Your child’s vulnerability to intellectual predators

Detailed Answer:

A former U.S. Marine, whose daughter led an impressive youth group at church and sought to do the same on campus during her first year in college, called a friend of mine in tears asking, “What can I do now?” His daughter had just called to say she will go to church with the family over her first Christmas break, but doesn’t really believe in it anymore. 

If you don’t currently empathize with the severity and seriousness of the situation this family faces, you will, because the results of Christians not being prepared for the intellectual predators is becoming the norm for even the “best Christian families.”

Look around your church lobby after a service, study after study has demonstrated the majority of those kids, who you may see every week, will leave the faith shortly after leaving the home. 

Richard Dawkins, River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life; 1995. 

Family was traditionally the place where our young one’s beliefs burgeoned and gained foundational strength. Humans are unique in the time our young stay with parents, allowing extended time to see their family’s beliefs modeled in parent’s lives, and engaging in play, which allows for examination of life and comparison to others before stepping out into the wild world. 

 

I used the phrase “was traditionally the place” because the revolution in family dynamics and social media has already removed the position of worldview-beliefs-trainer from parents to our social environment. Kids’ wandering focus and boredom, which traditionally motivated kids to play, can now be remedied at their fingertips, and the social environment dominates where our kids’ focus is directed, and how lessons are learned. This social media environment is saturated with intellectual predators.

Considering the effort and importance we place on developing the right beliefs in ourselves, and in our children, we take for granted that foundation is well-guarded. Yet, an endless list of studies from Barna, Gallup, Pew, Duke University, U.S. News and World Report, etc., and even a quick check provided below you can use on your child(ren), will display: we are not only vulnerable, but are targeted relentlessly by intellectual predators throughout our culture, and the glaring vulnerability is demonstrated by both children and adults being dragged away. 

The inability to answer why we believe what we believe, and effectively handle predatory ideas, has not only stifled sharing our faith through lack of confidence and knowledge, but also leads to endless stories of frustration, confusion and loss. If we are to protect that vital foundation of beliefs, we must deal with the vulnerabilities.  

Like the father mentioned in part one, and a countless line of parents I have spoken with, most will not even be aware of the danger their child is in, as intellectual predators are more subtle, and their damage is usually done over prolonged periods of time, not becoming evident until the harm is near fatal. 

 https://www.barna.com/churchless/#.VI0xEyvF-dR; https://shop.barna.com/products/gen-z;
https://news.gallup.com/poll/187955/percentage-christians-drifting-down-high.aspx

https://news.gallup.com/poll/248837/church-membership-down-sharply-past-two-decades.aspx; https://news.gallup.com/poll/6124/religiosity-cycle.aspx;
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/08/24/why-americas-nones-left-religion-behind/; https://www.pewforum.org/2019/10/17/in-u-s-decline-of-christianity-continues-at-rapid-pace/; https://www.pewforum.org/2018/04/25/when-americans-say-they-believe-in-god-what-do-they-mean
https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-08-24/more-americans-are-ditching-religion-pew-study-says

TV shows, educators, songs, social media banter, even well-respected people use attractive things to draw people, who do not have a healthy-supported worldview belief, into a place where this weakness can be preyed upon by the swarm of contrary ideas.

• Oprah Winfrey, who many were surprised to discover wasn’t Christian, stated on her show there are “many paths to what you call God,” and when asked, “What about Jesus?” Responded, “What about Jesus? . . . there couldn’t possibly be just one way.” Sounds like she is being inclusive, and it’s attractive to think we can each decide how we will gain for ourselves the right relationship with God. 
• Stephen Hawking brings readers into his best-selling book, The Grand Design, with interesting and amazing features about our universe, and at the end claims we don’t need God to explain this majesty, because we have a nearly infinite number of multiple universes to thank instead. This belief is appealing as Hawking is probably the most famous scientist in our lifetime, and science has such impressive achievements. 
• The Simpsons make a joke about your belief system, odds are it will be funny as they have good writers, but you wonder whether the point the writers are pushing is accurate or not. Your child turns on Family Guy, sees this scene, and wonders if this is Christianity’s answer to challenges. These and endless other examples from TV and movies use good humor or emotion to make arguments against religious beliefs.
• Educators, while theoretically supposed to provide knowledge and encourage student’s reach for their own conclusions, are given much leeway in providing the professor’s own personal conclusions instead. Philosophy professor Richard Rorty openly bares his teeth, stating: 

“I, like most Americans who teach humanities or social science in colleges and universities … try to arrange things so that students who enter as bigoted, homophobic, religious fundamentalists will leave college with views more like our own…The fundamentalist parents of our fundamentalist students think that the entire ‘American liberal establishment’ is engaged in a conspiracy. The parents have a point…we are going to go right on trying to discredit you in the eyes of your children, trying to strip your fundamentalist religious community of dignity, trying to make your views seem silly rather than discussable.” 

Professors have such expert knowledge in their academic field, so students place a lot of weight, and a lot of their family’s finances, on the conclusions taught. Studies of students,, who walked away from religious beliefs they were raised in, list intellectual skepticism, questions not getting answered, and lack of evidence as primary reasons. The same responses are given over and over: “It didn’t make any sense anymore,” “Some stuff is too far-fetched for me to believe,” “I think scientifically and there is no real proof,” and “Too many questions that can’t be answered.”

The intellectual predators, like those mentioned above, have a continuous and growing list of children and adult victims, who were dragged away into serious, even permanent harm. Yet, these hyenas in the savannah of beliefs would be harmless, even for children to encounter or interact with – as long as properly prepared. 

Are you and/or your children properly prepared to approach this challenge just outside our doors (or at your child’s fingertips)? You can check your vulnerability level! 

Below are ten questions, which are some of the most common your kids will encounter, and typically have just a minute or so to respond. So, give the test-taker the next page, and let them have a couple minutes per question, or twenty minutes for the whole test. If you want just a quick-check-activity, divide the questions up, having the first person at the table answer the first two or three questions, the next person the next two or three, and so on. 

• You really believe Jesus rose from the dead? It’s 2024! Why do you believe in that myth and not Horus or Zeus? Historians aren’t even sure Jesus existed.
• Lex Luther, in the Batman v Superman movie,  expresses pain he went through as a child and declares: if God were all-loving, then he is not all-powerful, and if all-powerful, then not all-loving to allow such terrible things to happen in life. Superman evidently was unequipped to answer the critique, so it’s up to you when a friend wonders about it. What would you say?
• I believe in science, and Stephen Hawking explained because there is quantum gravity to create the Universe, we don’t need God. Why do you think you are right, and Hawking is wrong? Can you give me a better reason from science to believe in God?

Since 2001, sociologist Christian Smith has been directing the National Study of Youth and Religion, the most comprehensive research on the religious beliefs and practices of U.S. teens.  Smith published his initial results in a groundbreaking book, Soul Searching:  The Religious & Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/08/24/why-americas-nones-left-religion-behind/

• There is no “truth”, no one can “know” what to believe until they die. So why spin my wheels trying to figure it out?
• Why do you believe in Christianity, please give me reasons I can use? And how are your reasons different from Muslims, or Mormons, or any other belief system? 
• How would you answer this funny attack, seen on the back of countless cars? 
• Why would a “perfect” God condone slavery in the Bible, and even demand genocide towards a group of people?
• How can you claim Jesus is the only way, he can’t be the only way. Do you think you are right, and EVERYBODY ELSE in the whole world is wrong? That is arrogant, narrow-minded and intolerant!
• Why is God so hidden if he wants us to believe in him? I have as much evidence for God as I do for Leprechauns.
• Why trust the Bible, it is not reliable. We don’t have any of the original writings, just copies of copies, and just like the telephone game, the message gets corrupted over time.

How did you do? If a questioner or critic brought these questions up, were your answers timely, well-supported, and able to withstand scrutiny, which would now give the questioner/critic something they are unable to respond to without running into the reality of God? 

If not, it is not surprising. Interacting with thousands of students and parents, I observed only the smallest number edge into passing range on even these common questions. This bad news explains why the church is experiencing such confusion and loss as demonstrated by the studies, and such a lack of confidence to interact with our culture on issues of beliefs.

However, the good news is there are not only amazing answers available, but Christianity stands alone in a level of evidential support no other belief system can reach. My background in physics and in education allows me to research these topics effectively and hopefully present them to you in a useful way throughout this website. And there are other people, like myself, who are obsessive about finding these answers and providing all you will need to become too dangerous for the intellectual predators to risk coming for you – or your children.