Holy Child Abuse
By Kamangir • Oct 2nd, 2007 • Category: Children, Human Rights, Iran, IslamQadr Nights are virtually the most important nights of the year for Muslims and occur on the holy month of Ramadan. During these nights, Muslims attend special ceremonies in mosques and spend the night reciting the Quran and other Islamic books.
As always, kids are taken to these deeply religious events. to my understanding, religion is very similar to sex, no offense to religious people here. Religion is personal and something you choose to do. If others impose it on you, it becomes rape. Taking children to religious masses is intellectual rape, to my understanding.
More pictures in the photoblog.
Posted by Kamangir
Author's email address: arash@kamangir.net | All posts by Kamangir
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I wholly disagree with you on this one, Kaman, in that no choice is a choice in itself. If you raise a child without teaching him your religion, then you have simply taught him not to be religious, and not being religious is also a religious choice.
Kaman, we “impose” our lauguage, moral code, history, and culture on our children as well. Is it rape to help shape the intellect and beliefs of a child? That’s what parents do, man. That’s part of what being in a family means.
What choices you make later on, as an adult, are your own, but there is no “blank slate state” that we can keep a child in until he is all grown. Context is a huge part of our lives, and what matters is what we do with it later.
Kamangir: I totally disagree. This happens in all religions, as much as I have seen, and it’s the main reason behind the high chance that the son of a Christian typically becomes a Christian, etc. With all due respect, I have heard the same argument from Muslims. I think this is a technique for the religious people to grow their community. As an agnostic, I will not expose my child, if I ever have a child, to agnosticism, anything more than I expose them to other belief systems.
p.s. What I prescribe is exposition to everything, and not just what parents think is the truth.
Then why not continue with exposition to all cultures, exposition to all states, exposition to all moral systems, and so on. A religious group is no different than any other group when it comes to this matter.
At this point, we reach the difference between the individual-based viewpoint and the society-based viewpoint. A little of everything, as you advise, will result in a lot of nothing, as it does with people who view themselves as Universal, or Citizens of the World.
Is it about survival? That’s part of it, certainly. It’s a matter of keeping the society, the group, alive throughout the ages.
A careful balance must be struck between the needs of the group and the needs of the individual, but I think your option breaks that balance far into the individualist.
Kamangir: Roman, I guess it depends on the part of the world you are from. I believe that you are raised in a society where religious oppression has not been as strong. Therefore, you are more towards “keeping the society together”. The place I come from is the other way around, and thus I look for more freedom. Having said all this, I go for exposition to as many cultures/religions/moral systems as possible.
I agree with Roman. And religion is NOTHING like sex. By not raising a child with a faith, then you are leaving that child to find his/her way through the world without a moral compass. Of course there has to be a reasonable approach to teaching ones child, one without psychological coersion.
Kamangir: Just a quick hint, non-believers do have “moral compasses” as well. I know I do.
“By not raising a child with a faith, then you are leaving that child to find his/her way through the world without a moral compass”.
No you are not.
I have a moral compass and it’s calibrated to magnetic north, not Mecca. I have learned to love everyone: Homosexuals, mentally handicapped, poor, rich, black, white, asian, arab, and even Australians. :p :D
I’ll raise my children to respect you, Ali, whether or not you raise your children to respect me.
I would raise my kids with some sort of religious direction. But I would tell them that the book should be read and not used as a Hat :-)
Kamangir: :D
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I think that it is fine for parents to teach their children their religion - as they teach them many other things, such as what is the ethical way to act. But I would also say that parents should teach their children also how to think critically - about their religion, about ethics, about anything else - and should be open to it if their children disagree with them. I think, Kamangir, that if you have children you will end up teaching them your agnostic point of view - maybe not deliberately, but it will come out when you talk to them about religion. (I don’t think this is a bad thing, by the way).
I think Kamangir is totally wrong here.
Parent’s are obligated, insofar as they believe in a set of values, to impart those values to their children. You may disagree with the values in question, but it is intellectually dishonest to claim religious parents are not right to raise their children as religious.
It is dishonest because it makes you think you, an agnostic, are not also raising your children according to your values. You do everything you can to make sure they are inculcated in those values. This is why parents say, “go wash your hands” and not “perhaps you should choose from a variety of different options visavi handwashing.” This is why parents have rules, why they tell their children right and wrong.
What’s more: Religion, especially a religion as poetically rich as Iranian Shiah Islam contains a strong cultural component. Shabe-Qadr is a part of Iranian culture that religious Iranians take very seriously. Some Iranians take Noruz very seriously. Taking your kid to a Noruz festival is not cultural rape. Taking your kid to Shabe-Qadr, to Ashura, is not intellectual rape: the term is meaningless and offensive.
Is it wrong to raise your child to hate others, or to be intolerant? Sure. But popular Islam in Iran is anything but that. I have been in deeply tradition circles in Iran where people are at once deeply religious and observant and profoundly open-minded and tolerant of others. You are painting religious people, the religious experience, with one broad brush and this is bigoted and wrong.
I spent much of my childhood within the milieu of that tradition Shiism, and I am grateful for it. It was a wonderful, healthy emotional and spiritual experience. I am glad my parents allowed me (though never forced me) to experience it just as I am glad they gave me the Persian language. No matter where I go in life, philosophically, I will always cherish the rich, poetic, and beautiful world of traditional Shiism. I believe, like Rebecca, that a healthy balance of tradition and tolerance are what make for a strong, independent identity.
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