Is teaching religion child abuse?

Originally posted by Ophiuchus 13
Well I personally have seen children growing up when I was young that didnt believe in a god and as I watched them grow into adults their actions were carried out as if there was no GOD and you know what some are in prison for murder and some are dead so I dont think so friend. I knew of GOD as a child and it kept me from doing and behaving like many of my peers in various situations
[edit on 1/4/10 by Ophiuchus 13]

So you have anecdotal evidence of atheists who murdered people and went to jail? How compelling! I have anecdotal evidence involving religious people committing murder and going to jail too. You don't need religion to know the difference between right and wrong.

reply to post by mamabeth


I have wondered this before, after watching a show about Muslims, and I work with a Hindu family, and even though they are very gentle and sweet people, I find that their children seem to suffer because of the religion and their old ways. One example: one of the boys who is 10 years old, he has really thick glasses and still straining to see, and they are broken on one side, I asked him when is he going to get new ones. His reponse was that his grandfather said he doesn't need them, that the only reason his vision is out of focus, is because a young boy must run in the dew in the mornings'. Ok, so this is a way to get the kid off his bum and exersise, but his vision is still terrible no matter how much exersise he does!

No, indoctrinating a child to a system of pacifistic ritual and compliance is not child abuse.

What IS child abuse?

Rewiring their minds and amping up the violence and bigotry in video games and in television and in movies, making these "entertainment outlets" a non-stop mental training ground for close-quarter combat.

THAT is child abuse.

Teaching a method of expanding their awareness by way of a religion is comparatively harmless in the shadow of the NON-STOP BRAINWASHING that we give them every day through television and public schooling.

The damage is already being done, and we just brush it off, right.

— Doc Velocity





[edit on 1/5/2010 by Doc Velocity]

Originally posted by DeathShield
reply to post by moocowman

 

That's typically not what you are supposed to do when properly raising a child in a religious family.

Is this the way, instilling irrational fear of an invisible man in a child, through fear of the consequences of rational thinking ?

I would advocate that every person who makes the claim of being a rational human being study this very brief video clip.

We can see the irrational believer resorting to violence in order to overpower and subdue an individual reasoning, mind that would question beliefs that defy reason forced upon it.

It goes without saying that the process of intimidating indoctrination into irrational beliefs through fear goes on for many years with children and is hard to escape.








[edit on 5-1-2010 by moocowman]

reply to post by andrewh7


Christ this argument is so bloody stupid. I had a friend who wrote about this absolutely stupid argument, i am going to copypasta it here.

First, the main problem with this argument is that what people actually experience is NOT the same thing as what an atheist deliberately makes up for the sake of argument! To put the two in the same category is both illogical and underhanded. Since the atheist using this argument hasn’t really experienced invisible pink unicorns himself, everyone knows that he is deliberately making up something fictitious to put down something he doesn’t believe in while the paranormal experiencer or claimant is not. Regardless of whether what the claimant experienced was real or not, it is certainly NOT in the same category as what a skeptic makes up out of thin air. Comparing them would be like comparing my real life experience of visiting a foreign country to any fictitious story you can find such as Peter Pan or The Wizard of Oz. That simply makes no sense, even if misperception was involved on my part in my experience.


For the skeptic to claim that both are the same because they are unprovable would be like claiming that red cars and red apples are the same thing because they’re both red. Though even skeptics know that this is not true, as mentioned, they prefer their beliefs and word games over common sense reality. Alas, if these pseudoskeptics really lived according to their beliefs, then they could not function in society. For example, if they got lost and had to ask for directions, they would not believe any directions given to them, not even from the most credible and well-meaning long-time residents of the area they are lost in. They know this too, and thus this is all a word game to them, not a way to live in reality. So let’s just hope for their sake that they don’t carry their silly little theories over to real life ………

Second, likewise what someone sincerely believes is NOT the same as what someone knowingly makes up. Since the skeptic who uses this argument don’t believe in invisible pink unicorns himself, it is pointless as well as inconsiderate to compare that to what people genuinely believe and experience, such as God, spirits, or ESP. Of course, just because someone genuinely believes something doesn’t make it true, but to compare an honest person to a deliberate fraud is not a valid comparison.

Third, if there were millions of credible intelligent adults out there claiming to have seen or experienced invisible pink unicorns or Santa Claus flying in the air, then this comparison would have merit. But there aren’t, so this comparison is without merit.

Fourth, another significant difference between experiencing God, the divine, or the mystical, and the fictional example of invisible pink unicorns is that throughout history millions of honest, sane, intelligent people have experiences with the former which resulted in life changing effects, but the same can't be said for invisible pink unicorns.



Fifth, just because something is unprovable does not automatically put it in the same category as everything else that is unprovable. For example, I can’t prove what I ate last night for dinner or what I thought about. Without witnesses, I can’t prove what I saw on TV or how high I scored in a video game either. But that doesn’t mean that these things are in the same category as every story in the fiction section of the library.



The bottom line is that while it is true that no one can disprove the existence of invisible pink unicorns, the evidence to support God, spirits and psychic phenomena, although mostly anecdotal, is vastly greater, more significant, more relevant, and more sincere than the evidence to support invisible pink unicorns, Santa Claus, and other fictitious examples deliberately made up by skeptics.

reply to post by CHA0S


reply to post by CHA0S


reply to post by CHA0S


That is a bit of a strawman argument. A basic principle of reform judaism is that the Torah was written by a number of authors so we must question the concept of a divinely inspired doctrine. Early Christianity had similar concepts as well. The fact of the matter is that the people who say you can't question the bible are missing the fact that we are SUPPOSED to question any and all texts that are claimed to be the word of god. One of the basic rights we have as children of god is the ability to question or change gods mind, and some argue that we are supposed to point out his flaws. This is the exact reason for the multiple sects of judaism and christianity. The fact is that if we were not supposed to question god or the bible then we would not have the ability to do so.

These are the most popular ways the bible and other abrahimic texts are viewed.

The Text IS the word of god but it is written down and interfered with by fallible men. This would explain why the bible is seemingly full of contradiction.

The text is Spiritually infallible but it is not scientifically infallible.

The text is both infallible and free of error, this is the perspective to which you refer.

While God is not the author of the text in the fundamentalist sense, the book is about humanity’s understanding of and experience with God. Personally i believe that is the true way the bible is to be regarded.

Also comparing the bible or other religious philosophy is ridiculous. Scientists can make Science every bit as conservative as a religious person. The mere fact that it supposed to be updated and corrected does not render it infallible or truthful.

reply to post by Doc Velocity

No, indoctrinating a child to a system of pacifistic ritual

yahwhe is a pacifist ?

Since when doe torture or killing a person fro non compliance qualify as pacifism ?

reply to post by andrewh7


Oh jesus christ dude? seriously? Last time i checked most churches aren't advocating the destruction of black people or making them pay money to remove dead aliens from their bodies. This is painfully lacking in intellectual honesty. You make rash generalizations and compare us to #ing klansmembers yet you want us to be tolerant of you?

Why is it that atheists complain about theists using strawmen arguments against them yet almost every atheist argument is a strawman itself?

reply to post by moocowman


Provide evidence that all religions teach children to torture and kill people. I missed out on the sermon that told us to kill and torture people.

reply to post by DeathShield

The Text IS the word of god but it is written down and interfered with by fallible men. This would explain why the bible is seemingly full of contradiction.

Needless to say you are able to indicate which parts of the bibles are the words of a god that have not been interfered with by men.

No doubt you can also provide the evidence that the portions of the bibles not interfered by men are the words of a god and how this proof is obtained.

This would explain why the bible is seemingly full of contradiction.

There's no seemingly about it, the bibles a full of contradictions period.

The text is Spiritually infallible but it is not scientifically infallible

.


Needless to say this obviously means something to someone but is complete gibberish to those that don't live in fairyland

Originally posted by DeathShield
reply to post by moocowman

 

Provide evidence that all religions teach children to torture and kill people. I missed out on the sermon that told us to kill and torture people.

I did not assert this as you know full well I asked a couple of questions , perhaps you'd care to respond to them --

Can you give a good reason to teach a child that there is an invisible man that lives in the sky and in their head that would torture or kill them should they not comply to it's wishes ?

Can you give good reason to teach a child to love with all their heart an invisible man and call him father, when this being is alleged to do what most normal loving parents could not even consider "kill their own child"?

Originally posted by moocowman
reply to post by DeathShield

Needless to say you are able to indicate which parts of the bibles are the words of a god that have not been interfered with by men

No doubt you can also provide the evidence that the portions of the bibles not interfered by men are the words of a god and how this proof is obtained.

That is the point, that because words and passages may be either falsely attributed to what god said or are translated or interpreted "wrong" they are to not be regarded as the definitive word of god. But even simpler is the idea that the texts are a snapshots of previous experiences with god and what he is believed to have done and said. The text does not reflect what god is actually thinking right now, and even then it is impossible to know exactly what god was thinking to begin with. That is why prayer and forging a relationship with god is the most important thing you can do. So you can understand god in his contemporary state.

This is why religious people such as myself and reform jews are encouraged to question the validity of the text in the bible. The best you can do is make a philosophically educated guess that it COULD be the true word of god.

There's no seemingly about it, the bibles a full of contradictions period.

Yes but there are multiple reasons for them. Personally i believe that if the bible is the word of god then the contradictions were put there to test our intellectual capabilities, to see who actually thinks the most in line with god.

Needless to say this obviously means something to someone but is complete gibberish to those that don't live in fairyland

Clearly you are not getting it. Spiritual truth is completely seperate from scientific truth. That is as simple as it gets. The bible was not written as a scientific guide to the universe, it can show sings of scientific truth but that is not the intent. Like i said the intent of the bible is to serve as a reference book for what god. You are trying to attribute scientific truth to a text that has nothing to do with science. That would be like me reading Thus spake zarathustra and expecting it to contain a detailed analysis of Dopamine receptors and how they affect emotions. Therefore there will be scientific inaccuracies or lack of scientific concepts. like i said before. While God is not the author of the text in the fundamentalist sense, the book is about humanity’s understanding of and experience with God.

[edit on 5-1-2010 by DeathShield]

Is teaching religion child abuse?

These children are being taught religion , what we have to ask is are these children being harmed either physically or emotionally by this part or any other part of their education and is the content (or parts) of their education harmful in its' self

These particular children just happen to be being taught the jesusyahwhe christian religion, we could perhaps interchange the deity involved for allah, zeus, satan or any other as the evidence of the existence of them all is equal.

reply to post by DeathShield

This is why religious people such as myself and reform jews are encouraged to question the validity of the text in the bible. The best you can do is make a philosophically educated guess that it COULD be the true word of god.

Or not the word of a god at all as the text themselves (which you have shown) are written by men and not reliable so there is no real reason consider them being the word of a god.

When it comes to indoctrinating children into religions which wholly rely upon a set of text which are obviously questionable and provide no evidence (as you point out) for the reality of the invisible being in the sky.

Then it is utterly contemptible to teach children to live in fear of this man in the sky and his (the central character of these questionable texts)sadistic attributes, as it demands within the texts to do so is abusing the child by deliberately creating imaginary fear and stress .

Originally posted by moocowman
Since when doe torture or killing a person fro non compliance qualify as pacifism ?

Since THOU SHALL NOT KILL.

Christianity is NOT a religion of killing or torture or any other barbarity of Man's making. To follow Christ, we know there will be toil and tribulation, but we do it in FAITH and in spite of the adversarial nimrods that hinder our path. We PREVAIL.

— Doc Velocity





[edit on 1/5/2010 by Doc Velocity]

reply to post by DeathShield

That is the point, that because words and passages may be either falsely attributed to what god said or are translated or interpreted "wrong" they are to not be regarded as the definitive word of god.

Yet elements (and often all) are taught to children (who are too immature to reason and investigate for themselves) as the absolute "word" of a god .

How many children are being taught that if they do this or that they will go to hell and be tortured for all eternity " but that's not to be regarded as the definitive word of a god" ?

When it comes to children something is or isn't it is insulting to our species to present to children -
" words and passages may be either falsely attributed to what god said or are translated or interpreted "wrong" they are to not be regarded as the definitive word of god" as fact.

reply to post by moocowman


you seem to be bogged down in specific teachings, "some religious education is abusive so all religious education is abusive", there's a name for that type of argument but i can't remember it. whatever it's called, it's a load of crap. the question is of a much more general nature.

parents teach their children that there is a god and he needs to be worshipped and prayed to etc. because they believe it to be true. teaching your children what you believe is the truth in a responsible way is what parenting is all about.





[edit on 5/1/10 by pieman]

I was brainwashed with religion. I feared hell, I considered myself a sinner, I hated myself, I wished for heaven. Nothing good came out of it. Luckily - I escaped the brainwashing - and I did not become an "atheist". Any organized religion is evil.


"The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of people when they realize their relationship, their oneness with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize that at the center of the universe dwells the Great Spirit, and that this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us."

Black Elk - Oglala Sioux

[edit on 5-1-2010 by pai mei]

I think it's borderline child abuse when you raise children to fight against critical thinking.

Kids should be raised to ask plenty of questions, and think logically about life. If instead you indoctrinate them to "have faith," and other kinds of nonsense, then you're robbing them of a fruitful mind.

It doesn't leave physical scars, but it is a kind of abuse, I think.

reply to post by Doc Velocity

Christianity is NOT a religion of killing or torture or any other barbarity of Man's making. To follow Christ, we know there will be toil and tribulation, but we do it in FAITH and in spite of the adversarial nimrods that hinder our path. We PREVAIL.

As this is a discussion about the abuse of children compare what you just wrote with this --

"But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me"

This is not pacifism by any stretch of the imagination what exactly is the difference, between teaching a child about this invisible mans' need for absolute compliance and this mans' - ?

"Who says I am not under the special protection of God?"

"We are all proud that through God's powerful aid, we have become once more true Germans"