Hostage to fear

[SuperEddy]

Regarding your statement:

"People on some level must know this, since they continue to bombard their children as soon as they possibly can in order to make sure this crap sticks."

That isn't necessarily true.  Parents teach their children things they regard as important.  Like fire burns and stoves can be hot, so they teach their children about that.  Likewise, if the parents believe in hell, they will want to teach their children to avoid it, too.

It is the same motivation in both cases, teaching children to avoid things that are dangerous and bad.

Yeah, you're right. I'm oversimplifying again. I find it baffling that parents think a child needs to know about hell and jesus as a priority, alongside not jumping out of a window or sticking a knife in your eye. But I suppose to some people, they are equally as important. That is scary in of itself.

Can't children be left to just be children... at least until they have a chance of even understanding what is being blasted at them? Parents should think very carefully about what they teach as fact to young children, because they are in essence programming them. This is why I despise indoctrination so much. You're not so much passing on a belief in your god as you are inserting that god directly into their brain.

PS: the idea that god could already be considering sending a child below the age of reason to hell for their actions, so they need to know about the rules, is repulsive.


Spacetime:
One of my friends, a Christian, now dead, had that experience when he was a child in Sunday school.  The teacher introduced the Gospel to him at five years old with a full discussion of SIN and HELL!!!  I agree that THAT is no way to do the Gospel for a child!!  He recovered from that experience but it took him fifty years of living in fear.
Sincerely,
SuperEddy