(April 17, 2022 at 2:43 am)Helios Wrote:

(April 17, 2022 at 2:38 am)Belacqua Wrote: I have no idea if it's a religious act or not. What is the source of the picture? 

Is it typical of religion, in your view?

Yes, it is a religious act called the Kama Matam, and again that's not what I asked. Now that you know this is a religious act is it intentional harm to a child?

In my opinion, this act is child abuse.

Good that only took us 6 posts to get too

(April 17, 2022 at 2:53 am)Helios Wrote: Good that only took us 6 posts to get too

I have not denied that some acts done in the name of religion can be child abuse. Everybody knows that's true. 

Do you think that such abusive practices are essential, or representative, of religion? If parents raise a child in a religion without those practices, is it child abuse?

Is any child raised within a religion abused? If so, should the parents of that child be punished? 

If you point to the worst examples from a worldwide, wildly varied phenomenon, and declare that they are the very definition of that phenomenon, it may not be a balanced interpretation.

This statement literally has nothing with what we were talking about

(April 17, 2022 at 3:21 am)Helios Wrote: This statement literally has nothing with what we were talking about

It's what I was talking about before you changed the subject.

(April 17, 2022 at 1:58 am)Belacqua Wrote:

(April 17, 2022 at 1:51 am)The Valkyrie Wrote: Are you actually going to tell me that deliberately cutting a spilling the blood of a defenceless child like that ISN'T child abuse?

deliberately cutting a spilling the blood of a defenceless child =/= religion

Circumcision, while it can also be a cultural practice, is part and parcel of several religions. Judaism goes so far as to claim that the descendants of Abraham are to be circumcised on the eighth day, as commanded by God (I think that something commanded by God = religion).

Boru

As it is also a time of the Passover, there is a new article in New York Times written by a Jewish guy where he explains how he was mentally abused by the religious class

Here are few examples from the article titled "In This Time of War, I Propose We Give Up God"

Quote:“And so God killed them all,” the rabbis and priests and imams can preach to their classrooms. “That was wrong, children.”
“God threw Adam out of Eden for eating an apple,” they can caution their students. “That’s called being heavy-handed, children.”

Cursing all women for eternity because of Eve’s choices?

“That’s called collective punishment, children,” they can warn the young. “Don’t do that.”

...

Two aspects of the Passover story have troubled me since I was first taught them long ago in an Orthodox yeshiva in Monsey, N.Y. I was 8 years old, and as the holiday approached, our rabbi commanded us to open our chumashim, or Old Testaments, to the Book of Exodus. To get us in the holiday spirit, he told us gruesome tales of torture and persecution.

“The Egyptians,” he told us, “used the corpses of Jewish slaves in their buildings.”
“You mean they used slaves to build their buildings,” I asked, “and the slaves died from work?”

“No,” said the rabbi. “They put the Jewish bodies into the walls and used them as bricks.”

....

“Every firstborn son in the land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sits on the throne to the firstborn of the servant girl.” Exodus 11:5.

Surely, I wondered, there were some Egyptians who didn’t whip Jews, who didn’t have anything against Jews at all? Surely there were Egyptians horrified by slavery, Egyptians who disagreed with Pharaoh as often as we do with our own leaders?

...

“Why did God kill the first-born cattle?” my rabbi said. “Because the Egyptians believed they were gods.”

Killing gods is an idea I can get behind.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/15/opini...p-god.html

And children generally do get abused by religion by people teaching them archaic worldviews from which societies are trying to move away (like blaming women for world's problems). But it is accepted child abuse. And even if the atheist President came to power with both atheist Congress and Senate would not forbid parents to teach their kids nonsense because they would obey the Democratic and humanistic principles where parents do have great authority over their children. Not to mention that there is a constitution that protects these things.

Changes in democracy come from group discussions and there is no reason that an atheist government would circumvent that.

(April 17, 2022 at 3:23 am)Belacqua Wrote:

(April 17, 2022 at 3:21 am)Helios Wrote: This statement literally has nothing with what we were talking about

It's what I was talking about before you changed the subject.

I didn't change the subject 

(April 17, 2022 at 3:46 am)Helios Wrote:

(April 17, 2022 at 3:23 am)Belacqua Wrote: It's what I was talking about before you changed the subject.

I didn't change the subject 

Nor are you willing to answer any of my questions.

Quote:Nor are you willing to answer any of my questions

Because your questions had nothing to do with my question