Every single religious family, whether they are good or bad, whether they’re teaching their kid science is fake, or homosexuals are bad, or if they’re just teaching them not to hold onto material possessions and show compassion to every person, if they’re being taught a specific religious practice, it’s abuse. You are forcing children who cannot consent to this knowledge to believe cultist fantasies about the universe. It is child abuse pure and simple, if you want to teach your child your beliefs, principles, philosophy, thats fine. But the moment you start teaching them a women gave a virgin birth 2000 years ago, and if you have sex with a man ur going to hell, you’ve just abused your child, potentially ruining their life by destroying the foundation of facts and reasoning they can apply, forcing them to defend their beliefs instead of questioning them. This notion of presuppositionalism needs to stop, your bible isn’t a science book. Stop convincing yourself, your kids, and others it is.
Well, isn’t this gonna be fun . . . who’s making the popcorn?
CMC fnord!
My parents told me that Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny were real as well.
Then later I showed them the Grim Reaper was real.
Preach on my president-impersonating comrade! Rise up against those who teach children things we disagree with! Let us make them pay!
I’m an atheist but I think generic religious teachings can be a useful tool for children to act a little more like responsible little humans, and not wild animals. I’m divorced so I only have so much control over how my children are raised, well basically no control whatsoever, the state really limits good ol’ Dad’s time with his own children.
Anyway my children did attend a private religious school for a while. They were taught science, I don’t recall them really learning about homos being evil or anything. There is no Santa Claus either but most kids grow up ok even though they are being lied to from a young age. Some people are critical thinkers and some are not. If my children want to believe grandma is in heaven right now and not rotting in the ground, I think it’s ok.
When they get a little older, old enough to comprehend my answers, I’ll answer their questions with what I think is the reality of our existence. I was raised in a religious household, but I’ve been an atheist since 8th grade, so my foundation of facts and reason hasn’t been destroyed.
Once people reach a certain age they will come to their own conclusions regardless of what they’ve been taught. From what I read religious belief is falling and atheism is spreading, and I think that is the future, it may not be super rapid but I believe it is happening. I agree religion can lead to ignorance, bigotry, and at times violence but it can also lead to philanthropy, charity, and forgiveness. I don’t think it’s a crisis or child abuse.
No, its not. Just because you may not agree with the beliefs does not make it child abuse to teach them it. Am I to believe billions of people are practicing child abuse based on your opinion? You know this for sure? evidence? or are you so strongly convinced in this that you are putting faith into the idea?
On that note, neither the religious nor the atheists know definitively whether there is a supreme deity/creator nor if the big bang etc actually occurred. All of them are theories and ideas but nobody absolutely knows for sure and without a doubt and to pretend otherwise is just smug and pretentious arrogance. Everybody has faith or belief in something that they don’t fully understand, yet hazard their own wager toward, whether they admit it to themselves or not. It’s okay to not be able to know certain things.
So should it be your way? Should children not be taught religious ideas? “Teach them this because it is what I believe to be true!” seems to be the notion you are presenting because of your dislike of religion. Prove that your theories are better and more valuable to them then, prove without a shadow of a doubt, with no question that your beliefs are correct and theirs are wrong. OR we can let people teach their kids what they want and let them sort it out for themselves when they are older instead of prohibiting a free exchange of ideas from parent to child. It applies to science too. It’s up to the parent, not you (or anyone else).
Oh and before you go and stereotype or make rash assumptions… I am not religious. I am a guy who believes in logic. I made my wager toward science, but cannot fully discount all possibilities because just like everyone else, I do not know FOR SURE and even figured that out for myself even after being raised by my parents to be Catholic.
Sorry for the word salad, tired. Excuse my prose as well if I sound like a dick.
this was one of the few things opalcat and I argued about years ago she was so against her kids being exposed to religion that she went on an epic rant when her mom took the kids to see the VeggieTales movie (and no offense i consider VeggieTales to be not all that religious)
i thnk in the end she calmed down a bit about it
I grew up going to church off and on until i was 12 and I never ran into that type of Christianity you talk about (which seems to me southern-based or based on a single person starting his own church) mainly and i ended up pretty much like pool and agree with him
Ayup, it’s taking longer than we thought.
CMC fnord!
So presumably you as a responsible adult can believe whatever you like, and it’s “fine” to teach your child your beliefs.
You just can’t teach your child any beliefs that the poster Barack Obama believes “destroy the foundation of facts and reasoning they can apply”.
Well, that sure sounds like a workable system in practice.
It’s fine to disagree with it, but calling it a form of abuse devalues abuse. If someone truly believes their religion is true and that not knowing it will cause bad things to happen to someone they love, then teaching them that thing is an act of love, not hate. It is an attempt to protect them from something bad.
Maybe said action is misguided, but that is different than being abusive.
Well now this is a topic we’ve DEFINITELY never discussed here before!
SD Tagline, how creative.
Ayup, the smug arrogance I was speaking of.
Prove either one definitively, with no doubts and absolute certainty. You can lean toward one, for whatever reasons and evidence, but can you absolutely say without a shadow of a doubt it to be absolute.
Cosmic fucking background fucking radiation. Maybe you’re capable of starting with Big Bang - Wikipedia?
NOTHING in science is ‘proven’, EVERYTHING is provisional, there is NO CERTAINTY.
You should also, at least try to, understand what a fucking scientific fucking theory fucking is . . . here’s a clue, IT AIN’T A FUCKING GUESS!
CMC fnord!
This is all easily resolved by removing all kids from their parents, and educating them in State-run secular Juvinariums.
What a Plucky Modern Realm that would be!
How horrible, the only real way to avoid parental and adult indocking is to free-range the children.
Is that what they’re calling it these days? 
My teaching my kids about Jesus won’t even hit the top 10 of ways I’ve abused my children. Dad jokes; aiding belief in Santa Claus for a few years; waking them up every Friday for school with Rebecca Blacks “Friday” blaring from my phone; deliberately wearing socks with sandals when their friends come over; drinking alcohol in front of them; dancing (very poorly) like a Kpop idol while their aforementioned friends are there; physically dragging them out of Target when they’re having a toddler meltdown; making pretend “grown up sexy time” noises whenever they knock on our bedroom door (now that they’re teens), starting to (but stopping short of actually) reliving their most embarrassing moments in their toddlerdom just to remind them; running around Universal Studios yelling “I want to go to go on this ride! No, I want a Chocolate Frog! I want to go on this ride! I want some pumpkin juice!!!” and always running right back to them, taking a selfie of myself (by accident, of course) every single time I take a picture of them, and posting about all of those on a message board will certainly scar them much worse.
Teaching of religion isn’t abuse necessarily, but it most definitely normalizes the most common vector of abuse. All for unproven benefits no less.
But hey, I’m sure kids are learning that evolution is false and pernicious, the earth is a disk under a glass dome, Leviticus 18:20, and the mark of Ham from secular sources.
No bible needed for those.
Mmmmmmm…Ham.
Is this your way of projecting how you were raised?
Look, kids believe in magic and fairy tales, regardless of their home education. Parents give them stories about what happens if they don’t obey, and their imaginations take it from there. They eventually replace fantasy with reality when they have to grow up and support themselves. Their life lessons involve learning how to thrive in whatever environment they find themselves in, and Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy become irrelevant. Parents also have Sunday school and Bible camps as free means to mind their children when they’re not in school. Like it or not, religions provide social and civil structure that parents aren’t always able to provide.
Give kids credit for their ability to grow and suss out life’s mysteries for themselves. You did, didn’t you?
Your posts are adult abuse.