Christian evangelists target children!
Part 1
There are nearly two and a half billion children in the world that are under the age of fifteen and this huge un-reached population grouping is easy pickings for Christian evangelists and missionaries. Children present a soft sell target market which is borne out by the fact, that of all decisions made in favour of Christ, the overwhelming majority (85%) are done by children between the ages of four to fourteen years old. (2), (3)
In Luke 18:16 we read the following: “Then Jesus called for the children and said to the disciples, let the children come to me. Don't stop them! For the Kingdom of God belongs to those who are like these children”. (Living Bible) Browns Bible Commentary explains this verse: “Jesus took the irresistible opportunity of lowering their pride of reason, by informing them that, in order to enter the Kingdom, instead of the children first becoming like them, they must themselves become like the children who do not allow reason to get in the way of believing".
Why would an adult want to think like a child? Think about that for a moment. Anyone who works in education, will confirm, that children are gullible, and as a result they will believe any myth presented to them. A teacher can stand in front of a class of 10 year-olds and tell them, in all seriousness, that he is the most intelligent person in the world and the class will believe the teacher, with out asking questions. They will idolise the teacher and actually think that he knows everything there is to know in the whole world. If a Sunday school teacher told the kids; that Jonah “ate the whale”, they will believe that Jonah did indeed eat the whale.
We tend to think of humans from the past as more primitive than us, less capable of advanced thinking, less smart, yet, humans haven't evolved significantly, in that regard in millennia. Human babies born today are more or less, the same neurologically and biologically as human babies born thousand of years ago, this is because the time scale required to really see noticeable changes in structures like brains and so forth is in millions of years. (1) So in reality people from ancient times were just as smart neurologically as they are today. The difference is that they had access to Bronze Age knowledge, whereas today with current science, technology, schooling and the internet, humans have experienced an unlimited information revolution, whereby no one thinks and acts like they did even twenty years ago, let alone two thousand years ago.
Today you have to be dumb on purpose as we have the “science and technology”. So really the only difference between a child born today and one born ten thousand years ago is how you educate them by writing on the “blank slate” that is there mind. In order to maximise their potential, you need to give them a first rate education that capitalises on all the most recent advances of scientific knowledge, otherwise you will handicap them for life. Parents and teachers should ensure that children learn to think and reason for themselves. Real education is about open-ended questioning and challenging of the mind. It also involves encouraging the children eventually to move way beyond their teachers so that each generation explores new ground. That is called progress and a blinkered, limited and religious education, attempts to hold back or stop that process and as such, it is a form of child abuse.
Even teenagers are not immune to being deceived by religious indoctrination as it takes twenty years for the human mind to grow to maturity. A new computer which requires the relevant programmes in order to function as designed. If a computer has a hidden virus that hinders its operation it requires an anti virus scanner to be installed in order to detect and destroy the virus. If you do not format the computer, but only, install the anti virus software, it will only detect new viruses that infect the system, whereas the resident virus will remain undetected. Those pre-existing viruses last the life of the computer or until the next format.
That is why when you ask a Christian creationist who believes in the Genesis creation myth if he believes in the Muslim or Greek or Egyptian creation myth, he will say, no, they are myths. A Christian will reject all other religions, sacred books and God’s as being false. The same reasoning and logic that is used, to detect that the other religious stories are myths, are not applied against the “absolute truth” he learnt as a child. The religious mind virus (meme) he received when he was at an impressionable age is still active and his mind short circuits, goes blank and the virus takes over. Telling your kids that they can make up their own minds and exercise “free choice” does not make any sense at all if you indoctrinate them first, before they are able to reason. Teaching a child a certain belief before they can think for themselves is called brainwashing.
When parents impart an ancient superstitious pre-scientific worldview, that ignores what humanity through science has learned about the universe, about history, about human psychology, about medicine, and everything else, they do a grievous harm to that child. Religious instruction is dangerous and manipulative, there might be some outdated morals taught but for the most part Christianity teaches, stupidity, narrow -mindedness, intolerance and bigotry and the teaching of it to children could even be regarded as being morally akin to deliberately exposing a child to HIV.
Teaching your children to be fearful of snakes or things that may harm them is perfectly reasonable, because it is based on experience, insight and evidence. Teaching your children to be fearful of something for which there is no experience or evidence and which cannot be validated is just plain child abuse. If something cannot be detected by sensory perception or instrumentation, then in what sense is evidence present? No has been to hell or heaven and come back again to tell that Jesus and the devil are real and alive.
Where is hell? Where is heaven? Where is God? Where is the devil? Where is Jesus? It does not make any sense to preach the “fear” gospel or as they do today the “love” gospel to children because how can you fear or love something that is not real? Kids play pretend games all the time. That is okay. But they are not real and they know that. Pretending adds spice to life. Imagination is one of the greatest assets that a human has. But the Christian gospel is not portrayed as “pretend” and thus only a figment of ones imagination.
To be contd.
References:
(1) https://sites.google.com/site/mccormickphilosophy/
(2) http://cmikids.com/information/actionPlan.php
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0301235/
http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/a-recommendation-for-gospel-powered-parenting
(3) Muslims are also guilty of committing child abuse because brain washed parents send their off spring to study the Koran at the feet of intimidating religious leaders before they can even read or write! Islam means "peace through the submission to God" hence the need of indoctrination of children in all the rules, regulations and ways of Islam. However in this essay I am sticking to Christian indoctrination as they are the majority religion in SA.
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