said B.K. Sharma, Orissa’s crime branch inspector-general of police.

Police said they searched the well after seven female fetuses, also packed into polythene bags, were found dumped in a deserted area in a nearby village a week ago.

Officials said they believed the two cases were linked and are part of an organized racket involved in female feticide.

I usually write at least a couple of lines with my opinion of a news item, but I’m just shell-shocked into silence with this one.

Technorati Tags: india, gender imbalance, foeticide, infanticide, abortion, sex ratio, population, culture, women

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Fork Spoon Puzzle

I’ve always been attracted to puzzles. Not ones involving gimmicks or trickery, but those that are really ingenuous. In many cases, they are educational as well. My most favorite one was the fork spoon puzzle.

It is my favorite because the efforts that you put in solving it are more than rewarded when you see the result! The solution is nothing short of miraculous and most people don’t believe their eyes when they see it. It is a fun educational tool for children as well as adults.

Before We Begin

• If you already know about this one, feel free to share your experience via comments!
• If you are able to solve it, don’t give away the solution in the comments. Let others have fun too!

What You Need

• A Spoon (steel, not plastic)
• A Fork (preferably from the same set)
• A Match-Stick (wooden, preferably square)
• A Glass (with a straight, sharp edge, preferably wide-mouthed)

Goal

Balance the fork and spoon on the glass using the match-stick, such that neither the fork nor the spoon touch the glass or the ground. Also, the match-stick can touch the glass at only one point. Yes, you read that right.

Guidelines

• If you want to, you can cheat using the Internet. You’ll lose out on all the fun if you do.
• Feel free to ask questions if any, via comments.
• Feel free to invite your friends and blog-mates if you wish.
• Remember: the solution is based on a simple scientific principle, there are no tricks or gimmicks involved.

All the best, have fun!

Technorati Tags: science, fun, puzzles, riddles, children

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Tintin and the Streisand Effect

Thanks to Expat Yank, I discovered the Streisand Effect proven in action again. This time, it’s in the case of Tintin:

Sales of a Tintin comic book have rocketed by 3,800 per cent after Britain’s equality watchdog claimed that it depicted “hideous racial prejudice”.    

The Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) condemned Tintin In The Congo for making black people “look like monkeys and talk like imbeciles” and called for it to be taken off the shelves.

But its intervention seems only to have increased the popularity of the controversial book about the boy reporter, as by last night it had reached number eight on Amazon’s most popular books list.

The Internet retailer said Tintin In The Congo had “jumped” into the top 10 since the CRE’s comments, which followed a complaint by a member of the public.

These days, I suspect Indian celebrities are using the Streisand Effect to their advantage by creating controversy around themselves and thus staying in the limelight. Now are these regulatory moral brigades and censorship bodies going to get wise? Or do they need to do the same for the same reasons?

Impotent Initiative to Fight Feticide

This is to be read to be believed. The Indian Government’s Women and Child Development Minister Renuka Chowdhury has proposed that all pregnant women (and girls) in India, register their pregnancies with the Government. What is this supposed to achieve? Reduce female feticide.

Some activists said the government’s plan to create a pregnancy register in a country of 1.1 billion people - where more than 50 percent of women deliver children at home without medical assistance - was unrealistic.

Not everybody’s agreeing:

“We cannot give elementary health services in a satisfactory way to most of our citizens, and to talk about registering pregnancies is ridiculous,” said Alok Mukhopadhyay, head of the Voluntary Health Association of India. “Public awareness, empowerment of women and extension of health services are key in fighting infant mortality and feticide, as well as implementing the existing laws that forbid sex determination.”

I couldn’t agree more. And what does the UNICEF have to say?

“Registering pregnancies is good,” said Marzio Babille, UNICEF’s head of health in India. “If we act upon mothers by registering pregnancies, offering quality ante-natal care, good counseling to deal with complications and an efficient transportation network…this would enormously help promote institutional deliveries and strengthen and expand the safe maternity scheme,” Babille added.

What did Renuka Chowdhury offer Marzio for saying this - a free vacation to Goa? Oh, I forget, when did the UN care about individual rights?

Don’t be fooled by the ridiculous nature of the proposal - it is more insidious than you think. Forget feticide. This proposal infringes on the fundamental right to privacy of all Indians. This is a serious offence, and I expect that a lawsuit will soon follow demonstrating the unconstitutionality of the proposal. This can never be turned into law in India. We need different measures to tackle female infanticide, not infringing on individual rights.

I’m surprised that Renuka Chowdhury is even engaging in this kind of publicity campaign. Isn’t it rather demeaning of her? Does she have support within her own government for this stunt?

Our Union Health Minister, Anbumani Ramadoss, whom I respect at least for openly saying that we need our own Mr. Condom, said: “We should be ashamed”. But, alas, it was in the context of India’s infant mortality rate (57 per 1,000 live births). Well, one can hope, can’t one?

M. C. Escher in Lego?!

OK, here’s something that I believe should get you folks really curious: you all know about M. C. Escher, so I needn’t say more.  Folks like me, we simply read books on Escher to pontificate on the myriad artistic and philosophical implications of the drawings.

When Krish Ashok gets into his inimitable style of recursive loops (see one of his comments, for example), folks like me simply reminisce about Escher’s Drawing Hands.

But how does one transform Escher’s imaginative-and-impossible drawings into 3D reality?

Andrew Lipson has used Lego in exactly such a creative fashion to make 3D models of Escher’s works, including ‘Balcony’, ‘Ascending and Descending’, and ‘Waterfall’.

There’s of course a gimmick involved, but its worth a study. Though his work has been Digged, Boinged, etc., there were URL changes and so on, so here’s another fresh look for us newbies.

Image copyright World Of Escher.