Philosophy Discussion Forums

Religion is child abuse in a way that you don't leave a child a free decision. It's indoctrination, forcing the local believes onto the child.A child doesn't have the ability to differenciate from right or wrong, or to have the courage to tell their parents that they don't like the believes of their parents or friends to be forced on them ,in the end , let your children develope their own oppinions .

As a general rule I want to put a conclusive statment that, there is a wise social engineer /THE INFINITE INTELIGENCE/ who devised religions to serve the purpose that they are best at. Hence, the wise man's solution will never fail to serve its intended goal. There are perceptive hierarchies which produce illusion in the immidiate terms but with opposite result in the optimal perspective. Some times we may see things which they may seem curse but they are actually blessings and vicevesa. The same is true as to the notion of religion abusing.

Grecorivera5150 wrote:Can religion be considered a form of child abuse??

Yes, if the beliefs and teaching methods of the parent are radical enough, then certainly it could be considered child abuse... but this is certainly no less true for parents who teach atheism.

Grecorivera5150 wrote:The use of fear tactics and imposed guilt on a young mind in a coercive way can have debilitating affects.

There does seem to be some truth to this statement. Hollywood movies portray the myth that serial killers are highly oversexed types, with Porn photos on the wall, etc. The truth is pretty much just the opposite. They may think about sex a lot, but if so they were probably raised in a very strict family where any discussion or expression of sexual desires was strictly taboo. As adults, they are conflicted. Torn between the guilt of wanting sex and the belief that they are doing wrong--and killing is (basically) the way they obtain sexual gratification.

This, of course, is a generalization and an oversimplification... But it tends to be a universal psychological phenomena that we see repeated over and over in many different ways. For example, radical women feminist who (like Andrea Dworkin and Catherine MacKinnon) promote censorship to a radical degree. Women like them write books portraying the pornography they oppose to demonstrate what people should not be exposed to. Some of these radical censorship feminist have been known to spend many days using microscopes to search the pictures in school text for subliminal (i.e. microscopic) images of pornograpphy--which they claim to find imbedded in the pictures. In other words, they use the excuse of what they claim to abhor, to satisfy their need to obsess about sex.

Similarly, radical Muslims practice a form of religion that places severe taboos on sexual practices--and in much the same way, they use these taboos as an excuse to do great evil against those they perceive as promoting these practices.

So yes, there are many ways in which out-of-control... irrational and immoral religious beliefs and behavior can cause deviant behavior, of various kinds.

On the other hand, it is also true that teaching a child to feel guilt when they act 'badly' is a valuable tool for teaching them to be good citizens. When I was younger, I used to steal things on a fairly regular basis. One day I saw a GI Joe doll in someone's back yard and I took it home with me. When my mother saw it she demanded to know where I got it, and she took me to return it and appologize. It's a lesson I've never forgotten, and I've never stolen since.

Now, I'm certainly not suggesting that athiests parents are incapable of doing the same thing my mother did--and thus teaching the same lesson without a religious framework--however, religion does provide an organized way of instilling social values into a child. And learning these social values is (essentially) the process of building the child's conscience.

Among poor people, the biggest factor that determines the future welfare of the child (whether they'll stay on welfare... or end up in prison) is probably whether or not they have a father who lives in the home and actively participates in raising them. But this statistic also appears to be tied to how religious the parents (particularly the mother) is.

For example, consider the following Princton study:

blog.heritage.org/2012/05/01/family-fac ... ell-being/...study finds that mothers’ religious attendance was associated with lower risk of displaying aggressive and delinquency behaviors among five-year-olds. Compared to no religious attendance, even a moderate level of attendance (e.g., several times a year on average) was associated with reduced risk of behavioral problems in children.

Moreover, single mothers’ religious attendance was also linked to their being more involved in their children’s lives, more support from the children’s fathers, less parenting stress, and lower likelihood of using corporal punishment.

Given findings such as these, I think it's reasonably safe to assume that there is a direct correlation between an individual's upbringing (degree of parent's religious attitudes) and the likelihood that the child will end up in prison--or even just in a bad job, or no job.

Given this, I think it is quite clear that a child would have far more grounds for claiming child abuse against a parent who raised them as an athiest than they would against a parent who raised them with a religious background.

Grecorivera5150 wrote: Throw in familial pressure to conform on top of the emotional coercion and you have a potential recipe for massive amounts of existential angst during critical years of human development.

This is not totally without merit. I've long believed that it isn't (sexual) abuse of children that causes the most damage in such cases, but rather the child's perception that what they've done (or been forced to do) is wrong. In other words, it is the media's obsession with the utter wrongness of child abuse that causes the child the MOST damage, because they see that and are negatively affected by it. Years ago, children often got married by the time they were 13--and I strongly suspect that they generally suffered no significant psychological difficulties because they had sex that young. It was a perfectly natural and socially acceptable thing to do.

The important thing to understand, however, is that this same "learning" process that wracks sexually abused children with guilt is the same "learning" process that tends to prevent a child from committing crimes in general. Traditions (including religious ones) are the social glue that holds a society together and keeps it strong, because a society that has a strong religiously based moral compass is one where most of the children have developed (i.e. learned to have) a strong conscience... which tends to prevent them from doing wrong. When that same society looses that moral compass, social rot creeps in, and the society inevitably becomes more and more corrupt.

It's not that an atheist CAN'T have a strong moral fiber, or that a religious person can't developed a warped and twisted one... but on average, the statistics favor those who have religion in their lives to guide them.

-- Updated Tue Jul 03, 2012 5:54 pm to add the following --

Tyler Durden wrote:Religion is child abuse in a way that you don't leave a child a free decision. It's indoctrination, forcing the local believes onto the child.A child doesn't have the ability to differenciate from right or wrong, or to have the courage to tell their parents that they don't like the believes of their parents or friends to be forced on them ,in the end , let your children develope their own oppinions .

This doesn't make a lot of sense. How many children do you know who would choose to go to school, if given the choice? So is it child abuse to force a child to go to school?

How many children would choose to brush their teeth, or take a bath? Is it abuse to force them to do these things? Or to make them eat their vegetables, and other healthy foods? Is it abuse to make them wear a coat when it's cold and snowy outside? Is it abuse to make them stop hitting their little brother or sister?

You yourself exposed the fallicy in your own logic when you said, "A child doesn't have the ability to differentiate between right and wrong." This is something they need to develop through the guidiance of parents, teachers, society, religion and so forth. And organized religion tends to be one of the more effective means of instilling this guidiance.

Religion is child abuse? Given the incredible variety of religious sects and religious inculcation methods, the claim appears at first blush to be a sweeping over-generalization. To name one of countless examples, I believe that there may be a difference between teaching a child to say the "God is Great" prayer before meals on one hand and "marrying" a twelve year-old girl to a sixty year-old prophet on the other.

Another thing: where is the empirical data on this thread? Has anyone here named a meta-analysis of peer-reviewed studies published in nationally recognized social science journals that suggests that religious inculcation, in all its forms, creates the same symptoms in children that are created by other caretaker behaviors that are uncontroversially classified as child abuse?

If not, then I'm afraid that the "religion = child abuse" claim remains undefended in this forum.

Antone wrote:This doesn't make a lot of sense. How many children do you know who would choose to go to school, if given the choice? So is it child abuse to force a child to go to school?

How many children would choose to brush their teeth, or take a bath? Is it abuse to force them to do these things? Or to make them eat their vegetables, and other healthy foods? Is it abuse to make them wear a coat when it's cold and snowy outside? Is it abuse to make them stop hitting their little brother or sister?

You yourself exposed the fallicy in your own logic when you said, "A child doesn't have the ability to differentiate between right and wrong." This is something they need to develop through the guidiance of parents, teachers, society, religion and so forth. And organized religion tends to be one of the more effective means of instilling this guidiance.

You are comparing brushing your teeth to something that has a deep impact on billions of peoples life, most of them indoctrinated from their childhood on , I am sorry if you have different believes, but in my oppinion religion is the worst way to raise a child with ideals and morals etc. , simply because it's just giving the morals and ideals of the specific religion and branding them as absolutely right, which is programed to cause conflict in the future, of course there is basic values that are important for us to live together , but one simply doesn't need religion to aquire and learn those , all you need is common sense.

I agree with everyone who says that teaching children religion is wrong. You should not indoctrinate children. they would be better off in learning ciritcal thinking than religion. However, still no one has given any evidence that it is child abuse. And "abuse of power" used by Xris is not child abuse. Child abuse is severe maltreatment of a child. How is religion severe maltreatment?

Remember this is philosophy. It demands and requires logic, evidence and coherent arguments. Not feelings, emotions and misapplied conclusions. Just because it is wrong, does not make it abuse, or every mistaken idea by a parent would be abuse. Just because there may be better ways, does not make it abuse or most parents would be defined as an abuser.

Sure I already conceded that some methods of hard indoctrination may rise to child abuse, but you cannot show that those methods are the rule and in fact, soft indoctrination hardly differs in the ways that teacheers teach children any other subject.

If the new members to this topic have not read the entire thread before answering, please go back, you will see that my work history included 10 years working in a City Solicitor Office in the HUman Services Department. All we did was try cases of child abuse. I have seen thousands upon thousands of cases of real abuse. Attempting to bundle religion into that defintion is not only a joke, but it is pretty much an insult to the millions of children who are really abused each year.

Jj why are you supposing abuse has to be how you define abuse? I have no doubt that certain obvious abuse requires immediate and proactive attention. This is not the topic of debate as you may have noticed. This topic is debating the consideration that religious indoctrination could be called abuse. If you do not believe it is not on the same level as the abuse you have witnessed I could possible agree for certain specified examples but not all. A clip around the ear is not the same as a brutal beating. A pat on the knee is not the same as rape. A carol at Christmas is not the same as bible reading lessons for a three year old.

The treatment of children in certain African countries when they are accused of being witches is one obvious example of the abuse of children through religion.

Being accused of being a witch is an abuse by the accusers NOT by those who taught the children the lessons. This is an example of intolerance. Is "Rederic" suggesting that the witch hunters are acting appropriately?

One rather trustworthy, certainly successful and fruitful, authority, Yeshua, the One whose enemies call Jesus, asserted that causing a child that believed in Him to stumble was such severe child abuse that the abuser would get a most weighty judgment by God, one that they would be very unlikely to escape. (mill-stone around the neck, then thrown into deep water, was used as an analogy.) Now, He believed that He was truth itself, and was pointing to the great evil of causing children hoping and believing in truth to stumble and fall for a lie. Since, as almost all philosophy agrees, almost all persons who do not make an effort to get their lives examined are dishonest, usually duped, self-deceiving fools, it must happen a lot that such fools unknowingly teach their children lies, and steer them away from the truth. In His view, this was the essence of child abuse, punishable by law.

Confusing religion and spirituality, especially the reasonable idea that this universe is inhabited by spiritual beings, God, and lying demons, is the main way children are so mislead. Most I know rather expect and certainly find it easy to believe that the world is haunted, and that prayers to a loving God effectively reduce the negative consequences of this haunting.

And, as i have noted elsewhere, 3000 years of philosophy and epistemology have proved beyond reasonable doubt that putative spiritual ideas are in fact quite real. They have also proved, though, that hypocritical religion is a great evil, insinuating lies into every heart that is much exposed to them. "Pure and undefiled religion" in truth, is a habit of doing good to the down-trodden and unprotected, and persistence in getting one's own life regularly examined. All the other doctrinal, liturgical stuff is, as claimed here, child abuse.

Xris wrote:Jj why are you supposing abuse has to be how you define abuse

Because it is a legal term with a very specific legal defintion. It would be as idiotic if you tried to redefine murder. Just because you don't like the way a person passes does not give you the right to redefine murder to make a persons passing murder because you don't like the circumstances or outcome. It is the same with religion. You cannot redefine the legal term because you don't like it.

Then the argument should shift to should the legal term be redefined to include religion to fit within the definition, for which many persons here gave insightful answers as to many good reasons why that would not be just, as you cannot simply fit all cases of religion into a child abuse defintion without the defintion losing all meaning.

Plan and simple, many are raised in religion and do not suffer any ill effects of religion. Many overcome their teaching. Many do not, but even in a very large majority of those who do not overcome their indoctrination there is absolutely zero evidence that indoctrination has severely harmed them in any way.

Antone wrote:

Tyler Durden wrote:Religion is child abuse in a way that you don't leave a child a free decision. It's indoctrination, forcing the local believes onto the child.A child doesn't have the ability to differenciate from right or wrong, or to have the courage to tell their parents that they don't like the believes of their parents or friends to be forced on them ,in the end , let your children develope their own oppinions .

This doesn't make a lot of sense. How many children do you know who would choose to go to school, if given the choice? So is it child abuse to force a child to go to school?

How many children would choose to brush their teeth, or take a bath? Is it abuse to force them to do these things? Or to make them eat their vegetables, and other healthy foods? Is it abuse to make them wear a coat when it's cold and snowy outside? Is it abuse to make them stop hitting their little brother or sister?

You yourself exposed the fallicy in your own logic when you said, "A child doesn't have the ability to differentiate between right and wrong." This is something they need to develop through the guidiance of parents, teachers, society, religion and so forth. And organized religion tends to be one of the more effective means of instilling this guidiance

Tyler Durden is right that to teach a child who cannot have mature judgement the belief set of some religion or other, is indoctrination. Education, which a child will be exposed to in any good school, teaches a child how to discriminate between bad beliefs and good beliefs. Religious instruction by contrast, teaches a child not to question the religious authority whichever one that may be.

Teaching a child simple habits of hygiene is generally good because good modern hygiene is founded upon scientific principles. However some hygienic practises have been found to be bad for the child so the wise parent and teacher chooses very carefully how the child is to be trained in care of skin,teeth, nutrition etc..

The wise parent will not train the child to think that authorities including religious authorities, are always correct. The wise parent of teacher will always have an eye to the time when the child is old enough to make her own decisions . An organised religion will often provide money and facilities for education. This is good, of itself. However the organised religion should never indoctrinate the child into some specific world view but should liberally educate the child at all times.Liberal education includes moral education , and moral education should not be and need not be deliberately linked to any specific religious sect.

It is possible to be a "wise parent" etc., and "educate" a child to question everything - while simultaneously imparting a value system (including religion) to that child. I know that because that is how I am raising my child. For those of you who want to now arrest me for "child abuse" please contact the site administrator to track down my IP address. For those more interested in serious "philosophical" debate please ask the site administrator (Scott) to intervene and put an end to this silly conversation!

I think that perhaps Schaps should discriminate between morality and science.Much of what passes for religion is simply bad science. Much else that is considered to be religion is immoral, such as indoctrination of minors and other dependants.

I guess that Schaps is teaching Christianity to his child, and I view this with suspicion because Christianity, unless liberal in views and application,as Quakers and Unitarians, has been a force for bad as compared with secular morality.

"Belinda"- wrong on all your assumptions. Finally ( before I remove myself from this conversation) it is becoming increasingly obvious that there is very little if any distinction between "science" and the essence of religious spiritual thoughts when both of those disciplines are explored to the ultimate levels of human understanding. Also, what many call "secular morality" as epitomised by such "experts" as Hitler and his associates has certainly NOT proven to be better than "religious" morals/ethics. If however, there are those here who are of the opinion that nazi morality is better than most "religious" morality- then I am in the wrong place at the wrong time and shall gracefully exit stage.