Is teaching your child about your religion mental abuse?

[Sigurd]

I saw this film the other day called Jesus Camp, and I must admit I was quite upset about the parents of those kids and other adults preaching the evangelist Christian viewpoint. I looked at what could only be brainwashing kids to become afraid of breaking God's commandments. I saw kids stopping adults on the streets and preaching the word of God, while having difficulties constructing meaningful sentences. I saw young kids speaking in tongues in made up languages. That upset me. It was all awful until this little gem of a segment appeared where these kids sits around a table talking while having lunch. This was right after a sermon where the preacher talked about how Harry Potter was of the devil and that all films about warlocks and sorcery were evil and would take you to hell.
This one kid said that his mom would not let him see any films about sorcery. But he then leaned over and said: "That doesn't matter, I watch Harry Potter at my dad's anyway". That little thing right there absolved all my resent against these preachers.

Whatever doctrine and God fear they try to put into kids, the kids will eventually decide for themselves what is right and wrong. They will decide if they will follow what they have been taught or seek out another course. There is no amount of preaching of hell and brimstone that will prevent this. The natural man will prevail sooner or later anyway. I think this board is full of examples of this. And this goes both ways. The kids learning that God is a fairytale might embrace religion and those taught strict religious views might embrace atheism.

And isn't it the priest's daughter who is the wildest girl in the neighborhood anyway?

[Strike For The South]

And isn't it the priest's daughter who is the wildest girl in the neighborhood anyway?

[rvg]

...I looked at what could only be brainwashing kids to become afraid of breaking God's commandments...

Are you talking specifically about the 10 commandments?

[Caius]

warlocks and sorcery were evil and would take you to hell.

Very medieval, if you ask me.

[Husar]

Freedom of speech.

That the child may be more receptive is not the parents' fault, when people listen to McCain you don't try to silence him for indoctrinating empty people with nonsense either, do you?*

*that was a joke, I mean I tried

[Caius]

Freedom of speech.

Your answer is a bit ambiguous.

[seireikhaan]

They're programmed by evolution and natural selection. Children who went against their parents warnings not to go too near the hungry lion got eaten. Those who listened survived to pass their genes on. That's what I meant when I said they're programmed to just listen - and they do.

I believe, then, that "programming" is too strong word. Children do not simply follow every order given by parents. General tendency, yes. Absolute scientific law, no.

Oh, yes, because it's not the religious parent indoctrinating the child into their religion who's taking away the child's freedom to choose for itself. It's I who's trying to take away their freedom to indoctrinate.

I believe you underestimate free will. If every child raised by a religious person followed those same beliefs because they couldn't think in any other way, we would never have christianity, islam, hinduism, or any other major religion; we'd all be following some variation of animal/nature worship. Again, I believe you blow the concept of what you think is happening far out of proportion, particularly given the information available to many with great ease in our modern world. Yes, there's still going to be the "Jesus Camp" folks(yes, I've seen it, and yes, its quite scary), but they're frankly in the minority.

If it's "a belief in the supernatural", then atheism still isn't a religion, because all atheism is is the lack of a belief in one specific supernatural thing - a god.

I believe you misuderstood my point; my point was that, often, atheistic absolute confidence can, in fact, be just as damaging to human rights as religious absolute confidence. I wasn't implying that atheism is a religion.

I'm not basing this on what I believe, I base things on people who have grown up in America has told me. And not just 1, 2 or 20. A lot of people.

First of all, I would like to know when and where these people grew up in the US. I could understand their frustration and viewpoint if they grew up in the 50's. However, much of the US has changed in the last 40 years. Plus, we actually do, believe it or not, have laws against discriminating based on race, religious beliefs, etc... Not that our own government hasn't been at fault for the same crime regarding Islamic terrorism, but I'm of course referring to the domestic front.

I'm not the one suggesting something came out of nothing. Please don't strawman my position.

I don't know what caused the big bang. I don't know, and no one does. To take that as an argument for god is an argument from ignorance.

To say that "everything needs a source" means that your god needs a source, and that source needs a source, and that source in turn also needs a source etc. To say "everything... oh, except god" is special pleading.

First of all, I was not intending to put forth a strawman; my point was that science, as of now, simply cannot explain everything in the universe. of course, to imply that 'god' needs a source would imply that he's not, in fact, eternal and thus, would not actually be 'god'. Alas, I'm not up for a debate on this sort of thing. My point is that, I refuse to state that a person's view on a matter where we cannot explain it through ordinary means is worthless.

That is a good question. Why are you asking me?

Because you asked whether there was any proof that every society has evolved with some form of religious beliefs. I figured it would be easier to find if there were any that haven't.

Lets for simplicity's sake take the one supplied by Viking.

http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/a..._report_en.pdf

According to that one, 77% are atheists. It's not the 85% I've heard elsewhere, but for my point to stand correct 77% is still enough.

Alrighty then. I was just figuring that, as a man of science, you would have some sort of statistic to back up a viewpoint. And you were close enough.

How about having been told by people who have been born and grown up in various regions across America? Would that suffice?

Again, I question when they grew up here. Having lived in America my whole life, and been to every region except for the Deep South, Texas and the northwest, I can safely say myself that the majority of people do NOT get ostracized for religious beliefs, let alone fired or disowned for them.

The first morals were simple, such as not to kill other humans, came through evolution and natural selection. As the tribes grew, they noticed that it worked better if they didn't steal etc., and morals like that grew up in that way. This is an extremely simplistic explanation.

Extremely doesn't quite fit the bill, in my opinion. First of all, people have been stealing for millenia on end; in fact, for most of human history, it was, in fact, beneficial to steal from another tribe, whether it was through war or subterfuge. It was a way you could provide more for your family, without having to go through conventional means such as killing an animal or having to go out into the wilderness to gather plants and risk being attacked. War, as an extreme example of theivery, has been found in every civilization which has had neighboring peoples who were not of their own lineage, tribe, ethnicity, etc... And of course, with war, comes killing. So I stand by my assertion that the majority of morals have religious descent in some way or another.

I don't see how I disrespected anyone. It might be worth noting, though, that I don't see how Makaikhaan disrespected anyone either...

Actually, if you had not noticed, my post was edited by Banquo's Ghost. I'm afraid a few of my points were phrased slightly less politely than he reworded them as.

I think I was careful enough when I said that you should not respect someone's religious beliefs to make clear that I still think you should show respect to the person holding the belief. I want you to know that I try to show you respect, but I hold no pretention to respect your beliefs.

If you have taken offense at anything that I've said, then I'm sorry, it was not my intention. However, I will continue to show no respect for your beliefs.

Ah, but here we come to my gripe. To me, the one thing that sets each and every person truly apart from everyone else is their beliefs; whether it be moral, political, religious, economic, etc...
To insult one's beliefs by stating that they have no value and are due no respect is, in my opinion, a terrible insult to the person holding them. So, to me, you basically handed out a giant smear brush at roughly 65% of humanity, myself included, to an extent. So, essentially, yes, I take offense.

To clarify; humans are the only animal on this planet to evolve beyond basic instincts on a consistent basis. A dog does not mourn for its lost kin for months on end. A parrot does not look up at the sky and wonder "what if?" A horse does not ponder the source of all the universe. A fish does not seek out knowledge and truth, does not seek out to wonder why, when it leaps into the air, that it falls back down to the water. Beliefs make us unique. Beliefs are what make us the dominant species on this planet. So, to say that a person's belief does not deserve respect, does not deserve consideration, does not deserve acceptance, at least on some level, frankly makes me quite angry.

[Puzz3D]

Brainwashing is exactly what was perpetrated on me as a very young child since I didn't have the reasoning power at that age to refute the teaching. The beliefs were taught as facts, and only one set of "facts" was presented by people that I trusted were telling me the truth. I didn't understand how to refute supernatural beliefs until I was 20 years old and read Immanuel Kant. Then it took me another 20 years to systematically find the flaws in the all the, so called, physical "evidence" that supported the teaching. I had to go all the way from believing the claim that what I had been taught was the one true reality to realizing that it was a made up fantasy. And how do you think I feel about my mother who was one of the perpetrators, and who is still alive. I hate what she did. That teaching did me no good, and was detrimental to me. It upsets me just thinking about the mental conflict I went through for most of my life and the bad decisions I made as a result of that "teaching".

[LittleGrizzly]

If I follow a way of life that I think is positive and beneficial isn’t it my responsibility to pass that along to my children? What kind of a douche-bag parent would I be if I didn’t raise my children to follow a path that I follow and feel works, religious or not and with extremes aside. Until they are old enough to make up their own minds a parents job is to raise them to the best of our ability so when they do leave the nest they can be independent, positive contributors to society.

But don't you think you child should decide this for himself, you should help the child with critical thinking presenting the facts and discuss any questions he has, to simply tell your child that religion A is true and the others are not is exactly the same level of indoctrination as telling your child the democrats are good and the republicans are bad, sure it may even be true ! but i wouldn't simply present it to my child as such, depending on age and intelligence obviously, i would go through the various differences and ask him/her of thier opinion on the subject rather than informing him that this is something democrats are right on republicans are wrong on...

Im a liberal and think my views are right (like religious folk) but i just because i think my views are right doesn't mean i would press those views home on my kids, the negative impact of my kids being conservative almost seems like a good reason to indoctrinate my liberal views onto them, but there is something much more important for my children to have than my political or religious views... and that is independant and critical thought...

[Sigurd]

Are you talking specifically about the 10 commandments?

Ok I should have put it like this: "God's commandments".
Apparently these preachers "know" a great deal of what is lawful and what is not. That these "God commands us to..." are not found amongst the canonized commandments speaks of prophetic claims.
the "God speaks through us and gives us direction" is a new tune even for evangelical Christians.

[Jolt]

If teaching religion is mental abuse, then we live in mentally abused societies since Homo Neanderthalensis.

[LittleGrizzly]

I would say the major difference between indoctrinating religion and informing would be how the parent puts it....

Dad "In the beginning God created.... bla bla bla..."

and no non indoctrination

Dad "I/We/Christians believe... bla bla bla....."

[The Celtic Viking]

I believe, then, that "programming" is too strong word. Children do not simply follow every order given by parents. General tendency, yes. Absolute scientific law, no.

Just to be clear: I'm not saying that children are programmed by their parents, but by nature. I'm not sure if that's what you mean, but just to make sure there's no misunderstanding here.

Anyway, until a certain age (I'm not quite sure when exactly, to be honest), there is no questioning, the child just accepts. This is what science tells us, and there is no debate about it within the scientific community.

I believe you underestimate free will.

Actually, I take one step further: I do not even believe we have free will. The way I see it, free will is only an illusion since we don't have all the variables available to us.

If every child raised by a religious person followed those same beliefs because they couldn't think in any other way, we would never have christianity, islam, hinduism, or any other major religion; we'd all be following some variation of animal/nature worship.

I don't see how this makes sense. Of course we would, because for one thing, I never said people can't stop to believe. I only said it isn't easy. In fact, it can be extremely hard - but I've never said impossible.

Another thing is that not everyone is equally likely to believe in supernatural things. It was quite a while since I read about this, so you'll have to excuse me for having only a vague memory of it, but scientists have found that there is a part in our brain that determines this, and it varies from person to person. What I'm trying to say with this is that some have it easier than others to break free, so to say.

Again, I believe you blow the concept of what you think is happening far out of proportion, particularly given the information available to many with great ease in our modern world. Yes, there's still going to be the "Jesus Camp" folks(yes, I've seen it, and yes, its quite scary), but they're frankly in the minority.

I am well aware that the fundamentalists are in a minority - thank god for that!

Seriously though, I have a challenge for you. Next time you go out to a bar, go somewhere where people don't know you, and start a conversation. Act naturally and friendly, and then lead it to (or wait for it to get to it on itself) religion. Say that you're an atheist, and see the reaction.

This is, by the way, not a challenge I made up myself. It's a challenge I borrowed from an American atheist, and is aimed at Americans.

(Oh, and yes, I am aware that it's not happening in a 100% ratio, but what I hear from American atheists is that it's widespread enough that you can be sure of to lose friends and family if you admit your atheism. As a side note, I'd also like you to note that George Bush Sr. said that he "does not think an atheist should be considered an American".)

I believe you misuderstood my point; my point was that, often, atheistic absolute confidence can, in fact, be just as damaging to human rights as religious absolute confidence. I wasn't implying that atheism is a religion.

In that case, I'm sorry. I just hear so often from theists that atheism is "just a religion", that I naturally went that way when you said it. My bad.

Regardless, I'd like you to demonstrate how you come to this conclusion. Atheism is just not believing in any god. How can that lead to behaviour that is "just as damaging to human rights"? I'm not denying that there are atheists who are behaving in such a manner - just that atheism is any of the reason/s behind the behaviour.

First of all, I would like to know when and where these people grew up in the US. I could understand their frustration and viewpoint if they grew up in the 50's. However, much of the US has changed in the last 40 years. Plus, we actually do, believe it or not, have laws against discriminating based on race, religious beliefs, etc... Not that our own government hasn't been at fault for the same crime regarding Islamic terrorism, but I'm of course referring to the domestic front.

They grew up in the 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's... 90's... now...

As to who, it's people I've met on forums on the internet, people I've seen in documentaries, blogs I've read etc. I can't point you to them personally, but I can point you to http://www.rationalresponders.com/. Go to the forums and ask about it, and I'm sure you'll get enough examples.

If believe you when you say that you wouldn't do it, and I'm willing to take your word for it than none you know would do it either (though I don't really think that you, that is generally speaking not you personally, can know this for sure). However, the picture that is being painted for my eyes is that Americans are genuinely nice people, but with a tendency to being less nice when someone is found out to be atheist. I'd love it if you could show that this is wrong, because I really don't want it to be true.

First of all, I was not intending to put forth a strawman; my point was that science, as of now, simply cannot explain everything in the universe. of course, to imply that 'god' needs a source would imply that he's not, in fact, eternal and thus, would not actually be 'god'. Alas, I'm not up for a debate on this sort of thing. My point is that, I refuse to state that a person's view on a matter where we cannot explain it through ordinary means is worthless.

Even if you didn't intend to, you strawmanned me anyway when you said I "believe something came from nothing" (paraphrased). I do not believe this. You do. What else could you mean when you say "god created everything"?

The part about the eternal god is exactly what is called "special pleading", and it's a logical fallacy. If you can say that god always existed, then why can't you say that the universe always existed instead? By occams razor, your god can be erased, because it's not the simplest explanation, and it raises more questions than it answers.

Because you asked whether there was any proof that every society has evolved with some form of religious beliefs. I figured it would be easier to find if there were any that haven't.

I never made any positive claim, so I don't have to provide any evidence. He did, so I asked for him to provide it.

Again, I question when they grew up here. Having lived in America my whole life, and been to every region except for the Deep South, Texas and the northwest, I can safely say myself that the majority of people do NOT get ostracized for religious beliefs, let alone fired or disowned for them.

No, not for religious beliefs, but for the lack of them.

Extremely doesn't quite fit the bill, in my opinion. First of all, people have been stealing for millenia on end; in fact, for most of human history, it was, in fact, beneficial to steal from another tribe, whether it was through war or subterfuge.

Yes, but notice: another tribe. Those are the key words. Stealing from within the tribe, though? Not the same.

It was a way you could provide more for your family, without having to go through conventional means such as killing an animal or having to go out into the wilderness to gather plants and risk being attacked.

Within the tribe, those with a lot of food would be forced to share with the rest. This was made because they recognized this was better for the tribe, their society, than having the ones with less be forced to steal from the others to survive.

War, as an extreme example of theivery, has been found in every civilization which has had neighboring peoples who were not of their own lineage, tribe, ethnicity, etc... And of course, with war, comes killing. So I stand by my assertion that the majority of morals have religious descent in some way or another.

That is a false assumption. Again, the thing is, the killing of people of another tribe was okay. It still is, for you as much as me. That is why people can go off to war and kill other people, and then come home and maintain that killing someone is wrong. The act would be the same - the difference is that you then would kill someone in the same tribe.

The reason for this is quite obvious. Killing someone of a different tribe would mean one less competitor for food. Killing someone of your own tribe would mean one man less to gather food for you and the rest of your tribe. Our mind has not changed much at all since then.

Actually, if you had not noticed, my post was edited by Banquo's Ghost. I'm afraid a few of my points were phrased slightly less politely than he reworded them as.

Ah, okay, I didn't notice that. Then thank you BG, and thank you makaikhaan for being honest about it.

Ah, but here we come to my gripe. To me, the one thing that sets each and every person truly apart from everyone else is their beliefs; whether it be moral, political, religious, economic, etc...
To insult one's beliefs by stating that they have no value and are due no respect is, in my opinion, a terrible insult to the person holding them. So, to me, you basically handed out a giant smear brush at roughly 65% of humanity, myself included, to an extent. So, essentially, yes, I take offense.

I disagree, and maintain that you should not take offense. Beliefs have no value bigger than how well they correspond to reality. We measure that through evidence. Religious beliefs (with that I mean beliefs in a god or gods) have no evidence, therefore, it deserves no respect. In other words, I treat religious questions the same way I treat less loaded questions. You make a special pleading for religious beliefs - for surely you would not object to me trying to show someone who believes the earth to be flat how he is wrong?

To clarify; humans are the only animal on this planet to evolve beyond basic instincts on a consistent basis.

But we have not. As I said in my first post, psychologists agree that control over a person's sexuality is pretty much equivalent to control over the person itself. This is because our sexual drives, our sexual instincts are just that strong.

A dog does not mourn for its lost kin for months on end. A parrot does not look up at the sky and wonder "what if?" A horse does not ponder the source of all the universe. A fish does not seek out knowledge and truth, does not seek out to wonder why, when it leaps into the air, that it falls back down to the water. Beliefs make us unique. Beliefs are what make us the dominant species on this planet.

A cheetah can run much faster than you. An eagle can fly much better than you. Seaturtles can live much longer than you. Want me to go on? The reason why we are so much more widespread than other animals (note that bacteria are more dominant that we are), is because we have successfully multiplied and eliminated threats to us, not because of any beliefs we have.

We have a superior brain, but that's it. That does not make us any more special than the best runner, strongest fighter, best flier etc.

So, to say that a person's belief does not deserve respect, does not deserve consideration, does not deserve acceptance, at least on some level, frankly makes me quite angry.

You misunderstand me. I believe a peron's belief does deserve acceptance. I do accept that people believe, and insofar as they keep their beliefs from affecting other people, I will do nothing to change them unless they invite me to. But as I said, people can't keep their beliefs from affecting others. They vote based on them, they prosetylize, and some even kill others based on them, and that is why I speak out without invitation, so to say.

[yesdachi]

But don't you think you child should decide this for himself, you should help the child with critical thinking presenting the facts and discuss any questions he has, to simply tell your child that religion A is true and the others are not is exactly the same level of indoctrination as telling your child the democrats are good and the republicans are bad, sure it may even be true ! but i wouldn't simply present it to my child as such, depending on age and intelligence obviously, i would go through the various differences and ask him/her of thier opinion on the subject rather than informing him that this is something democrats are right on republicans are wrong on...

Im a liberal and think my views are right (like religious folk) but i just because i think my views are right doesn't mean i would press those views home on my kids, the negative impact of my kids being conservative almost seems like a good reason to indoctrinate my liberal views onto them, but there is something much more important for my children to have than my political or religious views... and that is independant and critical thought...

The key word there is “child”. Its not that I don’t think they shouldn’t choose for themselves, it’s that they can’t…yet*. Additionally they are going to be influenced by others, school, daycare, TV, etc. I would much rather the little sponge be influenced by me, with confidence that the way we are living is the best way we know. We are pretty open and when something new pops up we try and look at it with an open mind but even at a young age most kids will respond with a wise answer when the question is presented in a “would you like someone to do that to you” style.

The trouble is that there are nutters out there who, even though they are the most extreme wing, crackpots, they still think they are the ones that are right and teach their kids accordingly. Is it wrong, in my mind yes, but is there anything that can be done about it, probably not. I feel bad for the brainwashed kids of nutters. Gotta hope that when they grow up they meet people that help them balance out.


*We still offer plenty of opportunities to choose things like what shirt to ware, what food to eat, what playground to visit, just not difficult decisions they couldn’t hope to understand all the details of, heck adults are hardly “grown-up” enough to make some of those decisions. You can’t lay out all the literature from each religion on the kitchen table and go thru it with a child like you would a high school senior about to pick their college. Mom and dad have to choose and why not choose what they believe in and feel works.

[LittleGrizzly]

The key word there is “child”. Its not that I don’t think they shouldn’t choose for themselves, it’s that they can’t…yet*.

Im not saying ask a 3 or 4 year old these questions... im saying don't make the choice for them

You can’t lay out all the literature from each religion on the kitchen table and go thru it with a child like you would a high school senior about to pick their college.

You answer questions or talk to him about it in various depth depending on his age, not nessecarily one huge talk about it but bit by bit or as it comes up.... obviously getting more complex as intelligence increase

Mom and dad have to choose and why not choose what they believe in and feel works.

Well if mom and dad are strong conservatives whats the difference between teaching them conservatism the way they teach him christianity...

Obviously people feel more strongly about thier religion than thier politics (i assume) but it is still telling your child something they should make thier own mind up on....

I would like to point out im not saying bringing your child up in a religion is bad or wrong, i was brought up going to church myself, but i do believe i should have been able to stop going to church at about 11 when i decided i wasn't religious....

I believe its indoctrination but don't think nazi propaganda when i say that... i would say its something more like santa claus or the tooth fairy.... warm fuzzy and easy to explain to children and not harmful*

*Obviously crazy fundamentalists raising crazy fundamentalists is bad news, and various negative religious views that can get passed on (things against gays, women ect)

[yesdachi]

Im not saying ask a 3 or 4 year old these questions... im saying don't make the choice for them

But at 3-4 is when they are most impressionable. Its when they are going to start interacting with others and have friends, preschool, TV all influencing them it’s the perfect time to start introducing them to your way of life (whatever it is).