Rachel Bronwyn wrote:Occassionally someone sues their parents for abuse and their parents argue the behaviour was religiously ordained and therefore not abusive. It's pretty unusual though. The vast majority of kids raised by Christians don't feel abused and the vast majority of Christian parents are average like every other kind of parent.

Right. I'm aware that there are cases like that. I think that there is physical abuse involved in these cases, and no children are suing or being taken away from parents just because they're Christian. Maybe someone can prove me wrong by providing links to reputable sources...?

Chris Putnam wrote:I am around fundamentalist Christians a great deal. Many are well educated and very nice caring folks. We talk and they share their concerns with me. These are concerns they have about the direction they feel things are headed. They hear comments from Dr. Dawkins (who I'm sure is no world leading spokesman for Atheists) and others make comments in speaches and in print that sets these ideas in motion.

Respectfully, I suspect these Christian fundamentalists you hang around are being hyperbolic. Or perhaps your friends are doing extreme things to their children that could be considered abuse. Perhaps you could change my mind by providing examples from reputable sources of children being taken from parents simply because of their religion.

Shagz wrote:
Respectfully, I suspect these Christian fundamentalists you hang around are being hyperbolic. Or perhaps your friends are doing extreme things to their children that could be considered abuse. Perhaps you could change my mind by providing examples from reputable sources of children being taken from parents simply because of their religion.

I suspect this is less about Christians and more the generic hyperbole of the political right, who fear progress. They don't like that they get to impose their worldview (which is predominantly Christian) on others anymore and perceive their loss of privilege as an "attack" rather than a leveling of the playing field. So they come up with fictitious horror stories to illicit sympathy and give the impression they're hard done by. "They don't allow god in schools" "they're taking our guns" "they're taking our children" is all the same bullshit cut from the same shitty cloth.

Sendraks wrote:

Shagz wrote:
Respectfully, I suspect these Christian fundamentalists you hang around are being hyperbolic. Or perhaps your friends are doing extreme things to their children that could be considered abuse. Perhaps you could change my mind by providing examples from reputable sources of children being taken from parents simply because of their religion.

I suspect this is less about Christians and more the generic hyperbole of the political right, who fear progress. They don't like that they get to impose their worldview (which is predominantly Christian) on others anymore and perceive their loss of privilege as an "attack" rather than a leveling of the playing field. So they come up with fictitious horror stories to illicit sympathy and give the impression they're hard done by. "They don't allow god in schools" "they're taking our guns" "they're taking our children" is all the same bullshit cut from the same shitty cloth.

I suspect it's just hyperbole as well, though whether it's Christian hyperbole or just general Fox News-style hyperbole, I couldn't say.

This, however, is a weird claim to make:

Chris Putnam wrote:Some are trying to find ways to protect themselves from Child Protective Services. They feel that CPS might think that teaching Christian ideology is a form of child abuse and act accordingly.

Why would they be trying to protect themselves from Child Protective Services? It seems highly unlikely that CPS would get involved just because some parents teach their children about their religion, unless, by "teaching Christian ideology" Chris Putnam means beating Jesus into the child or some other kind of abuse.

Shagz wrote:
Why would they be trying to protect themselves from Child Protective Services? It seems highly unlikely that CPS would get involved just because some parents teach their children about their religion, unless, by "teaching Christian ideology" Chris Putnam means beating Jesus into the child or some other kind of abuse.

I suspect hyperbole again. Nothing more than "The evil liberals coming to take their children away just because they want to indoctrinate their children into Jesus" rather than actually thinking about what purpose Child Protection Services actually serves.

Shagz wrote:

Why would they be trying to protect themselves from Child Protective Services? It seems highly unlikely that CPS would get involved just because some parents teach their children about their religion, unless, by "teaching Christian ideology" Chris Putnam means beating Jesus into the child or some other kind of abuse.

I don't know of any Christian fundamentalists that physically beat their kids in anyway that could be labeled child abuse. They do seriously teach their kids that faith in Jesus Christ is the only way to be saved from eternal hell and go to heaven. They teach them biblical standards of sexual conduct. They take them to AWANA clubs where they memorize passages from the Bible. They teach them that Noah's flood was a real deluge that covered the entire planet. They teach them God created the world in 6 days 7 or 8 thousand years ago. They teach them about an inerrant scripture. Their concern is that one day social attitudes will change toward them and these practices will be grounds for the involvement of CPS. I have no examples of such a thing happening as of yet. Right now many states as of yet won't force parents to give medical treatment to seriously ill children who are "believing God for a miracle", and think medical treatment reveals a "lack of faith".

Chris Putnam wrote: Their concern is that one day social attitudes will change toward them and these practices will be grounds for the involvement of CPS.

So they're projecting the "bad behaviors" of individuals in the past, who probably held not dissimilar conservative viewpoints to themselves, onto the behavior of people in the future. Which shows how far adrift they are from understanding what a more secular, progressive, world looks like.

Sendraks wrote: So they're projecting the "bad behaviors" of individuals in the past, who probably held not dissimilar conservative viewpoints to themselves, onto the behavior of people in the future. Which shows how far adrift they are from understanding what a more secular, progressive, world looks like.

In their defense I would argue that "bad behaviors" and abuse of power have characterized humans and governments forever. This is the reason I've taken the position I have on this issue. A Christian fundamentalist usually believes that mankind is fallen, corrupt and sinful. He cannot be trusted. Especially in a secular world. I think this idea would not convince a Christian.

You seem to be mistaking "whether a Christian would be convinced by an idea" with truth, at some level. People are fucking weird. No matter how strange an idea, you can find people who believe it. If that's a measure of truth for you, you're going to have problems, because not all ideas are compatible.

Your hypothetical Christian above seems like the usual stinking hypocrite who thinks that only other people are fallen, corrupt, and sinful. If they thought that this description applied to themselves also, they'd humbly think that their children probably deserved to be taken away. But it's always "others are sinful; me? I'm fucking golden."

Shagz wrote:

Rachel Bronwyn wrote:Occassionally someone sues their parents for abuse and their parents argue the behaviour was religiously ordained and therefore not abusive. It's pretty unusual though. The vast majority of kids raised by Christians don't feel abused and the vast majority of Christian parents are average like every other kind of parent.

Right. I'm aware that there are cases like that. I think that there is physical abuse involved in these cases, and no children are suing or being taken away from parents just because they're Christian. Maybe someone can prove me wrong by providing links to reputable sources...?

Chris Putnam wrote:I am around fundamentalist Christians a great deal. Many are well educated and very nice caring folks. We talk and they share their concerns with me. These are concerns they have about the direction they feel things are headed. They hear comments from Dr. Dawkins (who I'm sure is no world leading spokesman for Atheists) and others make comments in speaches and in print that sets these ideas in motion.

Respectfully, I suspect these Christian fundamentalists you hang around are being hyperbolic. Or perhaps your friends are doing extreme things to their children that could be considered abuse. Perhaps you could change my mind by providing examples from reputable sources of children being taken from parents simply because of their religion.

He's going to have a hard time. However, I can provide examples of Christians doing it though.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadia ... ool_system

Chris Putnam wrote:In their defense I would argue that "bad behaviors" and abuse of power have characterized humans and governments forever. A Christian fundamentalist usually believes that mankind is fallen, corrupt and sinful. He cannot be trusted. Especially in a secular world. I think this idea would not convince a Christian.

Yes, mostly by people of their ilk. This is classic psychological projection. They're projecting their internally generated fears, which are in turn derived from their own behaviours, onto others and assuming others would behave as badly as they would in a similar position. Just like the tired old Christian bullshit of assuming atheists go round eating babies and committing rape, because they don't believe in god. Which is just them projecting what they assume they would do, if there wasn't some imaginary sky fairy judging them and influencing their behaviour.

I'm not presenting anything intended to influence these hypothetical Christians, I'm simply pointing out how they are full of shit.

Sure never intended for this thread to go this far or this direction. Its been fun, hope you've all enjoyed and thank you for your participation. Those Christians that have been sadly bashed above don't deserve it and I've been around them long enough to know they don't hate atheists. There are crazies and extremistis from lots of world views and they seldom accurately represent the rest of their comrades. I think I'll bow out for a while. I have an idea for a different thread that I would like to think about and refine before starting it.

Thank you all

Meh. The point you seem desperate to run away from is that CPS take kids from their parents in cases of demonstrable harm. They do not kids away from their parents on the basis of their parents' ideology.

So what you're saying is that should harm from particular parenting approaches be demonstrated, it would, regardless, be an affront to any parent harming their children in that way to have their kids taken away for protection, because freedom.

In this regards, you're little different to the "they're coming to take our guns" Second Amendment nutters who see the terrible harms caused by easy civilian access to assault weaponry, and are affronted that anyone might put societal concerns about violence prevention ahead of individual concerns about gun ownership freedoms.

Your hypothetical Christians are possibly a little worse in the sense that their views require seeing children as possessions, rather than humans with human rights, but that view is, in their defence, taken unquestioningly by many of their faith tradition, so they may be doing so passively rather than actively.