Let ethics precede religion

By Susantha Hewa

Conditioning is persuading people to believe something by repeated exposure to it and preventing them, as much as possible, from being acquainted with any conflicting views. No matter what it is meant to serve, it is an unwelcome process, which goes against all norms of education and civilisation. However, religious conditioning, for centuries, has been viewed as innocuous because it has acquired a semblance of sanctity by being associated with religion. This is a pity because, conditioning, no matter where it happens, produces the adverse result of making the learners mechanically accept what is drilled. No matter how great a religion may be, we are not making full advantage of it, if we continue to use indoctrination as the primary method of teaching it. Specially, it targets children who have no escape from or defence against this apparently edifying imposition.

There may be some who feel that religion and conditioning are inseparable and the former would lose all its meaning without the latter. However, this view begs the question of what constitutes religiosity. Of course, programming of children will continue to be the best method, if its objective is to make them devoted to the teachings of the respective religion as they grow up, regardless of the possibility of such programming unwittingly driving some of them to fanaticism as history would bear witness, sadly. So long as we use conditioning as the primary method of teaching religion, it is unrealistic to expect a different outcome.

Since all the religions in the world intend to guide people to become better individuals, there should be a concerted effort to prevent the diversity of religion from being a serious cause of division in society. After all, the ultimate purpose of religion should be to help people rise above their narrow religious identities and become unbiased, sensible and intelligently ethical. If religion, instead, push people more towards clinging on to dogma drilled in childhood than making them cultivate qualities that make the world a happier place for all, the whole enterprise becomes meaningless and, worse, counterproductive. As such the hoary method of premature conditioning of children merits a rethink.

If we are ready to view religion as something not necessarily connected to or reliant on conditioning, it would allow us to look for an alternative method of instruction that will enable the forming of ethical people without making room for them to be segregated on the basis of their acquired faiths. In fact, religion would be doing its best for humans if it gradually helped everyone to shed their religious scales and look for similarities rather than differences in others, which all religions advocate. After all, religions should be a liberating influence; not one which restricts.

To own that our long accustomed method of teaching religion has room for improvement is not being derogatory of religion at all. Religion and its mode of instruction are not tied by a sacred knot. Changing the method which tends to create separation is not to change the content enshrined in any religion. On the contrary, it is the first step towards preventing religion from inadvertently being divisive and insular. Unfortunately, in a world which admires and advocate innovativeness and creativity in every imaginable field, we seem to be complacent about the routine and unproductive method of drilling young minds by way of teaching religion.

Let’s think of education, which is one of the best civilising agents in any society. Education, over the years, has slowly and steadily progressed in terms of teaching methods. We have come a long way from using rote learning, drilling and all sorts of intimidation and punishment; instead, today we encourage group learning rather than individual learning, comprehension rather than memorising, questioning rather than passive reception, discussion rather than lecturing or doling out notes. As for the teacher, today, he or she acts as a facilitator rather than an all-knowing dispenser of knowledge. In other words, we have shifted from the parochial teacher-centred education to a more productive learner-centred education. Why should religious instruction remain in a rut? After all, religious tutoring, of all things, need not have even the remotest associations of stagnancy. It’s time we found alternative methods of religious instruction without making the mistake of thinking that shifting to a more fruitful method of teaching religion amounts to being disrespectful of religion in any way. Such dormancy defies every notion of progress. One’s regard for religion had better not prevent one from seeing the shortcomings of the ineffective method of conditioning.

Even if we had the ideal situation of a single-religion world, indoctrination of the unformed minds is hardly the best method of imparting religion. It is far more productive to replace conditioning with discussion, where the participants can fine-tune and broaden their knowledge. It had better be aimed at expanding horizons rather than mugging up content. Of course, the prerequisite for such a dynamic method is the avoidance of premature conditioning and let children develop their general learning faculties through normal education till they can deal with religious content.

If those who are anxious that stopping the religious moulding of the young would make them immoral, then, surely, moral philosophers, educationists and other concerned scholars may help develop a common subject of “ethics” without any religious tones. It would be introduced to students at a suitable grade tailoring the content to suit their level of cognition. Such a method would be much better than drilling immature minds, even if the world had only one religion. The benefits of it would be manifold in the present multi-religious world where conditioning has significantly contributed towards religion based alienation. Wouldn’t an unconditioned mind be better equipped to understand religion or religions without being obsessed with one of them?

Conditioning, for one thing, flouts all the sound principles of education. For another, it denies children the right to select their religion when they are mature enough to do so; it’s not different to partnering babies to their future spouses at the discretion of the parents. In fact, tradition has denied all of us the right of choosing our religion. Had we been left to choose our religion at the right time, our choice may have been different. More importantly, such a refined form of freedom would prevent us from being fanatics who would be ready to die or kill for our preferred religion. Choosing your religion as a mature person would put you on a completely different relationship with it than when it gets foisted on you when you were a toddler who could not say, “No please, not now. Don’t I have a choice in this matter?”

The word “religion” usually evokes feelings of serenity, brotherhood and peace in many people. However, this is not the case with its plural form “religions”, which connotes disquiet, division and strife. Unfortunately, we hardly find societies with a single religion. As far as religions are confined to textbooks they have no rivalry, but they do when unformed minds are programmed by them for want of a better method. Turning a blind eye on this and continuing to exploit children’s helplessness will not ensure the ushering of a peaceful and enlightened society. Can we, of all things, expect a method, which violates a basic right of children to produce good results?