Religion is child abuse.

It's time to get back to it.

I drove by a church/Christian school today whose marquee read: "Now enrolling infants/toddlers," presumably for daycare and Sunday School. If it hadn't been snowing, I probably would have wrecked my car, because I came to the sudden realization that each and every child enrolled by their parents in the daycare or Sunday School will eventually become one of two things: a) a "believer" who breeds and continues to perpetrate the crime by enrolling their offspring in church school, or b) an individual who struggles their whole lives with their lack of faith constantly being overshadowed by their earliest memories being of Bible study while mom and dad were at work. This made me profoundly sad, to say the least.

Here's a prototypical Christian "education:"

1) Sucker them in by getting them young -- Daycare is expensive. Church daycare is cheap. While the parents are out earning a living, little Suzy and Jimmy are in the safe(?) hands of some nice old ladies who have nothing else to do.

2) Feed them the easy stuff -- The most popular story in the Bible for children is Noah's Ark. Why? Animals! Kids fucking love animals! It's easy to convince a toddler that someone put two of every kind of animal on a big boat because toddlers only know of about six different types of animals, and that fits into their worldview, because there's a toy ark at church that has two elephants, and two sheep, and two giraffes, and two lions . . . so that must have worked. Needless to say, the nice old ladies don't have to explain that God MURDERED every living creature on the planet besides what fit on the boat, because kids only need to know that Noah and his wife (and three sons and their wives) and two of every animal (which we have to assume included dragons, gryphons, basilisks, minotaurs, and all the other animals that man believed in back then) got to go on a long-ass boat ride and then repopulate the earth. Kids don't need to know that it's because everyone was sodomizing (gasp!) each other that the boat ride even happened in the first place. They'll have plenty of time to hate those buttfuckers when they get to high school, and ten percent of them are secretly curious about it anyway. But bury those feelings way down, and never talk about them again.

3) Up the dosage -- Jonah and the fish is the next Bible story kids get into. Again, kids love animals, they love using their imagination, and it's not a huge leap from a worldwide flood to a guy living in a fish (not a whale, like so many Christains say). From there, it's easy to explain the creation story (make a little parable during art class!), the Nativity (kids love babies!), and so on.

4) Go to church -- At a certain point, most kids enter the public school system, and start to hear about science, which flies in the face of what they've been told since they were infants. They start to physically change, which makes them feel guilty. They start to learn about sex, politics, geography, and society, and they feel conflicted. What do you do to keep them in their little Christian box? Take them to church to hear from adults (whom they've been told to listen to) about how if they touch their down-their parts, they'll be roasted forever in the fires of Hell. About how if they don't accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, that they'll spend all of eternity wiping Satan's ass. About how if they think boys are prettier than girls, they'll be bathed in a lake of fire until the end of time. About how they have to honor mommy and daddy, or else you'll be grounded forever and ever, and they'll never be forgiven by the bearded man in the clouds.

First of all, what adult would buy this crap if you told it to them outright? Secondly, what if their daddy, who has accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior, is touching their down there parts? Do they still have to "honor" him? If you were threatened with eternal damnation for not honoring your parents (it's a fucking COMMANDMENT! There's only like, ten, right?) would you come forward? I doubt it. "Daddies know best, sweetheart."

All of these things are confusing for kids, and that's the part that is abusive. It is downright wrong to intentionally confuse children. And no, I'm not a fan of the Tooth Fairy, Easter Bunny, Santa, or any other crap that is designed to make kids believe something, although I would rather confuse children about where their teeth go than what happens to them after they die based on who they were and under what circumstances they lived their lives.

The end result of Sunday School, Christian School, Vacation Bible School, and church daycare is the same: get 'em while they're young. Breed the hate of millennia of religious doctrine into them by disguising it in cute, clever stories about animals and babies. Get the buy-in before they're old enough to KNOW better. Then scare the living shit out of them by telling them where all the people who are different from them go when they die.

Quick side story: A former employee of mine went to a Vacation Bible School every summer that she worked for me, and I remember that these were the lyrics to one of the songs they sang at "Camp:" “liars go to hell...liars go to hell...Revelation 21:8, 21:8...burn burn burn.” Can you fucking believe this? They teach kids this song! Makes you wonder just what, exactly, Jesus would do.

ANYWAY, I could go on and on and on and on about how awful religion is for kids; that it teaches them to not think, that it only encourages sheep-like behavior and stereotyping, that it promotes physical and sexual abuse in so-called Christian (Muslim, Jewish, Hindu) families, that it causes lifelong guilt over "misdeeds" committed in one's youth, that it discourages free thought, investigation, curiosity, creativity, and imagination, that it cripples the mind and emotions, that it guarantees a limited worldview by attaching the blinders of faith to the eyes of the young and naive, etcetera, but I won't.

I will take a little space for some shout-outs:

Larry! I'm back, baby! Send me some e-mails! We got your Christmas card (I know, I know). Thank you very much for reminding me to get back on the soap-box!

Scott and Carrie! Congratulations on your pending nuptials. I am so happy and proud for/of you both, and I hope that your lives are full, rich, and meaningful, no matter what! Make lots of beautiful babies!

Cedric! Hope you had a great Christmas. I'll still be your friend, even though you're broken. Give me a call when you have some time, and give your family a great big GJ hug from M and I. Hope we'll see you soon.