The Rite Of Learning By Rote
When I was a wee thing, I learnt basic mathematics by chanting my times tables along with my classmates. It's not a very sophisticated way of learning, but it works. I still know instantly that 7 x 9 is 63, not via any cleverness of first thinking of the easier 7 x 10 = 70 and then subtracting 7 (or something like that), I just know! I don't have to calculate anything, I don't even have to think about it, 63 just pops into my head. 63 is a part of '7 x 9', not a result.
Rote learning works very well for basic mathematics, and I am grateful that I was put through that process. However, suppose I'd been put through the process but we had been taught that 7 x 9 = 64? Obviously, I'd have serious grounds for complaint. Unlearning stuff learnt by rote is not so easy as learning it in the first place, so it's very important that what you are taught by that method is true.
Oh dear, you already guessed! Yes, there are unscrupulous people who use rote learning to teach people things that are untrue, or things about which the truth is not universally agreed, or things that could be true but have yet to be proven. In other words, they use rote learning to implant opinion or belief as factual knowledge.
It's a well known fact that Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels (Adolf Hitler's evil Propaganda Minister in Nazi Germany) said, if you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes the truth, which is an excellent example of how it works because there is no evidence that he ever said that, but the wrongly attributed quote has been repeated enough times that people believe the words are his.
Some prayers, like the Apostles' Creed, for example, work in the same way. I'd be ashamed if I had to resort to such techniques to shore up my way of thinking. I'd have to call it keeping the faith, or something similar, to convince myself that it was actually virtuous to behave that way.
It reminds me of that annoying situation which sometimes arises with computer software where it gets stuck in a continuous loop.
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And finally, for those of you who have questions about God, I can highly recommend the official God FAQ.
