Richard Dawkins on Religion as Child Abuse

There is no such thing as a Christian child.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Richard
• Dawkins
• child
• abuse
• religion
• atheism

[furanelle]

I know some teenage girls who would say that Justin Bieber is my hero, but Richard Dawkins is my hero. <3

[LadyScorpio39]

religion is poisoning humanity.

its the biggest disease in society and it is passed from parent to child like a birth defect!!!

[magicelliotth]

@jursamaj Regarding suffering, how does anyone know what their anxieties etc linked to?

We can assume and because of how they feel about their upbringing they'd be naturally inclined to blame it on their indoctrination.

[magicelliotth]

@jursamaj

@jursamaj Catholics and Protestants are very different in their belief system. Catholic families tend to get children to take their first communion as part of their upbringing. Although protestant families usually teach their children about the Bible as part of their upbringing, they are not told to commit to anything like communion etc.

I am, admittedly, only speaking about my own church background but it's been the same for all other evangelical churches that I've visited.

[jursamaj]

@magicelliotth

That's the 2nd time you've tried to separate Protestant from Catholic. What makes you think I'm talking about just Catholics? I'm talking about *both*, as there's actually no major difference between them.

As for the suffering, a great many religious and ex-religious people suffer from various anxieties & neuroses induced by their indoctrination. Surely you are aware of this?

[magicelliotth]

@jursamaj oh right okay. Sorry. When I said that christian's don't force children etc, I was referring to protestant evangelical christians, a bit different to catholicism etc. Sorry for not making that clear.

How do they suffer?

[jursamaj]

@magicelliotth

You said "no Christians force children to make any decisions they don't want to". Yet the kind of indoctrination children of christians get is designed to do exactly that, force their decision.

And yes, it *does* damage people. Several of my friends are atheists who escaped the church, but they still suffer from it.

[jursamaj]

@vbirdieb

Please prove Satan actually exists, and explain "objectively wrong act".

[jursamaj]

@Plagueis1017

Atheists who hide it aren't running from who they are, but from the kind of contempt, and even violence, that can come from saying it out loud.

[magicelliotth]

@jursamaj I didn't say anything about free choice. I was brought up going to church because my parents believed that it was the best thing for me. By the time I was old enough to make my own choice, I wanted to carry on going.

was I given any free choice? Nope

There are thousands if not millions of children who were brought up going to church but no longer go cuz they decided not to. They might feel they wasted some Sunday mornings when they were young but it hardly did them any damage

[jursamaj]

@magicelliotth

Don't force them to make decisions? If you constantly indoctrinate somebody that your position is true, while doing your best to shield them from any other positions, you are *not* setting them up to freely choose. And that is *exactly* what most christians do.

And claiming something is "valuable if not true" is both an admission that you can't show it's true and flat-out wrong. There can be no good reason to believe an untruth.

[magicelliotth]

@jursamaj Because Christians believe creationism then they also believe it's important to teach it to children.

Regardless of whether you believe creationism is right or wrong, surely you can see why people want to teach things that they personally believe are valuable.

Also, no Christians force children to make any decisions they don't want to (I'm talking about protestant christians,)

the hope is that they would choose to continue going to church etc when old enough to make the decision