Is teaching children about religion before they can think on their own child abuse?

Atheists say that indoctrinating children with beliefs that divide them according to religious identity are abusive. How do we respond?

Transcript

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cause. Thank you.
Hare Krishna Question from Rishikesh Prabhu Isn’t it child abuse to indoctrinate children with beliefs like I am Hindu, I am Muslim beliefs which create division and hatred towards others even before the children have developed the discriminatory capacity to think properly Answer This idea that children teaching children about spiritual truths is child abuse is one of the most perverse allegations of atheists against religion and the atheists who make these allegations are also of the category who say that if one had a choice to remove evils from the world, should one remove rape or should one remove religion so they say that actually religion should be removed so these are completely fanatical people who make these kind of accusations and first of all we have to recognize that those who are fanatical may not at all listen to reason but others who are open minded are open to reason also so let’s look at when we use the word child abuse, what do we mean now of course there is sexual child abuse, there is physical child abuse and there are laws to protect children from them so that is required in many occasions and it is good that there are these kind of protections but when parents have to give some education to children because that’s how the children grow in life and parents according to their wisdom give whatever is the best possible education for their children in their understanding whatever is the best they will give and normally we teach our children those things which we feel will benefit them which will enable them to grow into good human beings so if somebody is saying that teaching children religion is like child abuse is it the implication that the children parents who teach like that should be put in jail as happens with child abuse of child abusers so if one is not implying that obviously even an atheist will not say it is a crime of that magnitude then it is just a use of words to tilt the discussion in one’s own favor to make people biased against a particular idea so the concept of child abuse is so revolting to us that when anything is compared with child abuse immediately we start feeling that must also be bad but what sort of comparison is this even if somebody is a skeptic and one doesn’t believe in God and one thinks that religion has caused violence to the world and this religious hatred is induced in the childhood then still the question remains isn’t not teaching anything about any religion or anything spiritual isn’t that a form of indoctrination also to tell a person that life ultimately is meaningless that the heavens are empty that once loved ones when they die there is nothing remaining of them afterwards isn’t all this also a form of violence isn’t it also going to have serious consequences on a person’s psyche on a person’s development in fact that would be child abuse because the whole process of growing up and learning is seeking and finding meaning in a child when a baby is small and a baby just cries and gradually when the baby feels the mother’s loving hands and the mother’s care and the mother gets nourishment from the mother and gradually there is meaning for the baby in life that what is the meaning oh there is this person who loves me and gradually what is growing growing means we grow in our understanding we grow in understanding our meaning meaning of things what does this mean, what does that mean and if we are going to reverse this process of education of learning meaning by telling the children that there is no meaning to life ultimately that is a form of serious indoctrination and actually this entirely assumes that there is no truth to religion and that religion is violent, now even if there has been violence which has resulted because of religion, I have written several articles which talk about how the violence was caused not by religion it was caused primarily by the people who were power hungry and who abused religion for their ulterior motives but this has happened with atheism also if we say that teaching religion is abuse, teaching about god is abuse then teaching about godlessness is also an abuse far greater abuse, the hundred million corpses that littered over Russia during its atheistic communist regime they are evidences for how poisonous atheism can be so which belief is going to help children to grow up and become integrated fulfilled human beings so the idea that life is meaningless that is definitely not going to offer any solace, somebody may say even if the truth is bitter one has to accept it where is the proof that such an idea is the truth it is just dogma atheist dogma their own biased ideas that this is the truth and they are imposing that truth on others and this is intolerance in the name of rights intolerance why intolerance because the idea is that by default atheism is right and any other idea should not be taught unless a person grows up and is able to discriminate well atheism why should atheism be an exception then why should atheism be taught you may say atheism is not being taught but when we are not teaching anything when we are saying the teaching of a particular thing is bad and the schools are teaching education systems where there are atheistic ideas being propagated then essentially we are teaching atheism so this kind of propaganda is a is a diabolical misuse of terms and an even more diabolical misunderstanding of the truths of life so it is true unfortunately that there are some religions which do make such terrible propaganda that the young children get indoctrinated into machines of hate and they do go about killing now that sort of propaganda is definitely that sort of education that sort of indoctrination it is not typical of religion there are different religions in the world and different religions have different attitudes and even within the same religion there are people who are liberals and there are people who are fanatics and in the Vedic culture rather than labeling people as good or bad there is education given in terms of three modes of material nature and there is education given by which a person can gradually learn okay this isn’t goodness this is passion and ignorance and rather than simplistically label people as good or bad but one recognizes people as good or bad depending on the extent to which they have allowed their inner spiritual goodness to come out and to the extent they have not allowed it to come out so the Vedic, the way real spiritual education doesn’t create division, real spiritual education brings about connection, we learn to see all living beings as connected to us as members of the same family and it is a vision that promotes love and harmony and knowledge in the mode of goodness helps us to see the spiritual commonality among all living beings and that sort of education is very conducive for one’s not just for one’s spiritual advancement but also for one’s all-round well-being so just as there can be some small pockets of religious education which foster hatred towards others and the likelihood of that happening with life with the teaching that life has no meaning that is far greater abuse of anything can happen but abuse is likely to happen far more in the case of irreligion in the case of when people are taught irreligious things than when they are taught religious things and there have to be safeguards to prevent that sort of thing from happening within religious education also so there are within the religious traditions themselves and in the Vedic culture there is Guru, Sadhu, Shastra so one learns from multiple sources and this gives a balanced holistic understanding which prevents fanaticism so the important thing is three points first is by no means is a teaching that there is nothing after life, there is no spiritual dimension to life that the heavens are the higher worlds are empty and imagination this is itself a form of violence and that is antithetical to the normal process of growing up and getting education and learning meaning where we see chaos and confusion we see meaning through education and if children are taught the opposite right from the childhood that could be a serious form of abuse which will inverse and harm them their growth and whenever there has been division that has been caused or violence that has resulted that is not because of religion that is because of abuse of religion by people with ulterior motives and far more violence has happened because of atheism because atheism makes us think that this life is all that we have and whatever is required for enjoying this life let me do that so that’s what ultimately results people fall prey to bad habits in communist Russia there was a slogan which was put up at a poster which was put up to raise people against the atrocities that were happening so vodka was very very expensive people did not have any higher spiritual taste and they would have to drink and they were addicted to drinking so they would have to either make things at home itself which was not very convenient or they would have to purchase at a very expensive price so once the government had increased the price of vodka so a child hopefully asked his father father will you drink less now and the father replied no you will eat less now you will eat less now that means I am going to drink my vodka and if we have limited money and the prices of vodka have gone up then you have to cut down your eating so that I can keep on my drinking so this is what happens unfortunately not all atheists may be drunkards like this but when people are not providing the spiritual taste then people do end up slave to bad habits and they victimize others often in quite insensitive and monstrous ways so if you want to talk about child abuse there are thousands and thousands of people whose parents are drug addicts are alcoholics are especially alcoholics and then they abuse their families they abuse their wives they abuse their children and there is time and again it has been proven that when people turn from the idea that life is meaningless they give up that baseless belief and they turn and accept towards God and accept God whichever religious denomination they may be they are able to become sober and thousands of people in Krishna consciousness have been transformed like this so far from being abused or causing abuse the belief in God and connection with God which brings us a higher taste and which brings purification of the heart which brings a certain level of self mastery that prevents a lot of abuse from happening so not teaching children about the spiritual dimension of life is abuse and it creates a culture which perpetuates abuse further thank you