In keeping with my tendency to bitch about religion, I approach you with another issue that has been brought to my attention. Early childhood indoctrination. It’s nothing new, but I have a specific situation to present.
A few days ago I received a “HELP!” text message from my BFF. Her 6-year old daughter had come home from school upset and asking if there was a God. One of her classmates, whom I would assume is also six years old, told her that if she didn’t believe in God, God was going to kill her. A tidal wave of rage crashed over me as I read this. My blood boiled and my eyes nearly fell out of their sockets as I thought that yet another ignorant parent had taught their small child to damn other small children for not believing or not knowing who God is.
The conversation went something like this (keep in mind that I didn’t want to stoop to the level of this fundy family and tell her she definitely shouldn’t believe):
BFF: Omg! *Daughter* asked if there’s a god and said her classmates said if you say you don’t believe in him he will kill you! Help me :)
Me: (needing to breathe into a paper bag before I chose to assault the next person I saw) Tell her that there is an IDEA called God and that whether or not she believes in it is up to her. Neither decision will make her a bad person. Explain what “god” is, but also let her know that science contradicts it. Also tell her that a) nobody is going to kill her either way and b) it’s something she needs to make up her own mind about. If she wants to learn more then just ask me what she needs to know. If I don’t know it, I know someone who will because frankly atheists usually know more about religion than the religious do.
BFF: I told her what people thought was God, she says she believes in evolution. She said she hasn’t decided if she believes in God but is now scared by her peers if she doesn’t. I told her I don’t believe, *Husband* said he believes in something greater than us but neither of us can give her definitive resources.
Me: Tell her it can be scary being different than her friends, especially when it comes to religion. Wanting to be like everyone else is no reason to choose religion though. If she feels like there is a god, then in her heart she has a “god,” and if she doesn’t that’s ok and doesn’t make her a bad person.
My favorite part of the conversation was when BFF told me that her daughter said something like, “If there was a God, he would love everyone, not just some people.” I’m proud that at such a young age, BFF’s daughter was able to think rationally despite feeling bullied and peer-pressured. That, unfortunately, is not enough to keep my anger from sky-rocketing off the Richter Scale even as I’m writing this days later.
Things like the movie Jesus Camp give us a good idea of what Evangelicals and other religious types are teaching children. They aim at children under 13 years old. They are forming, and I quote, “a Christian Army” of young people who would be “willing to put down their lives for the Gospel.” I was not raised in a religious house at all. My mother is an atheist, and I believe my father was too. I did, however, have friends growing up who had religion forced upon them from the time they could comprehend picture books. Some are still practicing today, and some have developed the ability to think critically and renounce their faith in the name of scientific proof.
If you want to be religious, that’s up to you. But nothing makes me wish more that I carried a large mallet than parents who force their children into religion at an age when they haven’t learned anything else or don’t have the capacity to make their own decisions yet. As Richard Dawkins says in The God Delusion, there are children of Christians, children of Muslims, and so on. To automatically proclaim that your child is a Christian just because you are is disgusting and I hope they take a proverbial shit on you one day when they know better.
Teach your children to be good people. Being a Christian does not make you a good person. Actions speak louder than words, and much louder than labels. If one day your child says “I want to know about God,” or religion in general, give them proper resources from which to learn and make their own opinions.
The next person who scares the hell out of my BFF’s girls gets my foot up their ass; that’s a fucking promise.
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