How to protect children/vulnerable from Christian emotional abuse?

[Hope]

I don't believe you. I really don't. It shouts you want attention. Can we have proof. I am being honest and sincere here.

I've known Floo, virtually, for a number of years now, Sass, and on two or three boards.  Without laying all her cards on the table in one go, I have read enough examples from her history to suggest that she is telling the truth.  The sad thing is that there are some 'Christian' sects who do behave in the way that she describes - though whether they can really be called 'Christian' is open to debate.  One such group is Fred Phelps' Westboro Baptist.

[ippy]

As you know, playing with words again, keeping religion low key was not being inferred, I was referring to the big world outside of the now, all but defunct, mythical, magic and superstitious parts of any religious belief.

What made you think I was referring to their keeping religion low-key, ippy?  I simply used your own wording in my sentence, with 'it' having the same subject as in your post.  I'm afraid that trying to score points by misrepresenting what I write does you no favours.

Good one Hope, a bit like being a double agent you fire away and good luck to you.

ippy

[Hope]

Good one Hope, a bit like being a double agent you fire away and good luck to you.

To be a double agent, one has to represent two positions, ippy.  You would seem to be doing a perfectly good job of this without anyone helping you.

[ippy]

Good one Hope, a bit like being a double agent you fire away and good luck to you.

To be a double agent, one has to represent two positions, ippy.  You would seem to be doing a perfectly good job of this without anyone helping you.

It'll be obvious where the duplicity is coming from to anyone that might be bothered to read our posts.

ippy   

[floo]

Having had experience of this type of abuse in my childhood, and knowing it goes on today in extreme religious households, I believe children and the vulnerable need protecting from it. Telling a child they will burn in hell if they don't get 'saved' is wicked. I know for a fact it can cause trauma. When our children were young they opted of their own volition to attend church and Sunday school. It was only years later that our youngest girl revealed she had been told her unbelieving parents would burn in hell. She was instructed that if she informed us the Sunday School teacher had told her that she would also burn in hell! We wondered why she had so many nightmares in those days!

I don't believe you. I really don't. It shouts you want attention. Can we have proof. I am being honest and sincere here.

Mind you my husband and I were extremely remiss not to had found out exactly what our kids were being taught! We would have removed them immediately from the evil clutches of those nasty people.

Give us the church name and Sunday school. I will visit and find other children now adults of your childs age and see if it really happened. We have to be honest and I don't believe you. Where is the proof?

I am on another religious forum where some of the posters claim to be in their very early teens. If that is true it is frightening the sort of extreme Christian dogma they come out with. One can only think they have been severely brain washed by their parents and churches.

Ah you can send us the name of the forum and I can check it for myself. Could be your bias is getting in the way would help establish the credence of your claim.

I think it should be a specific offence to target kids with that sort of evil garbage, for which there isn't the slightest shred of proof to substantiate it.

A bit like your claims... not the slightest shred of prood to substantiate it. Give us the proof. Show us the posts and the threads so we can see for ourselves. I just cannot believe what you say unless you do. All I want is evidence and proof. I can find that if you give me the information. What I would find suspicious was if you said the Church and Sunday school no longer existed. You can still give us the name and address and I can check through the records and contact some of the old members.

Sass you are something else you really are! You are obviously in denial about the evil nastiness perpetrated by some extreme Christian who believe in hell and its tortures! Why would I bang on and on about the evils of extreme Christianity, as I have done for many years on forums, if I hadn't had first hand experience of it?

[floo]

I don't believe you. I really don't. It shouts you want attention. Can we have proof. I am being honest and sincere here.

I've known Floo, virtually, for a number of years now, Sass, and on two or three boards.  Without laying all her cards on the table in one go, I have read enough examples from her history to suggest that she is telling the truth.  The sad thing is that there are some 'Christian' sects who do behave in the way that she describes - though whether they can really be called 'Christian' is open to debate.  One such group is Fred Phelps' Westboro Baptist.

Thanks Hope.

[ippy]

The sheer determination of the parents to pump the full contents of the various religions, they happen to believe, into their children is child abuse.

All of the religions do their upmost to promote, get em while they're young and of course they do this without prior knowledge of how vulnerable the youngsters are to any form of indoctrination before they acquire the ability to challenge, another form of child abuse.

The example of the Mongolian horseman scenario, father to son, son becomes a father, then passes horsemanship on to his son and on and on, a closed loop, the sons will continue to be stuck in a loop as horsemen.

Until the almost identical Mongolian horsemen example of the closed loop aspect of all the religions can be disrupted somehow, all of these abuses including the emotional abuse will unfortunately continue.

ippy

[Owlswing]

The sheer determination of the parents to pump the full contents of the various religions, they happen to believe, into their children is child abuse.

All of the religions do their upmost to promote, get em while they're young and of course they do this without prior knowledge of how vulnerable the youngsters are to any form of indoctrination before they acquire the ability to challenge, another form of child abuse.

The example of the Mongolian horseman scenario, father to son, son becomes a father, then passes horsemanship on to his son and on and on, a closed loop, the sons will continue to be stuck in a loop as horsemen.

Until the almost identical Mongolian horsemen example of the closed loop aspect of all the religions can be disrupted somehow, all of these abuses including the emotional abuse will unfortunately continue.

ippy

NO NO NO! Not ALL of the religions.

Paganism does NOT "get 'em while they're young". Most pagan parents will allow their children to join in if they express the wish so to do. If the child does not express that wish they will never be forced to take part even to sitting in the same room.

Neither of Alex and Maxine Sanders children became pagan or Wiccan.

[jeremyp]

Ironically, the evidence isn't that science is is burying religion, but humanism and atheism.  After all, there are relatively few atheist scentists - the majority are agnostic if they aren't religious.

Actually, atheism is more prevalent amongst scientists, particularly top scientists than in the general population.

Doubt whether this kind of information is avaiable, but it would be interesting to know what proportion of BHA (and similar groups worldwide) membership are scientists.

Why would it be interesting?

[ippy]

The sheer determination of the parents to pump the full contents of the various religions, they happen to believe, into their children is child abuse.

All of the religions do their upmost to promote, get em while they're young and of course they do this without prior knowledge of how vulnerable the youngsters are to any form of indoctrination before they acquire the ability to challenge, another form of child abuse.

The example of the Mongolian horseman scenario, father to son, son becomes a father, then passes horsemanship on to his son and on and on, a closed loop, the sons will continue to be stuck in a loop as horsemen.

Until the almost identical Mongolian horsemen example of the closed loop aspect of all the religions can be disrupted somehow, all of these abuses including the emotional abuse will unfortunately continue.

ippy

NO NO NO! Not ALL of the religions.

Paganism does NOT "get 'em while they're young". Most pagan parents will allow their children to join in if they express the wish so to do. If the child does not express that wish they will never be forced to take part even to sitting in the same room.

Neither of Alex and Maxine Sanders children became pagan or Wiccan.

I knew this sounded familiar, isn't that what they all say?

ippy

[Rhiannon]

I've got absolutely no idea if any of my kids will turn out pagan or not. So far one kind of identifies as pagan, one atheist, one X-Boxist.

[Owlswing]

The sheer determination of the parents to pump the full contents of the various religions, they happen to believe, into their children is child abuse.

All of the religions do their upmost to promote, get em while they're young and of course they do this without prior knowledge of how vulnerable the youngsters are to any form of indoctrination before they acquire the ability to challenge, another form of child abuse.

The example of the Mongolian horseman scenario, father to son, son becomes a father, then passes horsemanship on to his son and on and on, a closed loop, the sons will continue to be stuck in a loop as horsemen.

Until the almost identical Mongolian horsemen example of the closed loop aspect of all the religions can be disrupted somehow, all of these abuses including the emotional abuse will unfortunately continue.

ippy

NO NO NO! Not ALL of the religions.

Paganism does NOT "get 'em while they're young". Most pagan parents will allow their children to join in if they express the wish so to do. If the child does not express that wish they will never be forced to take part even to sitting in the same room.

Neither of Alex and Maxine Sanders children became pagan or Wiccan.

I knew this sounded familiar, isn't that what they all say?

ippy

Isn't what what who all say?

[floo]

I've got absolutely no idea if any of my kids will turn out pagan or not. So far one kind of identifies as pagan, one atheist, one X-Boxist.

My youngest grandson (9) is definitely an X-Boxist!

[jeremyp]

I've got absolutely no idea if any of my kids will turn out pagan or not. So far one kind of identifies as pagan, one atheist, one X-Boxist.

My youngest grandson (9) is definitely an X-Boxist!

When my nephew was nine, I'm pretty sure he identified as a Sith lord.

[ippy]

The sheer determination of the parents to pump the full contents of the various religions, they happen to believe, into their children is child abuse.

All of the religions do their upmost to promote, get em while they're young and of course they do this without prior knowledge of how vulnerable the youngsters are to any form of indoctrination before they acquire the ability to challenge, another form of child abuse.

The example of the Mongolian horseman scenario, father to son, son becomes a father, then passes horsemanship on to his son and on and on, a closed loop, the sons will continue to be stuck in a loop as horsemen.

Until the almost identical Mongolian horsemen example of the closed loop aspect of all the religions can be disrupted somehow, all of these abuses including the emotional abuse will unfortunately continue.

ippy

NO NO NO! Not ALL of the religions.

Paganism does NOT "get 'em while they're young". Most pagan parents will allow their children to join in if they express the wish so to do. If the child does not express that wish they will never be forced to take part even to sitting in the same room.

Neither of Alex and Maxine Sanders children became pagan or Wiccan.

I knew this sounded familiar, isn't that what they all say?

ippy

Isn't what what who all say?

I don't for one minute think every religionist means, indoctrinate my children first with all about whatever religion happens to be their favorite, when they say, let the children know about it first and then they can make their minds up later on but they might just as well say lets indoctrinate them first, before they become exposed to any other ideology/religion.

I'm all for indoctrinating children to think for themselves and they can pick up any other belief ideology later, if they want to, it's easy enough by example to pass on elementary morality and ethics, religion and antiquated  ideologies are not necessary to enable people to pass on the basics of these social niceties.   

With these often thought of as the normal run of things, (fully described in the previous paragraphs), put to our children by their parents, is only one of the places, I'm sure there are more, where we need to protect them from abuse by breaking this circle of child abuse, indoctrination.

ippy

[ProfessorDavey]

At our welcoming ceremony for our own children we had a reading from Kalil Gibran, which put this point in a much more eloquent way than I could:

'Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.'

There is an equally fantastic piece on marriage which we had at our wedding.

Sounds good, PD - but then there are many different passages in the Bible that reflect the same ideas.

Really? I've never come across them, but that's perhaps not surprising.

What is surprising however is that I've never heard any biblical passage that gives a similar "don't indoctrinate your child" view used at a baptism, which would perhaps be the place these passages would be used wouldn't you think.

So Hope, please enlighten us with the biblical passages with the same message (and hopefully the same fantastic way of putting that message across).

[ProfessorDavey]

None of the atheist parents I referred to ever admitted that there was any possibility of a deity, ippy.  It's only enlightened atheists as we have a few of here, who will teach their children that they believe that there is no deity, but have no evidence for thier belief.

The reality is that most atheist parents won't talk about deities (existence, non existence, possibility of existence) whatsoever, because deities aren't (for obvious reasons) part of their worldview at all. So I'd find it surprising if a conversation about the possibility of existence of gods would come up in most atheist households.

So, just to check for consistency - do you or any of your christian friends activity engage in conversation with your children about the possibility of Thor existing, or the thousands of other purported deities, or do you merely focus on the existence of the god you believe in.

And for completeness how often do you openly admit to your children that god might not exist. I've never know active christian households that have done this with their children - the existence of god is simply put across as an 'accepted fact' as it were.

[jeremyp]

What is surprising however is that I've never heard any biblical passage that gives a similar "don't indoctrinate your child" view used at a baptism, which would perhaps be the place these passages would be used wouldn't you think.

I was a God parent once (I was still a Christian at the time) and I had to stand up and promise that I would indoctrinate the child in question. I'm pleased to announce that I utterly failed in my God parently duty.

[Rhiannon]

I've got absolutely no idea if any of my kids will turn out pagan or not. So far one kind of identifies as pagan, one atheist, one X-Boxist.

My youngest grandson (9) is definitely an X-Boxist!

When my nephew was nine, I'm pretty sure he identified as a Sith lord.

That was when my boy was seven.

[ProfessorDavey]

What is surprising however is that I've never heard any biblical passage that gives a similar "don't indoctrinate your child" view used at a baptism, which would perhaps be the place these passages would be used wouldn't you think.

I was a God parent once (I was still a Christian at the time) and I had to stand up and promise that I would indoctrinate the child in question. I'm pleased to announce that I utterly failed in my God parently duty.

That's right.

One of the other very strange things about baptisms is that the parents never actually make a direct commitment to the child, rather they make commitments to the church about how they will bring up the child. Seems rather strange to me that, surely the most important relationship, that between parent and child, is totally ignored. It would be like having a wedding where each of the partners made commitments to the church (or state) but didn't actually make any commitments to each other!!

[Rhiannon]

What is surprising however is that I've never heard any biblical passage that gives a similar "don't indoctrinate your child" view used at a baptism, which would perhaps be the place these passages would be used wouldn't you think.

I was a God parent once (I was still a Christian at the time) and I had to stand up and promise that I would indoctrinate the child in question. I'm pleased to announce that I utterly failed in my God parently duty.

I'd just lost my faith when I was asked. I had to say no.

[Gordon]

The reality is that most atheist parents won't talk about deities (existence, non existence, possibility of existence) whatsoever, because deities aren't (for obvious reasons) part of their worldview at all. So I'd find it surprising if a conversation about the possibility of existence of gods would come up in most atheist households.

That was the case in our household when our kids were growing up, and is still the case now that our grandchildren are on the scene - religion just isn't, and has never been, a part of our family dynamic.

The only time religion has ever been an actual issue was (surprise surprise) in relation their education, although less so with the grandchildren where it seems schools (or their schools at least) are now more aware that some families simply don't want their children exposed to acts of religious worship as opposed to learning about the social, historical, cultural and political effects of religions in general (which is essential).

The only issue we had was when our oldest daughter came home from primary school with a permission slip to allow attendance at a church service locally during the school day - we sent it back saying we didn't give consent, and that same day got a note back asking one of us to arrange to see the headmistress at our earliest convenience - I remember the exchange very well.

She asked 'why', and I simply replied that we didn't do religion as a family and didn't want our daughter to be exposed to acts of religious worship until she was old enough to think critically for herself about religion: at the time she was 7 years old. I remember the next bit well - her sneering reply was along the lines of did we have the same objection when our daughter was christened, and when I explained that she wasn't christened and neither was I (none of our kids/grandkids are) she looked at me as if I had just admitted to killing Bambi's mother!

I then told her that she would just need to make other arrangements on that day which she did, and it turned out that other parents had refused permission, and thereafter we had no similar problems later as our son and younger daughter went through the same primary school, and by the time they were at secondary school religious services in local churches were discretionary since they were never held during the school day.   

[Rhiannon]

Hell for children can often mean their parents staying in a relationship that is badly wrong, whether or not they are religious.

Mental cruelty also affects adults.

[Rhiannon]

For a time in my teens one of my parents made the other take sides between them and me. That was fun.

[ProfessorDavey]

I think children need to be protected from the views of anti theists too.

But I think this is largely a misinterpretation of what goes on in non religious or atheist households. I know plenty and I can't think of any where there is a kind of active promulgation of 'non religion' or even 'anti religion', in a manner that occurs in the opposite manner in many religious households, where religion (or rather one religion) is actively promoted. Religion is simply not a part of life in non religious and atheist households, and that's an end to it. So there isn't a active announcement on a Sunday morning that this Sunday (like last Sunday) we aren't going to church because were are a non religious household. Nope it simply never comes up any more than christians might 'actively' not go to a mosque on a Friday.

To do away with all forms of prejudice and indoctrination I think all you can do is ensure schools teach a wide range of things without dictating what children should believe.

All children should learn about evolution for example and different forms of creationism can be taught under religious studies where they could learn what different religions teach on it.

I'm all for visits to Churches, Mosques, Hindu temples, Synagogues I think it is both interesting and beneficial for children to have their horizons widened.

All children should have to go, regardless as to whether their parents are religious or not.

Broadly I agree - I think that learning about religion is important as a part of a balanced education. But it is no more important than many other educational activities, and given that most people in the UK aren't religious in any active sense rather less important than many other educational activities. So in an ideal world with infinite amount of time, sure this kind of active education about religion is great. But that isn't the real world where there are extreme pressures of time to deliver a broad educational curriculum and, in my view, religious education comes some way down the pecking order. What frustrates me is that broader ethics education tends to get relegated in favour of religious education in many schools, yet ethics is relevant to all, while religion is only relevant to a few.

But I might draw the line at participation in worship.

Might?!? No child should be required to, or even expected to participate in religious worship without express, opt in consent.

I'd keep anti- theists away from it though, children don't need their prejudices as well.

 

See above - non religious people and atheists may have 'prejudices' as you describe them but they are very unlikely to be actively promulgating those prejudices onto their children. How many non religious or atheist parents do you know who send their children to special extracurricular lessons, akin to Sunday school, to teach their children to be non religious (or even anti religious). They don't.