Parents have an endless supply of justifications

One parent wrote to tell me that I could not understand the practice of indoctrinating young children because I did not believe what they believe, meaning I am not an indoctrinated Christian. He wrote that if Christians did not “indoctrinate” their children, they would be hypocrites. The scare quotes are his, not mine.

In reply, I wrote that I perfectly understand what this Christian and many other believers have said about the power of their belief and how they have no choice. To an outside objective observer that is not trapped in such a bubble of belief I can sympathize, but it does not lessen the fact that they are deluded to believe that they have some kind of ultimate truth that will save them and their children if they do what they are told.

Organized religions have clever and insidious ways to trap people and keep them ensnared. They have grown so good at this that adherents don’t even realize they live in a locked cage.

Christian truth is no more the ultimate truth than is the Muslim’s, the Hindu’s, or any of the other myriad faiths that make the same claim. In as much as there is so much disagreement between billions of people around the world and in as much as imposing Christian dogma and superstition on a small child can have profound negative effects on their mental health, isn’t the most responsible thing a parent can do is allow their children to gain the maturity they need to make a decision about this for themselves? The choice is between living a life guided by unrelenting doctrine or guided by freedom and reason.

If your religion is so good, so true, so pure, why won’t an 18 year old who has not been abusively indoctrinated see this for themselves? Not a single believer has given us a straight answer to that question. Why must Christians (and all the other believers in various and sundry superstitions) proselytize?

Saying you have no choice is clearly not the case. You do have a choice, but you are tightly wedded to just one option and cannot see there is a serious downside to what you advocate: unmitigated unthinking obedience to your faith. Such obedience is not admirable, because it marks you as an unthinking slave.

Here is what I propose. To understand the harm you may be doing, commit to reading the personal stories people post to exchristian.net for 30 days. Look hard at exactly what the result of childhood indoctrination produces, not the rosy picture you have painted in your mind. I don’t know what sect you belong to or how many people are in your congregation, but start paying attention to how people that leave are treated. Know that a large number of children do leave their childhood faith as soon as they are out from under their parents supervision. Many drift into other religions because it is extremely difficult to escape the results of childhood indoctrination. What you advocate can have life long negative effects. Realize you are degrading one of the most fantastic natural devices in the universe, the human mind.

What I hear is really all about you, your concerns, your fears. If you don’t consign your children the rest of the congregation and your cleric will all mark you as a “bad” Christian. Isn’t that the truth of the matter? Forget what the bible says, your real concern is what others will think about you and your devotion.

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Posted on Friday, October 2nd, 2009 at 1:50 pm in Children's rights.
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