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You cannot end the religious indoctrination of vulnerable children
January 28th, 2011 by Richard Collins

I was driving through Hamburg when I seen this...
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People argue that parents and religious entities will not cease the practice of preying on vulnerable children to maintain their tribes. Religious indoctrination of children has been going on for centuries and is a universal phenomenon. Like child battering, it is a syndrome protected by an extensive protective meme complex. Parents were most likely indoctrinated, making them excellent practitioners of childhood religious grooming. They know all the techniques and evasions to use on their own kids. Likewise, adults who were physically punished will strenuously defend this cruel treatment and turn around and physically punish their own children.

Changing the status quo may be difficult, but let’s not diminish the power of an idea whose time has come. Women’s advocates met a lot of nay saying when they set out to end violence against women in the home and sexism in the work force. The battles are not completely over, but the status of women has greatly improved over the last several decades.
One factor that has helped is the strategy of encouraging intervention by compassionate witnesses who can see what is happening to a battered wife. The same thing will happen with children who are being forced into a religious practice. An older sibling or a rogue cousin, friend, aunt or uncle, who sees the light, will quietly take the child aside and explain that god is pretend in the same way that Superman, the Easter Bunny and Santa Clause are pretend. After reading them some stories from a book about myths, the child will have some intellectual ammunition. Kids as young as 7 or 8 figure out on their own that the entire religious edifice is a giant house of cards. However, they soon learn not to voice their opinions on what they have been told.
Once the seed of skepticism is planted it becomes harder and harder to maintain a facade of religious belief and the reality that religion is merely a social control mechanism becomes really evident. Just spend some time reading the personal narratives of people who have escaped the trap. Without doubt they all describe a moment of absolute clarity when it all made sense why the answers to their questions were so evasive or stood on such false logical ground. Why there were so many roadblocks to autonomy and self determination placed in their path.
Atheist and Humanist public educational campaigns in public spaces such as public transportation and billboards are also a tactic to reach young children.  The goal is to explain there is an alternative to what they are being sold. Secular people have a moral imperative to spread the truth about childhood religious indoctrination, because no one else will and secularists represent the largest body of people who have examined religion with a jaundiced eye. Secularists possess the knowledge to push back against the fallout that is sure to come. Survey after survey shows that atheists know more about religion than believers.
The taboo against intervening in “sacred” family matters broke down over wife battering, and it will succumb again to advocates working to end child religious grooming. The current practice is grossly unethical and unwise because it can produce mental problems in certain susceptible youngsters. For some children the brutal horror story that lies at the heart of Christianity gives them nightmares. Islam still retains male chauvinism and rigid patriarchy that destroys the self esteem of girls and women not to mention making them sexual slaves.  Fortunately most progressive churches have banished the gruesome crucifixion statues to a dusty warehouse. For shame they ever hung those revolting objects in their auditoriums.
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Salvation is not a legitimate argument for indoctrinating children
January 1st, 2011 by Richard Collins

Estátua do Santo Inácio de Loyola, na entrada ...
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For centuries parents have been persuaded to consign their children to their personal faith because they believed the marketing pitch that raising their children in their faith was necessary. Leaving aside the purported benefits of moral training, the goal was to provide a guaranteed shot at heaven. Prior to Ignatius Loyola there didn’t seem to be any concentrated effort to groom children. Perhaps they were just assumed to follow their parents into heaven because in the middle ages children were actually considered to be part of their parents. Supposedly the path to hell was likewise the kids destiny depending on where the parents wound up. That would be interesting to research. Questions like this are what makes dogma so absurd and full of contradictions and inconsistencies.

Opinion makers working for marketers serving religious institutions, long ago learned that families with children make the best financial supporters. They are more apt to be faithful in their attendance and generous with their wallets. After all, what parent is going to be a cheapskate when the goal is eternal salvation of their children? They must think of it as an investment.

If this sounds cynical, it is because it is cynical, but the cynicism is on the part of the institutions who manipulate parents. Promises of eternal life are without any kind of substantiation. No one knows what happens when you die and anyone who says they know is either deluded or a liar. Don’t let them near your money.

Mormons carry this family togetherness thing to ridiculous lengths going so far as posthumous baptism. They hold “sealing” ceremonies for dead family members they have never met or known. Such family members are simply an entry in a genealogy record and many had extremely brief lives in the old days. Nonetheless, they get a shot at heaven they might otherwise not have had.

When challenged over the act of grooming their children, the Christians seem to believe they have an ironclad argument. To wit: I am simply insuring my child is eligible for salvation and we intend to keep the family intact after death. If the children were not raised in the faith of their parents who knows how they might end up in heaven or if they would even be saved. Suppose the child wants to be a Buddhist? How do you explain that to the grandparents?

On the surface all this concern with salvation sounds noble enough, but on closer inspection, the argument fails because the parents are using religious dogma about salvation to support a temporal scheme that has temporal ramifications. In our law you cannot justify harmful personal actions based on theology, no matter the motive. If you stop and think about this the reason why becomes abundantly clear. The most serious temporal ramification can be a lifetime of mental stress and anxiety that is directly the result of the fear mongering and guilt heaped on children. Christine O’Donnell and her amusing, but sad concepts about masturbation is a bizarre manifestation of sexual ignorance combined with guilt resulting from her Christian upbringing.

Suppose parents have a child that is gravely ill with an incurable illness. They are heartbroken that the child is going to die so they decide to put them out of their misery and hide the body. The fact they attempt to cover up the crime is an admission they know what they did was a crime. Yet when the crime is discovered and they are hauled into court they defend themselves claiming they wanted to send the child to a better place, heaven. Many of their co-religionists might agree they acted humanely and in the child’s best interests. Does the court agree?

No, most assuredly not. The parents may get a lenient sentence, but they will do some time. Their defense fails because religious dogma has no place in a court of law. Likewise, consigning non consenting immature children to a program of religious child grooming that has risks to their mental health should fail for the same reason a mercy killing fails. Temporal acts have temporal consequences and that is all the law is permitted to evaluate.

An adult can examine all the prospects and responsibilities of becoming this or that religious follower. If fully informed and of sound mind they are free to embark on a supernatural quest for eternal life if that is their desire. Because, when you boil it all down, the advantages of fellowship and the opportunity to do charitable works are worthy, albeit side benefits of being a Christian. The ultimate goal is to cheat death. Lacking the salvation feature it is hard to see Christianity surviving in the modern age.

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Global progress towards banning all corporal punishment of children
October 23rd, 2009 by Richard Collins

A Scary Vintage Postcard
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http://www.endcorporalpunishment.org/pages/progress/global.html

From End Corporal Punishment official web site. In the following text the hypertext links, italicized, are deactivated. Please visit the web site.

Legal reforms to prohibit all corporal punishment of children – in the family home as well as in schools and other institutions and penal systems – are spreading fast.

In many states the law provides defences for parents, other carers and teachers who use corporal punishment to discipline children: provisions which allow “reasonable chastisement” or “lawful correction”. In addition there may be education laws providing for corporal punishment in schools and laws allowing corporal punishment in penal institutions and as a sentence of the courts.

Law reform to end corporal punishment involves removing any provisions authorising corporal punishment and removing any special defences that may exist, so that the criminal law on assault applies equally to any assault of a child, whether or not it is described as discipline. It is a fundamental principle of human rights – upheld in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, article 7 and in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, article 26 – that all are entitled to equal protection of the law without discrimination.

In some states the law is silent on corporal punishment of children, but nevertheless it is socially and legally accepted and therefore explicit prohibition is required.

Click (active link at the web site) for the latest summary information on progress towards universal prohibition, and selected facts and figures on states pursuing reform and states so far resisting.

Click (active link at the web site) for information of legislation in states which have achieved full prohibition.

Worldwide, corporal punishment in schools has been prohibited in at least 108 states. But at least 78 states have not prohibited corporal punishment as a disciplinary measure in penal institutions for children in conflict with the law, and 43 have not prohibited it as a judicial sentence of the courts for young people convicted of an offence.

Our online global table shows data for all states and dependent territories on the extent of prohibition in three categories: Home; School; Penal system. Listed alphabetically, select from below :

TABLE A-D | TABLE E-H | TABLE I-L | TABLE M-P | TABLE Q-T | TABLE U-Z (active links at the web site)

Also available from the table are individual reports for each state, with details of laws relating to corporal punishment in the home, schools, penal system and alternative care settings, as well as summaries of prevalence research and extracts from recommendations made by human rights treaty bodies. Click here for individual state reports.

Our global and regional tables, available as PDF files (updated August 2009), summarise the extent of prohibition in the home, schools, as a sentence for crime, as a disciplinary measure in penal institutions, and in alternative care settings. Download from here:

[Please visit the web site for latest data]

This analysis has been compiled from information from governmental and non-governmental sources, including reports on implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Every effort is made to maintain its accuracy. Please send us updating information and details of sources for missing information: info@endcorporalpunishment.org.

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Child abuse
February 11th, 2009 by Richard Collins

Never hit a child. Never humiliate a child. There are effective non violent ways to gain the willing cooperation of children. They don’t deserve to be abused. Love them and respect their dignity. Always.

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Exposure does not equal indoctrination
February 4th, 2009 by Richard Collins

When religious parents are challenged by secularists about indoctrinating their children in a faith they attempt to turn the accusation back on their accuser. In other words they commit a tu quoque fallacy. Besides being a farcically transparent attempt to justify their actions, they compound their error by misrepresenting the very meaning of the word indoctrinate. According to religious parents, just about anything a secular parent says or does around their children is construed as indoctrination. This is false.

The way secular parents interact with the world in the presence of their children cannot in anyway be construed as indoctrination. Neither does the simple exposure to books, movies, TV programs, magazines, Internet web sites, or in more general terms, contact with the prevailing culture, constitute indoctrination.

Parents recognize on one level that it is wrong to wall off a child’s life and attempt to isolate them to a single viewpoint and only allow them to mix with children of the same faith. Most of the time their attempts fail anyway because children eventually rebel. Forbidden fruit is always so much sweeter. Not surprising then that kids find ways to obtain the forbidden icons of their culture. Kids are not stupid, they recognize what they have been missing is so much more rich and rewarding than the narrow old fashioned religious world their parents would restrict them to.

Here are some of the definitions I find under “indoctrination”:

  • cause to accept a set of beliefs uncritically through repeated instruction. (Compact Oxford English Dictionary)
  • to imbue with a usually partisan or sectarian opinion, point of view, or principle (Mirriam-Webster)
  • cause to believe something: to teach somebody a belief, doctrine, or ideology thoroughly and systematically, especially with the goal of discouraging independent thought or the acceptance of other opinions (Encarta World English Dictionary)
  • to repeat an idea or belief frequently to someone in order to persuade them to accept it (Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary)
  • to teach with a biased or one-sided ideology (Wictionary)
  • to teach doctrines to; teach uncritically; (Ultralingua)

When someone is indoctrinated they are not allowed to challenge what they are being told or to investigate other options. For this reason the term indoctrination has a pejorative tone like brainwashing. On the contrary, when someone is educated the opposite is true and they are encouraged to ask questions, think for themselves, consider all the alternatives, and reason things out logically instead of accepting pat answers.

The tu quoque accusation betrays a profound lack of knowledge about the secular ethos, because secular parents raise their children to be self determining, autonomous adults. Accordingly, secularists value independence of mind and they insist their children think for themselves, be skeptical, and challenge what they are told. There is no comparison.

Nature has endowed kids with a questioning mind. Daddy, why is the sky blue? Why did my dog die? Why can’t I fly like a bird? It takes a lot of patience to field such queries, but the alternative: “God wants it that way” is really a cop out and worse yet, a form of intellectual murder. For the really tough questions it is ok to say you don’t know. Children must understand that there are limits to what humans presently know rather than be fed supernatural answers.

The only creed a freethinker has is to remain free of all creeds.

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