What are those wackos teaching their kids?

Many skeptics today assume that the religious believer who teaches his religion to his children is guilty of a form of cognitive child abuse. For a great example of this reasoning consider the opening of the essay "Viruses of the Mind" where Richard Dawkins describes how he managed to preempt the mental abuse of his own daughter: "I have just discovered that without her father's consent this sweet, trusting, gullible six-year-old is being sent, for weekly instruction, to a Roman Catholic nun. What chance has she?"

Now I agree that one can abuse one's child by teaching them certain things. Think of a six year old "skinhead" at a clan rally. In this case I'll readily second Dawkins' concern. But does it follow that the Christian parent who teaches his child the Apostles' Creed or various Bible stories is likewise engaging in mental child abuse?

Certainly there may be particular circumstances where this is true. But how would one justify the kind of sweeping condemnation of all religious instruction that is assumed by Dawkins and his disciples?

One famous attempt to do this was made back in 1879 when mathematician W.K. Clifford published a famous essay called "The Ethics of Belief". In this essay Clifford claimed that "It is wrong everywhere, always, and for everyone to believe anything upon insufficient evidence." And if this is wrong, and religious belief lacks sufficient evidence, then it is wrong to teach religious belief. Case closed.

There are a number of problems with Clifford's argument. First, it assumes that religion lacks such evidence. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. But we cannot settle this a priori. Instead we have to investigate the claims of every religion and weigh the evidence for them.

Second, the skeptics who apply Clifford's principle tend to assume that they have no similar burden: all the epistemic improprieties lie on the other side while their beliefs are all securely established. Really? Some of the typical beliefs that are widely held by humanists, skeptics, and atheists include the belief that the Judeo-Christian God does not exist, that there is no objective meaning, value or purpose to human life, that all religions are false (or likely false), that our cognitive faculties are reliable, that the person cannot survive the demise of the body, and a host of other claims. How many of these assumptions have sufficient evidence?

This prompts another question: who decides what the threshold for sufficient evidence is anyways? Typically, the skeptic considers all his or her beliefs as part of the commonweal of accepted wisdom and thus as not requiring defense, while arbitrarily deeming all the beliefs he or she rejects as "extraordinary" and thus requiring special evidence. Yes, this is as self-serving as it looks.

But the most basic problem lies with Clifford's maxim itself since Clifford offers no evidence for it: he just assumes that it is true. But wait, according to the principle you have to have sufficient evidence to believe anything, including the principle. Thus without that evidence, you violate the principle by believing it. In other words, it is self-defeating.

"I have just discovered that a sweet, trusting, gullible six-year-old is being taught that science is the gold standard for all knowledge, that no supernatural dimension exists, that all religion is chicanery and religious people are irrational, cognitively conflicted bumpkins. What chance has she?"