child abuse
Posted on: October 29, 2008 - 3:47am
Offline
child abuse
Is it just me or is it mental child abuse when theists teach children that there is someone that could possibly send them to an everlasting Hell after they die?
You can't convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it's based on a deep-seated need to believe. - Carl Sagan
Prayer has no place in the public schools, just like facts have no place in organized religion. - School Superintendent on "The Simpsons" episode #1
- Login to post comments
I guess.
Certainly, kids in fundamentalist families get the Jesus scared out of them when their parents read the Bible to them before bedtime. For maximum effect, judges and revelations work pretty well. Unfortunately, you can't arrest them for mental child abuse.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
"I've yet to witness circumstance successfully manipulated through the babbling of ritualistic nonsense to an imaginary deity." -- me (josh)
If god can do anything, can he make a hot dog so big even he can't eat all of it?
No, it isn't mental child abuse; it's the blind leading the blind. As long as religion has been around, it's been swept over the masses so much that those that truly and whole-heartedly believe it don't see it as mental abuse, but simply passing down what they know to be true. With that being said, their information is completely false. However, most people that I grew up with had devout parents that believed in Jesus, God, Joseph Smith, etc. that were very kind and generous people and I believe that those said parents were just attempting to create the same generally good sumaritan attitudes and values in their children that they were brought up with because I'm sure their parents instilled the same types of morality. Of course, there's always the zealot family that teaches their children the darker path of their belief system and taught to treat everyone that doesn't believe what they believe to fear and hate. Now, those kids are being brainwashed and, yes, mentally abused.
Sage,
I would have to disagree with you. NAMBLA members think they are doing good. Obviously, they are not. They are harming children even though they have worked things around in their minds so that they feel their intentions are noble. People who beat on their kids often justify it as teaching them to behave. Again, they are wrong in their assessment of the situation.
I realize that my parents thought they were teaching me good things that would save my soul and help me out later life when teaching me about their version of christianity. And I'm not trying to claim they are horrible people. Your comment about the blind leading the blind does have validity. Still, the outcome for me (and a good percentage of the kids I grew up with) was drug addiction based on an inability to deal with reality as I was taught a basis of life that had nothing to do with reality. I don't think parents should get a pass for being blind.
I don't advocate taking children away from their parents for misguided religious beliefs for simply teaching theism (separate issue from forced marriages, mutilation based on religion, etc. ) , but the teaching of theism is a form of mental abuse that can - and often enough does - have serious negative consequences for the children brought up in such circumstances. Society needs to eventually acknowledge religious instruction as harmful to children in the same manner it has physical violence and outright neglect.
"I am that I am." - Proof that the writers of the bible were beyond stoned.
Uhh, I don't know where NAMBLA came from, but I'm talking about religious households with good, law abiding religious families, not sick pedophiles. I addressed that some households go down the dark path, but that had nothing to do with NAMBLA. NAMBLA is an organization that shouldn't exist, but does and every member responsible for creating it, as well as every member, should be burned and shot on sight for being so lewd and disgusting.
People that discipline their kids are doing the right thing and by "beating" I mean swift punishment for acting like a shit bag or an unrulely monster. My parents used to kick the crap out of me and I turned out to have the discipline and fortitude of a zen master. Now don't go taking what I'm saying out of context; you know the difference between abuse and discipline. Most parents that beat their children don't following any religion; they're just fucked up in the head (not by religion), alcoholics or drug abusers. A very small percentage of religious parents physically abuse their kids in regards to morality and what they think is right and what they see their kids doing as wrong. Usually, they just pray, go to church, ask a priest to consult them or give a bible lesson.
Your claim that bringing up kids with theism more often than not has negative consequences. Such as? Just because they are taught the ways of Catholicism, Christianity, Mormonism or the like doesn't negate a child's ability to see beyond the bullshit. Almost every atheist on these boards was, at one time, religious; myself included. We all come from different upbringings and some of them not so great, but we each opened our minds in some way or another, generally of our own volition, and came to realize what really matters; facts and what is, not what we have faith in. Blame parents for poisoning children's minds with falsities, but realize that those said kids have to create their own paths to a life of true reality.
I wouldn't go as far to say that in every situation it's abuse. But it can lead to it and can create unpleasant reactions from the child. It all really depends, though I find it sick.
*Our world is far more complex than the rigid structure we want to assign to it, and we will probably never fully understand it.*
"Those believers who are sophisticated enough to understand the paradox have found exciting ways to bend logic into pretzel shapes in order to defend the indefensible." - Hamby
Sage,
I brought up NAMBLA to show that even the most horrible of actions can be twisted and justified as good in the human mind. The same with the physical abuse example (which we both know goes beyond spanking) . If the most horrible of actions can be twisted and thought of as good, then surely actions with lesser negative consequences can also be twisted and thought of as good. As I mentioned, I realize that parents - let me clarify here with expanding this to parents beyond just my own - do think they are teaching their children good things. However, this is solely justification within their own minds and is not full assessment of the situation. I hope this helps with any confusion you may have had.
Why don't more people give up religion if it is so easy to turn to reason instead of clinging to faith? Why are they unable to give up religion in the face of reason if doing so is so easy? There is an abuse in lying to your children and misrepresenting what the world is to them as that lying is a dark path. Child abuse is so abhorrent not just for the physical violation upon a child, but also due to the misuse of the trust and innocence of a child.
True, some families go further along the path of abusing a child's trust than others. And I don't claim that those who were brought up in more liberal christian theology are as likely to have such strong reactions upon attaining adulthood as those raised in fundamentalism (which is what I have generally seen) . I do however think that parents need to be held accountable for their decisions. A decision to perpetuate falsehood is not ok. Religious indoctrination is not ok. This needs to be condemned.
"I am that I am." - Proof that the writers of the bible were beyond stoned.
I'm only addressing this part because it's the only real part to address:
Look, it's easier to join the herd than go rogue from the norm. Most people know this as should you. Would you rather go to a store and buy a cake or make a cake yourself? Which is easier? When the majority believes in what is false, the truth becomes a quest.
I want a shirt that says that.
Abuse is a big word and doesn't have an agreed upon application; probably for the best.
Teaching a child that it is propper to make up fanciful answers for questions they don't immediately know the answers to is a shit heal thing to do. Teaching them that some beliefs, certainly the more rediculous, are not to be tested and should just be accepted as tradition only leads them down a path of intellectuall retardation. Whether or not it can be proven to have a negative effect, it's cruel to do to someone that is under your care.
The fact that some parents are just responding to their upbringing is entirely irrelivant. Some parents were raised under the belief that routine beatings were the way to "build character". Does that make their decision to pass on this wisdom right or excusable? Or are they held responsible for their actions if they cause demonstratable harm to the child? The idea of tradition making something reasonable is absurd and merely grasping at an excuse.
That being said, who knows what really constitutes abuse. So few things can actually be demonstrated to have an effect one way or the other on a childs intellectual growth. As far as I can tell we act on the ones that we can demonstrate and just guess on the rest. Maybe we're right most of the time?
You're absolutely right here. That's why I took exception to your previous statement of:
It is just not that easy to assume that people will create their own paths to a life of true reality when they have been indoctrinated with religion. Poisoning a child's mind in such a way is a serious issue and should be called out as such.
"I am that I am." - Proof that the writers of the bible were beyond stoned.
Not abuse:
"Jesus was a great guy, he tought us that we should love each other and never do anything bad to each other. And he loves us. So we should follow his image and be moral and good people."
Abuse:
"Jesus was a great guy, he tought us that we should love each other and never do anything bad to each other. And he loves us. But if you don't accept him as your personal saviour you will burn in hell for eternity.!!!"
Once religious upbringing becomes the dominant force in a childs life (Ie Hassidic jews, jesus campers, etc) ...it crosses the line from awful parenting to mental abuse.
The normal, average, everyday christian, jewish or muslim kid will still probably grow up well enough adjusted that they can cope with life...its the ones who are ingrained with that self righteous indignation to believe that they were fortunate enough to be born into a family who held they keys to heaven, and even worse, believe that *their* beliefs must be unilatterally applied to everyone else who are the victims.
Might I add that the same form of mental abuse occurs on an adult level as well.
www.RichWoodsBlog.com
Yes, it is indeed terrorism, even tho, the terroists do not know what they do.
The term "terrorist" is extremely ambiguous by itself. If you're referring to Islamic and Muslim radicals, well, then they know exactly what they're doing. Even if they are motivated by religion, they're still very aware that they are killing people through violent, and often suicidal, acts. In their culture, training children to one day become a martyr or kill in the name of Allah without bothering to teach them the peaceful methods that Islam is based on is definetely child abuse.
Yeah Sage. I was calling Xain parents brainwashing their kids, "terrorists" to make them think about what they do.
Hey little kid, see this beaten dead man nailed to this cross .... this is an act of god's love to save you, because you were born a foul disgraced sinner, and this life is a test for god to decide when you die, if you go to be forever in perfect heaven, or to be forever tortured in unbelievable pain of burning in the flames of HELL. Good luck little child, you sinner, in this test life .... God is watching you, cause he loves you ....
Religion is Poison ....
Atheism Books.
I think that child abuse is a malicious act, and while there are a few exceptions, teaching theist ways isn't technically considered "mental child abuse" to me. Rather, it's a way for them to subconciously control their children's behaviours by offering a more severe punishment than a spanking: eternal damnation. Now, if I were 4-years-old, and mommy and daddy told me that if I hit my brother, I would rot in flames for eternity- I wouldn't hit my brother anymore. It's about control (whether concious or not) and trying to instill some sense of societal morality in very impressionable people (children). Of course, things often backfire. Though I was raised by devout catholics, I denounced my faith in a higher diety and said saonara to theism.