Is it right to raise your child to be religious, or is it child abuse?

Question

Children are not born Christian/Muslim etc.. but many are forced to follow their parents beliefs as soon as they are old enough to absorb information. Is it right to tell a child that all the answers to lifes mysteries are contained within one book? Or does that just dull the childs natural sense of adventure and limit their ability to think with an open mind?

I think children should be left to develop their own opinions as they grow older and gain life experience, but I'd be interested to hear your views on this important subject too.

Answer 1

Their parents, are explaining the world as they understand it, that is all.

Would it be abusive to purposefuly avoid educating your child about life?

Think about it.

Obviously you are just after people to cheer you on for copying Dawkins, but seriously you dispose of your own rational thought when you assume religious people know better.

Answer 2

Then why is it okay to not let a child have free thought and decide for themselves whether or not gOd exists? If they aren't convinced and are willing to take the chance of burning in hell, why not let them? After all, we are supposed to have free will, are we not? On that note, why not just say it's okay to not have any sort of education. It's illegal for a parent to hold a child from going to school as it would be a form of child abuse yet isn't it the parents decision to do so?

Answer 3

If you look at it rationally, we all have a worldview. Even those who teach their children that all views are true are merely proposing a relativistic world view. This is no different to teaching a child that christianity is true or islam is true. To a large extent, even if you taught your child nothing, they would pick up your world view anyway.

If it helps, I was raised by parents who had rejected Christianity, and I believed in many things including tarot, spiritualism, reincarnation, ghosts, you name it I found a place for it. I became a Christian aged 28 when I had a personal experience of Jesus and could not deny his existence. I have raised my children to know this, but I am aware that they could choose another way. My husband on the other hand was raised in a Christian family but has no desire to follow Jesus, as he did go away from it all when he reached his teens. So in the end, children will do what they want to do, no matter what their parents believe.

Answer 4

A VERY good thought here,

im from the Muslim background and I see alot of young girls, I Mean, some of these girls are as young as 3 or 4 and yet they are wearing headscarfs being encouraged on them by parents..before i get hate mail from my own kind..i PERSONALLY think that this is wrong, ok..all children are influenced by people around them, but surely let them when they get to a certain age, let them choose for them selves for what they feel is right for THEM and NOT have religion shoved on them at such a tender age.

I just cannot understand the mentality here, I was born here and we didnt have that shoved upon us by our parents..so why start now??..in most cases within the Muslim community anyway, the child will grow up practising the religion but I think not to the point where religion controls them, what i am seeing nowadays just scares me sometimes...but then again we're not all the same!!

Answer 5

Children do not grow up in a vacuum. They learn from their parents, siblings, school, teachers, friends, community and later from books in their independent study. They can be molded according to any belief. Only later on they can make their own choices by which time their perceptions would have changed.

So it is difficult to let them grow in a truly 'neutral' environment since they will be learning one point of view or another. And no one at this time can say which point of view is right without some bias.

"Forced to follow" would not be an appropriate expression as every parent wants his/her child to get the best.

Answer 6

I don't know if I believe in a God myself but I have a 6 year and I try to teach her to be open minded I wouldn't say yes there is or no there isn't I would let her decide for herself
As I child I was taken to Sunday school but as Ive grown up I have my own questions about things so will let her choose

Answer 7

As a Christian, I believe the exact opposite of you. I believe that it is my duty to raise my child up to know God, his word and to be obedient to God.

It isn't a force to follow beliefs, it is a lifestyle. This doesn't mean by child doesn't have a sense of adventure. My children's sense of adventure simply differs in attitude from a non-believer. The misconception that a Christian doesn't have fun or partake in enjoyment is false. Our enjoyment comes from a different source, we do delight in the Lord.

An Atheist once told me, an Atheist mind you, that they think that since society has taken out prayer from school or banned using anything remotely pertaining to God out of society, the world and todays children have only declined. Back when prayer was allowed in schools and when children were raised with a sense of God and the knowledge of good and evil, right and wrong, you didn't see the problems we have today in school for example. We never thought about the possibility that our children may go to school and someone would sell them drugs, or bring a gun to school and start shooting because they are angry. The biggest worries in children back in the day was falling off of playground equipment or having an arguement with a friend over who won the nose to nose race.

That came from an Atheist.

Children have been left to develop their own opinions, they have gained life experience; in the drug rehab programs, in jail, in juvinile detention, in the hospitals healing from gun and knife wounds. Some are terrified to even go to school because of the violence they face.

Their open minds tell them that family is no longer important, but their gang buddies, they are their new family and loyalty to them is now important, at any cost.

I am sorry, I don't think that leaving a mind of a child to form inmature opinions and conclussions is a good thing. Children do not have the maturity to make sound jugdements own their own, and to decipher good from bad in those situation of peer pressure. It's true, some do, but most do not. Society has become a greedy, selfish lover of selfs who don't care what they have to do to one up the other.

Why are our medical costs so high, LETS SUE is always the answer, Doctors have problems protecting themselves with insurance to cover themselves from people who just want to make money for what they call malpractice, which isn't even true. Yes, there are some legitamate claims, but many are false. Same for restraunts, etc. Hot coffee spill law suits, how stupid is that? GREED and DECEPTION to gain money, that's what that is.

So I find it more abusive to raise a child without teaching them about your religious beliefs. While it is true that a non-believer can have morals, it is also true that society has become a place where morals are not thought about frequently enough.

As it pertains to religious HOLY WARS and terrorists, this is a handful of extremists who have twisted words to their own desires. This does not pertain to the groups as a whole. I do not believe in the Muslims Quran, however most of them you will find are not terrorists. As it pertains to past Christians such as crusaders, again, this was a handful of people who were misled and twisted scripture.

The outcome of society was still better with God in America than it is without.

Answer 8

And I am in 100% agreement with you. My parents were fundamentalist christians, but NEVER imposed that on we kids. We are now 1 Baptist 2 Mormon 1 Seven Day Adventist And I am a Gnostic. We are all over 70 and as tight as a family could hope to be. Because the one thing we were taught was respect for each other.

Answer 9

Only child abuse if you are forcing your beliefs on the child. The parents should frequently about the child's views on the religion and if they thing it is right. Also, they definatley should adress the flaws on th religion. And should be accepting if the child does not believe in it

Answer 10

I think its OK for the paren'ts to teach their children about their religion as long as they arent forced to hold it as their own. The kids will learn from it regardless of if they choose it or not. Having said this though I don't think that a parent who is really faithful to their religion will present it in an objective way and tell their children that although this is what they believe in there are others that may be better for you.

Answer 11

It is a universal law that we are given free choice....and i have always believed that when a child reaches an age old enough to decide for themselves, that they choose, if any, a religious path to walk on. It is not so much cruel...but unfair and selfish of us to push our own religious faith/s on our children...especially when they are young, innocent and vunerable.