Christians Vs. College: When They Label Education as Indoctrination and Indoctrination as Education

Religion dies in dark corners where education brings light. I found that out firsthand when I began diving into science and history. I didn’t set out to deconstruct Christianity. It crumbled apart in real time in front of my eyes when I introduced academic knowledge. I didn’t want to discard the faith. I was too scared of eternal damnation to even consider it.

But when you’re presented with facts, and consensus on reality by educated communities, your mind changes. It expands and grows and develops a capacity to think critically. Suddenly the fear is gone because you can’t be afraid of something you don’t believe in.

Education creates atheists. It creates woke liberals.

That’s not the agenda. There’s no syllabus to get there. Professors are not in the business of brainwashing.

But education sheds light on ignorant ideologies and theologies. They break apart under scrutiny.

I often say I was radicalized during sixth grade social studies. Human rights, civil rights, have always been this value upon which I refuse to compromise.

Careful to avoid the Black-and-White Thinking that often comes with religious trauma, I wear my liberal Democrat badge loosely and more strictly tie myself to specific issues of social justice.

In University for my BA in Sociology I studied and wrote often about systemic challenges faced by minority groups. I studied brands of fundamentalism.

I didn’t set out to deconstruct conservative propaganda I had been fed all my life. But there was no way I was graduating with a conservative bone in my body. Conserving the status quo hurt people. Change was needed.

In the current political climate, Christian conservatives want people to believe that higher education has some kind of liberal bias, a political agenda involving a vendetta against God. It turns good people into baby killers and sodomites.

It’s absolutely ridiculous.

Education brings perspective- all kinds of it, while the church exists in a vacuum.

The data is in. Educated Americans tend to vote liberal. Educated individuals leave religion.

At no point during my university education did a professor or fellow student attempt to debunk religious belief.

But I read science that refuted Creationism. I read history that made me question the historicity of Christ.

On my own I read Biblical scholars who explained the origins of Yaweh. I read books by survivors of Christian fringe group cults and even Islam. I dove into the political and psychological motivations behind indoctrination and belief and even the neurology behind spiritual experiences.

I dipped into physics and saw a cosmos guided by mathematics not gods. I pored over 4 billion years of evolution that explained how I got here without him.

This education was a far cry from indoctrination.

I could take or leave this information, faced no fatal repercussions should something fail to resonate with me. I could think critically, weigh evidence, compare perspectives.

I sometimes refer to my deconstruction as my Enlightenment.

The Enlightenment was Christianity’s big nemesis. I missed it, but I’m experiencing my own now, turning often to the same old Greco-Roman philosophy discarded once or twice now for theological nonsense.

Disdain and distrust for education can only lead down one path- toward a dangerously ignorant population, dead set on its own demise.

Fundie churches like to claim the devil is out to deceive believers and he speaks through scientists and educators.

The fear tactics are rudimentary yet successful because of the nature of the phobias. Teaching individuals to doubt their own minds, eyes and educators is instilled in even the youngest children.

THAT’S indoctrination.