Is it child abuse to tell children . . . .?

Question

. . . they'll go to hell if they don't believe in Jesus, and in the bible as the word of 'God'?

Answer 1

Of course it is. It's mental/verbal abuse.

Answer 2

I think it is wrong and way too harsh for a small child.
Remember: Children are innocent in the eyes of God. If a baby or a child dies without knowing evil they go to Heaven. Children know no evil until they are much older and released into the world. I would wait until a child is much older to tell them about hell and never make it sound like a threat because you want them to really believe and come into it on their own, not force them with typical scare tactics and make them eventually hate it.

Answer 3

I think thats a stretch.
Lets put it another way. If I tell a child that someday he or she will die and will cease to exist because there is no such thing as a soul. They will be incapable of thought, sight, memory, or action. They will be nothing but rotting meat buried in the ground to feed worms. Would that be child abuse?
What if I told them that life doesn't necessarily end and they will probably go to a happy place of joy and play? Is that abusive?
We have to tell a child something because one day they ask "Mommy what happens when people die?" The truth is we don't know but I think my version is a little less scary then yours. Christianity is not about the threat of hell. It's about the promise of heaven. Hell shouldn't have to happen to anyone since faith in god and love for others is a pretty simple concept.

Answer 4

I am christian, and I teach my children that God loves them and protects them throughout their day. At night i tell them that god is with them and that he will take care of them so there is no reason to be scared.

My children are 5 and 4 and I have never even mentioned the word hell to them. i think it's scary and there is no point in telling them something that will only encourage fear. I think that it is some sort of child abuse and will only separate a child from the Lord.

Answer 5

Is it child abuse to tell them Chuckie is under their bed waiting to cut their feet off? Is it child abuse to tell them there are monsters in their closet? I think so. Sure, some might see it as an innocent prank, but you pull pranks on adults who are mature enough to know it's baloney ... not on innocent children who are afraid even to go to first day at kindergarten! I say .... think of another way to get the message across or save it for later.

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Answer 6

It should be. Kids get really really scared if they think that they'll be tortured for all eternity unless they love god and follow his every command.

Psychological abuse, I'm telling you. And the effects can be life-long, too... believing that they have to witness to people or blow up abortion clinics or refuse medical treatments to some.

Answer 7

If they're young enough, they won't know what your talking about. If you tell an older child and explain your belief of what hell is, it may scare them and that would be wrong. Their knowledge of things including Jesus and the bible will grow naturally and is cultivated the best in an environment of love and acceptance.

God bless you....

Answer 8

Excellent point! One star for you. It's one thing to tell kids if they're not good all year then Santa won't give them any toys and will put him on his "naughty" list. It's another thing to traumatize them into believing if they don't accept Jesus into their life they'll spend eternity roasting in hell!

"The piety of "having a personal relationship with Christ" ... is alien to the New Testament... [but] evangelicals elevate it to the shibboleth of salvation! Unless you have a personal relationship with Jesus, buster, one day you will be boiling in Hell. Sheesh! Talk about the fury of a personal savior scorned!"
— Robert M. Price

What you describe certainly appears to meet the definition of emotional and or psychological abuse:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_abuse
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_abuse
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_abuse

"I am now convinced that children should not be subjected to the frightfulness of the Christian religion.... If the concept of a father who plots to have his own son put to death is presented to children as beautiful and as worthy of society's admiration, what types of human behavior can be presented to them as reprehensible?"
— Ruth Hurmence Green

"The great trouble is that the preachers get the children from six to seven years of age and then it is almost impossible to do anything with them."
— Thomas Edison, (1847-1931)

There is no absurdity so obvious that it cannot be firmly planted in the human head if you only begin to impose it before the age of five, by constantly repeating it with an air of great solemnity.
— Arthur Schopenhauer

Give me child until the age of six and I will give you a Nazi for life.
— Adolph Hitler

Just think of the tragedy of teaching children not to doubt.
— Clarence Darrow

It is an interesting and demonstrable fact, that all children are atheists and were religion not inculcated into their minds, they would remain so.
— Ernestine Rose

Finding that no religion is based on facts and cannot be true, I began to reflect what must be the condition of mankind trained from infancy to believe in error.
— Robert Owen

Religion is the masterpiece of the art of animal training, for it trains people as to how they shall think.
— Arthur Schopenhauer

It is difficult, none the less, for the ordinary man to cast off orthodox beliefs, for he is seldom allowed to hear the other side.... Whereas the Christian view is pressed on him day in and day out.
— Margaret Knight

For that matter, it's not just child abuse that religion is guilty of, but emotional and psychological abuse of ALL of its members that it has brainwashed with these atrocious fairy tales.

" Their commodity is fear. They blackmail their parishioners with threats of hell and damnation. These poor deluded people give them their hard earned money to save them from a hell that does not exist, and from eternal torment that was invented by the perverted minds of priests to rob the living and in addition, they are exempt from taxation! Insult to injury!
Let me tell you that religion is the cruelest fraud ever perpetrated upon the human race. It is the last of the great scheme of thievery that man must legally prohibit so as to protect himself from the charlatans who prey upon the ignorance and fears of the people.
The penalty for this type of extortion should be as severe as it is of other forms of dishonesty."
— Joseph Lewis, (1889-1968);

Answer 9

No. The Bible says, "Train up a child in the way it should go. When it grows old, it will not depart." It does have to be taught to them at a pace they can understand and absorb though, not crammed down their throats.

Answer 10

If the parents actually believe this then they are doing what they think is best. I have been there and done that years ago before I became an Atheist.
Of course parents don't exactly say those words to little children. They teach them other things and save that for when they grow up.

Answer 11

Yes, read the book "A Child Called It"