Aphantasia - I never realised I think differently from everyone else

Imagine a beach. Can you see the sand and the waves? I can't.

This week I discovered that I have something known as aphantasia. This is the inability to see things in my imagination - my mind's eye is blind! Of course, I've always known that I didn't really see anything when I imagined it (why would I see it? it's only imaginary after all!), I just never knew that other people really did see what they imagined. I still find it hard to believe that other people see what they imagine.

I was writing something about robot faces as part of my PhD research and I wanted to find out the name for seeing faces in inanimate objects, like doorknobs and car headlights (it's called pareidolia, by the way) and I came upon a page about aphantasia, describing how some people don't see anything when they imagine it. This was not a revelation; it seemed to be pointing out the blatantly obvious. It's like saying that people don't look as beautiful as they wished they looked, or that people aren't as rich as they want to be. Well duh, imaginary things and reality are obviously different. Turns out, it's not so obvious after all, as most people can see what they imagine. Weird.

Baggy McBagface. Image source: The Conversation

It's really strange that I never realised that my thinking was any different to anyone else's, and yet according to several studies, this "condition" of mine affects just 2-3% of people! So I'm in a tiny minority.

So aphantasia is a minority thing; most people have normal phantasia (they see what they imagine), and another minority at the other extreme have hyperphantasia (an exceptionally vivid imagination). I was certainly surprised to discover these differences in how we imagine. I've read Descartes, Locke, Hume, Kant, and other philosophers who wrote about ideas and imagination, and discussed these with others at length. Yet never did I realise that others were imagining differently from me.

Which of these categories do you fall into? To find out, you can take a VVIQ test here. I scored the very lowest score on every single question: no matter how hard I try, I don't 'see' anything when I imagine it. Visualising a beach is as impossible as visualising a colour that doesn't exist; imagining a house is as impossible as imagining what the thirty-second flavour of the alphabet sounds like.

How do I know what I'm imagining?

You might wonder how I know when I'm imagining something. How do I recall what things look like? That's not particularly easy to explain, but I'll try. 

I know when I am imagining something because I'm aware of the thought in my mind. I have thoughts, such as "I'm hungry", and "I must remember to go to the post office" and "I remember putting my purse on the shelf yesterday" and "horses are yay tall" and "5 x 6 is 30". None of these thoughts have any imagery for me, but I now understand that some of them may have imagery for other people. But the imagery really doesn't seem necessary to the thought. I know that 5 x 6 is 30 without having to visualise a rectangle of five squares in six rows: I just remember the fact. It's the same with where I put my purse, or what my mother looks like. I can rattle off a 'shopping list' of features of my mother, just as I can rattle off an actual shopping list. I don't need to see a picture of my mother in my mind to know that she has short hair.

It's both fascinating and unfathomable to discover that other people's imagination really is different from mine. I had no idea. Our minds are private, and I suppose that's why people like me manage to go so long without realising our minds are different to anyone else's. I could quite easily have never found out.

Wittgenstein gave an example that helps illustrate this. He asks us to imagine that everyone has a little box, and inside their box is something which everyone calls a beetle. No one can look in anyone else's box, but each can look in his own box. Everyone says they have a beetle in their box, but I have no way of knowing whether the contents of my box (my 'beetle') are the same as the contents of yours, or indeed if some people have empty boxes. The mind is the same; I cannot leave my own mind and look inside someone else's to check if it's the same as mine.

Probably not what Wittgenstein had in mind, but it's hard to know for sure.

What is life like for me, without any visual imagination?

Well, it seems totally normal to me not to see things I imagine, but that's not helping you to understand what it's like, so I'll try to clarify. But knowing which features of me are features of aphantasia and which are just parts of my personality is tricky. There's no way for me to separate the two, but I'll do my best. But know this: life with aphantasia feels totally normal. I see things that are real, and I don't see things that are imaginary.

Inside my imagination

When I close my eyes and imagine something, all I see is some sort of brownish blotches such as this. I suppose it's the insides of my eyelids that I'm seeing, because when my hands are over my eyes, what I see is darker, and when I'm in bright sunlight, what I see is lighter. But literally whatever I'm imagining or thinking about, this is what I see (if my eyes are closed; if my eyes are open I see what's in front of me).

Some people with aphantasia say they don't have visual dreams. I do. Dreams seem just as real to me as reality does (until I wake up of course). I can recall some dreams and they seem quite vivid. Of course, when I recall them I don't see any images though.

Many people with aphantasia report having a bad memory, particularly for visual things. I would say I have a pretty good memory actually: I can learn the names of a new year group of up to 60 students in a week. I have memorised all the national flags of the world (if I see the flag, I can identify the country; I find it much harder to hear a country's name and describe the flag though), and I obviously have a mind good enough to manage a PhD. I fare very well on all aspects of IQ-type tests, including things that seem to rely on imagination, such as spatial reasoning. I can memorise lists of things, and I can recall things I've heard more easily than many people can. For example, a few years ago I did some conservation work in the Amazon rainforest, and I learned over 70 bird calls. I didn't find it easy, but I did manage it where many others failed.

But my mind isn't perfect; I'll forget appointments if I don't write them down, and I forget how to do things if I don't practice. But I think that's fairly normal. 

I don't really enjoy reading fiction. Especially fiction which is description-heavy such as Lord of the Rings; it's excruciating to have to trawl through lengthy descriptions of a landscape. The fiction that I do occasionally read is more action-based, or I could happily read a play - where there's almost no description at all. I prefer non-fiction, as it sticks to the facts. Although I can read as quickly as anyone else, my comprehension is slower than I'd like. When I used to read fiction, it wasn't uncommon for me to reach the end of the book, but struggle to recall the plot. I have to make notes on academic papers or I will very quickly forget what I've read. That's a bit of a pain, but I've always managed: I am a prolific writer and happy enough to make notes on things I read.

What must life be like for people who do have a visual imagination?

It seems very strange -- and disturbing -- that some people see what they imagine. If you are seeing things that aren't real, that aren't there, then that to me sounds like an hallucination, if not the sign of a serious mental disorder. And suppose a person is imagining their dog is sitting next to them. When they see the dog, how would they know if it's the real dog or the imaginary dog?! It must be a bit like being in a hall of mirrors. Not to mention terrifying. I have sometimes imagined scary or upsetting events - if I actually saw these things happen in front of me because I'd imagined them, I'd be a dribbling wreck, seemingly surrounded by skeletons and snakes and other monstrosities - all imaginary, of course. 

But maybe people don't imagine scary things - perhaps they only imagine nice things. I must admit, it would be nice if I could call the faces of my deceased loved ones to mind, but I can't. I cannot see them any more, and when I imagine (think of) them, I see nothing at all. Dealing with grief must be a whole lot easier when you can just 'see' your loved ones and talk to them simply by imagining it. 

And holidays.... there'd be no need to go and see the Pyramids at Giza, the Grand Canyon, and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, given that you can just 'see' them for free by imagining them. I'd save a fortune on holidays if I could just see anything I wanted to by an act of will! I'd travel the universe too.

Imaginary pancakes... or are they real? 

I've read that it's not just the sense of sight, but that most people can hear, smell and taste the things they imagine too (there doesn't seem to be the same phenomenon happening for touch though). I don't experience any of these things when I imagine them.

If others really can hear, taste, smell and feel what they imagine, then dieting must be a breeze! You could eat a tiny salad but just imagine that it was a burger and chips, or eat the same dull porridge oats for breakfast every day, but just imagine it was a breakfast fit for a king! I can only assume that it's not as simple as that, but I just can't get my head around the idea of really, actually experiencing the things you imagine.

Just a figure of speech

I'm still sceptical that others really do see (hear etc) what they imagine. Surely, no one can actually see something that's imaginary? You're having me on! It's a collective joke, for sure. Or perhaps - just like with the Emperor's new clothes - no one wants to admit that they can't see something which others claim to see. Most people don't want to feel "abnormal", to have a deficiency in place of an ability which others have.... if indeed others really do have it. So if some people say they can visualise something, others may agree even though they can't in fact visualise it. 

Or like the old me, people may think "visualising" something is just a figure of speech. I speak that way too: I say things like "ooh, I can just imagine myself lying there on the beach under the sun"... well yes, I am thinking about it, and as far as I am concerned, thinking about something and imagining it are the very same things. I always believed that people were speaking figuratively when they said they could 'see' or 'visualise' things. I knew I didn't mean it literally, so assumed they were the same.

Life goes on

It's a curious thing to go one's life (over 40 years now!) having an unusual condition and all the while, thinking it was normal. Anecdotal evidence on forums seems to suggest that people can go almost their entire lives without realising there is anything unusual about their thought processes. It's fascinating to think that a condition such as this, which has presumably been prevalent for quite some time, has hitherto gone unnoticed (or unnamed at least) until the 20th century. It does make you wonder what other mysteries people might be hiding within their minds, all of us trapped in our own little worlds, trying to interact as best we can. 

But in truth, lacking the ability to actually see what is only imaginary does not bother me at all, any more than it bothers me that I can't sense electromagnetic signals the way a shark can, or sniff out a missing person the way a dog can. These are not senses I need nor really want. I am perfectly happy to live with my mind the way it is, and be safe in the knowledge that everything I see, hear, smell, taste, and touch is real. 

Probably.

Should sports segregate by sex? If so, how?

A couple of weeks ago, the Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled against South African athlete Caster Semenya. The findings about her case in particular are supposedly confidential, but based on the ruling, it is easy enough to work out what her sexual situation probably involves, and it has been all over the news. It is thought that she has a disorder of sexual development (DSD); such people are commonly referred to as intersex because of their ambiguous genitalia or mixed sexual chromosomes. Semenya has hyperandrogenism - unusually high levels of testosterone for a female. Women with hyperandrogenism might have external genitalia resembling standard female genitalia, but internally, they may have testes, and they may have XY chromosomes, unlike most women who have XX chromosomes.

Semenya has been subjected to over a decade of speculation and testing of her sex, to determine whether she is "in fact" female. The ruling earlier this month states that she must lower her testosterone levels  (via drugs) if she is to compete in female events.

Below I argue that we should have sex segregation in strength / stamina sports and as such, it is fair and reasonable for sex testing to occur and for sporting adjudication bodies to make rulings regarding the sex of athletes. Although it might be annoying for Semenya herself, it is fair for Sport that the ruling reached the decision it did. (For the flip side, there's a great article here giving 10 reasons why the ruling is flawed.)

Let's get back to first principles: why do we have sex segregation in sports? We have it because on average, men are stronger and faster than women. That's not to say all men are stronger or faster than all women, of course; if we take some top female athletes I'm sure they'd be faster than most men with office jobs.

I recall when I was at Keele University doing my undergrad degree back in the 90s, some of the female sports teams had an idea to prove how great girls are, which rather backfired. The idea was this: the female teams would play male teams from other sports clubs at the female team's own game - so for example, the female football team would play football matches against the male hockey team and the male rowing team; the female athletics team would play athletics events against the male rugby team and the male swimming team. As I said, it backfired horribly, as the women's teams lost at their own games a startlingly high number of times. What was intended to show Girl Power instead only showed that men were better at sports - even ones they'd hardly ever played - than the women who practiced them every week! It was a tough bullet to bite (I was on the hockey team and we got trounced by the male cricket team in a hockey match). It showed us that men were faster and stronger than women were, and that gave them a huge advantage over us.

If men were to compete "on a level playing field" against women, then Olympic teams would probably consist of over 95% men. There are some events - say, shooting, horse riding, diving, synchronised swimming and a few others, where strength and speed are not so important and women could fare well again men. But for the most part, men will outperform women in almost every sport. Most people think that because of this, there should be men's events and separate women's events. This seems fair in the same way that we wouldn't expect a primary school football team to compete against a university football team; the primary school team should play other primary school teams, to make for a fairer contest.

So let's go with the idea that it's not fair for men to compete against women because men have greater strength, speed and possibly stamina too.

Now for a trickier question: what is a man, and what is a woman? In the old days this was an easier question to answer: at birth, babies with a penis were called boys, everyone else was called a girl, and that sex stayed with the person for their whole life.

Now things are a little more complicated. There are people whose sex doesn't correspond to their gender identity; there are people with ambiguous genitalia; and there are people whose sex hormone levels are unusually high or low. Of course, such people have probably existed throughout human history, but weren't recognised. Quite simply, way back when, if you were deemed to have a penis at birth then you were a man, and if not then you were a wonan, end of story. So those who had female bodies but felt they were male, were still classed as female. Those with ambiguous genitalia were classified at birth and that was that. People who had, for example, testes inside the body, no uterus, but an externally "normal" looking vulva would have been classified as girls, and it would probably never have been discovered that they had testes. And the same goes for those with female genitalia but abnormally high testosterone levels - they would have been classified as girls and probably no one would ever have discovered their high testosterone levels.

But that's not the world we live in today: those things can be discovered, and then we have issues for people such as Caster Semenya.

Let's ask ourselves what it is that makes men stronger and faster than women. I'm not an anatomist, but the people in the know suggest that it's because men are taller and have proportionally greater muscle mass than women do (both of which are caused by testosterone levels) and that testosterone levels themselves increase endurance and oxygen transfer or something or other. I don't really know, but the experts do know, and they say that higher testosterone levels give athletes an advantage over others with lower levels.

Testosterone is what causes bodies to develop into a male physique - taller, more muscular, broader shoulders, and so on. And of course, high testosterone levels are closely correlated with external male genitalia. So we usually see higher testosterone levels in men than in women. I haven't been able to find the exact details of Semenya's testosterone levels, but I'm guessing they must be closer to normal male levels than to normal female levels - or at least, that she has substantially more testosterone than most women or most female athletes.

So if it's testosterone which gives a person an advantage, (and which is usually correlated with being a man), then it seems right that someone such as Semenya whose testosterone levels are excessively high is prevented from competing against other women with a more average level of testosterone.

But then, so the argument can go, what about people who have an advantage because they are tall, sturdily built, have long legs, long arms, a bendy body etc.? They have an advantage that was afforded to them by a mere whimsy of genetic chance, but they are permitted to compete against other smaller, chubbier athletes as if it were a fair contest. Also, it cannot be denied that some ethnic groups seem to have an advantage over others in particular events: the Jamaicans do well in sprint races, but not so well in swimming; the Kenyans do well in marathons, but not so well in sprints ... so if we want to make things fairer by counteracting genetic traits, we'll have a lot of work to do with regard to non-sexual genetic traits.

But the point is this: we don't (thank goodness) segregate events based on ethnic group or height - although some events such as judo, boxing etc do separate events based on weight, because weight is an advantage in such sports. But we do - universally in the world of sport, I think - separate events based on the sexes.

If we think it is fair and right to prevent men from competing against women because they have a physical advantage, then we need a way to determine the sexes in a definitive way so that it is clear - for the purposes of competing in the sport, at least - who is in which category. I think it would be fairly universally agreed upon that women should not have to compete against men. (I imagine even staunch feminists would agree on sex segregation - especially if they were to experience humiliating defeats at the hands of men in the same way my university colleagues and I did!)

So if we want sex segregation then we need a segregation method. The Court  of Arbitration for Sport have used testosterone levels as one method of segregation, and there are many people - including Semenya herself - who say that testosterone levels is not a fair method of segregation, so what are the alternatives? Here are three possibilities:

- external genitalia
- genetic sex chromosome testing
- gender identity

None of these are unproblematic.

First of all, external genitalia. Imagine the indignity and the personal intrusion and embarrassment of having a sports adjudicator judge the status of your genitals to see if they are female enough to run in a race! But embarrassment aside, it would not be an unequivocal test which satisfied everyone, would it? Because there are people with ambiguous genitalia who would then be test cases for whether a penis is penisy enough to be called a penis. Also, because if a male sportsman were so inclined, in a bid to win medals, he might decide to have surgery to give him a vagina. Unlikely but probably some might try it (see my argument below about gender identity and the danger of fake transsexuals).

Sex chromosome testing is an option rather similar to what they are currently doing, where unseen genetic markers are used to determine an athlete's sex. A potential problem with this is that there will probably be some people who are physically male and identify as male and are trying to make it as sportsmen - and perhaps not succeeding - and then a test reveals that they have XX chromosomes and suddenly they can compete against women - even though they are physically male. Then they are suddenly a really successful athlete! This is far from ideal. Besides, this is unlikely to please the people who support Semenya's case because it is thought that she has XY chromosomes, so if chromosome testing is the decider, then she should compete against the men.

Gender identity has been a buzzword (well, a buzz phrase) for the past decade or two, even though people with gender dysphoria probably existed throughout human history. In everyday life - shopping, the workplace etc - it is nice if we respect people's gender identity, even if this means that we let people who are physically male into female areas such as toilets because they identify as female. And aside from (probably unfounded) worries about sexual predators, this doesn't really cause a problem. It doesn't make much difference whether the person in the cubicle next to mine is a cisgender man, an intersex person, a non-binary person, a transsexual woman, or a cisgender woman... but it does make a difference if these people are competing against me in a race. This is because - as noted above - testosterone levels enhance performance. The average cisgender man has higher testosterone than the average cisgender woman. I don't know enough about gender dysphoria or non-binariness to know whether they are correlated with differences in sex hormones, but if it turns out that a transgender woman (whether or not she has had gender reassignment surgery) has testosterone levels which are normal for a cisgender man, then that person has an athletic advantage over cisgender women athletes. Simply claiming to identify as a woman cannot be sufficient reason to allow that person to compete against women. Or else the event is not an event for women, but for anyone who decides to say they're a woman. Boxing weight categories are based on boxers' actual weights, not merely the weights they claim to be - and the same should be true for sex. "Ah, but gender is different because if one identifies as female then one is female; but identifying as a Featherweight does not mean one is a Featherweight. The two are not analogous" I hear you say. And that is true, but the point is that anyone can claim they identify as female and we would just have to take them at their word. This is fine in most aspect of life, but in sports we'd have to let them compete as a female sportsperson. A (largely unfounded) worry about transsexuals and toilets is that straight cisgender men could gain access to female bathrooms by claiming to identify as women. What would such men gain from pretending to be transgender in a bathroom situation? Some say they'd gain the chance to hurt or rape women; this seems like very little "gain", given that a man can walk into a female bathroom to rape women at any time without claiming to be transgender. A would-be rapist would not be deterred by the woman symbol on the door. So a bad man gets almost no gain from pretending to be transgender. But what could a man gain from claiming to be a transgender sportswoman (if gender identity is what counts in sport)? Well, he could gain thousands or millions of pounds. Consider: the US Open tennis championship has $3.8 million for the winner of the women's singles. Are there any half decent male tennis players with little moral integrity? Why yes I would think there are (and yes he might only need to be half decent to beat a top ranking female tennis player). And that is a second reason why gender identity cannot be the only factor to decide in which event one competes. (The first was mentioned above - namely that transsexual women may well have male physiques and testosterone levels in the normal male range, giving them a physical advantage over cisgender women.) Gender identity should be respected in everyday life, but should play no part at all in sporting sex segregation. When huge sums of money are involved, any man can claim to identify as a woman, win a few huge cash sums, and then 'revert to being male again. It would be immoral, but allowed under te rules if we were to say that gender identity is what counts.

So where does that leave us? We could let men and women (and all the people who have gender dysphoria, disorders of sexual development, and everyone else) compete against one another without restriction, and thus confine almost all female athletes to obscurity... or we can accept that men and women should compete against their own sex. Some sort of 'middle ground' could involve a handicap system such that all people have their testosterone levels, chromosomes (or whatever we decide) assessed, and are given a handicap score or a head start. This would certainly change things drastically, and could mean that the fastest and strongest people no longer win the events... This would seem odd, not to mention confusing to watch (I like to watch the Paralympics but I do find it frustrating when the person who comes first in the race is deemed not to have won because of his disability score; sometimes I give up watching the races and just read the results. This could happen if everyone has a testosterone score which deducts or adds points to their score: how would we know who'd won?! It would perhaps be fairer, but a lot less compelling.)

If we choose to clearly segregate by sex into just two categories, then there must necessarily be a way of discerning who competes against whom, and whatever method is chosen, some people will be placed into a category which they or others might see as objectionable. Unfortunately that is the price to be paid. Chromosome testing and testosterone levels seems as good and as scientific method as possible, and so although it may not please Semenya and her coach, it is reasonable, and it protects women's sporting events from competitors who have genetically male hormone levels and/or chromosomes, which gives them an advantage on a par with a man.

The value in atheists learning about the Bible

This morning, my son refused to go to school. Why? Because yesterday, his teacher had told the class the story about Jesus feeding the 5000 with only two fish and five loaves of bread, and it angered my son.

I am an atheist, and like most parents, I have shared my belief system with my offspring, and now he believes what I believe (ie there is no God). So this morning when he was flat out refusing to go to school (which is very unlike him) I tried to offer an explanation of (a) why I think the story was written in the Bible, and (b) why it might be useful sometimes to learn about things we don't believe in.

Man trying to catch lunch for him and his 4,999 friends

My son is only in Key Stage 1 of primary school, so my discussion with him was fairly basic. First I got him to consider how big a fish is. "Any size" was his very reasonable answer - for example, feeding 5000 people with two whale-sharks (the world's largest fish) is quite plausible, and to the best of my knowledge, the Bible does not describe what type of fish was shared out. Then I suggested to my son that a story can alter a little bit with each person who tells it: A describes Jesus as feeding a small group with two large fish; B describes Jesus feeding a group with two fish; C describes Jesus feeding a large group with two small fish; D describes Jesus feeding an enormous crowd with two tiny fish - etc.

So I'd explained why the story was in the Bible when it wasn't (as far as I'm concerned) true, but still my son said he didn't think there was any point in learning something that isn't real or true. I gave him simplified versions of the arguments I offer below. I'm not sure he was entirely convinced, and I'm not sure I'm really convinced there is value in knowing lots of stories from a religion one doesn't believe in. I know that as a parent I have the choice of whether to withdraw him from religious education, but I am reluctant to do so, and I said that it is sometimes worthwhile learning things even if we don't believe them.

The arguments I make below are:
(a) It's interesting to learn stories even if we don't believe them
(b) It's useful to know the sorts of things other people believe

It's interesting

Part of our job as parents is to point out
what's real and what's not real.

I don't believe in fairies, pixies, unicorns, gods, or dragons, but sometimes it is interesting to know stories about these things. Stories about magic and impossible events can be exciting and marvellous. Reading about fictional beings, people and events can make for a great story. In fact, just about all of the best stories known to man are fictional, so fiction is obviously great.

God can seemingly do the impossible in the Bible, so that makes for a fun story. The Red Sea parting, turning water into wine, immaculate conceptions, man coming back from the dead, and indeed feeding 5000 people with two fish - these are fantastical stories which it can be fun to learn about.

That's what I told my son anyway.

But for my own part, I hated learning about religion in school: by age 7 or 8, I began to feel irritated and cheated when a story was presented to us as if it were fact, when I was pretty sure that it wasn't. For example, I recall being told several of Aesop's fables in this way, and I was particularly annoyed when we were told the story about How the Tiger got his Stripes. The teacher read it to us in assembly and prefixed it by saying it was a true story: upon hearing the title and that it was a true story, I remember being eager to find out why tigers have stripes, because I didn't know. And then when he told us the story - that the big cat had been tied to a tree and the ropes set on fire, and the black lines are where the ropes burnt into its fur - I felt cheated. He'd said it was true, but I knew it couldn't have been, because I realised that one tiger being burnt wouldn't make all tigers have stripes. And whenever we were told a religious story, I felt exactly the same: the teachers said it was fact, but I felt sure that it wasn't. (I went to a Church of England primary school, so there was plenty of religiosity each week - and my parents sent me to Sunday School for a couple of years, which was torturously dull.)

So I had sympathy for my son being annoyed at being told that Jesus had fed 5000 people with two fish and five loaves of bread, and he was insisting to me: "It's not possible to do that, so why did they say it was?" I felt for him, but I said that sometimes it's fun to learn a new story even when we know it's not real. I'm not sure whether I convinced him, but I didn't convince myself.

The difference between learning a Bible story and a story about dragons is that teachers don't suggest that the dragon stories are real. As a parent, I think that kids learning Bible stories is OK when it's prefixed by "There's a story which says that..." or even "Some people believe that..."  I think I would have been OK with that as a child, and I think my son would have been OK with hearing the Bible story had it been prefixed in such a way. My son - like me as a kid - is quite happy to hear stories about talking animals, goblins, wizards etc. so fiction isn't the problem; the problem comes when a story is presented as fact when it is entirely at odds with what seems plausible. So by all means tell kids the Bible stories, but suggesting that they are factual isn't reasonable.

It's useful

Now I argue that it's useful to know about religions that we don't believe in for three reasons:

1. To be sensitive to others' beliefs and live in harmony with those around us
2. For the sake of general knowledge
3. To help reinforce our own beliefs and know what we're arguing against

Firstly, we live in a diverse society in terms of religious beliefs: the 2011 census found that 59% of people in the UK identify as Christian, and 25% identify as no religion. We also have plenty of Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs and other religions, and in the spirit of living in harmony with others around us, it's useful to know some things about different religions. For example, it's useful to know that Muslims may fast during Ramadan (and when Ramadan falls in a given year), in order to be sensitive towards anyone who is fasting. Similarly, it's useful to know that Christians might give up something for Lent, or they might want a day of peace or prayer on Easter Sunday. Although I must note that it seems to me that far more than a quarter of UK residents (the atheist population) 'celebrate' Easter by purchasing chocolate eggs, and so perhaps some people who identify as Christian are less concerned about Jesus rising from the grave than they are about chocolate eggs rising in price. Nonetheless, it seems useful to know a thing or two about the religions of those around us, particularly in the case of people who actually practise their religion. Knowing about others' religions enables us to be respectful even if we disagree with their beliefs.

Secondly, in terms of general knowledge, it is useful to know different facts about religion in the same way that it's useful to know geography, history, literature, languages, artworks and so on. If one goes around thinking that Muslims routinely wear turbans or that Hindu women wear the hijab, one is ill-informed. Aside from being little use in a pub quiz, this kind of ignorance can fuel hatred and bigotry. I seem to recall that after the World Trade Center was attacked in 2001 by Muslim terrorists, there was a spate of violence against Sikhs! So we owe it to ourselves, if not others, to have some knowledge of different religious views.

Thirdly, as John Stuart Mill wrote in On Liberty, "He who knows only his side of the argument knows little of that" (ref: Chapter II, paragraph beginning 'If the intellect and judgment of mankind...') Mill is one of my all-time favourite philosophical authors, and I think he's spot on with many of the things he writes, and his stance on knowing both sides of argument is no exception. If we atheists wish to enter into a debate with theists, it helps to know what their beliefs actually are. In knowing them, we can strengthen our own arguments and reaffirm our own (lack of) faith. To be misinformed about a theory is not a reason to disbelieve it: we should find out about the theories that exist (whatever they are) and then we can make an informed choice about what we believe, and construct arguments to show why our beliefs are more plausible than others'.

Source: The Atheist Dose

A fourth possible usefulness of hearing Bible stories is one which Christians might suggest, but that I do not subscribe to: "it's useful for non-Christian children to hear Bible stories so that they can hear 'the truth' and then change their views accordingly and convert to Christianity". I think it's definitely useful for children (and adults) to hear a range of viewpoints, but whenever one shuns fact in favour of fantasy, nothing worthwhile has been achieved. But then, I suppose a Christian might make the same argument about someone abandoning Christianity in favour of atheism!

Conclusion 

So should my son have to sit through Bible stories? Well, I think that when told sparingly and prefixed by "Some people believe that..." then there is a definite benefit for him to hear such stories. When the Bible stories are presented as if they were facts, I can understand why he finds it irritating, as I myself did at the same age. No child should be told that unverified (and unverifiable) theories are facts.

In case you're wondering, I spoke to my son's teacher this morning and asked whether they'd be learning more about Jesus today and she said no, yesterday's story was just a one-off - so my son was happy to attend school today! I'm just glad I didn't send him to the Catholic school not far from our house!