We restrict children's access to adult movies and magazines, alcohol, and cigarettes because we fear that such materials might be harmful to the young. I believe that religions should be treated the same way. The bible is packed iwth scenes of intense violence, murder, sexual activity (including rape and incest), torture and many other disturbing scenes. I myself was traumatized at the age of 5, along with every other first-born son in my primary school class, when our scripture teacher told us in graphic detail how the angel of death killed every first-born son in Egypt. Would anyone in their right mind show small children images of someone being nailed to death? I saw that revolting scene countless times as I was growing up.
In addition to the appalling content of the so-called holy books, religious indoctrination of children can infect them with a lifelong fear of eternal torture in hell, the notion that they are being constantly watched by a sky fairy, and the horrible thought that deceased friends and loved ones may be burning in hell right now.
Another very real danger is the prevalence of sexual deviants in religious organizations. I'm not sure whether the religions corrupt these people, or whether they attract deviants because of the opportunities they provide to get near children. Either way, a church is a dangerous place for young children.
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A very good point!
Hey there!
13 year old girl here. I was raised in a Christian community. I didn't go to church much, but I did go to a Roman Catholic school. One of the things the school focused on was religion. The school taught that there are basically two options in life with two outcomes. If you are a good person and treat people with respect, you go to heaven as a reward. If you are a bad person, you receive the punishment of going to hell forever. When I was younger I just accepted that. I remember coming home from school after some days of religion class and crying to my parents out of fear that I would end up in hell. I remember I used to worry every time I made a mistake that God was watching me and that I would have to pay the price. Because my family themselves are not too religious, they always told me that they didn't believe in hell. Now I am older and I do realize that religion does have a lot of this "fear tactic" in which it tries to somewhat frighten people into a) believing and b) staying faithful/being a good person. To be honest, it wasn't until recently that I saw a few videos on the internet of people experiencing NDE and going to hell that I started to somewhat fear the whole notion of hell again. I realize that when someone is experiencing an NDE, usually during an operation, that they are on ketamine, that their brain is not at a fully functioning capacity, etc. However, I STILL have this slight fear ingrained inside of me. I still fear, WHAT IF? What if it turns out that these Near Death Experiences are true and people are really going to hell for being atheist or for acting in ways that they should not have? I feel that this is largely due to that fear that I have always had in my life. Although I am becoming more logical, the fear can still sometimes override my logic.
I know I have been very long winded up until now, so I will close my comment with this:
in response to your question, I feel that it really depends on how religion is taught. I know many are probably going to disagree with me on this, but I feel that although religious teachings and ideas are flawed to some extent, they do also somewhat try to teach people to be good. The whole concept of fear is used to try to "scare" people into being good (with other strings attached). Why can't religious schools and organizations teach kids to be good citizens, but leave out all of the fear tactics and all of the aspects that could cause problems for people as they grow up? I realize that could be defined as "cherry picking". I feel that all religion does not have to be bad, but I also agree that too much can scar kids, if the whole idea of fear is introduced since the crawling stages of life.
Pork222:
Unfortunately I think it would be very difficult to separate the fear from the religion. Most of the big religions are based on the idea that people are born wicked and need to be saved. I think people are born good, and most of us try hard to do the right thing all our lives. Sometime we make mistakes because we're just human, and some people are sick in the head. But we're not all evil because of something that a fictional couple called Adam and Eve did. That's crazy. Hell is just a story made up to try and control people.
Don't worry about NDE videos. They're just tabloid news. NDEs most commonly happen when people are in hospitals. They've been given anesthetic or morphine, or they may be suffering from head injuries, and their minds play tricks. Later they remember those experiences as if they were real. If they are religious, they'll probably fit those experiences into their reigious views. They always talk about seeing a light. If you ever visit a hospital, look around. There are big lights everywhere, especially in operating rooms and examination rooms.
If only religion could really be r rated. I wonder how many secular raised children would be converted after growing up without the indoctrination of religion. I doubt very many at all. They are rather ridiculous on just the surface of it without even going into any detail. In Christianity a man in the sky sent his son down to die so we don't have to go to a burning place with a bad man underground. Rather silly on the outside looking in. I truly think if it weren't for corrupting damaging and using traumatization on the mind from a very young age there would be very few religious people if they introduced in adulthood. At least comparatively to today.
R rated I presume is 18+ ?? Why then do we have soap operas with similar scenes at 7 or 8pm? Some people do not have any problem allowing young children to access games that are overtly violent, have drug scenes, prostitution.... [GENERALISATION ALERT] sick old world isn`t it
Lately (the past 20 some odd years) local municipalities have banned "sexually oriented" businesses from 1000 linear feet from any school or church. Given the fact that no person under 21 could even enter such a business seems bazaar that a law would be passed or enacted. Yet churches, that corrupt, brainwash, even traumatized children can allow any child unsupervised to enter their place of business.
I have no knowledge of a topless bar ever corrupting a child (that would be bad for business), but I can cite many instances where a child was abused by someone in and from a church.
I think that a child should not be exposed to religion until they are old enough to make an informed decision ( voting age). Therefore the choice would be theirs and an independent choice.
AND let's recognize churches for what they really are, a going concern (place of business for profit). That means taxation and regulation.
Face it, if a church doesn't make money it doesn't exist. They make money by selling a false product. This is in the business world is FRAUD! Children are not allowed to purchase or even be in possession of alcohol until a certain age because they are not old enough to be responsible or understand the dangers of such a product. It's should be the same with religion.
Religion has practiced for centuries what is tantamount to institutional child abuse. It IS a crime and should be recognized as such.
Fuck the "R" rating. Let's treat religion for what it is, a vice business that should be restricted, taxed, and regulated!
@mykcob4
I totally agree with you 100%. I am still a kid and I wish I would have been given the benefit of being exposed to Religion later in life. I think that religion is still somewhat ingrained in me, and I feel that if I got exposed to it at an older age, then I would not have some of the fear I have experienced in the past. The thing is that religious organisations target youth because they know that younger people are likely to believe what they hear from adults. If a child's parents are religious, they are likely to listen to their parents. Like you said, religious teaching aside, the Church, the Synagogue, the Mosque are all looking for money. What better way to keep attendance high now and in the future by than teaching youth to go to worship?
So many broad brush strokes there mykob4, you could paint the the world in one stroke!
Try searching strip-joint-child there are many instances of men and women leaving unsupervised children outside in their cars, is that not also child abuse, with your broad brush you could say that they are the same as churches, could you not?
Voting age, interesting! What about those who have complex physical and mental issues? Would their decision be informed?
I know churches that don`t make a profit, even denominations that are in the red, happy days!
Alcohol and children - Over 5 and we (UK) can give children alcohol, it used to be lower. Lets face it in most towns and cities there are lots of young people who will be imbibing tonight/tomorrow...
Institutional child abuse, what like Jimmy Savile and chums? Ban the BBC too then!
Treated as vice businesses? Nae tax, few restrictions and unregulated (UK)
I was led to believe that this site was based upon good reasoning, yet it appears that many of the members use logical fallacies, as you have done above mykcob4. [insert relevant emoticon here]
@Dan Logan
You deny that churches are a for profit entity? There are several businesses that operate in the red, it isn't their goal but that is the case.
It is a vice business. "Vice crimes are those that offend the morals of the community, such as prostitution and pornography." From:http://definitions.uslegal.com/v/vice-crimes/
I think brainwashing children and openly committing fraud by selling a false product is a crime that SHOULD offend the morals of the community.
Your reference to Jimmy Savile isn't actually germane to this issue. Jimmy Savile allegedly committed crimes. It wasn't his job that prompted him to commit those crimes. Different issue.
Also your reference to the child abuse at strip clubs, the abuse is the fault of the parent, not the business. Churches practice institutional brainwashing which is a crime of the business. If the strip club lets children inside and systematically abused those children, THEN we would be talking about the same thing.
Your claim about mentally challenged is also irrelevant because choices made for mentally challenged is made by a guardian. I am sure something legal, ethical, can easily be worked out.
I cannot account for the UK's lax alcohol laws as they are not the laws of the USA.
It makes sense that persons under a certain age are not responsible for themselves and cannot make informed choices.
@ mykcob4 - Yes I do, please tell me what their goals are?
So all churches sell sex, physically or in media form?
Brainwashing? Again is this all churches?
Could you give proof other than your broad generalisations for the above please?
Jimmy did it, the evidence is overwhelming and if he were here there would be an awful lot more going down with him (pun intended). His job and the powers that came with it were his method, therefore same issue.
The strip businesses, yeah, not the same league in Northern America and most of europe, however move to the far east and it is totally different.
I used mental capacity just to show that age is not relevant to a lot of things, particularly informed choice.
Young people are a lot more savvy than you give them credit for and the ones I have worked with can see through attempts to hoodwink them one way or another.
My problem is not with you my friend it is to do with a lot of the broad generalisations purported to be truth on this forum.
Jimmy Savile isn't the issue.
All churches are a for-profit enterprise. They couldn't exist otherwise.
Yes and all churches brainwash. That is an inherent feature of teaching a belief system.
I didn't say churches sell sex.
I have NO idea what you are droning on about the strip business in Europe and Asia. I have been extensively in Asia and have been to Europe many times.
Also just because some kids are "savvy" doesn't mean that they are responsible. All people are different but in the pursuit of protecting the populace from social dangers we as a society deem certain ages as a threshold for individual responsibility. Is it accurate? Generally yes, specifically no, but it works.
@Don Logan
"Institutional child abuse, what like Jimmy Savile and chums? Ban the BBC too then!"
Jimmy Savile offended more in public hospitals than at the BBC. Why not ban the National Health Service too?
Jimmy Savile was already dead when his predatory behavior came to light, but since then there has been a purge of show business, resulting in several arrests and convictions, notably of Rolf Harris.
If Jimmy Savile had been a priest, the church would have simply moved him to another diocese. Name a mainstream church that doesn't have a few Jimmy Saviles actively abusing children right now. Britain needs an Operation Yewtree focusing on the churches.
RH, yeah, I know someone who had a close call with him!
re, the final para; Please don`t generalise, do you mean RC churches, CoE or all and if so do you mean all, because that is just testicles. As for naming a mainstream church that doesn't have a few Jimmy Saviles actively abusing children right now, that`s your call as you brought it up, please prove your statement as you imply that they all have.
Don Logan:
Look at the thread entitled "The dark side of Theism & Superstition" in this forum. You'll find dozens of news links about abuse in churches. I'm sure you can find plenty more if you put your mind and browser to work. Try searching for "abuse" + "child" + "Catholic" or Anglican, Methodist, Baptist, Mormon, Salvation Army, Jehovah's Witnesses, etc. Judging from media reports, at least, there have been far more such cases in the religious world than in show business. The Jimmy Saville case spurred the British police to carry out a show business witch hunt, including years of wasted time with Cliff Richard. How many more dirty priests and vicars do they need before they turn their attention to the churches?
What does religion have to do with God? What is the distinction between God and Lord? As Karl Marx said "religion is the opiate of the masses"
"What does religion have to do with God?"
That's a very good question. I think religion is the mechanism that allows imaginary friends to become a force in the real world and interfere in other people's lives. One person talking to an imaginary friend is usually a harmless eccentric. A few million of them get together and they become a pressure group. They can pool their resources, build churches, buy politicians, start persecuting non-believers.
As for your other questions: "God" is an imaginary friend dreamed up by people to fill some gap in their lives. A lord is an upper-class twit in England, usually amoral and extremely entitled. Lord Lucan is the perfect example. 'Religion is the opiate of the masses." That's one thing that Marx got right. When I was a teenager, religious services in school put me into a timeless, floating state in which my mind was free to contemplate the meaning of the universe as manifested in girls and cars.
Algebe
That's pretty good from a non-thiest point of view.
From my thiest point of view, and I speak for myself only, God (Elohim) is the unending-neverending. That is the meaning of the word. The unseen and unknowable that took a piece of infinity and injected it into the physical realm (universe) causing the Big Bang and infinite expansion like a fountain. Science is proving me (and others like me) out on this. The question remains, since by this definition, everything in the universe if made of God, the miracle is that God is part of this creation, yet separate from it as "He" created it.
For me, Lord, wasn't an English twit, but as in Genesis when paraphrase, three men approached Abraham and he knew which one was the Lord -- its an honorific title meaning the head person in charge, when "they" used to walk among us and instruct us. I believe that as "we are created in their image", humanity is indeed an experiment. And, shock, I still believe they walk among us.
This definition of Lord can also correspond with the "Tower of Babel" story, where men tried to build a tower to heaven and shoot arrows into it" If these people used spacecraft "vimana in Hindu nomenclature, then it makes sense that a bunch of idiots would try to destroy something they thought could be in their grasp.
And we both agree on Marx.
The perversions of the human mind are real, and I don't want them imposed upon me either. Like the video of Jesus camp. Child Abuse, pure and simple. Years ago, I was a Born-Again Jew (Christian then). I went to a group service of other Jews who "accepted Jesus". The Rabbi started speaking in tongues and people approached him in a line and were dropping like flies as he put his hand upon their head.
When I got up to him, he doubled down, babbling and stamping his feet. A had to bite my lip not to laugh in his face, but strange, all night long, his hand print was warm upon my forehead. Go figure. But I would not succomb.
"The Rabbi started speaking in tongues "
I can't imagine why anyone would take this seriously. They just produce meaningless drivel cobbled together from phonemes and syllables in their own language. I've seen Japanese doing the glossolalia routine, and their babble is similarly made up of Japanese sounds put together at random.
It was like a cartoon character, especially with the stomping of the feet for emphasis. Kind of hilarious. Babble.
So your current religion? I'm a Karaite Jew
Ezekial 23:19 Yet she multiplied her whoredoms, in calling to remembrance the days of her youth, wherein she had played the harlot in the land of Egypt.
20 For she doted upon their paramours, whose flesh is as the flesh of asses, and whose issue is like the issue of horses.
My favorite R rated verse from the Bible.
Chimp3
Ezekial 23:19
How about 2 Samuel 1:26:
I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan: very pleasant hast thou been unto me: thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women.
I guess David wasn't a member of Westboro BC or he'd know that "god hates fags".
King David had problems man, he isn't necessarily what you'd call a role model for modern gay perverts, he murdered a man to steal his wife, had 600 of those already if I remember correctly. That guy
I agree with the OP. Religion should be R rated.
The Bible (& other holy books) is probably the worst book I have ever read.
It has Sex, Incest, Fetichism, Adultry, Sexual Slaver, abuse. Rape (There are 2 times I know off that God raped women one was Mary the other was damsons mother)
Violence, Murder, Genocide Inflicting of torture, infanticide (the sick part is a good god does all this nonsense)
There is segregation, clan mentality and casteism, and much more.
It is a testament to human brutality and its brutal god.
"(There are 2 times I know off that God raped women one was Mary the other was damsons mother"
Their god's axlotl tanks, eh? ;-)
In the same way as Pol Pot and Genghis Khan are testament to humanity?
What's your point?
Much like world history like I said before, keep in mind G-d wasn't guilty of any of this.
Soz, was @ Charvak, I can`t see a method of editing my post
No one said that children should be reading certain parts of the Tanakh, in fact many parts of it are literally declared R rated by Jewish tradition, so we don't teach them to children. Though these are mostly records of horrible things than anything, we don't prohibit kids from learning world history even though it is filled with violence and atrocities do we?
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