"Teaching Creationism is Child Abuse"

[Me Myself]

To call creationism as child abuse is a massive slap in the face to children who've been beaten or raped. I know some people personally who were abused physically and sexually as children.

Another thing is that people don't teach their children things that they don't believe to be true. Lawrence Krauss should be trying to find a way to educate those who believe in it and to dispel the ignorance that creationism uses to survive, instead of looking like an insensitive prick who's never, clearly, encountered anyone who's suffered from this; good God, I know for a fact that they would have rather been taught creationism than raped.

Jesus Christ.
Some people are bona fide dickheads.

To be fair, there are many forms and intenstities of abuse. You've encountefed the most serious and directly thraumatic cases. Desinformation is sitll damaging.

 

[Me Myself]

Putting aside the fact that evolution is an indisputable fact if you have even a rudimentary grasp of it for a moment...

How can we say it's abuse, or neglect, for parents to teach their children what they think is true?

Simple: by acknowledging what they are teaching is harmful and that is specific case of abuse is rarely intentional.

 

[Me Myself]

ever noticed the reaction of a child to being told we are decedents of animals? Its utter disbelief. It goes against our grain to believe we are nothing more then animals.

Evolution does far more harm to a childs sense of self then anything a creationist might say.

I've found similar reaxtions to "santa claus doesn't exist" "you came from the belly of your mother" "The Earth is like a ball"

I am not sure if you thought your argument through.

 

[Revoltingest]

ever noticed the reaction of a child to being told we are decedents of animals? Its utter disbelief.

It never bothered me....I even found it fascinating.

 

[LuisDantas]

While not "child abuse" in its usual sense, I do believe that misinforming children is an abuse of their intellect.

What say you?

Why, yes. Of course it is child abuse, and gross lack of responsibility from parents and teachers.

They ought to know better than to teach such a grave false equivalency to young children. That is a terrible, terrible example that teaches them to value fear of the truth and the consider lying as a convenient behavior to deal with unease.

 

[LuisDantas]

Putting aside the fact that evolution is an indisputable fact if you have even a rudimentary grasp of it for a moment...

How can we say it's abuse, or neglect, for parents to teach their children what they think is true?

Eh. You never had parents like mine, I see.

Certain people deliberately choose not to think or learn inconvenient things. Sometimes to an obnoxious level.

Such a level, in fact, that they shouldn't be allowed to raise children while under such a spell; it is very harmful to a society if they do.

I know.

 

[LuisDantas]

True dat.

I don't think it advances rational thought to attack fundies with such specious & vicious attacks.

It doesn't, of course.

It doesn't advance society to play dumb to specious and vicious attacks from fundies, either.

I see where you are coming from: creating animosity is simply not helpful at all.

But that much needed realization must be balanced with a kind of fierceness to shake them out of their confort zone at least every once in a while.

Sometimes there is no constructive choice but to deliberately lower oneself towards the level of language and reason that is understood by the people we hope to reach.

 

[Revoltingest]

It doesn't, of course.
It doesn't advance society to play dumb to specious and vicious attacks from fundies, either.

No argument here.

I see where you are coming from: creating animosity is simply not helpful at all.
But that much needed realization must be balanced with a kind of fierceness to shake them out of their confort zone at least every once in a while.

Civil & reasoned fierceness is best.

Sometimes there is no constructive choice but to deliberately lower oneself towards the level of language and reason that is understood by the people we hope to reach.

There is always a choice.

 

[Me Myself]

ever noticed the reaction of a child to being told we are decedents of animals? Its utter disbelief. It goes against our grain to believe we are nothing more then animals.

Evolution does far more harm to a childs sense of self then anything a creationist might say.

And to be honest I remember thinking it made a lot of sense. Body evolves during one life time according to its usage, species also evolve with time. It made sense to me.

 

[Breathe]

Why not? If a parent truely and sincerely believes that it is ok th withhold food from a child for weeks at a time, is that not still neglect? Or if the parent believes it is good and proper to leave a child outside overnight in the dead of winter is that not neglect?

Not really comparable: hunger and cold have external, observable effects, and the children are easily found to be unhappy. Telling kids that we were made in 7 days, although flying against the face of evidence, does not harm the child emotionally, physically, or sexually; children can easily have happy and productive childhoods and still be completely ignorant of evolution. Children are not going to be happy and productive when they're starved or thrown outside at night -- of this I'm pretty sure, since there was a woman not far from my age who was a friend of a friend of a fried (I met her twice) who turned out to refuse to feed her child for 24 hours when he was 'naughty', such as having an accident or waking up in the night.

In pointing out that many parents are ignorant when it comes to basic science all you are doing is undescoring how important a proper education is.

Quite the opposite, I wholeheartedly support educating people and believe that the only reason parents are teaching their children this is that the education system has, apparently, failed to explain it correctly in some countries, observable through my experience due to the claims of opponents of evolution. You know the kind "how are there still monkeys?" -- they don't understand what evolution teaches.

In response, what you're doing is supporting bullying. This will not work. This will only reinforce suspicion of "the anti-religious evolutionist agenda" conspiracies.

ever noticed the reaction of a child to being told we are decedents of animals? Its utter disbelief. It goes against our grain to believe we are nothing more then animals.

Evolution does far more harm to a childs sense of self then anything a creationist might say.

Personally, I disagree. I found it fascinating.

To be fair, there are many forms and intenstities of abuse. You've encountefed the most serious and directly thraumatic cases. Desinformation is sitll damaging.

Yeah. I've had to pick up the pieces on more than one occasion and sort out problems. I know people personally (not just online) who have been raped by their families, abused, neglected.

When you've had to stand someone down who comes at your door at 11:30 at night with a machete because they want their kid to come home after they've been beaten, threatening to kill you and everyone in the house and the police haven't turned up yet, and this being just one thing you've had to encounter -- when it's being compared to something minor said by some pricks who think they know what they're talking about, you tend to be a little ******* touchy about subjects like this, you know?

Simple: by acknowledging what they are teaching is harmful and that is specific case of abuse is rarely intentional.

Won't work; they don't think it's harmful. You can't force someone to acknowledge it. You need to educate.

Eh. You never had parents like mine, I see.

Certain people deliberately choose not to think or learn inconvenient things. Sometimes to an obnoxious level.

Such a level, in fact, that they shouldn't be allowed to raise children while under such a spell; it is very harmful to a society if they do.

I know.

Some people don't want to think or learn inconvenient things, but you can teach it at schools. But, just how far are you willing to infringe upon other's lives?

 

[Me Myself]

There is always a choice.

True, but sometimes the best choice is the one described by Luis. I do think that is much less often the csse than how much peole tend to use it, but I have no reason to believe it woulld NEVER be the best choice.

 

[Wherenextcolumbus]

I've found similar reaxtions to "santa claus doesn't exist" "you came from the belly of your mother" "The Earth is like a ball"

I am not sure if you thought your argument through.

Exactly I was like "wwwhhhaaatttt" when I found out people had sex to produce children, I thought you produced children from passionate kissing, and people just had sex (which I thought was just penis on top of the vagina not inside) because they enjoyed it. When my sister told me the truth I was shocked!

 

[LuisDantas]

Some people don't want to think or learn inconvenient things, but you can teach it at schools.

To a certain point. That ends up causing problems of its own if the cognitive dissonance with the home environment becomes too obvious, though.

But, just how far are you willing to infringe upon other's lives?

I think you overestimate the amount of choice people have at that, Odion.

 

[Riverwolf]

Look at it this way. I am not saying that we can end world hunger either. But I still don't think it is ok that children are starving.

False equivalence.

Ignorance about the age of the world cannot be compared to physical starvation at all. Whether the age of the world is 6000 years, 5 billion years, or 100 years is generally of no consequence in life.

 

[Riverwolf]

ever noticed the reaction of a child to being told we are decedents of animals? Its utter disbelief. It goes against our grain to believe we are nothing more then animals.

Evolution does far more harm to a childs sense of self then anything a creationist might say.

Codswallop. It never hurt my sense of self; rather, it helped define it. There's nothing wrong with being animals.

 

[Me Myself]

Exactly I was like "wwwhhhaaatttt" when I found out people had sex to produce children, I thought you produced children from passionate kissing, and people just had sex (which I thought was just penis on top of the vagina not inside) because they enjoyed it. When my sister told me the truth I was shocked!

I was really surprised when I found out sex doesnt happen in a laboratory, with the doctor manually inserting the penis of the man on the vagina of the woman

When mother said "ehm... No, people even have sex in pools" I was like "okay, now you are definetely kidding me.What if an helicopter passes and they see you naked from above, huh?!

 

[Wherenextcolumbus]

ever noticed the reaction of a child to being told we are decedents of animals? Its utter disbelief. It goes against our grain to believe we are nothing more then animals.

Evolution does far more harm to a childs sense of self then anything a creationist might say.

I disagree I would of been happy to know I am connected to other mammals, because I loved animals as a child and I liked to mimic them. I would watch animal planet for hours and if we played "families" at school I was always the pet cat XD
I was disappointed when my ex step dad told me humans are better than animals because we can believe in God, I was thinking to myself "your wrong humans suck!" Never said it though.

 

[Breathe]

To a certain point. That ends up causing problems of its own if the cognitive dissonance with the home environment becomes too obvious, though.

You're expecting a quick fix. Not going to happen. It's going to take longer when people say things like "creationism = child neglect", too.

 

[Wherenextcolumbus]

I was really surprised when I found out sex doesnt happen in a laboratory, with the doctor manually inserting the penis of the man on the vagina of the woman

When mother said "ehm... No, people even have sex in pools" I was like "okay, now you are definetely kidding me.What if an helicopter passes and they see you naked from above, huh?!

LMAO! Ahhh good times...

 

[LuisDantas]

To believe that being taught that we have animal (distant) relatives is traumatic is indeed quite arbitrary.

People have to deal with far more traumatic discoveries as a matter of course in every generation. Say, that there are economic differences between themselves and their little friends that will forever shape their lives and relationships. Or that mommy and daddy will never really stop arguing and having them move apart might be the best anyone can hope for.

Compared to those grim disappointments about the future of one's life, the concept of evolution simply does not begin to compare; even if you are disgusted by being descended from an animal, you are still undeniably human and nothing will ever take that from you, after all.