Tesla:
Yes, I too was born & raised (brainwashed) in a very seriously christian home for about 25 years. I know how the belief system (like any belief system) makes a great impression upon a young, forming mind. It should be no surprise that 99.999999% of the time, a person's religion is that of their parents. Funny how that works. Many are coming to think & feel that religious indoctrination of a young mind is a form of child abuse.
This is an exerpt from the book "Disbelief 101"
Ask yourself this: Why can't you raise your hand to ask a question during or after a Christian service? If you can't ask questions of a speaker, it must be because the speaker considers questions to be harmful or annoying. And if you are forced to be any place where questions are discouraged, you're likely being indoctrinated. Even in religious services, such as those that take place in many Jewish communities where questions are encouraged, there is at least one question that will probably get the questioner, especially if he/she is very young, in trouble. No, it's not “Does God exist?” The question is, “Can I go home?” (Prior to leaving the house, “Can't I just stay at home?” will do the trick too). Are children of any religious faith, before the age where they can inquire and think properly, really free to refuse to attend religious services? In the United States, the law is backward in this regard, giving no protection to a child's mind. Authority figures are not free to treat a child's body as they wish, but it is open season on the mind.
If a child's parents want to shield their child from the secular teachings of the public schools, if they want to teach their children dogma rather than science, then that is considered the business of the parent. The law puts nonsensical belief above the welfare of the child. The child has no say in it. How is this fair? To take advantage of the trusting nature of a child for the purpose of indoctrination is abuse. (Thanks to Richard Dawkins again for having the courage to point this out).
You might think it's crazy to consider Sunday school to be abusive, but it is. In Sunday school, a nonsensical version of the universe is hammered into your brain before you are old enough to intellectually defend your self. This will haunt you for your whole life if you don't see through the nonsense. The people who are indoctrinating you are taking away your right to think critically. There is no greater theft.
What if I took the child and told her, every night and in every possible way, that if she ever jumped rope, invisible goblins in the sky would snatch her up and eat her flesh over and over and over again? Forever. If that child grew up believing this, living in fear of invisible goblins, and thinking that all of her rope jumping friends were destined for a terrible fate wouldn't you consider my actions to be horrible? Wouldn't it be abusive to take vantage of a child's trusting nature in such a way? This is exactly what religions do, threatening children with eternal torture for actions that harm no one.
So why do religions use such abusive indoctrination techniques? Religions are just like other businesses. The churches are selling something. Their product is universal: it is faith, and it costs next to nothing to produce, but it sells like hot cakes. Religions survive, because, like other businesses, they strive to form what corporations call “brand loyalty” in their customers. And churches, like businesses, try to hook their customers as young as possible.
All of the well-known fast food establishments cater to children. They sell their garbage in a number of ways. The idea is to get a child to think of the fast food as being fun, and to tie the food to a happy emotion. Kids get toys when they eat hamburgers that come in brightly colored boxes. If they eat in the restaurant portion of a fast food joint, there are places to play. The idea is to get them thinking about the food emotionally rather than logically. Emotions stay with you much longer than logical thoughts - especially when you're a kid. The fast food companies want kids to ignore the fact that they are eating junk, and instead focus on how happy they feel while doing it.
Places of worship do the same thing. Many churches use a double pronged approach. They bring children in and try to make them feel good about going to church. Children are given comfort in the idea that they are loved by Jesus or Allah, that they are part of a select group (even if it's not stated outright, that they are better than everyone else), and that they will one day see dead loved-ones again.
As a child gets older and is hooked, the Church clamps down. The child is taught to be ashamed of his or her body, that sexual thoughts are sinful, and that there is a place of torment awaiting those who don't obey the churches restrictive sexual rules. So fear and self-loathing are added to the love, hope, and hubris mix.
Recently, many churches have resorted to flashier sales techniques utilizing Christian rock music and teen-oriented services. Legions of trendily dressed youth pastors with soul patches and earrings have descended upon teens, trying to assure them that Christ is cool. The purpose of all this is not just to snare you, but to snare your children some day, and then your grandchildren.
Understand this: If religions don't indoctrinate children, they will cease to exist. They can only survive by using childhood indoctrination techniques. They bank on the fact that it's difficult to break free of indoctrinated ideas that were ingrained at an early age, especially for those who have been discouraged from thinking critically.
So what can you do? If you live in a religious household where saying you're an atheist will get you into serious trouble, then simply keep your nonbelief to yourself until you are old enough to do what you want. I am not advocating that you openly rebel against your parents or others in charge of you. They very likely love you and may be, on the whole, very good parents or very good authority figures. What I am telling you is that you and only you have the right to your own mind. It is illegal in this country to abuse the body of a child, but it's not illegal to abuse a child's mind. So you have to look out for yourself. No one else owns your mind, only you.
Above all, realize that your mind, like your body, is your own. You don't have to let other people flood your mind with religious garbage. Religion relies and thrives on your fear.
