# Religious indoctrination is child abuse. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [November 26, 2019, 6:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-indoctrination-is-child-abuse/844001 "2019-11-26T06:31:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2019, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-indoctrination-is-child-abuse/844001/101 "2019-11-30T19:00:28Z")
> [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > Yeah, probably not possible for any quote to perfectly encapsulate the concept and “ideology” can stand in for “religion” more accurately. (but that’s not quite as elegant). Of course many of the most pernicious ideologies end up indistinguishable from religions, the totalitarianism, the edicts, the appeal to texts, the appeal to infallibility, the mob mentality etc. This, I think, is a crucial point. Human beings have an enormously strong impulse towards identification with their group; there are very few other drives that override it, really. And the way groups cohere is through a set of rules, beliefs, ways of dressing, eating, marriage, burial, and all that, down to what you do with fingernail parings. For many probably most people, that is exactly what religion is – a code of behavior which you only need follow, to have a tribe. I think belonging to a group is considerably more primal than religion. ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2019, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-indoctrination-is-child-abuse/844001/102 "2019-11-30T20:16:47Z")
> [@Ulfreida](#): > > I think belonging to a group is considerably more primal than religion. I suspect you are right and I suspect there is a very wibbly-wobbly grey line between “tribe” and “religion” ---
**Author:** ![Esprise\_Me](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/esprise_me/32/2947_2.png) [@Esprise\_Me](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Esprise_Me)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2019, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-indoctrination-is-child-abuse/844001/103 "2019-11-30T22:25:39Z")
Agreed. And the human desire to belong and the willingness to conform to social norms in order to belong can be used to manipulate people into doing good or bad things they otherwise might not do. But not indoctrinating your children into your religion doesn’t inoculate them from that susceptibility. ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2019, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-indoctrination-is-child-abuse/844001/104 "2019-12-01T16:10:55Z")
> [@Esprise\_Me](#): > > Agreed. And the human desire to belong and the willingness to conform to social norms in order to belong can be used to manipulate people into doing good or bad things they otherwise might not do. But not indoctrinating your children into your religion doesn’t inoculate them from that susceptibility. Absolutely, plenty of non-religious people will fall for many other flavours of bullshit. The true innoculation comes from being taught critical thinking skills, something like Sagan’s [“baloney detection kit”](https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/01/03/baloney-detection-kit-carl-sagan/) ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2019, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-indoctrination-is-child-abuse/844001/105 "2019-12-01T18:01:42Z")
Is religious indoctrination child abuse? _IT DEPENDS ON THE KIND OF INDOCTRINATION_ Some indoctrination IS abuse. Don’t try to deny it. Constantly telling small children that God is always watching and judging, and that they are going to Hell if they fuck up is abuse. Keeping them locked into the group and not letting the associate with others like a cult (or the Jehovah Witnesses do) and creating a paranoid “us vs them” world is abuse. Telling a gay kid (who didn’t get to choose that) he/she is going to Hell is abuse. Catholic priests raping little girls and boys, and then forcing them to keep silent - and then later saying that if they do talk or turn out to be gay that they are going to Hell is abuse. Telling them that ALL of life is a test or warzone and they must resist every little pleasure (Puritanical) is abuse. Teaching them that infidels and nonbelievers want to destroy them and so they must wage war/crusade/jihad/whatthefuckever is abuse. The major religions at their core, if you strip away the other bullshit, teach BE KIND BE GENEROUS DO THE RIGHT THING DON’T BE AN ASSHOLE. THAT is the part that seems to be getting left out. There are REASONS people are taught at a very young age to accept all sorts of stupid false shit as “faith”. They are all bad reasons, only to ensure blind unquestioning obedience. Any religion or philosophy that can not withstand questioning does not deserve to exist. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-indoctrination-is-child-abuse/844001.md?page=5)