Culture | Geoff's Miscellany

Religion is Child Abuse and Other Silly Ideas

February 27, 2015

A common claim on the internet these days is that raising children in a religious tradition is child abuse.

This same notion comes with a related notion that being religious is a form of brain disorder.

If you do not believe me, look this up. Richard Dawkins has claimed that raising children religiously is worse than pedophilia. Sam Harris says that being religious is worse than rape.

I challenge atheists who actually think this way to stop being lazy and perform their civic duties:

Ancient Sexual Ethics

March 3, 2013

"For traditional societies, social justice, and not sexual conduct, is the basis for morality. Consequently, teaching dealing with virginity, marriage, divorce, infidelity, adultery, promiscuity, and rape are concerned not only with the sexual relationships of individuals or couples, but also with the social and economic relationships between the households in the village as a whole." Victor Mattews. The Social World of Ancient Israel 1250-587 BCE (Henrickson), 31.

Ancient forms of ethics/law were concerned with the integrity of the whole group rather than the rights of individuals. It is not that individuals did not have rights, it is just that individual desires (the desire to sleep with whomever you wish) were to be regulated on the basis of the impact those desires would have if fulfilled.