Wednesday 19 November 2008

Religion & Child Abuse

A Typical "Kumari", or Nepali Child Goddess, Decked out in Ceremonial Clothing

In one of my earlier posts, I did a cover article on the case of little Audrey (link here), which, in most cases, constitute one of the most common forms of child abuse.

In Nepal (link here), for example, Buddhist clans maintain a system of selecting young girls, often as young as two, designed to elect a child goddess for the pious masses to venerate and fawn upon. Child goddesses are elected by a Buddhist clan; as with other sex-starved religions, virginity is a definite must, and a series of bizarre, grotesque rituals, such as holding the severed thigh of a deer and staying in a room accompanied by a dead buffalo carcass are performed. If she endures the whole disgusting process without shedding a single tear, she will clear the first series of hurdles; throughout her time as goddess up till about the time she menstruates (between 9-12 yrs old), she is closeted largely from the outside world, only to show her face for religious rituals.

Besides the utterly misogynistic idea that menstruating women are "unclean", the idea that a innocent child can be wrenched away from the love of her parents, forcibly against her will, to be raised in a deeply insane environment, subjected to mental abuse and indoctrination that will not augur well for her future once she is discarded and subsequently forced to fend for herself with what little secular knowledge she has gleaned from the religious establishment, can only be deemed as archaic and blatant child abuse.

Yet, such blatant child abuse is tolerable because it is carried out under the auspices and behind the evil veneer of Religion; try keeping a child locked up under lock and key, and you can be sure that you are committing child abuse under secular law. Do it under the cover of the most absurd of religious rituals, and you are a pious, religious, moral man, or for that matter, a woman.

The Wretched Child


Like the Buddhist clan which nominates one child victim every few passing years, Christianity's doctrine of eternal damnation is, in every sense of the word, mental brainwashing bordering on lunacy.

A Christian family, armed with the toxic verses of the bible, is not going to have a very rational, open-approached view of children:

If someone has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey his father and mother, who does not heed them when they discipline him, then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his town at the gate of that place. They shall say to the elders of his town, “This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a glutton and a drunkard.” Then all the men of the town shall stone him to death. So you shall purge the evil from your midst; and all Israel will hear, and be afraid.
(Deut. 21:18-21)

Of course, in modern times, we no longer stone children for mere disobedience. Unlike mere biblical times, humanity has progressed to a point whereby we value children as equal human beings, albeit attached with the "minor" tag, and stoning, if anything else, cannot be condoned in any secular setting.

Yet, religious parents, well-meaning as they are, will not hesitate to educate their children in the footsteps of religious hucksters. By demeaning children and telling them they are no better than wretched little sinners born into a world in which they will have no other recourse other than through their respective religious sects, children are being mentally abused and sedated from the real world as it is.

In this blog post written by a "Virtuous Woman" (Fuck, I always thought virtuous women are fucking hypocrites.......I have been right so far. Sluts are better!), the writer writes about her systematic breakdown of her child, first by insinuating the love of Jebus, and subsequently breaking her down and reducing her to no more than a "wretched little girl". Classic Carrot-and-stick method to drive a slow-moving ass.

Excerpts from her blog post. Be prepare to cringe:

A Four-Yr Old Girl Knows She Needs A Savior!


O wretched little girl she is, who will deliver her from her body of death.

First thing in the morning my 4 year old daughter normally says to me, "I am going to be a good girl today mummy". When she says this she really means it, and I can see how she longs to finish even just one day in her life without doing anything wrong. However my daughter knows as well as I do that within at the least an hour of saying she is going to be good, that promise will be broken. Sometimes during the day or before bed, she always asks me if she has been good, and I always try to be as honest as I can with her, and I will tell her what she has done wrong if I can remember. If she has been better than usual I will praise her and tell her. I have never said to her she has been a perfect little girl who has done nothing wrong all day, If I say that to her then I am a liar and I will be doing her more harm than good. I do not believe in teaching children self esteem or that they should feel good about themselves, because they should not. My daughter is a normal 4 year old who loves to play with her dolls and dress up, but everyday she finds that she is doing things that are wrong like doing something to upset her baby brother or not doing what she is told by her mum. So we have a problem, and this is an everyday battle. The problem is sin. I never taught my daughter to sin. This is because she, and as well as the rest of the human race have inherited a sinful nature from Adam. From the moment we are conceived we are sinners, Pslam 57:5. We are born with a desire to sin. We are all born God hating and evil.

Here is a mother who believes her child is an eyesore in the eyes of Gawd, a blemish of sorts only to be rectified by the grotesque blood of Jebus. While she refuses to admit it explicitly, it is clear that her child has been brainwashed to the point of paranoia: Heck, she doesn't even believe in the trait of self-esteem!

Unfortunately for her child, her childhood will be a period fraught with fear and undue anxiety. Not only does she have to contend with a half-brained mother who thinks she is a wretched sinner, she has to deal with the insecurities of dealing with an imagined deity who is no better than Hitler and Mussolini and all the rest of the tyrants and despots who have walked on this planet at some point of time.

Religion is Child Abuse


Hizobollah's Latest Recruits: Children Trained to Fight Against the Tried and Tested Army of Israeli

If anything else, Religion is a subtle form of child abuse: Not only does it keep children closeted (mentally, physically or both) within their community, hence promoting sectarianism, it instills a child with the unnecessary dread of eternal condemnation and evokes a sense of piety and irrationality that renders them susceptible to all kinds of hucksters and fraudsters who wear the veil of religion to deceive the gullible masses. Children, being born with an instinct to copy and learn from their parents and adults, are more apt to be indoctrinated and in the case of terrorist organizations, children are the best candidates for self-strapped suicide bombers: They are more inclined to obey, and are less inclined to be rational if they are trained to be pious and execute orders without question.

It is important that as parents, adults should impart the right skills and knowledge to their kids. Telling children that they are no better than the irks and criminals who deserve to be burning in eternal abyss is just what it always has been - child abuse.