richard_dawkins_-_the_god_delusion

326 THE GOD DELUSION
in 1997. 141 Humphrey began his lecture by arguing that the proverb
is not always true, citing the case of Haitian Voodoo believers who
die, apparently from some psychosomatic effect of terror, within
days of having a malign 'spell' cast upon them. He then asked
whether Amnesty International, the beneficiary of the lecture series
to which he was contributing, should campaign against hurtful or
damaging speeches or publications. His answer was a resounding
no to such censorship in general: 'Freedom of speech is too precious
a freedom to be meddled with.' But he then went on to shock his
liberal self by advocating one important exception: to argue in
favour of censorship for the special case of children ...
. . . moral and religious education, and especially the
education a child receives at home, where parents are
allowed - even expected - to determine for their children
what counts as truth and falsehood, right and wrong.
Children, I'll argue, have a human right not to have their
minds crippled by exposure to other people's bad ideas -
no matter who these other people are. Parents, correspondingly,
have no God-given licence to enculturate their
children in whatever ways they personally choose: no
right to limit the horizons of their children's knowledge,
to bring them up in an atmosphere of dogma and superstition,
or to insist they follow the straight and narrow
paths of their own faith.
In short, children have a right not to have their minds
addled by nonsense, and we as a society have a duty to
protect them from it. So we should no more allow parents
to teach their children to believe, for example, in the
literal truth of the Bible or that the planets rule their lives,
than we should allow parents to knock their children's
teeth out or lock them in a dungeon.
Of course, such a strong statement needs, and received, much
qualification. Isn't it a matter of opinion what is nonsense? Hasn't
the applecart of orthodox science been upset often enough to
chasten us into caution? Scientists may think it is nonsense to teach
astrology and the literal truth of the Bible, but there are others who