Religion's Real Child Abuse (Dawkins)

sketerpot · Post by **sketerpot** » 2006-09-25 07:44pm

I found a very interesting article by Richard Dawkins (from 2002). This reads like a recipe for wild controversy:

In the wake of the current scandal over child abuse by priests , I have had a letter from an American woman in her mid forties who was brought up Roman Catholic. She has two strong recollections from when she was seven. She was sexually abused by her parish priest in his car. And around the same time a little schoolfriend of hers, who had tragically died, went to hell because she was a Protestant. Or so my correspondent was led to believe by the then official doctrine of her church. Her view now is that, of these two examples of Roman Catholic child abuse, the one physical and the other mental, the second was by far the worst. She writes:

“Being fondled by the priest simply left the impression (from the mind of a 7 year old) as ‘yuchy’ while the memory of my friend going to hell was one of cold, immeasurable fear. I never lost sleep because of the priest ? but I spent many a night being terrified that the people I loved would go to Hell. It gave me nightmares.”
I am sure her experience is far from unique. And what if we assume a less altruistic child, worried about her own eternity rather than a friend’s? Odious as the physical abuse of children by priests undoubtedly is, I suspect that it may do them less lasting damage than the mental abuse of bringing them up Catholic in the first place.

Happily I was spared the misfortune of a Roman Catholic upbringing (Anglicanism is a significantly less noxious strain of the virus). Being fondled by the Latin master in the Squash Court was a disagreeable sensation for a nine-year-old, a mixture of embarrassment and skin-crawling revulsion, but it was certainly not in the same league as being led to believe that I, or someone I knew, might go to everlasting fire. As soon as I could wriggle off his knee, I ran to tell my friends and we had a good laugh, our fellowship enhanced by the shared experience of the same sad pedophile. I do not believe that I, or they, suffered lasting, or even temporary damage from this disagreeable physical abuse of power. Given the Latin Master’s eventual suicide, maybe the damage was all on his side.

Of course I accept that his misdemeanors, although by today's standards enough to earn imprisonment followed by a life sentence of persecution by vigilantes, were mild compared to those committed by some priests now in the news. I am in no position to make light of the horrific experiences of their altar-boy victims. But reports of child abuse cover a multitude of sins, from mild fondling to violent buggery, and I am sure many of those cases now embarrassing the church fall at the mild end of the spectrum . Doubtless, too, some fall at the violent end, which is terrible but I would make two points about it. First, just because some pedophile assaults are violent and painful, it doesn’t mean that all are. A child too young to notice what is happening at the hands of a gentle pedophile will have no difficulty at all in noticing the pain inflicted by a violent one. Phrases like ‘predatory monster’ are not discriminating enough, and are framed in the light of adult hang-ups. Second (and this is the point with which I began) the mental abuse constituted by an unsubstantiated threat of violence and terrible pain, if sincerely believed by the child, could easily be more damaging than the physical actuality of sexual abuse. An extreme threat of violence and pain is precisely what the doctrine of hell is. And there is no doubt at all that many children sincerely believe it, often continuing right through adulthood and old age until death finally releases them.

It will be said that the Catholic Church no longer preaches hell fire in its full horror. That depends on how upmarket is your area and how progressive your priest . But eternal punishment certainly was the normal doctrine dished out to congregations, including terrified children, back in the time when many of the priests now facing expulsion or prosecution committed their physical abuses. Most of the victims bringing or supporting lawsuits are now in their middle years. They therefore, along with many others who were never physically abused, probably experienced mental terrorism of the hell fire type. The long retrospect of the law entitles middle-aged victims to lucrative redress, decades after they suffered physically. Nobody thinks the physical injuries of sexual abuse could possibly last decades , so the damages now being claimed have to be the mental consequences of the original physical abuse. A typical claimant, now 54, said that his “life was marred by inexplicable confusions, anger, depression and lost faith.” (Parenthetically, one can’t help marvelling at the idea of a life being marred by lost faith. Perhaps it would get the sympathy of a jury.) But the point is this. If you can sue for the long-term mental damage caused by physical child abuse, why should you not sue for the long-term mental damage caused by mental child abuse? Only a minority of priests abuse the bodies of the children in their care. But how many priests abuse their minds? Why aren’t Catholics and ex-Catholics lining up to sue the church into the ground, for a lifetime of psychological damage?

I am not advocating this course of action. Much as I would like to see the Roman Catholic Church ruined, I hate opportunistically retrospective litigation even more. Lawyers who grow fat by digging dirt on long-forgotten wrongs, and hounding their aged perpetrators, are no friends of mine. All I am doing is calling attention to an anomaly. By all means, let’s kick a nasty institution when it is down, but there are better ways than litigation. And an obsessive concentration on sexual abuse by priests is in danger of blinding us to all their other forms of child abuse.

The threat of eternal hell is an extreme example of mental abuse, just as violent sodomy is an extreme example of physical abuse. Most physical abuse is milder, and so is most of the mental abuse inherent in a typical religious education. The priest who urged a 14-year-old altar boy to give him oral sex, “blessing it as a way to receive Holy Communion ” wasn’t only abusing the trust normally enjoyed by any teacher, youth leader or scoutmaster. He was cashing in on the years of religious brainwashing that the child had endured as a cradle Catholic. Holy Communion: nice one! But again, only an extreme example of what churches ? and also mosques and synagogues ? do to child minds in their care, in the normal course of events.

‘What shall we tell the children?’ is a superb polemic on how religions abuse the minds of children, by the distinguished psychologist Nicholas Humphrey. It was originally delivered as a lecture in aid of Amnesty International, and has now been reissued as a chapter of his book, The Mind Made Flesh, just published by Oxford University Press. It is also available on the worldwide web and I strongly recommend it. Humphrey argues that, in the same way as Amnesty works tirelessly to free political prisoners the world over, we should work to free the children of the world from the religions which, with parental approval, damage minds too young to understand what is happening to them. He is right, and the same lesson should inform our discussions of the current pedophile brouhaha. Priestly groping of child bodies is disgusting. But it may be less harmful in the long run than priestly subversion of child minds.

Boyish-Tigerlilly · Post by **Boyish-Tigerlilly** » 2006-09-25 10:11pm

If you are more interested in what he's saying, I recomend his new book; he has two chapters devoted entirely to that subject.

It is interesting nonetheless, and I agree with him that it can be downright mentally abuse to label children, effectively deciding for them and forcing a religion on them when they are small children. That's taking away their ability to choose something as important as that. It also seems an attempt to take over their thought processes by ideology before they become old enough to choose for themselves.

I think one point Dawkins goes into is that the mental abuse of being force-fed guilt, shame, and fear of hell can also be devastating to children as they grow up. He cites a few examples of children developing socioemotional problems and phobias well into adulthood.

Post by **AdmiralKanos** » 2006-09-26 10:47am

There's no question that many varieties of Christianity (specifically the fire and brimstone variety) involve the same kind of psychological abuse that is used by child kidnappers, with dire threats of horrible consequences for the slightest misstep. But the great mass of Christian moderates will still bristle at any suggestion that Christianity can be held responsible for this in any way, even though the necessary quotes come straight out of the Bible.

Shroom Man 777 · Post by **Shroom Man 777** » 2006-09-26 11:56am

Hey, I for one think that bullshit's fucked me up a bit too. I really hate it. Hate it like how when I was a kid, my parents always covered my eyes when movie characters kissed - and look at me now, my hand's like magnetized to my cock!

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2006-09-26 12:25pm

I'm pretty sure this is in The Devil's Chaplain which I thoroughly enjoyed and recommend. It has many essays, forewords and editiorials like this from across the years, many dealing with faith, but others with regard to the human condition or (pseudo)science.

He's dead on the money though, as ever.

Keevan_Colton · Post by **Keevan_Colton** » 2006-09-26 07:50pm

Admiral Valdemar wrote:I'm pretty sure this is in The Devil's Chaplain which I thoroughly enjoyed and recommend. It has many essays, forewords and editiorials like this from across the years, many dealing with faith, but others with regard to the human condition or (pseudo)science.

He's dead on the money though, as ever.

Actually, I dont think it is in The Devil's Chaplin, or at least it wasnt in the copy I picked up in Canada at any rate. Dawkins was amusing last Friday on Newsnight, getting the full Jeremy Paxman treatment and coming away unscathed by it.

Boyish-Tigerlilly · Post by **Boyish-Tigerlilly** » 2006-09-26 08:52pm

The article above is expanded on in The God Delusion, chaper 9, I think.

Patrick Degan · Post by **Patrick Degan** » 2006-09-26 09:14pm

Mr. Dawkins seems about the next best thing our culture has to Oolon Colluphid.

Keevan_Colton · Post by **Keevan_Colton** » 2006-09-26 09:39pm

Patrick Degan wrote:Mr. Dawkins seems about the next best thing our culture has to Oolon Colluphid.

He was a close friend of DNA.

Rye · Post by **Rye** » 2006-09-26 11:56pm

Keevan_Colton wrote:
Admiral Valdemar wrote:I'm pretty sure this is in The Devil's Chaplain which I thoroughly enjoyed and recommend. It has many essays, forewords and editiorials like this from across the years, many dealing with faith, but others with regard to the human condition or (pseudo)science.

He's dead on the money though, as ever.
Actually, I dont think it is in The Devil's Chaplin, or at least it wasnt in the copy I picked up in Canada at any rate. Dawkins was amusing last Friday on Newsnight, getting the full Jeremy Paxman treatment and coming away unscathed by it.

Watch the interview here! Open it in a new window, otherwise it'll resize your current one.

Parallax · Post by **Parallax** » 2006-09-27 03:44am

As much as I'd like to watch it, it is in accursed realmovie format - which is something I'll never have on my PC. Curse you, realplayer! Curse you to Hell!

Parallax · Post by **Parallax** » 2006-09-27 03:47am

... and a hasty edit. For those wishing to see it in a better format, it would appear that it is hosted on good ol' YouTube here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWL1ZMH3-54

Kitsune · Post by **Kitsune** » 2006-09-27 04:29am

All I can say is wow and he voices the same concern I have with people wanting Armageddon

Pint0 Xtreme · Post by **Pint0 Xtreme** » 2006-09-27 04:07pm

Not only does such religious indoctrination abuse mentally, they tend to have a really bad effect on other parts of your mind. When you're been trained for the early portion of your life to not think critically and put so much emphasis on appeals to emotion and authority, it fucks with your logical faculties. I am convinced that my reasoning abilities have been impeded by years of indoctrination.