You may have noted, on these boards, my distaste for religion. A lot of you have said things like 'Religion does good things too.' or 'Not all people who are religious do bad things, it's just a fringe minority'.
Well - in this multi-part series of threads I will attempt to explain the insidious ways in which religion causes a huge amount of people to abuse themselves and their friends, family and children and demonstrate the harm caused by their actions and beliefs to themselves, others and society as a whole. Not just a few 'fringe members' but the inherent properties and ideas contained within religions and the common themes that run through them that cause people to commit this abuse when they otherwise may very well not.
Hopefully at the end of this you will at least understand my hardline stance on religion - if not agree with it. A lot of this will focus on Christian beliefs as those are the ones I know the most about but they also apply to similar authoritarian, guilt based religions such as Judaism, Islam and even a large majority of the non Judeo-Christian belief systems.

I'll be doing this over several threads in order to make one point and then allow people to address and discuss it instead of having one convoluted topic which covers all the points I wish to make and ends with no constructive discussion about any or a long argument over a single point.



Childhood indoctrination into authoritarian, guilt based religions is child abuse -




Emotional abuse

The story of Jesus' tortuous death is integral to christianity in general. One of the first things an indoctrinated child is taught is that he went through all of this to pay for their indiscretions. Authoritarion, fundamentalist parents will go as far as telling their children that they are sinners. That they are bad people. That Jesus suffered and died because they are a bad person.
Children are not bad people, most of them anyway, we all make mistakes. Everyone lies, most people have stolen something but this doesn't mean you are inherently evil. The way Christianity works is to instill guilt into people, disproportionate guilt for the crimes they have committed. The image of christ's broken and battered body hanging on the cross is everywhere to remind people of how he died for their evil acts. This is not something a child should have to think about. Would you tell your children in graphic detail of anyone else's death? Would you then tell them that it was their fault?

You are broken and need to be fixed - only god can do that.

Along with this idea of their inherent 'badness' comes the constant reminder that they are broken. That they are not good enough. That they must seek and find god else they cannot change and moreover even if they do find god they will never be good enough for god. In atheist circles this is often jokingly referred to as convincing someone they have a disease and then offering them the watered down version of the cure. The cure that they must come back and get every Sunday or else. Unfortunately this is no joke. This is really what people do to children by indoctrinating them - by infecting them with the disease of Christianity.

Developmental abuse

Fundamentalist and especially creationist religion destroys people's ability to think critically and instills in them a distrust of scientists and 'outsiders' and complete unquestioning dependency on religious authority figures. From an early age they are taught to mistrust or even outright dismiss anything that goes against what they are taught - along with this comes the inability to change their ideas or opinions and always act upon their preconceptions regardless of the evidence presented to them. Not only does this culture of unquestioning loyalty to religious authority figures make people extremely open to manipulation it also opens the door for actual physical abuse that is ignored or covered up by people who are indoctrinated into revering these authority figures, though admittedly not a common occurrence it is statistically significantly more likely that an abused child's abuser in the US will be a christian authority figure, which brings me to my next topic in this thread -

Sexual and psychosexual abuse

Obviously we've already covered the heirarchical structures that allow for the physical abuse and sexual abuse of children to take place and i could go into the proliferation of this type of thing within the catholic church especially but also in other churches and religions (Islam also being very guilty in this area) but what I really want to talk about are the common themes that induce psychosexual trauma in developing children. I am big on lgbt rights and I could go on for quite some time about the guilt and fear associated with being born gay into a christian environment but we've covered a lot of it in the conversion therapy threads already.

What people may not realise is that there is also a huge culture of shame attached to any sexual activity within religion. Religions are obsessed with sex. you can't have it before marriage, you can't masturbate, you can't even look upon a woman with lust in your heart without feeling guilty for it. Unfortunately for people born into these religious families and societies sexuality is a very pervasive part of the human experience and for children going through puberty this is especially true. There's all these new feelings and you can't speak about them. They are wrong and shameful. This kind of sexual repression is extremely unhealthy and while I can see the value in not being overly promiscuous children still need to talk about sex. There is nothing wrong with looking at a girl and thinking 'wow, she's hot' but as a Christian this may bring on feelings of guilt and shame and reinforce the other ideas of being an awful person and your dependance on these religious authority figures that can 'save' you from your evil thoughts and deeds.

In truth you are likely never going to stop young boys masturbating or looking at girls unless you terrify them with tales of eternal torture enough that they are scared of their own sexuality which brings me to my final point -

Terrorism

One of the dictionary definitions of terrorism is -

Terrorism
1. a method of government or of resisting government involving domination or coercion by various forms of intimidation

What else is religion other than a method of governing people through fear? 'You will suffer eternal torture if you don't repeatedly reaffirm your devotion to your god, if you don't strive to attain these impossible standards set by religion.' For children and for the deeply indoctrinated 'hell' is a very real thing... even some of those who have stopped believing still have nightmares of being in hell for rejecting their religion. They know this is illogical but they have developed a phobia from a young age when they were abused by their parents and their communities and their churches and it positively changes their brain chemistry to the point where even though they know it's not logical they are still haunted by this constant terror. I'll talk about this a lot more in my next thread on this subject which will be on religious trauma syndrome as a means of demonstrating the actual psychological harm that religion does.

For now the topic is religious indoctrination of children being child abuse.



I've outlined why I believe it is and though there are more details that I could give i'd like to hear others' thoughts on this as well.

This post was edited by Scaly on Jan 21 2015 09:45am

Out of all the bullshit spewed in your post, I'll explain one gem that actually has merit. Guilt and shame.

I grew up as a Catholic, and I would agree that they bestow a fair amount of guilt and shame into the psyche of their kids. Christians in general need to do a better job at providing a broader perspective on sin. I still have irrational thoughts about God wanting to punish me, or that my occasional bouts of depression are from God. Intellectually I know it's not true, but the thoughts are still there, and I attribute those thoughts to my Catholic upbringing. The Christian community should foster an environment more sensitive to the moral failings of their kids.

As for the rest, I'll address it later when I'm off work.

This post was edited by IceMage on Jan 21 2015 10:26am

Well in all honesty I didn't expect any agreement from you. I look forward to hearing your other thoughts.

the fk? you have a job!????

thought you were a college student

Nope, I dropped out because I couldn't afford it. I'm starting back in May.

I'm in the sweet spot of financial aid recipients, where my parents can't afford it and Uncle Sam thinks they can. Good times.

Reminds me of the 16 year old trans girl in the news right now who killed herself because of her Christian parents who shamed her and wouldn't allow her to transition.

start voting democrat and they can help you bridge the financial gap

republicans are never going to help you with your financial problems

This post was edited by duffman316 on Jan 21 2015 11:10am

Even if I thought voting Democrat would help my interests... I couldn't. I despise the liberal ideology... I wouldn't be able to live with myself.

getting wrapped up in ideologies, principles or values is counterproductive, particularly when they are of no benefit to you

This post was edited by duffman316 on Jan 21 2015 11:35am

Definitely not. Having principles/values that emphasize feelings of victimhood/envy are counterproductive, but having conservative principles of hard work and grit are incredibly beneficial. The idea of looking to the government when times are tough is completely laughable to me.