Connect: 'Give me a child until he's seven and I will give you the man," is an expression generally attributed to the Jesuits. They however, deny they ever said it and there's no proof either way. Still, the sentiment is clear. It implies that the early influences on a child are likely to be so determining that the person is, in fundamental respects, taken over and formed for life, writes Eddie Holt
On RTÉ's Prime Time this week, a Catholic bishop spoke about the "formation" of children. He was interviewed as part of a story about burgeoning "multi-faith" Ireland. That "formation" - even if, given the opportunity, almost all other religions would attempt to do likewise - suggests that the bishop concurs with the maxim attributed, fairly or otherwise, to the Jesuits. In its stress on the early years, it's very Freudian. It also emphasises the "nurture" side of the nature versus nurture debate and, as such, is - especially considering it's a tenet of the Irish Catholic Church - strangely left-wing. Anyway, Prime Time wondered whether the monopolistic teaching of Catholicism in the Republic's national schools remains appropriate.
It quoted from a survey of primary school teachers. One felt forced to teach aspects of doctrine she only partly believes to children of parents who thoroughly disbelieve. Yet, she argued, since the Catholic Church continues to run most primary schools in this state, she'd be in trouble if she said so publicly. It is an awkward position.
On one hand, the Church can be accused of mind control, semi-Talibanic in its zeal. On the other hand, the more zealous secularising forces can be equally dogmatic. Whether or not religion can (or should) be taught at all - in the traditional sense of instruction from a body of proven or, at least, accepted knowledge - is, of course, another matter.
There's a certain inescapability to the difficulty. After all, both certainty and denial of the existence of God are, in themselves, never more than acts of faith. Nobody can prove it either way because the concept is beyond rationality. So people decide, on "evidence" from their own lives or on what they class the "grounds of probability".
In Britain (fashionably called "the UK" when people almost always specifically mean Britain) a New Labour think-tank has recommended the teaching of atheism as well as traditional religions. Thus, the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) hopes to balance all sides debating the teaching of religion in British (maybe even UK) schools.
There's some balance in such an approach but based on rationality - the antithesis of faith - it's doomed to be inadequate. The existence of God is not a concept that's amenable to evidence. Certainly, for some people it's the central and most meaningful "truth" of their lives; for others, such as, say, Richard Dawkins, it's merely a fanciful, if powerful, remnant from pre-scientific days. Anyway, "teaching" either religion or atheism to children presents profound moral dilemmas. Perhaps every precept could be preceded by "I believe" or "I don't believe", cumbersome as that might seem. "I believe God made the world" or "I don't believe in the God my opponents claim made the world" gets nearer to the heart of the matter.
After all, if you do believe - genuinely believe - then it's alright to say so. If you don't or have doubts, like the primary school teacher feeling forced to impart dogma, then you're telling a lie by pretending to endorse beliefs you don't hold. Forcing people, through the threat of sanction, to be untrue to themselves, is hardly what any religion should promote.
Ireland - both the Republic and the North (the bit, when added, that legally renders Britain "the UK")- remains, unlike Britain, overwhelmingly Christian. Immigration is changing that, of course, and - in Dublin especially - there's growing demand for new accommodations in religion education. It would help if religion education were made more religious in a true sense.
Rather than fuelling a power war between Christian traditionalists, the adherents of other religions (often even more zealous, because feeling more beleaguered) and secular radicals, a conscientious approach could yield beneficial results. That, in fact, would be more religious than the control and formation model currently followed by too many faiths.
It won't happen, of course and it ought not happen if it required a dilution of all these and other religions into some gloopy, anaemic, agnostic moralism. That's just another position, probably the dominant one in contemporary Ireland (and the clear risk of a column such as this one). That's as good a reason as any to question and perhaps reject it.
Best let religions be, for in spite of their rejections of Darwinism - the idea that most accelerated decline for Christian literalism - they evolve too. But we could begin the formation of policy to minimise friction and protect distinctiveness.
There's probably no votes in it, though, and it's difficult to know exactly how religion or its denial should be taught, if at all, in school.
However, if Ireland wishes to rekindle its reputation as the island of saints and scholars we're better placed - ironically despite our bloody religious history - to find a solution to the "teaching" of religion.
Consider it a test - an exam for those who control primary education.