Some Christian Teachings are Child Abuse

Discussion in 'Religion & Philosophy' started by HereWeGoAgain, Jan 18, 2017.

  1. HereWeGoAgain

    HereWeGoAgain Banned

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    Having been raised with religion and then experimenting with a number of others as I got older, all Christian churches, I have an intimate understanding of various religious doctrines and teachings. By my mid twenties I had mostly rejected formal religions but clung to my guns and religion. But over time I bought into this stuff less and less until I didn't really believe much
    of it at all. Slowly I began to see my upbringing for what it was.

    Over the years I began to understand how hard it was to shake the hell-fire and brimstone fear mongering with which I was raised. Slowly it dawned on me what a terrible thing a religious upbringing can be.

    Take an impressionable child barely old enough to speak, and immediately begin to threaten them with eternal torture if they are bad. Threaten them on a daily basis. Constantly remind them that God is watching.

    If I threatened to beat my kid every day - if I took a child to a place where they were threatened with extreme physical abuse and beatings as a form of behavior control - I would probably be arrested. Now multiply that by a thousand and you have a religious upbringing. You don't just get beaten, you will burn! And you will burn forever!!! You will suffer more than you can imagine, forever and ever.

    I was almost 40 years old before I really understood how much this brainwashing had affected my life. And then it dawned on me: This is a horrible form of child abuse. To terrify children with tales of eternal torture from which there is no escape, and for something as benign as missing church on Sunday, is abhorrent. It took half a lifetime to move beyond the tales of terror that were drilled into my head day after day, in both church and a Catholic school.

    But remember, God loves you? Give me a break. This should be illegal. It took a huge toll on my life.

    I'm a bitter ex Catholic but any number of Christian religions teach much the same thing.
     
  2. Margot2

    Margot2 Banned

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    Was your enlightenment recent?
     
  3. scarlet witch

    scarlet witch Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Yeah I hear you, similar history, strict religious brainwashed upbringing that took years to unravel... all tied up in fear

    You have to admit it's pretty amazing seeing the world without those religious eye flaps on...like breathing fresh air after being kept in a very dank dark cave for a long time
     
  4. doombug

    doombug Well-Known Member

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    So you traded the fear of hell for the fear of global warming? A myth for a myth, perhaps?
     
  5. Ericb760

    Ericb760 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Some?

    You're being kind...
     
  6. Ericb760

    Ericb760 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I understood from the time that I could think that the God myth was about as relevant as the Tooth Fairy or Santa Claus.

    That grown adults insist that one is real and the others are false, never ceases to amaze me.
     
  7. doombug

    doombug Well-Known Member

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    The most abusive religion today is liberal progressivism. It abuses adults mostly.
     
  8. cerberus

    cerberus Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I'm convinced that it's a genetic abnormality. I fail to understand how an adult with a full-developed brain, and who is otherwise perfectly rational in all other ways, can believe all this religious (*)(*)(*)(*), and buy into the mindless ritualism.
     
  9. Ericb760

    Ericb760 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I read an article some years ago that theorized a "God Gene", whereas those who had it could blindly believe in an invisible sky genie.

    If true, I've been forever thankful that the gene skipped me.
     
  10. Ericb760

    Ericb760 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Liberal progressiveness doesn't hold a candle to conservative hypocrisy.

    I witnessed that firsthand after a decade in the Bible Belt, where there was a topless bar on every corner, and they were packed to the rafters every Sunday after church.
     
  11. doombug

    doombug Well-Known Member

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    Who is talking about hypocrisy? But libs have their share and more of it.
     
  12. doombug

    doombug Well-Known Member

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    What is hilarious is the way libs will criticize religion for believing in "myths" while pushing their own myths.
     
  13. therooster

    therooster Banned

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    Child abuse ? Maybe your just overly sensitive! Did Santa break your heart ? Are you still holding a grudge? Child abuse , give me a break.
     
  14. therooster

    therooster Banned

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    Oh boy , talk about brainwashed !
     
  15. SillyAmerican

    SillyAmerican Well-Known Member

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    I am sorry you were exposed to such a warped view of Christianity.

    At the center of Christian theology are the words of Christ found in Matthew 22:37, Mark 12:30-31, and Luke 10:27; all three say 'You must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind.' And, 'Love your neighbor as yourself'. This idea, together with that given in John 3:16 -- For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. These make up the core truths of my Christian faith.

    Many of the problems in today's "Christian" churches come down to poor leadership and poor teaching. It leads to a need for escape from an incorrect interpretation of what Christ taught. Anyway, as I say, I'm sorry this happened.

    A pastor friend of mine says that Christ came to make us free, whole, and intimate with God. (Feel free to listen to his sermon from last Sunday entitled You Have Come From God. He is covering 1 John, and I think it's applicable here...).
     
  16. Njoror

    Njoror Banned

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    So Christianity is child abuse but encouraging five year old kids to question their gender and sexuality is not?

    Progressivism is child abuse.
     
  17. PARTIZAN1

    PARTIZAN1 Well-Known Member

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    My observations is that there is are elements of child abuse in most religious teachings if followed to the letter.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Who is to say that your interpretation of what Christ meant is any better or worse than mine! Who is to say that you are "correct" or that I am wrong?
     
  18. War is Peace

    War is Peace Banned

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    If you think the Catholic Church and true Christianity are the same, you weren't paying attention.
     
  19. vino909

    vino909 Well-Known Member

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    and yet, for some it is hard to believe that the two legged inhabitants of this rock came to be by chance, and there is no higher power in the universe. quite the conceited view, one might say.
     
  20. Hoosier8

    Hoosier8 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    There is an old saying, "you don't have to teach a child to be bad".

    With the abandonment of these teachings you get what we see today, the most rude, disrespectful, entitled, and intolerant youth in our lifetime.
     
  21. garyd

    garyd Well-Known Member

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    Sadly many of the churches in the Bible Belt today preach anything but true religion. And please note the Roman Has never been heavily invested in true religion. For them like too many others the primary object of worship is money and power.
     
  22. SillyAmerican

    SillyAmerican Well-Known Member

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    Well, that's where individual responsibility kicks in. People need to be able to discern correct teachings, they should be able to cross check a teaching with what the Bible says, what Biblical scholars say on various subjects, etc. We don't operate in a vacuum, we should take the time to kick the proverbial tires. That's my thinking, anyway.
     
  23. YouLie

    YouLie Well-Known Member

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    Wrong section of the forum. Take your Christophobia to the religion section on the forum.
     
  24. doombug

    doombug Well-Known Member

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    If Christianity is child abuse what does Islam teach? Funny how libs are upset by the concept of hell but have zero problem with killing gays.
     
  25. undertheice

    undertheice Well-Known Member

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    i find it quite interesting that some folks will condemn an entire religion because they themselves were not strong enough to withstand its negative aspects, when every human endeavor contains such aspects. do they condemn islam for its use to enslave women and turn children into walking bombs? do they condemn collectivist theory for the millions of deaths at the hands of despots like stalin, mao and castro? post-reformation christianity is a far cry from the sort of violence engendered by these two philosophies alone, yet this is what these folks see as one of the great dangers to humanity.
     

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