Forcing children into faith is ethically objectionable

MarkPogue

Making a child feel inadequate or incomplete because they haven't submitted their soul to Jesus, in my opinion, is a form a mental abuse. When a child feels like this. they become gullible to any suggestion that "God would approve". I can imagine a pedophile using this type of tactic to gain trust from a child this way.

librehombre

Thanks for your comment. Over many months of research on the topic of ending hereditary religion, I came to see that the real issue is that children are denied the right to chose what they want to follow. While parents may have the legal right to force a religion on their children they have no ethical right. The SCOTUS ruling that told parents they had a right to raise their children according to the tenets of the parents religion was an anomaly that contradicted years of legal decisions. The cases usually cited are Pierce and Yoder. One of my posts explains why the Supreme Court decisions (5/4 at that) were wrongly decided. The court established a clear conflict between the rights of children and the rights of their parents.

Without going into great depth over this conflict suffice to say there is little chance the current court would reverse Pierce and Yoder. Furthermore, political remedies such as appointing more liberal justices are not in the cards at the current time. Given the far right power now, there seems little that can be done on the political front. Knowing that all civil rights have come from passionate grass roots action, this seems our best hope of gaining religious freedom for our children. Is this ethical? Certainly, we speak directly to children all the time about health and safety issues. Why should religion be a special case? The institutions and parents are really not forthcoming in the way they prey on children. We need to level with the kids and make sure they have all the facts about religion, not just the selection a given religion cares to tell them. We demand full disclosure when people by a car or house. We are simply demanding full disclosure when it comes to recruiting children.

Apostates can be a powerful group of allies if we can organize them. Stopping the forced indoctrination of children with the help of millions of motivate apostates with compelling personal life stories. makes a lot of sense. Depriving the institutions of just 10 percent of children they take in would make a tremendous impact since families with children are the biggest financial supporters and the institutions market heavily to them. They constantly create special programs to keep families coming frequently to church, mosque or synagogue. The strategy is simply to have compassionate witnesses quietly talk to the children they are close to and make sure the kids know that god is pretend, like Santa, Superman and the Easter bunny. Once that "inoculation" is administered most kids are savvy enough to figure out what is going on and millions are wired into the internet. Billboards and poster campaigns could also speak directly to children.

Most churches are up to their eyeballs in debt and it doesn't take much imagination to see banks calling in their loans as delinquencies mount. The institutions that are in trouble will have to "see the light" and stop preying on children. That is a very simple demand.

Will this hurt a lot of the faithful? No doubt it will be painful for some to see their church shuttered. Older folks will not change their ways and will carry on as before. Even now people are meeting in homes. The real goal is to get to young people, prospective parents. The idea of not indoctrinating children is novel and will take some explaining. The real objection is to forcing religion on children. Once a child reaches maturity they can elect to become a member of whatever faith suits them. This is the crucial point. This is the only fair and ethical way to treat vulnerable children. Children do not need god to be good, literally billions of secular families around the globe do very well without the threat of hell or the promise of heaven.

Political action can continue to demand that special financial privileges be stopped. Faith schools and home schools must be regulated. We must do something about the courts as well. However, an overt political attack on religion would be met with strong resistance and perhaps even evoke bloodshed.

Ending hereditary religion is grounded on sound ethics. Reformers hold the moral high ground. We do not permit one adult to force their religion on another adult. Why should children be any different. They have the right to religious freedom and many people of faith will eventually come to see this. As it stands now forcing children into a faith is using them to insure the faith endures. Using people as instruments to achieve an institutional goal is unethical and has been recognized as such for over 200 years. Children are people. <div style="display:block;margin:6px 0 0"><a class="a2a_dd" href="http://www.addtoany.com/share_save#url=http:/%2

pchazzz

Straw man argument.

"These objections apply to religion without respect to creed or national boundaries" Oh really? So, you mean to tell me that Episcopalianism is the same as Islam is the same as Hinduism?

"Once the gate closes behind a child everything is done to insure they never leave until they croak" Well, considering the rate at which mainstream Protestant denominations and Catholicism are losing worshipers they are doing a piss poor job.

"Bear in mind that clerics are universally male and their loyalty is to men." Funny, I was at an Episcopalian baptism and two of the three celebrants were women. While it is safe to say that clerics are predominately male, saying they are universally male is flat out wrong.

If you want to proselytize against hereditary religion fine; but you might at least try to get your facts straight…

[...] is at EndHereditaryReligion.com. There are a couple of articles on children and indoctrination; Forcing Children into Faith is Ethically Objectionable asserts that indoctrinating children without their consent is an ethical violation, and Religions [...]

sbj1964

Too many 1's in your comment stream I will have to fix that.

Rev

…good for you?

Wouldn't anyone subjected to a well conducted indoctrination be grateful for it? If you had been indoctrinated at a Madrasah or your local Scientology center. You'd be grateful to Allah, Jesus, or L. Ron Hubbard for the "early religious instruction."

librehombre

I hope you are being sarcastic Rev.