Philosophy Discussion Forums

Xris wrote: So if you observed bruises without known causes you would not suspect abuse. You do not need to know how they enforce their indoctrination to believe they have been.

What are you talking about?

Jjpregler wrote:
What are you talking about?

If you in your previous job observed bruises on a child you would never suspect abuse? If you see someone who has obviously been indoctrinated you would want to know how before you could comment?

[quote="eyesofastranger"] My opinion only. History says the man Jesus was an unremarkable brother of a preacher named James. [quote]

Jesus, Unremarkable brother of a preacher named James? Unremarkable? Really? Guess he showed his brother as it is the name and person of Jesus the world recognizes. It took Jesus to make the golden rule a household idea.

Xris wrote: If you in your previous job observed bruises on a child you would never suspect abuse? If you see someone who has obviously been indoctrinated you would want to know how before you could comment?

Yes, because indoctrination usually does not cause bruising.

Jjpregler wrote:
Yes, because indoctrination usually does not cause bruising.

There is such a thing as emotional bruising.

Jjpregler wrote:
Yes, because indoctrination usually does not cause bruising.

So you need physical evidence before you can accept abuse?

Xris wrote: ...There is no historic reference of witches before christianity implemented the biblical demand. Witches have never existed.

I don't s'pose there's any evidence for this, but there must be some basis for all these lordly injunctions. That thou shall not suffer a witch to live implies that suffering witches to live was something that happened & something that the Lord did not condone.

Xris wrote: So you need physical evidence before you can accept abuse?

Yeah, imaginary evidence is usualy thrown out.

-- Updated July 10th, 2012, 12:24 pm to add the following --

Misty wrote:
There is such a thing as emotional bruising.

I know, but his responses have been so weak, I just don't know how to respond ot him on an intellectual level any more. He had something personal happen to him, so he is projecting that onto every single man, woman, and child to ever hear the word religion and there is no real way to debate with someone so closed minded. He hasn't given one shred of evidence in 11 pages of thread here but continues to just try to ram his conclusion without any support.

Jjpregler wrote:
Yeah, imaginary evidence is usualy thrown out.

-- Updated July 10th, 2012, 12:24 pm to add the following --



I know, but his responses have been so weak, I just don't know how to respond ot him on an intellectual level any more. He had something personal happen to him, so he is projecting that onto every single man, woman, and child to ever hear the word religion and there is no real way to debate with someone so closed minded. He hasn't given one shred of evidence in 11 pages of thread here but continues to just try to ram his conclusion without any support.

What a strange response. You actualy believe the only abuse that is possible is physical. The consensus of opinion expressed here is that certain religous indoctrination is abusive. It is you that has failed to argue that religous indoctrination is not abusive.

“Indoctrinate: To instruct in doctrines, principles, or systems of belief; especially, to teach partisan or sectarian dogmas.”

Wherein the abuse (I wonder)? Is it the “indoctrination” that is “abusive”? Or is it the religion? Is instructing young people about the doctrines of proper grammar, the doctrine of liberty, or the principles of physics “abusive”?

Everyone (I think) grants that certain METHODS of indoctrination are abusive. Many such methods had honored support– like bashing kids over the knuckles with a ruler if they were incompletely “indoctrinated” as to the proper spelling of “epitome”. Everyone also admits that both secular and religious educators have used abusive methods. However, it seems that nobody who supports the education of the young could oppose indoctrination in and of it self – after all the Latin root “doctrina” means “teaching”.

One good thing about education in general is that many of us think that the MORE educated we become, the closer we approach the truth. Learning things just isn’t very dangerous –the danger lies in NOT learning things. That’s why I’ll grant that although TEACHING kids religion isn’t abusive at all, preventing them from learning about Evolution or Communism or Islam is, if not exactly “abusive”, at least a bad thing.

So, Xris, I can’t go along with you in your book-burning schemes. If parents want to read their children “The Littlest Angel”, or “The Selfish Giant”, or “Genesis”, far be it from me to rip the books from their hands to be cast on the bonfire. Similarly, if Marxist parents give their kids “The Manifesto” to read, I may mutter “tut, tut” to myself, but I won’t accuse them of “abuse”. Flat Earthers may instruct their children in nonsense, UFO-believers may teach of alien kidnappings, and Particle Physicists may indoctrinate their sons and daughters in the Higgs Boson theory, but that does not make any of them child abusers.

Replying to the main topic here, I absolutely think it can be considered abuse. It all depends on the circumstances though. If a child is given the option to believe whatever they want and they choose religion it's honestly their own stupidity. I was raised to believe in god and I feel that was really unfair of my parents, even though we didn't have a fundamentalist view of the Bible I was never really told I could believe whatever I wanted. Inevitably the child is going to believe whatever the parents tell them, they're gullible and don't question their beliefs. However when I started to I was always told "that's the devil getting in your mind". It's stupid answers like that that made me atheist. However I'm afraid not everyone sees it the same way rational people do. That's not even their fault, they were raises that way. It all goes back to the childhood.

Xris wrote: What a strange response. You actualy believe the only abuse that is possible is physical. The consensus of opinion expressed here is that certain religous indoctrination is abusive. It is you that has failed to argue that religous indoctrination is not abusive.

I have given numerous example of indoctrination per se not being abuse. I ahve already conceded that there are certain circumstances of indoctrination methods that are considered abuse, bu5t it is the method itself and not the indoctrination that made it abuse.

And I never ever ever said that the only abuse is physical. Edited out.

Jjpregler wrote:
I have given numerous example of indoctrination per se not being abuse. I ahve already conceded that there are certain circumstances of indoctrination methods that are considered abuse, bu5t it is the method itself and not the indoctrination that made it abuse.

And I never ever ever said that the only abuse is physical. Edited out.

I'd call it abuse if you're not giving the child a choice. It's mind control, because they're so gullible.

Don't even say that religion does no harm because stats say the exact opposite; in places like Denmark and Japan - the biggest atheist countries in the world - they have the lowest rape, teen pregnancy, abortion and murder rate vs religious countries.

Sure religion has some benefits. Community, internal strength, helping those in need. But there isn't one benefit that is exclusive to religion - meaning every benefit gained from religion, you can get from atheist/secular communities as well. Not to mention leave out all the harm.

Eyes of a Stranger wrote:

With as open a mind as I can muster I do feel teaching religion to children is abusive. With a woman as open minded as Belinda being confused about such a simple issue I offer as proof.

But I said only that I was maybe prejudiced about Jesus being a sage. I am not prejudiced regarding not teaching religion to children. I maintain that if teaching about Gentle Jesus to young children is done, then it should be put into the perspective of teaching about other good men in stories, fairy tales, songs and history, and preferably world wide as much as is consonant with the main 'goodness' precepts of our culture. This ethics teaching would exclude any teaching that Jesus or anyone else really went to Heaven or comes alive again in churches and so on. I.e. the teaching should exclude supernatural or superstitious material, and should also exclude the stuff about Jahwei doing horrible things.And foreskins

A friend of mine lives in a country village where the church is an ancient one and the church related activities inspire a lot of community feeling . My friend is not at all versed in theology or the ins and outs of believing and she sends her three children to church because of the community feeling attached to the church. Where the church has influence it is difficult if not impossible for local people to resist it, even if they want to do so.

I think that at the early age of four or five an intelligent child would be ready to tell the difference between fable and history in a general sort of way. The historicity of Jesus of the Gospels is too shaky for Jesus of the Gospels to be taught as history to trusting young children, or to gullible adults. There was one C of E vicar, Anthony Freeman, who was sacked I gather because he denied the nonsensical supernaturalism that still bedevils Christianity.

Rituals in any religious sect bind communities together, and the goodness or badness of rituals depends entirely upon the meanings attached to them, and the nature of the rituals themselves. I mean I would not ever condone live sacrifices even if the meanings of them were good. Some meanings are bad, some good. Some communities are bad, some good. Young children are trained to observe rituals, rather than indoctrinated or educated into them.

Recoil wrote: I'd call it abuse if you're not giving the child a choice. It's mind control, because they're so gullible.

Don't even say that religion does no harm because stats say the exact opposite; in places like Denmark and Japan - the biggest atheist countries in the world - they have the lowest rape, teen pregnancy, abortion and murder rate vs religious countries.

Sure religion has some benefits. Community, internal strength, helping those in need. But there isn't one benefit that is exclusive to religion - meaning every benefit gained from religion, you can get from atheist/secular communities as well. Not to mention leave out all the harm.

I'm not sure if you read the whole thread or not, but let me recap my argument. in short:

• 1) I worked in the child welfare field for 10 years prosecuting cases of child abuse;
• 2) Child abuse is a legal term with a specific legal definition being severe maltreatment of a child;
• 3) Indoctrination is wrong, however, does not rise to the level of severe maltreatment, as currently defined at law;
• 4) Redefining the current legal defintion to include indoctrination will be hard and such a stretch of the defintion as to make it pointless.

While several examples of indoctrination can be shown to be meeting the defition of abuse, not all examples can be shown. In fact some examples of indoctrination can be shown to be positive for a child (other than having a world view based on fantasy). There was a study conducted by the University of North Carolina that showed that children involved in religion had lower incidence of certain negative behaviors that were collected. Those behaviors included in the study were fighting, drug use, alcohol abuse, drug dealing, and several other criminal acts.

If the Bible were truth, then simply teaching a child the concepts of the bible would not be considered abuse. Some methods can be pretty shocking though, but that is another argument. The argument at debate here is whether indoctrination in all cases is abuse. What would make indoctrination wrong then that if true it would not be abuse, but if false it is abuse? The falsehood would then make it abuse. Then you would have to include every falsehood stated by a parent as abuse then. Does telling your child about Santa rise to the level of abuse? What about the easter bunny or tooth fairy? What about the parents who taught their children in the middle ages that the earth was flat. What if I teach my son e=MC2 and some physics whiz proves it wrong tomorrow? Did I abuse my son?

As I already stated in this debate, indoctrination is wrong. Children should not be taught mythology as truth. But does teaching a child religion rise to the level of abuse? There is not enough supporting evidence at this time to indicate damage to a child to support changing the legal term to include indoctrination in the defnition of severe maltratment to warrant the change.

I also have to take issue with the original progenitor of this argument: Richard Dawkins. He was self admittedly sexually abused by a priest as a child. This leads me to beleive that his judgment in this issue may be too close to home and a little more emotionally charged than logically derived.

Then I ask why the need to characterize it as abuse. To me it is a simple word game used often to propagandize an enemy or issue. It just goes for shock value. To me it is more logical to simply classify it as wrong and debate the issues why indoctrination is wrong without going for the shock value and cheap parlor tricks of politics in a philosophy discussion.