All religious indoctrination is, in fact, child abuse.
It should be classified as felony child abuse.

My sister in law did Xtian homeschooling for her 5 kids. The oldest is agnostic and has told me often that he feels he was ritually, continuously abused by the barrage of religion. I’m glad he’s free of it now. It took his SECOND suicide attempt-they covered the first up-to bring it to light.

I’ve always questioned christianity from the time I was about 9, but I was raised an Episcopalian and they are pretty laid back and accepting of things other more fundamental churches poo-poo. We were not raised with fire and brimstone. Our god was not angry or wrathful so Sunday school and going to church was social and educational rather than scary. And though I questioned many things about god and religion, I kept going to church into adulthood.

A military wife and family that moved ever 18 mos to 2 years, the episcopal church was my steady. It was my constant family. I had questions but I figured they’d be answered when I died. One day it hit me, that I was spending my living hours worrying about crap that really wasn’t important instead of living. But it was really driven home after time spent in Egypt. Came back to the states in the early 90s in June to a huge sign outside a church advertising vacation bible school. “Come be a soldier for christ”. The kids in the churchyard had on cam ice shirts and shorts and they were doing obstacle courses. It made me ill. The Jesus I knew didn’t teach about fighting, he taught about loving. I saw no difference between this and a muslim mudressa (school) teaching fighting and radical muslim beliefs. I wrote a letter to the editor and the back lash was incredible. I now go to churches for funerals.

I was raised Methodist in a small southern town. I hated the way that religion made me feel sinful for having normal human thoughts and drives. By the time I was 15, I was "saved" three times, but somehow it never really "took" or lasted.

I was raised fundamental independent Baptist as well. I'm glad you got out of that hell hole. Our emotions has been fucked up. Always drastically changing due to guilt of doing anything.

It is most certainly child abuse. As a former catholic, for me it was always a race to confession after you committed a mortal sin (usually something silly like masturbation or eating meat on Friday) so you didn't die first and go to hell for all eternity. At about 13 or 14 I thought it was ridiculous. By 21, I was a full-blown atheist. I never indoctrinated my kids to be anything but themselves. Don't get me started on the "priesthood". I glad you broke free, good luck and a happy life to you.

Please, ramble away. It's the only way to bring it out into the open. My mother,who is acounsellor called it emotional vomiting and recommends it for everyone. I am a former Roman Catholic, and although escaped the abuse that many suffered, I still recognize the mind control and emotional blackmail that the clerics held over us.
One of my particular hates was the churching of women post birth. A priest met the woman at the side door, said a prayer to cleanse her and only then was she welcome back to the church. For having a baby?? Really ??

If you didn't "sin" then Jesus died for nothing lol

As Christians we were taught that "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of god". This alone leads us to believe we are not good enough. It is a horrible way of mentally abusing someone into a lifetime of submission.

I have introduced myself as a recovering conservative Christian.

When I divorced and the church took me off their rolls (Long story), it was a relief. I might have said thank you when I walked out, or that may have just been in my mind.

you have my extreme sympathies. I was raised southern baptist in OK and Tx and I "excommunicated" myself from them at 11 or 12. I searched around lost for a few years drifting to other flocks (Church of Christ and even Pentecostal) until I was finally able to gather enough strength to leave completely. Then it was an aimless search for answers and order over decades, which included an angry period as an atheist then an anti-theist, before W. Somerset Maugham finally nudged me to the upanishads which led me to Buddha and the vedas and eventually advaita vedanta where I find myself today. My belief set had to include my views from theoretical physics so that modern science supported me. I feel that confidence now and think my search is finally over. I will still keep being a seeker but I no longer use any form of religion as my metric. It's all secular philosophy and theoretical physics focusing on quantum theories. You'll find your path. The search is very meaningful no matter what answers you find. or don't. We all "go" to the same place so really all we're talking about is something to make the journey bearable. Some of us require actual proof through empirical data and natural comparisons while others can just accept things by faith. Not everybody can do that and move forward. I couldn't, you can't. You'll find some solace eventually. Don't give up the search.

I'm a PK so I had constant exposure as a child. My life story is extremely complicated but suffice to say when I did believe, I always felt like an outsider looking in. I never could figure out why John 3:16 applied to me. I did not feel like a sinner. I did not act like a sinner, and there were enough sinners around me to know that I was not. And how about Matthew 7:7? Judge not lest you be judged, for what measure you judge by, you will be judged! Consequently, I am not a judgemental person. But goddamn, the judgement that takes place in churches is a disgrace (like Trump is a disgrace to the Oval Office, but I don't want to get off track)! Why don't these people follow their own playbook?

It sure does sound like abuse.

I remember the same. Being a young boy and believing God would send you to a fiery hell if you didn’t do exactly what preacher said. Of course, I look back and think of course I The preacher put the fear in you and created the emergency in your mind and then told you that you could do only one thing to get rid of it. Of course you’d feel better afterwards if you believed you’re not going to hell. Complete and total bs

I often question that fire and brimstone preaching.....seems more scary than godly.

Yes, such horrid brainwashing is child abuse. It took me decades to get over it.

And the award for good rambling goes to.....I think our parents and states owe us a great deal of explanations as to why they forced us to being religious at such a tender age.

The depiction of Saitan was like wearing a 'zombie' mask and scaring children with and yet that of god was like wearing a child fantasy cartoon character but doing all the bad thing Saitan is accused of doing.
Done with rambling too

It is child abuse! Simple as that.

That is awful. You poor thing. Yes its abuse and please feel safe to share here. As a child in England, we rarely went to church. My parents were not religious and to be honest it was fun.

Certainly is child abuse. If a child was told how unworthy they were at school I am sure all manner of pressure would be put to bear on the administrators to remedy the situation.

Same deal if it happened in the workplace. All seems pretty fucked.

You can’t change the doctrine so change religion would be my response. There are plenty of people-friendly churches out there that don’t feel the need to bully.

Yes it's child abuse plain and simple.

religion is designed to control the masses, they set standards which no one can meet . we think a lot about sex so there's a lot of sense about sex including what you think about and what you do in private they know we do those things in private because everybody does

Yup sounds like it to me

This reads like a passage from MY autobiography. I believe the motives of such teachings are legitimate; however, there is a decided lack of concern for the child in the carrying out of this agenda. Every culture, indeed every civiliaztion, has been rife with its myths, created in an effort to understand that which, to them, otherwise escaped understanding. The problem arises, always, when such beliefs become so profoundly established in the psyche of the populace that they present stumbling blocks to the possibilities of reasoning and science. Neither logic nor science has all the answers either, but at least both strive to provide reasonable explanations and evidence fo their conclusions, and neither pretends that theier conclusions should deny challenges. Indeed, one of the hallmarks of science is that it openly embraces such challenges, admitting that it may be wrong and inviting further thought and study. Religion, on the other hand, proposes that it has the ONLY answer and that if one rejects that conclusion, there will be some sort of eternal punishment for having done so. To those of us who were raised in the Baptist, that fate is often presented as the relegation to Hell and its horrors, along with never again being able to petition God for anything. He will have "washed His hands" of us and our temerity to defy his ultimate rules. Rather a petty behavior on God's part, don't you think. In the Middle Ages morality play, EVERYMAN, God opens his concern like this: ...all creatures be to me unkind,

Living without dread in worldly prosperity.

He goes on to whine that in spite of all He has done for humanity, they continue to ignore him. This is a picture of a truly petty, human-like character clearly the creation of mankind, not the other way around. He is angry, a decidedly human trait, considering the expressed clam that God is omnipotent, omnscient, and all the other "omni" attributes attributed to him. Someone once observed that man created God and then brazenly announced that God had created him, thus shuffling the responsibility for the truly crazy character of the nature of being human onto an outside force. And on and on and on. I son't bore you with my continued ramblings. Always good to hear from someone who shares a similar religious history to mine.

It feels like child abuse because we are nonbelievers. But to a believer it’s part of their education.