h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: The Stages of Belief - A937767
Author: a girl called Ben - U148580

This is an entry I have been meaning to write for some time. It forms part of the Uni Project on Belief. A853751.

Comments, questions etc gratefully recieved. As of posting time, I need to add some more sections, but I am going to go back to bed, drink a cup of tea, re-read the Peck, and write up the missing sections, so by the time you read this they are probably there.

B

Hi Ben!

I had a quick run through this. I thought your comments about the traditional views of eight-year-olds very funny. My eight-year-old is at that stage: "why should we do it different? I like it the way we always do it".

One thing caught my eye: "Many lapsed Catholics are in Stage 4". Why Catholics in particular? Why not lapsed Christians?

More interesting stuff, Ben! There seem to be considerable parallels with Piaget's theories of cognitive and moral development. Piaget studies the child's maturing approach to the rules of games rather than moral principles /per se/ - but the one would appear to serve as an adequate psychological model of the other.

In fact your whole entry seems to be a special case of Piaget's thought. I only wish I had the time to prepare a contribution to that effect, but it would just be academic background rather than taking any substantive case further.

Thanks for commenting, both of you. This is derivitive, though it makes no claims not to be derivitive, but I do find the subject fascinating. I think it connects to Pattern-Chaser's entry on Science as Religion, and casts some interesting lights there, and also to Z's entry on Joining and Leaving a Minority Religion.

Gnomon, I think the reason why I specified lapsed Catholics, is that Catholicism can leave its fingerprints on a soul long after the soul has stopped being a Catholic one. However, I take your point about 'why Catholics in particular', and I will remove the sentence from the entry.

Thanks again.

B

But it still says "Many lapsed Catholics are in Stage IV."