Breaking the Grip of Indoctrination
Brainwashing is a disaster
It is a common feature of religions that their devout followers are confident that they’ve “got it right.” Because, of course, their leaders have convinced them that they are exclusive custodians of the truth, and there are severe penalties for disagreeing or disbelieving. Since there have been thousands of religions making such claims, we can be sure they’re all pretense and nonsense. On occasion over the years, I have asked a few devout Christian friends to read/critique various chapters of the books I’ve written: I genuinely wanted their perspectives. But they usually refused, because they didn’t want to read anything that might put their faith in jeopardy (which was a big clue that they have major doubts that they don’t want to think about). One Catholic woman did agree to read one of my chapters on the gospels. Her primary reaction was shock: she didn’t know that Jesus was expected to come back. Another was angry to learn that there is Jesus-script demanding hatred of family—and even life itself—for anyone who wants to be his disciple. Several Catholics have told me they were not encouraged to read the Bible, so I was hardly surprised.
What a fragile thing belief is! And, increasingly, religions are paying the price. That is, disbelief is trending: surveys have shown that many people now identify as “nones.” Religious fanatics in the U.S. are thus pushing for theocracy. There are quite a few nations—especially in western Europe—where majorities have given up on Christianity. This is hardly surprising given the horrendous suffering inflicted during two world wars.
But there are victims of brainwashing whose curiosity and critical thinking skills kick in. They manage to resist, to break away from the mind control urged by the church. In my article here last week I commented on a few of Frank Lerant’s points in his book, How I Opened My Mind and Let God Out: An Electrician’s Road to Atheism. He sets an example for the power of curiosity and willingness to learn—especially when common sense raises alarms.
“My first negative experience actually started with CCD [Confraternity of Christian Doctrine] classes. These small, intimate classes were taught by people who felt it was their duty to put the fear of God into our innocent, young brains.” (p. 166, Kindle)
“This is where the negative side of my indoctrination took place, and in part, led me to question my faith. By the time I turned 15, I was starting to become skeptical—especially when I was told things like, ‘Someone who murders children, but asks for forgiveness and accepts Jesus as the savior will go to heaven while a non-Christian who never did anything wrong doesn’t stand a chance.’ Heaven with some bad 
people, hell with some good? Concepts like these started to really bother me. As the years went by, I basically put religion on the back burner.” (p. 166, Kindle)
Once his quest to learn was in full gear, the silliness of Bible concepts became clear:
“It has been proven by multiple disciplines of science that the universe is approximately 14 billion years old, and the earth and our solar system are about 4.5 billion years old. The proof that the earth is billions of years old is conclusive…Many religious people are simply scared to learn anything that proves their scriptures inaccurate.” (p. 133, 134, Kindle)
Lerant includes chapters in which he discusses the contributions to the human intellectual adventure by Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, Sigmund Freud, Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and Sam Harris. Christianity would suffer an enormous setback if millions of laypeople suddenly had the urge to do this kind of exploration. Would they all agree with what these prominent thinkers have argued? That’s not what’s important. Input from outside the confines of indoctrination/brainwashing is what matters: exposure to the thinking of people who have seen the great deficiencies and flaws in theology.
In his Chapter 12, Side Effects, Lerant offers welcome insights into another kind of blind faith, namely patriotism.
“Worshiping and blindly following the orders of a secular leader is just as dangerous as doing so for a religious one. Once you are primed as a child to follow the doctrine of religion without facts or proof, you can more easily be brainwashed to do the same with a nation, a political party, or leader of any kind.” (p. 105, Kindle)
At the outbreak of World War I, several supposedly Christian nations became locked in deadly combat. That is, the citizens of these nations were prompted by patriotic frenzy to head into battle to kill others—who were fellow Christians. Loyalty to country and political leaders—who had their own agendas—was what mattered most. We are primed from an early age to be enthusiastically patriotic. How well I remember Dinah Shore singing the commercial on TV in the 1950s, “See the USA in your Chevrolet, America is asking you to call. Drive your Chevrolet through the USA, America's the greatest land of all!”
How could Dinah be wrong? In rural Indiana, we took it for granted that our country was the greatest land, oblivious to our nation’s disgraceful heritage of slavery and intense racism.
I have often recommended the many splendid books published by ex-clergy atheists, such as John Loftus, Tim Sledge, and Dan Barker—and the books written by Hitchens, Dawkins, and Harris. But it is so invigorating as well to read the stories that such folks as Frank Lerant have to tell. He made his escape from Christianity because he was curious, had a natural inclination to skepticism and critical thinking. He was prompted to read, learn, study intensively. Dan Savage once said that he didn’t lose his faith: he saw through it. Lerant had the same experience, and his story is well worth reading.
David Madison was a pastor in the Methodist Church for nine years, and has a PhD in Biblical Studies from Boston University. He is the author of two books, Ten Tough Problems in Christian Thought and Belief: a Minister-Turned-Atheist Shows Why You Should Ditch the Faith, now being reissued in several volumes, the first of which is Guessing About God (2023) and Ten Things Christians Wish Jesus Hadn’t Taught: And Other Reasons to Question His Words (2021). The Spanish translation of this book is also now available.
His YouTube channel is here. At the invitation of John Loftus, he has written for the Debunking Christianity Blog since 2016.
The Cure-for-Christianity Library©, now with more than 500 titles, is here. A brief video explanation of the Library is here.
people, hell with some good? Concepts like these started to really bother me. As the years went by, I basically put religion on the back burner.” (p. 166, Kindle)
The Cure-for-Christianity Library©, now with more than 500 titles, is here. A brief video explanation of the Library is here.
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