GIVE ME THE CHILD UNTIL HE IS SEVEN-The power of indoctrination prior to the age of reason is finite, everlasting and transcends all intellectual reason. Most of all it is underestimated

The power of indoctrination prior to the age of reason is finite, everlasting and transcends all intellectual reason. Most of all it is underestimated.

If a parent tells a young child that Father Xmas exists, the child will believe it is so.

He will in future be presented with a mountain to climb. As he grows he will be presented with evidence to the contrary. He will need, at some time, to seek his parent’s confirmation that it is not true. When his parent believes it is futile to continue the charade any longer, he will be told the truth… Father Xmas is “pretend”.

Now, when the same child is told that an old man in the sky made the World in six days, he has another future mountain to climb.

As he grows he will need to entertain incontrovertible evidence to the contrary. So, when he seeks the parent’s confirmation that this “pretend” concept is also not true, he is told it is true!

What does the child think now? Father Xmas is equally as fanciful as the World having been constructed in six days by some old man (or woman) who lives in the sky but he is told one concept can be dismissed and the other cannot! The child matures to an otherwise intelligent adult believing in the masterful old man in the sky, but not Father Xmas! How can this be?

It’s called infantile indoctrination… and its power is immense. Catholics and all other religious bigots  know all about it!

“… give me the child until he is seven and I will give you the man”.

It’s the very same indoctrination that leads the Jihadist to kill himself and a busload of Westerners. He was told as a child that this sort of action is so honorable that he won’t die, only the Westerners will die. He will be rewarded in the sky with a bevy of beautiful, rootable, girlfriends, hymens intact.

Christian and islamic children grow up to be normal, intelligent people but they carry a huge burden… the burden of indoctrination prior to reason. You could have had a beer or a cup of coffee with any of the 9/11 bombers… they appeared normal. Only their minds are warped but their minds are hidden.

No-one will convince an adult of such outrageous concepts… but a child?

A child is easy pickings, and he can never unburden himself of the shackles. Tell your child the colour red is actually blue and the child will believe the rest of the World is wrong.

He knows what the colour is but he will believe that everyone in the World has simply got the wrong name for it. The child will see the red car as a blue car and eventually have another mountain to climb.

Religion has manipulated generations in this way for millennia to assure its needed competitiveness, growth and longevity. We continue to inflict this practice of indoctrination on our children without conscience.

Is it possible for an intelligent adult to embrace religion without infantile indoctrination of some sort? If it were possible, then surely an adult can be convinced of Father Xmas.

Unindoctrinated people will only adopt religion under extreme stress.

The recidivist convict on death row invariably defers to a god because all is lost. To believe in nothing but reality at the time of imminent death is unreasonable.

“God has forgiven me.”

If the State believed that, (and it does) why is it still intent on killing him?

Larry Pickering

Four-time Walkley Award winning political commentator and Churchill Fellow, has returned to the fray over concern that the integrity of news dissemination is continually being threatened by a partisan media.