Question Is teaching young children religion child abuse? Should a child's mind be programmed from birth based upon a parents blind faith in something? Shouldn't a child be allowed to eventually grow into their own religion as opposed to being automatically grouped into one based on the geographical location of the hospital they were born in.

Accepted:
September 26, 2012

Comments

The term "child abuse" is loaded enough that I'm going to set it aside. And I'm going to restrict myself mainly to one point.

You seem to assume that religion is always a matter of "blind faith" and that if parents bring their children up in a religious tradition, this is inevitably a matter of "programming." But why think that? Isn'tit possible that perhaps you've been a bit indoctrinated (not to say brainwashed) on that point yourself?

Some beliefs are blind. That applies to some cases of religious belief and to a good many other kinds of belief as well. But not all beliefs about matters that go beyond the facts need be blind, and this is as true for religion as it is for anything else. The great religious traditions include traditions of argument, reflection, weighing of considerations, and discernment. Not all believers cling to their beliefs for dear life; not all believers believe that they're bound for hell if they have questions or doubts. In fact, for some serious religious people, detailed beliefs about difficult matters of metaphysics aren't what matters for them.

Are some forms of religious belief regrettable or worse? No doubt. The same goes, of course, for some political, ideological and moral beliefs. Do some people hold their religious views mainly out of habit? Indeed. Are some afraid to question what they've been told? Unfortunately true. Bringing up a child so that her beliefs are of that sort is a bad thing, whether the beliefs are specifically religious or not. But an unprejudiced look at the religious landscape will make clear that religion needn't be that way and frequently isn't.