Friends, the photograph above shows a nice little scene. A friendly cleric chatting to some children. But, hang on, is this all that is happening?
What is really happening is that the cleric is shoveling stuff into the innocent childrens’ minds, stuff about a big Boogaboo who lives in the sky and who watches each child and, if they sin, each transgression is noted in a Big Book and, on Judgement Day, when all the graves open up and discharge their contents, they will be judged by the Boogaboo and, if they don’t measure up, down to hell they will go and burn in fires forever.
Now, I don’t know about you, but I find this scene rather harrowing. They are just kids who haven’t got the maturity or the education or the intellect to analyze this ‘stuff’ and decide whether to accept it or not. No, all they know is that an authority figure is telling them that something fearful, something mysterious, something threatening is out there beyond their vision.
Along with graphic representations of a man on a cross who wears a crown of thorns who people say is the Boogaboo’s son, it’s the stuff of nightmares.
Across the world, as you read this, religions of all kinds are pumping ‘stuff’ into the minds of innocent kids as fast as they can. The kids are vulnerable, impressionable, trusting. They don’t really understand what is being said but they retain bits of it, the scary bits.
Now, if I walked around the streets scaring kids, I’d be arrested and put in jail. But religious institutions have complete freedom to scare the pants off kids (and their parents) everywhere. No one questions this right. No one asks whether what they are doing is right or good or how exactly it impacts on kids. Few people even question whether religion is a fabrication, a con.
No, religion has infiltrated every layer of every society. Generation after generation are indoctrinated to think that religion is necessary and they bring their kids up to think the same. It’s not necessary!
The children in the photograph should not be indoctrinated until they have reached an age where they can deal with the spurious claims of religion and its threats.
And that age is reached when they are about 18 years of age and, quite rightly, most of them would laugh in the cleric’s face if he tried to tell them about Boogaboo.
Churches, while they can seem so innocent; just a house of God, a place to gather and give thanks..Unfortunately..these houses of God are places to attain money and power. As David said more eloquently earlier this week: Power corrupts, and money corrupts. It is sick to fill a child with fears. All children lie, it is important to teach them why the truth is so important. Perhaps the Church is not capable of teaching that lesson!
Our experience with joining a church (Catholic) was a disaster. We were lucky, I suppose. We walked away, but church slander followed us. Turns out, people who walk away are wicked.
It takes faith to live outside of a church. I wish I could just go and pray with my fellows, but it never works out that way. They don’t just want my simple faith. The church wants my money, time and power – for themselves.
The truest church cathedral that I visit is the redwood forest. I can go there with a furrowed mind and emerge after an hours walk in the trees, totally free of thoughts and a peace of being that is so solid you could touch it.
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I have no intention of actually joining the Catholic Church, for the very reasons Grace and David write, but do appreciate certain aspects of it, such as Grace mentions. I cannot imagine the pressure there must be on parents regarding church membership, especially if their parents and siblings belong, but instead, get the shivers.
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So right on David…The one thing I was left with after 12 yrs enforced Catholic education…all girls too…was knowing that I would never raise my kids in any organized religion…I was brought up in every kind of indoctrination…Catholic .Female and a middle child of 9…so Nursing was the only “respectable” future for me..however that all being said I am a walking testamnet to the fact that I knew even as a child the whole right thing was wrong for me and nothing could ahve radicalized me more thoroughly than the upbringing I had..however my sisters and brothers did not all fare so well and the stories we all could tell of the strangeness of Catholic life…what a repressed hothouse for developing abnormally in the most intimate of ways…re-ligio is from the Latin..to reconnect…I never did feel separated from God…I just could not connect with their version…so I became a Hippie and am a radical activist..I am 65 and pray for us all and work my own acre as best I can and I know from reading this post a while that there are many many like me…love from sunny and warming northern Michigan…Kate
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Grace, your image of the redwoods (which I have seen) is wonderful and there is not a sign of religious paraphernalia in sight.
Therese, clerics work the family thing expertly. They appeal to our herd instinct!
Kate, glad you escaped the trap. Many don’t and live restricted lives that are filled with fear.
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Just the incense of the sun baking the rich soil and the chorus of birds. You can bring your daily bread with you from the hearth stone bakery at the edge of town. Wave to neighbors you don’t know, but you feel like you know.
I miss living amongst the trees at the edge of the grove. Now, our air comes from the ocean, through the redwoods at the top of the hill down to us. It is pretty fresh here.
It seems to me that humans need abundant trees around them to be happy and healthy.
No paraphernalia, David. You must carry what you need, needs become simpler.
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I grew up in a conservative luthern religion that was really big on hell. I was, as a small child, very sure I would burn in hell forever for whatever small sins I had committed. That thought is very frightening for a young child!
Today I consider what was done to me to be a form of child abuse. It really messed with my mind. As I grew older I was able to question what I had been taught and see it for the lies it was. I was lucky that way. I can still remember the terrible fear I felt at the thought of being tortured and being burned alive forever and ever. The church spent a lot of time describing in great detail all of the torments that sinners would endure in hell. No matter how hard I prayed to Jesus I always found new sins to commit that would, I was taught, send me straight to hell.
My mother monitered what I watched on TV yet the graphic, violent porn coming coming from the church never bothered her.
That is a terrible thing to do to a child!
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Grace, I really like your thought about when you have to carry your needs, your needs become simpler.
Jeannie, I was moved by your account. How can people be unmoved by what is being done to small children? Then I suppose they are unmoved by most things unless they impact upon themselves!
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I was brought up an atheist, but still was contaminated by religious teachings.
My neighbors went to Sunday school, and they told me about the angel sitting on my shoulder, judging everything I did, and writing it all down in a book, good things on one page, bad things on another, and then God would judge me by that book.
Well!! I was indignant! Freaking angel snitch! I always thought that spying was wrong. Maybe that’s why I’m so anti=CIA.
Funny thing is, my husband was brought up Catholic and he was taught that that little CIA spy was a guardian angel, to protect him from harm!
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David G Reply:
April 26th, 2010 at 9:19 am
Wagelaborer, religion should not be given the freedom that it currently enjoys. It should be held to account for the damage it does and the lies that it tells. It should also be forced to provide proof for its ‘fantastic’ claims.
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It should be a crime to indoctrinate children. I hope to live long enough to meet a child not indoctrinated with one religion or another.
From my earliest memories whenever I did something ‘wrong’ the devil was going to get me!! Religion has been allowed to terrorize children early and often without a fight. How very cruel.
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David G Reply:
April 26th, 2010 at 6:15 pm
Changing the mindset that allow religion its freedom seems impossible to do, Kathy. It has been indoctrinating people using fear for thousands of years and has never been called to account by anyone!
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Because of being raised Catholic I did not allow anyone to do that to my children and fought the school and family but I won. When my son was around 5 and playing with a new playmate outside my kitchen window I overheard the following..”do you go to church?”(it was sunday)
no, my son replied.”ooh you are going to hell!”replied the other boy. “I don’t believe in hell my son said calmly. “you are really going to hell!”the other boy said in astonishment.That was when I saw the difference in what my response at a young age would have been.At that age I had no voice at all. That being said I do find that all our experiences are grist for the mill and who we wind up to be and what we believe is a process..thank G_d for that…love Kate
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Kate, thanks for your nice, instructive comment. Your reaction to the indoctrination, sadly, happens too few times. Usually people stop thinking forever, allow the Church to think for them!
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