Christians; why do you indoctrinate your children?

Question

Why don't you let them decide which religion, if any, they want to follow? Why send them to Sunday School (SS)?

Since you shove your kids your religion down their throats WITHOUT THEIR CONSENT...doesn't it count as statutory mind rape or child abuse?

What would you think of a parent who gives his/her kids booze or drugs, just because he/she feels good consuming them?

Answer 1

Why do you honor two serial killers with your avatar and screenname?

Most everyone raises their own children in what they believe is the right way. What do you do....raise your kids up to believe something you think is wrong?

I was raised going to church from when I was born. It was never "shoved down my throat without my consent". I loved going to church and still do. On the other hand, my husband didn't convert to Christianity until he was in his early 20's. So he didn't have it "shoved down his throat without his consent" as a child.

So that wipes out your uninformed little theory.

Answer 2

What behonest said:

Turn the question around...why do atheists teach their children that God doesn't exist? Doesn't that amount to stautory rape of the mind or child abuse? Why don;t you let them decide which religion, if any, they want to follow?
The answer is that we ALL have children as a way of continuing our blood line as well as our belief systems. If you want children to be able to make their own choices, then you will have to remove all children from their parents and have them raised by an impartial third party with no socio-political-religious-moral views at all. Does that sound like it makse sense to you?

Why do YOU shove the names of serial killers down our throats? That amounts to advocating murder and violence/
It makes you an immoral, violent person who needs to be in jail.
Agree?

Answer 3

Turn the question around...why do atheists teach their children that God doesn't exist? Doesn't that amount to stautory rape of the mind or child abuse? Why don;t you let them decide which religion, if any, they want to follow?
The answer is that we ALL have children as a way of continuing our blood line as well as our belief systems. If you want children to be able to make their own choices, then you will have to remove all children from their parents and have them raised by an impartial third party with no socio-political-religious-moral views at all. Does that sound like it makse sense to you?

Answer 4

The problem is they are all themselves indoctrinated, and have enough belief to feel that they are doing it "for the best". That is a parental perogative, although you are right that it isn't actually a good thing.
For evidence of that you just need to see how many kids (but not all of course) end up treating science with an unhealthy scepticism...often long before they are able to understand the concepts they are dismissing. Hardly condusive to an informed opinion on the part of the child...

Even without active indoctrination, children will often fall into step with their parent's beliefs naturally, such as sons supporting the same football team as their dad, or voting for the same political party. Again....not in all cases, naturally.

Answer 5

I have yet to indoctrinate my son with any religion, but he will tell you that he is nuts about the Lord. He will sit in his room and listen to conversations that my hubby and I have. He always double checks everything we say. You might say he keeps us on our toes on just about every subject out there. I as a parent am open to all subjects of interest to him. He has found that demonology was not for him, nor atheism, nor the gods or goddesses that existed. Yes I am a Christian but an informed one. A very good verse in the Bible will tell you; My people perish for the lack of knowledge.

Answer 6

i grew to become into indoctrinated as a new child into the "Christian" faith of my father and mom... despatched to Sunday college, despatched to biblical studies... Christian summer season camp... yet while my strategies kicked in... I have been given out. My mom cried as quickly as I advised her I had finished examining the excellent Bible two times and found no reason to have self assurance in any gods. i grew to become into 12 years previous. Now, i'm fifty 4 and that i've got studied only approximately each and every of the worldwide's religions... and nonetheless got here across no genuine gods.

Answer 7

That is the best thing to b done. Thanx that u said childreen. It would b wrong to indocrinate adults. A kid should know what is his\her religion when they r very very young. It is God's words. So, when they get older, they can deside what religion to follow.

Parents believe that their religion is the best , so they teach it to their kids. Y not?

Good Luck!!

Answer 8

you asked something like this already..

and im guessing you have been to every Christian household and witnessed the shoving of religion down ones throat all your life..

i was given the choice on my own in my own time and terms, and i made my choice. so mock that all you want.

p.s are you going to report me again for answering your question?

God bless

Answer 9

ive witnessed this first hand with a friend. and she has gone through alot of grief because of it.
needless to say she is no longer a christian, shes an atheist now.

i think most kids who are indoctrinated end up resenting their parents, or the religious beliefs.

Answer 10

k716-"I was raised going to church from when I was born. It was never "shoved down my throat without my consent". I loved going to church and still do. On the other hand, my husband didn't convert to Christianity until he was in his early 20's. So he didn't have it "shoved down his throat without his consent" as a child."

What you describe as your "raising" is "shoving down the throat" in its definition. When you were too young to speak, spell, eat, and poop, you were in church with your "darling little dress" with the "cute little bows" in your hair. The one thing you could do on your own, your solitary function at that time in your life, was to learn. While all these things were taking place, going to preschool, having your mom try to get you to say your first word, toilet training, you were learning. When a human is that young, the brain, physically speaking, is not fully complete in its cognitive development. The brain doubles in size and mass from age 1-5. Neurons make links, and knowledge manifests itself in skilled outward interaction with the world. During this time, indoctrination, inoculation, injection of how the world works and what one needs to do to succeed in it occurs.

If religion is included in this, along with its reasoning for doing good works (to please some fairy in the sky rather than for the betterment of the human), its damnation of anything against it, and it's complete denial of fact-based evidence, choosing instead "faith", religion will be permanently etched into the workings of the brain. A human, after being taught a view in this indoctrination period, would find true physical and moral discomfort trying to go against it. As an experiment: Try making your bed every morning. The first time that you do it, it probably won't be that bad, because you're trying to beat me and show me that you can do it. Try doing it for a month. A year. It gets hard. Try tapping on your front door 5 times every time you open or close it. It sounds irrational, but what if you saw your mom do it every day from the time you came home from the hospital as a baby?

If religion wasn't "shoved down throats", there would not be nearly as strong of a geographical/cultural correlation of religion. There are whole family trees that are nothing but Catholics, nothing but Methodists. Blacks are Baptists, the rich are Jewish or Catholic. If you're hypothesizing that this trend would arise by simple happenstance, that each of these people just "decided" what they wanted to believe, you are sorely mistaken.

Religion is, arguably, the single most important decision a person will make in their lifetime. It determines a person's thoughts on the creation and end of the world, it determines what moral code and backing that they believe is correct, it determines their rites of passage in life, and it ultimately determines where they think they will spend the rest of eternity.
For parents to make this decision for their children before their children have the brain capacity to comprehend why the Cookie Monster likes cookies so much is evil embodied.

For those interested, I consider myself a Socratic/Aristotelian Humanist. I believe in the all-powerful human mind and moral excellence free of the weakness and slavery that theistic views bring about. A belief in a god is an immediate concession of ignorance. While I understand that there are many unknowns to humans at this point in the timeline of the earth, I believe that they can be solved by the perpetuation of science, reason, thought, and discovery over the mindless "faith". A belief in god admits that human knowledge is finite with the "god" having infinite knowledge. This shackles the mind and lowers expectations and hopes of the soul.

If you agree with me theistically or not, I do not care, but concede this - being labeled as a "Catholic" or "Presbyterian" as you slide out of the womb, following this belief throughout your entire life, and dying the same way you entered(not even of your own consent, I might add) does not necessarily yield itself to spiritual discovery. 90% of America says "I'm fine with what I have, thanks". What if you'd be better suited as a Buddhist, a Jew, a Satanist? Of course the natural knee-jerk reaction of a hardened God-believer is "I know that I'm a Christian". No you don't. You have no idea what you know. You've seen and experienced one thing in your entire pathetic existence. Before you commit to a bible, give another one a chance. Any Christian in this world, if only to see another viewpoint, should read another "holy" book. In reality, there aren't many that have even read their own.


"Every theist to a religion is an atheist to all the others."


Edit: oh, and about your husband...ok...let's do a theoretical experiment. Religion is disallowed for those under 18. At 18, you get to smoke, watch porn, vote, and believe in God. Do you honestly, honestly, think that theism would continue? Looking at the numbers of converts to religion, do you think this force alone would be enough to carry on the irrational, mystical, crazy traditions that encompass the world of Christianity? The Pagans would laugh at you. The flying- spaghetti-monsterians would outnumber you 2 to 1. This argument that children are not mass injected with religion looks absolutely ridiculous to those outside it's oblivious inner circle, just to let you know.