Why do people refer to Christianity and religion as "brainwashing"?

I'm afraid this is a rare occasion when I'm forced to disagree with you, my friend.

I think the American Heritage Dictionary definition of brainwashing is more accurate:

1. Intensive, forcible indoctrination, usually political or religious, aimed at destroying a person's basic convictions and attitudes and replacing them with an alternative set of fixed beliefs.

2. The application of a concentrated means of persuasion, such as an advertising campaign or repeated suggestion, in order to develop a specific belief or motivation.

The practice of Christianity conforms EXACTLY to these definitions.

Children are conditioned from day one to believe in God and practice the religion. Packed off to Christian school, church once or twice a week, total immersion in the household. There's no break from it. Questions and doubts are not allowed. In fact, anything less than total, blind, unflinching acceptance incurs the threat of Hell in the next life and rejection in this one. How is that not "Intensive, forcible indoctrination"?

Christians go door-to-door trying to convert people. They advertise on TV, radio, and print. They send missionaries to impoverished areas to spread their ideology to the uneducated, poor and desperate (less resistance). They target prisons, recovery programs, schools, nursing homes, hospitals - like predators going after the weak and slow in the herd. How is that not "the application of a concentrated means of persuasion"?

People refer to Christianity and religion as "brainwashing" because that's precisely what it is. It's brainwashing in its purest, most insidious, and most destructive form.

I think some people refer to religion as "brainwashing" because they personally feel they have been influenced by family and society (predominately from an early age) to believe in a religion they may no longer completely believe in. Therefore, these people are left with a sense of being wrongly influenced by the very same people they trust. The term "brainwashing" is obviously a very negative term to throw around, and might be somewhat of an over-exaggeration, but people in this case are often describing the term from a personal level.

It's brainwashing because most people are told about god, etc., when they are just learning to speak, i.e. too young to make any judgments whatsoever. Like Santa Claus, it is easy to get small children to believe that there is a god. Santa, of course, is a fiction, and one that is discovered as soon as the child becomes old enough to realize all of the presents are purchased by parents, relatives and friends and merely attributed to Santa. With god, the situation is somewhat different, because the way god is most often defined is such that there's no way of discovering that it's a fiction unless one thinks about it. Religion has a lot of rules, but makes no predictions, and makes no verifiable or falsifiable claims about the external world.

As Aldous Huxley wrote in Brave New World, 100,000 repetitions equal one self-evident truth.

Imagine a rational adult who had never been told about god. Now imagine trying to convince such a person that there was such a thing as god. What could you use as evidence? I can't think of anything.

If young children were not brainwashed to believe in god, god would cease to exist within one generation.

Different dictionaries have slight differences in the wordage. So while the one you found doesn't suit your idea of religion or Christianity, it does mine. But maybe these other dictionary definitions will make the likenesses clearer:

From Dictionary.com:

brain·wash·ing (Pay close attention to #2)

–noun

1.a method for systematically changing attitudes or altering beliefs, originated in totalitarian countries, esp. through the use of torture, drugs, or psychological-stress techniques.

2.any method of controlled systematic indoctrination, esp. one based on repetition or confusion: brainwashing by TV commercials.

3.an instance of subjecting or being subjected to such techniques: efforts to halt the brainwashing of captive audiences.

From American Heritage Dictionary:

brain·wash·ing (Note #2 here as well)

n.

1. Intensive, forcible indoctrination, usually political or religious, aimed at destroying a person's basic convictions and attitudes and replacing them with an alternative set of fixed beliefs.

2. The application of a concentrated means of persuasion, such as an advertising campaign or repeated suggestion, in order to develop a specific belief or motivation.

Edit: You are fortunate to not have had it forced upon you systematically, like myself and so many others did and still do. But It happens everyday, quietly, in schools and homes all over America. I lived it. Most of the friend in my home town lived it too. I don't think I've used the phrase often here, but I do agree with it in most cases.

1: Indoctrination of babies + all of 2 below. Manipulation of the education system.

2: Door knockers, street shouters, politicians and TV Evangelists.

Listen to a preacher or a politician. Or indeed any salesman that has been on one of those American courses that were once so popular. Take note of the tone of voice, the pace of the delivery, the constant questioning follwed by `we don`t want that do we` etc..etc...it is conditioning, which in my book is brainwashing.

Advertising and religion use the same techniques as you so rightly pointed out. People who can`t see through it, refer to 1 above, through the effect of a poor education, will buy it.

I have to agree with you that in most instances, Christianity, as practiced in a free and open society, is not a form of “brainwashing”. However, the keywords here are “free” and “open society”. Yet, we know that even in such free and open societies not all Christian households and communities are free and open.

In the case of radical fundamentalists, who censor oppositional material in their communities, and bar their children from exposure to contrasting points of view, there is a mild form of brainwashing taking place. Remember that the notion of censorship and keeping a community closed from external influence falls within the realm of forcible indoctrination, which is a seminal aspect of the definition of brainwashing.

youre second definition fits perfectly!

persuasion by propaganda or salesmanship. how can you not see that?

no one is saying you yourself are orchestrating or fueling the propaganda, but ever since its very creation, Christianity has spread by propaganda and salesmanship! there is no denying this. the first followers preached, which is virtually identical in definition to selling only with a different subject matter to be touted.

its not the belief itself thats brainwashing. its the way that it spreads. what do you call those little pamphlets which come as a folded up 20 dollar bill and say youre going to hell inside if you dont accept Jesus Christ as your lord and savior? thats propaganda. and it sells itself well because who wouldnt pick up a 20 on the ground? see where im going with this?

If you've been raised Christian, Christian ideas have been pounded into your head since before you even had the ability to reason.

Even if you weren't raised Christian, Christian ideas are such an integral part of our culture that it's impossible not to be influenced by them.

I was raised Catholic, and I remember reciting the Apostle's Creed every Sunday as a kid, without understanding any of it. Later, when I was old enough to know what the words meant, I was actually shocked at what I'd been saying all those years. But for many people, it simply sinks into the substrata of their consciousness and becomes an automatically accepted "truth" that no rational criticism can ever touch. People AUTOMATICALLY accept the idea that Jesus Christ rose from the dead, just as they automatically reject any suggestion to the contrary. That's the plain result of brainwashing.

It's still no excuse. I made it through the wilderness. So did you apparently. Nobody said it was easy, but you have to deprogram yourself.

Because Unlike what Christ taught us, a lot of "Churched" Parents teach their children how to act like a christian instead of the relationship aspect of Christianity.... When kids learn how to act they get really good at acting and become actors until they grow up and find that they didn't have any reason behind the way that they are living their life so they leave their religion because that is exactly what it is to them....just a religion..... as humans we don't like other people telling us what to do so Christianity is a total turn off to us.... Unless Christianity is viewed as a relationship instead of a religion it is brainwashing....teach your kids that God wants a relationship with them more than he wants them to follow his rules......rules come after the relationship is established and then they don't seem like rules.....they are acts of service to worship the God who created you with your life because he knows how to run the world that he created so that you can live a successful life.

"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast."

- Ephesians 2: 8-9

i encourage you to read the Ephesians chapter 2 to get a full understanding on this topic

Probably because they see Christianity and religion like

1 - A lifestyle to defend

2 - A propaganda with political and cultural stakes

3 - A way of life where new converts thump bibles when trying to convert their old friends. And depart of them because thay "live in sin".

So there is no place for "who people are", in such a system, no place, may be it is not "brainwashing" but some one has intentionaly given them such teachings.

People can drop a religious idea, for a better, no problem for me.