Do Christian Parents Abuse their Children?

[LadyForCamus]

Your mother never forced you to learn abc's? Child abuse!!! 😋

But we know the alphabet exists.  😋

[Neo-Scholastic]

I have known CL for approximately two years, and during that time she has never treated me with anything other than kindness and respect.  She has shared a lot of painful personal experiences with us here, and I have shared painful personal experiences with her.  She communicates with me as one person speaking to another person; not as a Christian speaking to an atheist.  She has never preached to me, talked at me without listening, or pushed her beliefs on me in any way.  Why wouldn't I respect her?  I don't have a need to resent theists as a default simply because of their beliefs.  Do we disagree on pretty much everything that involves religion and politics?  Yes, lol.  But I find her to be a lovely and sincere individual, and I'm glad she's with us.  She also has a great sense of humor.  😁

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Aww, this was really nice of you. Thank you.   
The feeling's mutual. You've never been mean to me or treated me badly. There is mutual respect there.

Geeezzz...get a room! :-P

[Drich]

Not my assertion but Richard Dawkins believes that bringing children up to believe that their parents religion is true is tantamount to child abuse. The argument is that by doing so the child is ill equipped to make their own way in the world when they go out on their own.

I have a personal story about this. My oldest daughter went to a catholic primary school for the first 2 years of her schooling. The intention was to enrol my younger daughter in the catholic school as well when she was old enough. One day my older daughter came home from school and started talking to me about the 14 stations of the cross. Anyone know what that is? I didn't at the time so I googled it. What I found shook me to the core. These intellectually handicapped adults were brainwashing my child to become as intellectually handicapped as them - in short, child abuse!

I had to think quickly here. I couldn't tell my daughter that this is a load of crap because that would push here even further away from me and closer to a demented mentality. So I taught her critical thinking. Firstly, I defined ethics as any thought, word or action that causes harm or death to any living being (I have to thank the Buddhist texts for that definition). Then I asked her to show me some of the other xtian texts that they taught at school and sat with her to analyse whether the thoughts, words or actions described in those texts was ethical. Lo and behold, she identified a number of unethical actions and I could see the light bulb literally switching on in her head. I won! I had just grabbed my child from the clutches of these demented people!

At the end of that year, she was out of the school and out of the catholic system. The bizarre thing is, when we told the school, they were shocked that we were taking her to a non catholic school and asked us if we had considered taking her to one of the other catholic schools. They wanted to keep her in the lunatic asylum called catholicism!

After my experience, nearly losing my child to this demented mentally abusive system, I understood what Richard Dawkins meant when he said that teaching religion to children is child abuse.

Anyone have similar experiences?

Anyone think that it's ok for xtians and muslims to teach their religion to their children and that it's not child abuse?

Oh, the irony...

What if the difference between say growing up deeply religious, and say growing up deeply scientific/predilection to science but being outdated and or simply wrong in everything you think to be 'fact?'

before you answer.

Do you assume there will NEVER be any up and coming scientific change that would have you through out what you currently define as foundational belief?

Do you/Can you follow?

Let's say you were a "scientific fellow" of the mid 1400, and was not privy to Darwin or Columbus, but as you and your circle thinks now, no God, raising your children is child abuse, and for all of the same reason... It's just some on 600 years from now can identify your version of "reality" is as backwards as you view the church... Then if that is the case, isn't raising you children in ever changing scientific fact just as WRONG as raising you kids in the Church UNLESS! UNLESS scientific accuracy is not the goal, but rather the goal being a social order without God?

On the surface you seem to be taking the intellectually high road, but the problem with that is very little scientific 'fact' can stand up to scrutiny after a few hundred years, making 'facts' of science little more than popular fiction. So then unless ALL of society had adopted this popular fiction as absolute fact, then if you are right about God there isn't an intellectual 'high road.' As all fact simply succumb to "new pop facts." If this is the case then there is no more 'rightness'/stability in believing in science. leaving you with a simple expression of faith or a want to believe in science over God.

Now if all you have is a want or desire for science to be more true than God, then how is it your children are not being abused mentally when subjected to this form of indoctrination verse any form of religious indoctrination?

[LadyForCamus]

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Aww, this was really nice of you. Thank you.   
The feeling's mutual. You've never been mean to me or treated me badly. There is mutual respect there.

Geeezzz...get a room! :-P

And then the plumber walks in.  *Bow chicka wah wah*

[J a c k]

My mama and padre raised me hardcore, fanatical Christian. I grew up fearing hell, praying every day for the god to change my sexual orientation, feeling ashamed, and being afraid of the track of my thoughts, because the god could see them. I can’t tell you about the level of indoctrination and brain wash, because it would take a book. No “secular” music, no prom, no dancing, no out of church activities. I prayed an hour a day (at least) since I was about 5. A preacher sexually abused me and his daughter when I was six, and he made me believe I would go to hell if I didn’t forgive him. Not only that, but I had to love him in the god’s grace. I was shamed, because a preacher prayed for a depression and anxiety disorder I have, and when I said it wasn’t cured, I was told I lacked faith and this is why it wouldn’t go away. My fault. I needed to fast and repent. I was 13. I was locked in a tiny room when I was living in a Bible Institute. I spent a couple months in there going insane, the church thought it was demons. I could go on.

If you asked me before if this was child abuse from my parents, I would have said YES! I was resentful and exhausted from life. But I have grown and learned from being a parent. I make mistakes and I have to explain myself to my boys. It hurts. Son, I thought I knew what I was doing, and I thought it was what was best for you. My mama has cried in regret and asked us to forgive them. They didn’t know about the preacher’s abuse. They didn’t know about my self hate due to my sexual orientation. They had no idea that their teachings were keeping me from living a healthy life. They actually raised me better than their parents raised them.

I have nothing to forgive them for. They did their best. I’m thankful. They did not abuse me by doing what they thought was best. They made a mistake, but they loved me and I knew they did. Always. I have changed my mind, and I hope my kids don’t hate me for my mistakes.

As much as I disagree with religion and I wish kids weren’t brought up in it, it’s not child abuse when you wholeheartedly believe it’s the best thing. IMO. I could be biased, I admit.

[Edwardo Piet]

I don't use "Dawkins said so" as a support for his argument. That doesn't make any sense. It's like saying "the bible says so - so it must be true". See? It doesn't make any sense.

There is no historical proof of JC's life let alone how he died. How then can anyone state there were 14 or 15 or 12 or any "stations of the cross"? This is an absurdity. You don't even know what you had for lunch a year ago, how would anyone know what JC did 2,000 years ago?

"The fact that  you did not find any meaning in the NT, is an individual matter" - No, it is a matter of simple logic. Unless you do a great deal of mental gymnastics, there is little to no consistent, coherent meaning in the bible. It's why I had to read the NT 3 times - just to make sure I wasn't missing something.

He does not say it in the god delusion. He says it in interviews and in articles.

I have defined unwholesome thoughts, words and actions as being those that harm or kill living beings. Your god is responsible for the death of millions of living beings in one supposed act of his - the great flood. But this is just one of his many heinous crimes.

I didn't think you had an argument. What's worse is that you don't even realize it. A parting lesson on arguments:

1. troll: One who posts a deliberately provocative message to a newsgroup or message board with the intention of causing maximum disruption and argument
2. BBZ has now posted two threads with very provocative titles with no attempt to justify them--using them as a platform to complain about other aspects of religion not related to the thread title.
3. Whereas one such thread could be a misstep, two is a pattern.
4. Therefore BBZ is a troll.

Logically sound. Conclusion follows from the premises.

Wow you suck at logic. Your first premise includes intention and the other premises don't and you are completely blind to that. It's not logically sound at all, you merely assume that he's intending to cause disruption and argument when he could easily be making a thread arguing that religious indoctrination is child abuse, not because he's intending to provoke, but because he thinks that religious indoctrination is child abuse. I myself hold that view and I'm not a troll either. And I say provocative things all the time, but my intention is not to provoke, my intention is to speak my mind honestly regardless of if it's provocative or not.

And I'm not surprised that a logically unsound argument made by a theist got a bunch of kudos only by other theists. It's failing to detect such subtly illogical missteps that prevents you losing your religions delusions.

---

.
Aww, this was really nice of you. Thank you.   
The feeling's mutual. You've never been mean to me or treated me badly. There is mutual respect there.

Geeezzz...get a room! :-P

And give me a peephole.

---

Geeezzz...get a room! :-P

And then the plumber walks in.  *Bow chicka wah wah*

* Edwardo Piet starts Googling for available plumbing jobs

[Crossless2.0]

Not my assertion but Richard Dawkins believes that bringing children up to believe that their parents religion is true is tantamount to child abuse. The argument is that by doing so the child is ill equipped to make their own way in the world when they go out on their own.

I have a personal story about this. My oldest daughter went to a catholic primary school for the first 2 years of her schooling. The intention was to enrol my younger daughter in the catholic school as well when she was old enough. One day my older daughter came home from school and started talking to me about the 14 stations of the cross. Anyone know what that is? I didn't at the time so I googled it. What I found shook me to the core. These intellectually handicapped adults were brainwashing my child to become as intellectually handicapped as them - in short, child abuse!

I had to think quickly here. I couldn't tell my daughter that this is a load of crap because that would push here even further away from me and closer to a demented mentality. So I taught her critical thinking. Firstly, I defined ethics as any thought, word or action that causes harm or death to any living being (I have to thank the Buddhist texts for that definition). Then I asked her to show me some of the other xtian texts that they taught at school and sat with her to analyse whether the thoughts, words or actions described in those texts was ethical. Lo and behold, she identified a number of unethical actions and I could see the light bulb literally switching on in her head. I won! I had just grabbed my child from the clutches of these demented people!

At the end of that year, she was out of the school and out of the catholic system. The bizarre thing is, when we told the school, they were shocked that we were taking her to a non catholic school and asked us if we had considered taking her to one of the other catholic schools. They wanted to keep her in the lunatic asylum called catholicism!

After my experience, nearly losing my child to this demented mentally abusive system, I understood what Richard Dawkins meant when he said that teaching religion to children is child abuse.

Anyone have similar experiences?

Anyone think that it's ok for xtians and muslims to teach their religion to their children and that it's not child abuse?

Oh, the irony...

What if the difference between say growing up deeply religious, and say growing up deeply scientific/predilection to science but being outdated and or simply wrong in everything you think to be 'fact?'

before you answer.

Do you assume there will NEVER be any up and coming scientific change that would have you through out what you currently define as foundational belief?

Do you/Can you follow?

Let's say you were a "scientific fellow" of the mid 1400, and was not privy to Darwin or Columbus, but as you and your circle thinks now, no God, raising your children is child abuse, and for all of the same reason... It's just some on 600 years from now can identify your version of "reality" is as backwards as you view the church... Then if that is the case, isn't raising you children in ever changing scientific fact just as WRONG as raising you kids in the Church UNLESS! UNLESS scientific accuracy is not the goal, but rather the goal being a social order without God?

On the surface you seem to be taking the intellectually high road, but the problem with that is very little scientific 'fact' can stand up to scrutiny after a few hundred years, making 'facts' of science little more than popular fiction. So then unless ALL of society had adopted this popular fiction as absolute fact, then if you are right about God there isn't an intellectual 'high road.' As all fact simply succumb to "new pop facts." If this is the case then there is no more 'rightness'/stability in believing in science. leaving you with a simple expression of faith or a want to believe in science over God.

Now if all you have is a want or desire for science to be more true than God, then how is it your children are not being abused mentally when subjected to this form of indoctrination verse any form of religious indoctrination?

I would have thought that after all your time here you would understand the basics of what science is. Apparently not. It's a method, Drich -- a method!. And because of that method 'facts' (you really meant hypotheses and theories, but never mind) are sometimes eventually known to be wrong or are altered to accommodate additional, previously unknown facts. You always characterize this as a weakness of science, when in fact it is its crowning glory. No one who really understands the rudiments of science are the dogmatist straw men you enjoy jousting because they understand the tentative, falsifiable nature of scientific conclusions. That you are a dogmatist with no clue about the scientific project is well known on these boards. But don't paint others with that brush. Try to at least clear that low bar of honesty.

As for parents 'indoctrinating' their children with science, if you're talking about people teaching their kids about the method, that's the opposite of indoctrination.

Do you/can you follow?

But I agree with you on one point: if parents taught as dogma this or that scientific hypothesis or theory, they would be doing their children a disservice, and that would be an example of stupid parenting since they would be denying their children the wonders of examining the evidence and arguments for themselves.

It would almost be as stupid as indoctrinating one's kids to believe in and worship a resurrected Jew.

[Edwardo Piet]

Oh fuck Drich is here. What a waste of an interesting thread.

[Neo-Scholastic]

Oh fuck Drich is here. What a waste of an interesting thread.

What part? The debate on indoctrination or the imminent girl-on-girl action?

[Crossless2.0]

Oh fuck Drich is here. What a waste of an interesting thread.

What part? The debate on indoctrination or the imminent girl-on-girl action?

I'll take door number two.