Do you, as an atheist, consider religious indoctrination to be
child abuse?
...would be, and likely IS outlawed. EXCEPT for religion. Yes, most religion is child abuse. (Magyckme #554)
Noooooo... unless it's religious indoctrination which puts the child
at risk (or leads to risky behavior as an adult). If it requires
beatings, humiliation, unnecessary illness from lack of medical attention or nutrition, segregation from non-believers and their ideas, etc. it
most surely is.
Believing something that's not true is not, in and of itself, child abuse. (Darklady #184)
The problem was, I have a very high I.Q., and not thinking does not come easily to me. I had to go to college to be far enough away from my parents to start thinking properly, but I (obviously) eventually reached the nirvana of atheism. (Atheist Man #1190)
That said, religious indoctrination is nasty. Anyone reading this is, sadly, in a place where wackos are allowed to teach their kids just about anything they want regarding invisible space pixies, and it makes it that much harder for the person so raised to discard the crap and get a handle on the real world.
There are some occasions when we can interject some rationality in individual children's experiences, and its up to us to do so. As long as we live in a world where the dim and ignorant rule, we have to take our opportunities to show alternatives to the foolishness. It does work, at least somewhat. Many children reach a point where they start to question. Being there and ready to help them explore is one of the best ways I've seen to "convert" the occasional potential intelligent Xian.
(Dewey Henize #122)
Like it or not, parents have a great deal of latitude when it comes to instilling ideas in a childs mind. While I think that some ideas are harmful ones, so do others think that some of my ideas are harmful. In
a diversified society, tolerance isn't only a virtue, it is a necessity. The moment we start to strip parents of their right to teach their
children the family religion, we strip ourselves of equivilent rights.
As sad as it makes me to see children infected with such pernicious memes as creationism, or the sort of self-loathing that so many forms of
Christianity make core to their belief, or the outright misogyny of Islam [1], or any of the other vile thoughts that parents put into their kids minds, I would not deny them the right to instruct their children as they wish.
All that I can do is to hope that the children so raised will eventually find their ideas in collision with the real world and that reality will eventually win out. (Andrew Lias)
I hate being lied to. I hate the fact that my parents lied to me. But
lies can be erased by truth. When a parent no longer loves a child, the truth offers little consolation.
So I guess my answer is yes. Indoctrination is abuse. A child's self
esteem is hurt by being forced to believe all those lies. There are
worse forms of abuse though. (Veyanne)
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