Is childhood religious indoctrination the very worst form of child abuse?

oh please, if you believe in something then obviously then you are going to teach your children to believe in it too. if not your just a hypocrite.

if your Buddhist, you will raise your children to believe it too. same with muslims and christians. And if your atheist, then your going to bring your child up as atheist arent you?

a jewish person bringing their child up as a atheist is like a atheist bringing up their child as a jew - it doesnt make any sense!

imagine trying to tell your child you believe in god (or gods), but they dont have to if they dont want to.

now imagine trying to tell your child you believe killing is wrong, but they dont have to if they dont want to. they can decide for themselves if its wrong or not~ thats ok!

There is no difference. People can argue about it all they like, but when you apply it in the real world it is how it is. The thing with religion is it influences people in every single thing they do in their lives - that is if they are really religious. When your religious, it even makes a difference in what food you can eat or what you are called to do so as to be active in that religion. So when it comes to your values or morals of course those are going to be influenced by your religion as well. And of course that is going to make a huge impact on how you raise your children.

The real child abuse is sexual, verbal, emotional and physical. Yes, some people who are religious may use religion to abuse their children, such as use it as an excuse to beat them or verbally abuse them. But there are also atheists and agnostics who do the exact same thing to their children. But it is not soley one sect group who does this.

Honestly, get over it! People are always spitting back and forth who is better and who is worse, accusing christians or atheists of being abusive, there are always going to be bad people in the world with all sorts of beliefs and backgrounds! But there are also going to be good people who make a difference to the world from both religious and non-religious backgrounds.

And i dont care how many thumbs down i get, i know im right (lol how conceited does that sound). At least im not spreading hate and bigotry! It doesnt matter what you do these days, someone has to put their nose in it and call it abuse!!

It isn't even close to "the very worst" but yes it still certainly can be child abuse. I mean, I'd much rather prefer being religiously indoctrinated than beaten or molested, wouldn't you? Religious indoctrination usually doesn't leave permanent life scars and can be undone. The same cannot usually be said for physical, emotional, or sexual abuse.

Religious indoctrination in children is still wrong obviously, but I'm just saying

Not hardly. Do you think that sexual abuse of a child is better than making them go to church? How about regular beatings? How about not feeding them properly?

I'm not saying that indoctrination is not abuse, only that other forms of abuse are far worse. If you give it some actual thought, you'll agree.

Okay, I'm seeing a lot of responses saying that religious indoctrination is the WORST form of child abuse, and that's patently false. I seldom give thumbs down to fellow atheists, because usually we are in accord, but in this case, you're just wrong to say that it's the worst form of abuse. You're not thinking, you're just giving a knee-jerk anti-religion response. We atheists are supposed to be more intelligent and more honest than theists are, but here, many of us are not.

I would like to answer with a counterquestion:

What's about all this completely legal child abuse by brainwashing them to become a willing consumer and "functioning" part of an atheistic system?

I would say beating, molesting, and many other forms of psychological abuse children are subjected to are far worse. I am an atheist raised by theists and consider my childhood overall very happy and certainly not extreme enough I wasn't able to reach a different conclusion myself. Some religious indoctrination can of course be psychologically and sometimes even physically abusive. It is a matter of degree. No child is completely free of being subjected to ideas and beliefs of adults around them or their culture. Some of them maybe true or beneficial and others false and harmful. It depends how extreme such are held and enforced and if they are allowed to be honestly reevaluated and rejected if found lacking.

No....pimping your kids out to bikers is probably worse. Pimping them out at all is probably not great, but people do crazy things for money, and it's not unheard of, especially in places where child sex trafficking is so common it's hard to enforce the law.

Yes! Very harmful to a young mind.

Worst kind? No. But a terrible kind

Yes! Very harmful to a young mind.

Not the worst form, no, but it does cause lifelong psychological and emotional effects.