Question by Natal Shark: Is the Teaching of Religion Really a Form of Child Abuse?
In The God Delusion and other writings, Richard Dawkins claims that teaching children about religion (specifically, the doctrine of hell) is a form of child abuse that scars children for life. Accordingly, Dawkins states, “Priestly groping of child bodies is disgusting. But it may be less harmful in the long run than priestly subversion of child minds.” Conspicuously absent in his writings are any published studies documenting that teaching children religious principles might adversely affect them. Since Dawkins claims to always rely upon science as the basis for his beliefs, why didn’t he cite any science in support of his claims?
Child abuse is a serious charge, and the physical abuse of children impacts their lives adversely in many different ways. Published studies show that physical abuse negatively impacts their mental health, providing additional risks for psychopathology, increased suicidal behaviors, eating disorders, depression, delinquency and criminal behaviors, and alcohol abuse. Impairment cause by child abuse produces life-long consequences for the individual and for society as a whole, which must deal with these unfortunate people.
In one of the largest studies of its kind, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill examined the role of religion in the lives of nearly 2500 adolescents. The adolescents indicated the level of their indoctrination (i.e., frequency of church attendance) and importance of religion, along with a number of activities that they have or have not participated in. Listed below are graphs of behaviors that would generally be considered to be unfavorable. To see larger versions of the graphs, just hover your cursor over the thumbnail image;
(Here is the site with the thumbnails)
http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/religion_as_child_abuse.html
These data show that religiously indoctrinated youth are much less involved with illegal substances, alcohol abuse, criminal and violent activities, and have fewer problems in school. Dawkins’s hypothesis that religious indoctrination is bad for children has been soundly falsified. In fact, those who never attend church or feel that religion is not important display far more symptoms of real child abuse than those who are subject to frequent religious indoctrination.
Within the last few years there have been numerous reports of child molestation committed by clergy of the Roman Catholic Church. The complaints have been so numerous that many people assume that religious people commit child abuse at a higher rate than the population at large. When I was growing up there were numerous newspaper articles about molestations within the Boy Scouts. Let’s face it, if you want to molest boys, what better place to go? However, the Boy Scouts changed their policies so that adult leaders are never allowed to be alone with the boys. Leadership in the Boy Scouts must always be at least two deep. Since they instituted that policy, there have been almost no cases of molestation. Did being a Boy Scout leader cause one to want to molest boys? Or was it just a good venue for getting access? The Roman Catholic Church hasn’t quite figured it out yet. If they instituted the two deep leadership policy for all adult/child interactions, their problem would almost completely disappear, as well. Molesters will go where their targets are easily accessible – it has nothing to do with religion. I used to be an atheist. Now that I am a Christian, I don’t suddenly feel drawn to molest boys!
Richard Dawkins’s hypothesis that religious teaching of children is a form of child abuse is shown to be scientifically unsupported. In fact, the scientific data shows that exactly the opposite – that adolescents who receive frequent religious instruction behave more appropriately and are better adjusted to adult life in society compared to their non-religious peers. Richard Dawkins’s own writings indicate that he himself was the victim of sexual abuse from a priest. Of course he would be angry at the religious authority who abused his power for evil purposes. Maybe this is why Dawkins is so adamant in his opposition to religious belief. However, making up the obviously failed hypothesis that religious instruction amounts to child abuse is not going to convince any except the extremely naive. Scientific data shows that teaching children the moral principles of religion has a positive impact on their behavior, as would be expected intuitively.
What do you think?
Best answer:
Answer by spittingsss
if brainwashing can be classified as mental/pshycological abuse
Know better? Leave your own answer in the comments!
Entries (RSS)