Religious child abuse in Wisconsin

Recently, I blogged about a family that prayed while their daughter died. It appears that, now, the parents are going to charged with second degree reckless homicide.

You idiots, the "Lord" was not "testing your faith". Your little girl had diabetes. God doesn't cure amputees and also not diabetes! The family said, according to the police report, that they do not believe in modern medicine. When her parents noticed that her legs were "skinny and blue" they decided it was a "spiritual attack" and "prayed nonstop". Even as their daughter was completely uncommunicative, semi-comotose and refusing to take even liquid, one of their friends urged the parents to get her to a physician but the father remained "steadfast and confident" that prayer would work.

Interestingly, the Wisconsin DA that's pressing ahead with the case is making a stand. For some bizarre reason, Wisconsin has a law that protects child abusers if their child abuse is religious in origin. To put it like the newspaper did: "Wisconsin state law appears to allow an exemption from child abuse charges for parents who engage in treatment by spiritual means through prayer." An exemption from child abuse? The DA says that law doesn't apply to murder. I'm disgusted that it applies to child abuse.

For some time now, on this blog, I've been saying that it is normal for American religions - and many religions worldwide - to abuse children. What with all that hell business. I have opined that society protects religious child abusers in a way that they would not protect anyone else. Even I had not been cynical enough to look for actual laws that protect religious child abuse. I would apparently be wrong. In Wisconsin, it's on the books that if you deny a child medical treatment it isn't child abuse - who cares if the child writhes in agony with shattered limbs or whatever. Wouldn't want to infringe on the parent's religion!

Still, I hope the Wisconsin DA in this case overcomes that legal hurdle and smashes this law and ends the very idea that religion can be a defense, on any level, for child abuse.

John Freshwater teaching creationism in an Ohio school, and Pharyngula's bizarre reaction

Recently, PZ Myers of Pharyngula brought up the case of John Freshwater. He's a science teacher who keeps a Bible on his desk.

He also, "When Freshwater taught students about electrical current, he used a device to leave a red mark in the shape of a cross on the forearms of some students". He used electricity to do what?!

Some parents describe the "red mark" in a little more detail:

The News received a fax Tuesday from attorney Jessica Philemond of the law firm Isaac, Brant, Ledman & Teetor, who issued a statement from her clients, who wished to remain anonymous for fear of their child being retaliated against.

The fax stated, “We are religious people, but we were offended when Mr. Freshwater burned a cross onto the arm of our child. This was done in science class in December 2007, where an electric shock machine was used to burn our child. The burn was severe enough that our child awoke that night with severe pain, and the cross remained there for several weeks. ... We have tried to keep this a private matter and hesitate to tell the whole story to the media for fear that we will be retaliated against.”

That "make a red mark" on the child's arm was a burn. This sonofabitch was burning children. That he was doing it with the cross is adding insult to injury, but PZ Myers, the Columbus Dispatch and the Mount Vernon News are focusing on the religious implications of this and they're sort passing by that students were intentionally burned by this teacher!

If this guy was puffing on a cigarette and asking kids over and snubbing it out on their arm, that would be the story. The story would be about how this guy is a child abuser who snuffs out cigarettes on student's arms. But because he uses a gadget to brand children with the cross, it's about . . . religion?!

I have said before that most religions are systemized child abuse. I have said before that religion gets a free pass in our religion to abuse children. I have said that even atheists still believe that religion is somehow exceptional and should be held to different standards than other beliefs and organizations. That not even PZ Myers can see that this is child abuse and that child abuse is way more important than the church and state religion, and the fact that seemingly everyone else is missing the fact this guy is branding students I think amply displays all of this.

C'mon, guys, this is about the child abuse!

Sometimes I get showed up . . . religious folks stick to their guns

One of the flip things I say about the relative levels of real faith attributed even by believers between science and religion goes thus: "When you get sick, you might pray, but you go to a doctor for the cure." Well, apparently, not everyone does. This family let their little girl die because rather than taking her to the doctor the decided to let her wallow for about a month in agony as diabetic ketoacidosis with such fun symptoms as stomach pain, muscle wasting and air hunger. Instead of going to the hospital or contacting the family doctor, they instead decided to pray and when that didn't work they prayed a little more. And their their daughter died.

If they'd taken to the hospital? Not a problem. Diabetic ketoacidosis responds very well to treatment and almost all patients make a full recovery.

Which does mean I'm wrong now and then. At least some people will just pray to Jesus instead of see a doctor . . . but what will happen is treatable conditions became fatal. They apparently still have faith that their god will raise their daughter from the dead.

What I find most fascinating is that the case has merely been referred to the DA's office. In any rational society, when parents pray while their child dies a slow wasting death would obviously be a sign of the most grotesque form of child abuse. They have other children, too. I mean, if an atheist did nothing while their child wasted away from this terrible illness when all they had to do was take the kid down to the hospital - I mean, this was not a quick death, either, but a slow, lingering one where the kid's last days would have been agonizing, the whole sweaty sheets gasping and clutching at the bed business, for days - I don't imagine for a moment that anyone would doubt it's child abuse and that the parents would not only be arrested but their other children taken away from them. But religious folks? Hey, they can murder their little girl, but because they believe in magic sky fairies there's a good chance they'll get off scot-free. Because religious child abuse is the norm in America, and much of the rest of the world. Religions are allowed to consistently abuse their children, because they they are treated differently than any other organization on earth. They're special. And because of that murderers are now walking free, immediately threatening at least two other children.

More on Christian Child Abuse!

My friend Becky pointed me towards this blog entry. It's an amusingly written account of her family's general feelings about religion, raising a young and intelligent boy. It seems this young and intelligent boy doesn't like Christianity, and here's the reason why:

Because Alex loves music so much, we bought him an alarm clock with a radio and a CD player for Christmas. A few months ago, he was listening to the radio and tuned it to a religious station by accident. Thinking it was the news, which he likes because something exciting is always happening on it, like a building on fire or something, he kept it there. Imagine his horror when he learned that the End Days were upon us and giant scorpions were going to take over the Earth. He was frightened, and Steve had to spend some amount of time trying to tell him, that no, it wasn't the news he was listening to, and no, giant scorpions are not going to take over the Earth, and no, we're not all going to hell because mommies murder their unborn babies.

Now, when I say that Christianity teaches child abuse as a means of raising their children, this is precise the sort of thing I'm talking about.

While it is definitely my experience, and the experience of many non-theists I've spoken, that most Christian religions very vocally tell children the more horrific fate of the world and people who don't follow Christianity's (often absurd and contradictory) rules, one of the more popular refutations is that, well, it just doesn't happen. It doesn't happen that churches and parents don't sit their children down and say, functionally, "do this or you're going to be tortured forever in a lake of fire and when the End Times come you're going to be crushed by the Four Horsemen and the Whore of Babylon is going to cover you with filth and giant scorpions are going to sting you forever". My retort has always been, "That's untrue! Not only in my personal experience, but the whole conceptual framework of Christianity is formed around the idea that disobedience to the Christian god is punished by eternal horror and pain! The whole structure of Christianity is framed around Jesus dying -- in a brutal and horrific way in and of itself! -- to redeem us for our sins, and unless we consciously choose to accept that brutal human sacrifice then we go to Hell! This is the foundations of the religion, people!"

But almost every day and almost in every way, Christianity reinforces the suffering and horror inherent in the religion. Children are never allowed to forget that disobedience is punished by hellfire. So frequent are these messages that some unsuspecting child can just randomly find them on the radio and be swept up into the terrifying world of Christianity, where eternal suffering and mind-shattering horror lurk everywhere.

A Little More About Religious Child Abuse - Personal Experience and a Plea

In my recent video I said what I've said here, recently, that the way that religion is taught is tantamount to child abuse because it teaches that disobedience is punished by eternal suffering. Someone cruised by and asked if I'd really been taught, as a child, by my parents, if I would go to hell if I disobeyed.

The answer is, well, yes. As a full disclosure, I don't recall my mother saying it, but I was raised in large part by my grandmother and it was one of the tactics she used to control me as a youth.

But there was more to it than that. I was taught that in my Sunday school classes. Which were approved, at least ostensibly, by not only the parish priest but also my parents. I can, to this day, recall everything about the Sunday school teacher who taught me these things. He was a middle aged, slightly portly man with glasses and bald on top, with short hair otherwise, clean shaven. He always wore button down shirts, slacks and a tie to church -- perhaps he had a sports jacket, but I never saw it in Sunday school class. He would teach Bible study with a tremendous glee. He would reinforce that we were good Christian children, so we had nothing to fear, but he was equally clear that unbelievers would go to Hell. It is in the Bible. It is Christian dogma. Unbelievers burn. He would read passages from the Bible where the penalties for flouting the Christian god are revealed. You deny the holy spirit? You go to Hell. You disobey your parents? You're wicked in the eyes of the Lord, and you to Hell. The same was true, of course, for lying, stealing, etc., unless you begged Jesus for forgiveness.

This is the thing I remember most clearly. We were being taught Revelations. It was being taught as if it was right around the corner. The teacher was painfully clear. Armageddon was in Israel. Russian and American forces would fight in the Holy Land. The blood would be up to the fenders of the tanks. He took various passages as alluding to nuclear war.

This fucked me up for years. I lived from around 9 to 14 absolutely sure that global thermonuclear war was around the corner. I fully expected to be alive for the End of the World. Because I had all sorts of disobediences and sins that I did hide from the church, I was equally sure that I would not be saved in any Rapture and that I'd live to see the dragon of the Apocalypse and the Whore of Babylon and the last Anti-christ. When I was about twelve, I remember talking to my mother about it, tears down my face, saying that I knew that the "end" was coming, and she said there was nothing I could do about it, but never denied it.

With the narcissism of youth, I am not sure how many children were in the class. I would guess about forty, but it could be half that, or double. With most of them, of course, I have no idea what was taught in their households. Even with my own friends, I'm not sure what was taught in their churches, since we were not of the same denomination. But I do know with that church it was commonplace for children to be taught, with glee, that non-believers and disobedient children would burn in Hell.

This was in my pre-pubescent days. By the time I was a teenager and going through confirmation, we were expected to be able to know that sort of thing by heart. By then, I was going to a different church. Of course, teenagers are still children. It was more of the same. End time crap, absolute vicious fear-mongering. And we were old enough that no attempt was made to shield up from the absolute ugliness in the Bible. We were encouraged to read and discuss the most disturbing things, from Lot being raped by his daughters, Jael nailing her husband's head to the floor and, of course, that favorite horror story, again, Revelations.

I do not think that my religious education was particularly severe. My family was not fundamentalist. They were pretty liberal Christians. But at the end of the day, what are you to teach about the wages of sin? The Bible is extremely clear. The Lord is a wrathful sonofabitch. Unless you're in some church that carefully and deliberately hides the gruesome parts of the Bible -- which means ignoring about 99% of it -- it is normal to teach children that disobedience to Christian doctrine is punished by an eternity of flames.

I find the idea that it is not the case that is normal for Christians to be frank about the fate of disobedience to Christian doctrine massively suspect. But I'll listen. Spread this around to religious people, right? Am I wrong? Is it normal for Christians to forgo teaching children the consequences of sin, being hellfire? If so, when are they introduced to the concept of eternal damnation that awaits everyone who isn't a Christian? Do you wait until they're . . . 10? 13? 15? Is it normal for Christians to wait until their co-religionists are eighteen, and legally adults, before subjecting them to the violent pornography that is much of the Bible (Old Testament and New)? In my experience, it is not the case. In no church I have ever attended was it hidden from children the consequences of sinful disobedience to religious doctrine (gussied up as the word of their god).

But I'd love to hear otherwise.

P.S.: And what about Muslims? When do they start to teach their kids about Hell? And what about Hindus? When do they teach the consequences of defying their dharma? This isn't addressed to just Christians -- most religions use virulent intimidation to enforce their religious doctrines. They all teach child abuse, IMO.

Religion and Child Abuse

Now, I'm very close to being a libertarian. Albeit of the socialist variety. So, by and large, I don't care what people do in the privacy of their own homes. You want to smoke pot? Not my business. You want to have sex with people of your own gender? Your call. You want to worship a sky pixie? Whatever. So long as it stays out of my life, I'll be happy to stay out of your personal decisions.

However, this only applies to adults. Children, particular young ones, are different. As a society, we are in fact beholden to protect them. They lack the wisdom, experience and sense of self to make all sorts of decisions. I think that anyone who says otherwise -- and there are some people who have -- is definitely daft and probably has no children. (Shulamith Firestone, I'm looking at you.) One of the things that we forbid parents to do is abuse their children. One of the forms of abuse that is forbidden is psychological abuse.

I generally don't quote Wikipedia, but their definition of psychological abuse is so concise I trust you'll forgive me:

Psychological abuse can take the form of physical intimidation, controlling through scare tactics and oppression . . . Any situation in which the repeated and extreme impact of a situation affects a person's emotional and rational thinking, in such a way as to adversely impact their later lives, could be termed as psychological abuse at some level.

Now, to my mind, this is precisely what happens when adults indoctrinate their children in a particular religion. This is true of the three big world religions: Christianity, Islam and Hinduism.

Both Christianity and Islam teach, and they do teach this to their children, that unless they obey the dictates of religion that they will suffer forever. I, myself, cannot remember a time in my life when I didn't know that the bad people went to Hell. In Hinduism, they take a slightly different approach -- that disobedience to religion is punished by being born into a worse position, perhaps as an animal or bug or worm. In both cases, threats of unimaginable suffering are used to compel obedience.

Undeniably, this intimidation affects their emotional and rational thinking, and I think it fairly demonstrably does so in ways that negative effect their lives later on. How many women have submitted to pregnancies they don't want, or gay people have hated themselves, of people tortured emotionally because they have dared to fall in love with someone of another faith? And what about the committed religious person's inability to meaningfully analyze scientific data -- meaning that, today, right now, religiously motivated people are trying to dismantle science even when humans are facing massive climate change, during which we'll need all the scientific prowess that we can muster? And I'm not even talking about those faiths that withhold medicines from their children and the other truly crazy things that religions sometimes do.

If I, as an atheist, said that if they used birth control I'd come over and boil them in oil, no one in their right mind would doubt I was psychologically abusing the child. Child services would snatch that kid away from me in a heartbeat -- and they'd be right to do it. But with religion, you can do precisely that. You can tell a child that unless they obey, they'll be tortured. Forever.

This isn't even close to the line, people! This is child abuse. If we evaluated religion with the same values that we evaluate all other behavior, it would be illegal to teach children most religions. But because of some ancient privilege of religion, we don't do what would otherwise be obvious -- forbid the teaching of religion to children. But because of stupid traditions, we allow religious people to perpetrate child abuse!