Stop Child Religion

[Rwandrall]

You have alot of nerve,considering your bible demands its followers to force religion on all children. the old testament is nothing but story after story of forcing religion on others by sword point. It even goes much deeper, insisting that young males be kept and re-educated as slaves, young virgins be kept as war booty for the priests, and that everyone else up to the elderly and pregnant women be murdered on the spot. In fact the bible commands that the children be "dashed upon the rocks"

Your cult is disgusting.

Christians don't follow any of these Old Testament rules since zombie-jesus has "replaced the Old Covenant with a new one", making this paragraph a straw-man argument.

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

Christians don't follow any of these Old Testament rules

Well,they always have actually,especially when it justifies something nasty. EG in the past,burning witches, and slavery.Currently, homophobia.(Leviticus 18:22)

[reverendjeremiah]

by the way, what gave you the impression the article is only about Christianity?)

G-C always takes this shit personally. He thinks his angry desert god religion is better than any of the others.

He's wrong about lots of stuff!

Thats G-C right to the "T"

[Rwandrall]

Christians don't follow any of these Old Testament rules

Well,they always have actually,especially when it justifies something nasty. EG in the past,burning witches, and slavery.Currently, homophobia.(Leviticus 18:22)

True that, but mostly they use their religion to justify their own hatreds. I'll change what i said to "many, many christians don't follow the Old Testament, and if they do they only follow a couple rules. So saying they want to kill babies by throwing them against rocks is an exaggeration".

[Godscreated]

This is not about bad things some people do in the name of Christianity (by the way, what gave you the impression the article is only about Christianity?), this is about religion itself. Teaching a child religion, whichever religion, and in whichever way, induces feelings of fear and guilt in the child. And filling a child with feelings of fear and guilt is emotional child abuse.

I agree that parents should raise their child as they think is best for him or her, provided they remain within the law and common sense. (And for the countries that still haven't outlawed physical abuse, I should add that no parent should be allowed hurt their child.)

Child abuse is forbidden in every country in the Western world (as far as I know), but some have very vague definitions. My definition is that child abuse is anything that harms the child physically or emotionally, and that applies to smacking and spankings just as much as to exposure to religion.

I know you were making a statement about religion, however you did bring up christianity and being a christian I'm going to speak for it. Before you speak against christianity you should see for yourself how christians raise their children and what they are taught by the church, love is the most taught idea in the christian church. As for spanking children it happened to me and I'm a better person for it, so I do support it when it is applied as a way to teach through discipline, no one should ever beat a child for any reason.

[Anomalocaris]

You need much more spanking.

[franklludwig]

I was raised in a religious household going to mass every week. Never have i ever been the victim of ANY kind of emotional abuse. Neither my parents nor my church threatened me with Hell or Death. EVER. You seem to think that the religious bombard their children with threats of Hell, however the VAST majority of christians, at least in the US and in Europe believe that any good person can go to Heaven - in direct contradiction with their book, but they dont read it anyways

I can see that there are different levels of intensity, and moderate worshippers may have a more subtle approach. But even in those cases, the children will be aware of an invisible creature looking over their shoulder at all times, will be taught that they - as every human being - are 'sinners', and will at least reflect on the possibility of not going to heaven.

---

People transmit who they are to their children, and religion is part of this. You can't ask someone not to transmit their religion just like you can't ask them to transmit their culture, their language or their values. If religion is "emotional abuse", then taking your kid to the Corrida in Spain also is abuse.

Yes, I think taking children to a bloodspilling fest like the Corrida is child abuse as well. And as much as I respect all traditions and cultures, any parts of them that harm anybody else should be banned.

---

Christians don't follow any of these Old Testament rules since zombie-jesus has "replaced the Old Covenant with a new one", making this paragraph a straw-man argument.

According to the New Testament, Jesus came to fulfil the scripture, not to abolish it. Stories from the Old Testament still account for a lot of the sermons (and Sunday school teachings), such as Abraham's near-human sacrifice, and amended versions of the Ten Commandments are still being preached. The Old Testament is only disregarded when its use is inconvenient.

[franklludwig]

As for spanking children it happened to me and I'm a better person for it, so I do support it

It figures that you should support the spanking of defenseless children... according to the studies I mentioned, religious people are more aggressive and less compassionate

[The Grand Nudger]

You can call ethnocentric bigotry love all you like. It won't make it so.

(I wish christians would decide whether or not god had replaced any covenants once and for all. Hate it when they argue for infallible, malleable scripture. I'm tired of ping ponging back and forth with these savages)

[Minimalist]

As for spanking children it happened to me

It seems as if they hit you in the head instead of the ass.