don's report archive

by Donald B. Ardell, Ph. D.

Wellness in the Headlines
(Don's Report to the World)

"Faith schools remove the rights of children to choose their own religious, philosophical and ethical beliefs. They also sanction ethnic segregation and create tension and divisiveness within society. Schools should be places where children are given a free education, not centers for indoctrination. Creationism and other religious myths should not be taught as fact regardless of the funding status of a school. Abolishing faith schools will provide children with more freedom of choice and help to promote a fully multi-cultural, peaceful society."

Language on a petition circulating in Great Britain to be given to the Prime Minister in November, 2007. The petition seeks to abolish all faith schools and prohibit the teaching of creationism and other religious mythology in all UK schools. Information about the petition is available at PetitionsPM - go to http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/faithschools/#detail. Please note -- only British citizens can sign the petition.

The National Wellness Conference (NWC), held each year since the late 1970's at the University of Wisconsin Stevens Point, has usually had a heavy "spiritual" flavor. Many speakers during wellness week have asserted that faith in a personal god, daily prayer, affiliation with religious communities and other "spiritual" practices, beliefs and devotions are effective, even necessary elements of a balanced wellness lifestyle.

I believe this assumption is total and complete nonsense; on the contrary, my sense is that religion does more harm than good. I almost started a petition to abolish all faith keynotes and workshops at the NWC and to prohibit the teaching of creationism and other religious mythology in all NWC sessions. But, I decided to organize a workshop, instead.

Fortunately, I was able to persuade the organizers of the annual NWC to permit a workshop devoted to raising children without religion. I volunteered to organize such a session, inspired not only by the British petition noted above but also from my work in authoring a chapter in Dale McGowan's Parenting Beyond Belief: Raising Ethical, Caring Kids Without Religion. Here are excerpts from the description of this session taken from the NWC program:

This session is designed to support and encourage wellness enthusiasts who care deeply about critical thinking for themselves and their children. It is especially targeted to wellness professionals who have decided to raise their children without religion, who are in search of support, principles and encouragement in doing so."

Of course, everyone is welcome to attend, since everyone is interested in raising ethical, caring kids, regardless of their beliefs about organized religion, gods and the like. I hope the audience is diverse, informed and open. I think the session will be interesting and, hopefully, enjoyable and enlightening for everyone.

I plan to begin by announcing that the workshop is a non-faith-based session, devoted to the idea that children should be encouraged to learn HOW to think, not WHAT to think. Instead of dogma, I'll suggest that children be given an understanding of all religions, but not required to adopt any one of them. Thinking skills would be viewed as the best inoculation against the spread of such faith-borne pathogens as righteousness, intolerance and discrimination. The position that there is no such thing as a Catholic child, a Baptist child and so on, a view put forward by Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and many others concerned with raising ethical children without religion, will be advanced for discussion. In my own view, small children are incapable of making informed choices about which religion, if any, to adopt. A wellness mindset is, after all, rooted in freedom of choices, as well as reason, exuberance and a dozen additional skill areas. The choice to embrace a specific religion, to start one's own or to give them all a pass in favor of a natural worldview should be respected, in my view. We'll discover how others respond to that assertion.

How does it all sound? Would you attend and participate in such a session if you were attending this summer's NWC?

In the next essay, highlights of a secular Islamic summit held in March 2007 in St. Petersburg, Florida will be described, with a focus on the ways in which a small group of Islamic reformers challenged what they view as destructive qualities of the Islamic religion. A declaration of rights for Islamics was released and the tenets of that declaration are tied to raising ethical, carding kids. I will suggest that many, if not all, of the elements of the declaration of rights demanded for Muslims should apply as well to Western children raised to understand and appreciate the nature and varieties of religion, but forced or pressured to adopt and follow none of them.

As the reformers at the Islamic reform conference noted, the need today is for "an age of enlightenment in the Islamic world. Without a critical examination of Islam, it will remain dogmatic, fanatical and intolerant and will continue to stifle thought, human rights, individuality, originality and truth." The same could be said for other religions imposed on small children helpless to resist unrelenting propaganda from cradle to college.

Be well, look on the bright side.

(Note: This essay will be filed in the archives in the MENTAL DOMAIN under the skill area of effective decisions. Additional articles related to this theme may be found there.)

(Ed. Note: Views expressed in this and other columns are those of the author and not necessarily those of the SeekWellness Editorial Board.)

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