Children
A child ( : children) is a human being between the stages of birth and puberty, or between the developmental period of infancy and puberty. The legal definition of ''child'' generally refers to a minor, otherwise known as a person younger ...
often acquire
religious
Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatur ...
views approximating those of their
parent
A parent is a caregiver of the offspring in their own species. In humans, a parent is the caretaker of a child (where "child" refers to offspring, not necessarily age). A ''biological parent'' is a person whose gamete resulted in a child, a male t ...
s, although they may also be influenced by others they communicate with - such as
peers and
teacher
A teacher, also called a schoolteacher or formally an educator, is a person who helps students to acquire knowledge, competence, or virtue, via the practice of teaching.
''Informally'' the role of teacher may be taken on by anyone (e.g. whe ...
s. Matters relating the subject of children and religion may include
rites of passage
A rite of passage is a ceremony or ritual of the passage which occurs when an individual leaves one group to enter another. It involves a significant change of status in society. In cultural anthropology the term is the Anglicisation of ''rite ...
,
education
Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty ...
, and
child psychology
Developmental psychology is the scientific study of how and why humans grow, change, and adapt across the course of their lives. Originally concerned with infants and children, the field has expanded to include adolescence, adult development ...
, as well as discussion of the
moral issue of the
religious education
In secular usage, religious education is the teaching of a particular religion (although in the United Kingdom the term ''religious instruction'' would refer to the teaching of a particular religion, with ''religious education'' referring to t ...
of children.
Rites of passage
Most
Christian denomination
A Christian denomination is a distinct Religion, religious body within Christianity that comprises all Church (congregation), church congregations of the same kind, identifiable by traits such as a name, particular history, organization, leadersh ...
s practice
infant baptism
Infant baptism is the practice of baptising infants or young children. Infant baptism is also called christening by some faith traditions.
Most Christians belong to denominations that practice infant baptism. Branches of Christianity that ...
to enter children into the faith. Some form of
confirmation
In Christian denominations that practice infant baptism, confirmation is seen as the sealing of the covenant created in baptism. Those being confirmed are known as confirmands. For adults, it is an affirmation of belief. It involves laying on ...
ritual occurs when the child has reached the
age of reason
The Age of reason, or the Enlightenment, was an intellectual and philosophical movement that dominated the world of ideas in Europe during the 17th to 19th centuries.
Age of reason or Age of Reason may also refer to:
* Age of reason (canon law), ...
and voluntarily accepts the religion.
Ritual
circumcision
Circumcision is a procedure that removes the foreskin from the human penis. In the most common form of the operation, the foreskin is extended with forceps, then a circumcision device may be placed, after which the foreskin is excised. Top ...
is used to mark Jewish and Muslim and
Coptic Christian
Copts ( cop, ⲛⲓⲣⲉⲙⲛ̀ⲭⲏⲙⲓ ; ar, الْقِبْط ) are a Christian ethnoreligious group indigenous to North Africa who have primarily inhabited the area of modern Egypt and Sudan since antiquity. Most ethnic Copts ar ...
and
Ethiopian Orthodox Christian
The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church ( am, የኢትዮጵያ ኦርቶዶክስ ተዋሕዶ ቤተ ክርስቲያን, ''Yäityop'ya ortodoks täwahedo bétäkrestyan'') is the largest of the Oriental Orthodox Churches. One of the few Chris ...
infant males as belonging to the faith. Jewish boys and girls then confirm their belonging at a
coming of age
Coming of age is a young person's transition from being a child to being an adult. The specific age at which this transition takes place varies between societies, as does the nature of the change. It can be a simple legal convention or can ...
ceremony known as the
Bar and Bat Mitzvah respectively.
Education
Religious education
A
parochial school
A parochial school is a private primary or secondary school affiliated with a religious organization, and whose curriculum includes general religious education in addition to secular subjects, such as science, mathematics and language arts. The wo ...
(US) or
faith school
A faith school is a school in the United Kingdom that teaches a general curriculum but which has a particular religious character or formal links with a religious or faith-based organisation. The term is most commonly applied to state-funded f ...
(UK), is a type of school which engages in
religious education
In secular usage, religious education is the teaching of a particular religion (although in the United Kingdom the term ''religious instruction'' would refer to the teaching of a particular religion, with ''religious education'' referring to t ...
in addition to conventional education. Parochial schools may be primary or secondary and may have state funding but varying amounts of control by a religious organization. In addition, there are
religious schools which only teach the religion and subsidiary subjects (such as the language of the holy books), typically run on a part-time basis separate from normal schooling. Examples are the Christian
Sunday school
A Sunday school is an educational institution, usually (but not always) Christian in character. Other religions including Buddhism, Islam, and Judaism have also organised Sunday schools in their temples and mosques, particularly in the West.
...
s and the Jewish
Hebrew school
Hebrew school is Jewish education focusing on topics of Jewish history, learning the Hebrew language, and finally learning their Torah Portion, in preparation for the ceremony in Judaism of entering adulthood, known as a Bar or Bat Mitzvah. Hebr ...
s. Islamic religious schools are known in English by the Arabic
loanword
A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because ...
Madrasah
Madrasa (, also , ; Arabic: مدرسة , pl. , ) is the Arabic word for any type of educational institution, secular or religious (of any religion), whether for elementary instruction or higher learning. The word is variously transliterated '' ...
.
Prayer in school
Religion may have an influence on what goes on in state schools. For example, in the UK the
Education Act 1944
The Education Act 1944 (7 and 8 Geo 6 c. 31) made major changes in the provision and governance of secondary schools in England and Wales. It is also known as the "Butler Act" after the President of the Board of Education, R. A. Butler. Historians ...
introduced the requirement for daily prayers in all state-funded schools, but later acts changed this requirement to a daily "collective act of worship", the
School Standards and Framework Act 1998
The School Standards and Framework Act 1998 was the major education legislation passed by the incoming Labour government led by Tony Blair.
This Act:
* imposed a limit of 30 on infant class sizes.
* abolished grant-maintained schools, introducin ...
being the most recent. This also requires such acts of worship to be "wholly or mainly of a broadly Christian character".
[www.teachernet.gov.uk]
The term "mainly" means that acts related to other faiths can be carried out providing the majority are Christian.
[Catholic Education Service]
Teaching evolution
The
creation–evolution controversy
Recurring cultural, political, and theological rejection of evolution by religious groups (sometimes termed the creation–evolution controversy, the creation vs. evolution debate or the origins debate) exists regarding the origins of the Ea ...
, especially the status of
creation and evolution in public education
The status of creation and evolution in public education has been the subject of substantial debate and conflict in legal, political, and religious circles. Globally, there is a wide variety of views on the topic. Most western countries have leg ...
, is a debate over teaching children the
origin
Origin(s) or The Origin may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
Comics and manga
* Origin (comics), ''Origin'' (comics), a Wolverine comic book mini-series published by Marvel Comics in 2002
* The Origin (Buffy comic), ''The Origin'' (Bu ...
and
evolution
Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation ...
of life, mostly in conservative regions of the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...
. However,
evolution is accepted by the Catholic Church and is a part of the
Catholic Catechism.
Display of religious symbols
In France, children are
forbidden from wearing conspicuous religious symbols in public schools.
Religious indoctrination of children
Many legal experts have argued that the government should create laws in the interests of the welfare of children, irrespective of the religion of their parents.
Nicholas Humphrey has argued that children "have a human right not to have their minds crippled by exposure to other people's bad ideas," and should have the ability to question the religious views of their parents.
"Parents' religion and children's welfare: debunking the doctrine of parents' rights,
Philosopher
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer ( , ; 22 February 1788 – 21 September 1860) was a German philosopher. He is best known for his 1818 work ''The World as Will and Representation'' (expanded in 1844), which characterizes the phenomenal world as the prod ...
spoke of the subject in the 19th century:
Several authors have been critical of religious
indoctrination
Indoctrination is the process of inculcating a person with ideas, attitudes, cognitive strategies or professional methodologies (see doctrine).
Humans are a social animal species inescapably shaped by cultural context, and thus some degree ...
of children, such as
Nicholas Humphrey,
Daniel Dennett
Daniel Clement Dennett III (born March 28, 1942) is an American philosopher, writer, and cognitive scientist whose research centers on the philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, and philosophy of biology, particularly as those fields relat ...
and
Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins (born 26 March 1941) is a British evolutionary biologist and author. He is an emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford and was Professor for Public Understanding of Science in the University of Oxford from 1995 to 2008. An ...
.
Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Eric Hitchens (13 April 1949 – 15 December 2011) was a British-American author and journalist who wrote or edited over 30 books (including five essay collections) on culture, politics, and literature. Born and educated in England, ...
and Dawkins use the term
child abuse
Child abuse (also called child endangerment or child maltreatment) is physical, sexual, and/or psychological maltreatment or neglect of a child or children, especially by a parent or a caregiver. Child abuse may include any act or failure to a ...
to describe the harm that some religious upbringings inflict on children.
A. C. Grayling
Anthony Clifford Grayling (; born 3 April 1949) is a British philosopher and author. He was born in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) and spent most of his childhood there and in Nyasaland (now Malawi). In 2011 he founded and became the first M ...
has argued "we are all born atheists... and it takes a certain amount of work on the part of the adults in our community to persuade
hildrendifferently."
Dawkins states that he is angered by the labels "Muslim child" or "Catholic child". He asks how a young child can be considered intellectually mature enough to have such independent views on the cosmos and humanity's place within it. By contrast, Dawkins points out, no reasonable person would speak of a "
Marxist
Marxism is a left-wing to far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict and a dialecti ...
child" or a "
Tory
A Tory () is a person who holds a political philosophy known as Toryism, based on a British version of traditionalism and conservatism, which upholds the supremacy of social order as it has evolved in the English culture throughout history. The ...
child."
He suggests there is little controversy over such
labeling
Labelling or using a label is describing someone or something in a word or short phrase. For example, the label "criminal" may be used to describe someone who has broken a law. Labelling theory is a theory in sociology which ascribes labelling ...
because of the "weirdly privileged status of religion".
On several occasions, Dawkins made the claim that
sexually abusing a child is "arguably less" damaging than "the long term psychological damage inflicted by bringing up a child Catholic in the first place".
Dawkins wrote an illustrated scientific book for children,
The Magic of Reality
''The Magic of Reality: How We Know What's Really True'' is a 2011 book by the British biologist Richard Dawkins, with illustrations by Dave McKean. The book was released on 15 September 2011 in the United Kingdom, and on 4 October 2011 in the U ...
, in which some natural phenomena that have usually left explained to them by means of the action of gods or other mythical creatures are demystified. Each chapter book is devoted to a single natural phenomenon, such as earthquakes, always starting with a myth or folklore of world's major religions followed by an actual scientific explanation that debunks the latter.
Child marriage
Some scholars of
Islam
Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God (or '' Allah'') as it was revealed to Muhammad, the ...
has permitted the
child marriage
Child marriage is a marriage or similar union, formal or informal, between a child under a certain age – typically 18 years – and an adult or another child.
*
*
*
* The vast majority of child marriages are between a female child and a mal ...
of older men to girls as young as 10 years of age if they have entered puberty. The Seyaj Organization for the Protection of Children describes cases of a 10-year-old girl being married and raped in Yemen (
Nujood Ali),
a 13-year-old Yemeni girl dying of internal bleeding three days after marriage, and a 12-year-old girl dying in childbirth after marriage.
Latter Day Saint church founder
Joseph Smith
Joseph Smith Jr. (December 23, 1805June 27, 1844) was an American religious leader and founder of Mormonism and the Latter Day Saint movement. When he was 24, Smith published the Book of Mormon. By the time of his death, 14 years later, h ...
married girls as young as 13 and 14,
and other Latter Day Saints married girls as young as 10.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, informally known as the LDS Church or Mormon Church, is a Nontrinitarianism, nontrinitarian Christianity, Christian church that considers itself to be the Restorationism, restoration of the ...
eliminated underaged marriages in the 19th century, but several
fundamentalist branches of Mormonism continue the practice.
Health effects
Medical care
Some religions treat illness, both mental and physical, in a manner that does not heal, and in some cases exacerbates the problem. Specific examples include
faith healing
Faith healing is the practice of prayer and gestures (such as laying on of hands) that are believed by some to elicit divine intervention in spiritual and physical healing, especially the Christian practice. Believers assert that the healin ...
of certain Christian sects, denominations which eschew medical care including vaccinations or
blood transfusion
Blood transfusion is the process of transferring blood products into a person's circulation intravenously. Transfusions are used for various medical conditions to replace lost components of the blood. Early transfusions used whole blood, but mo ...
s, and
exorcisms
Exorcism () is the religious or spiritual practice of evicting demons, jinns, or other malevolent spiritual entities from a person, or an area, that is believed to be possessed. Depending on the spiritual beliefs of the exorcist, this may b ...
.
Faith based practices for healing purposes have come into direct conflict with both the medical profession and the law when victims of these practices are harmed, or in the most extreme cases, killed by these "cures."
A detailed study in 1998 found 140 instances of deaths of children due to religion-based
medical neglect
In the context of caregiving, neglect is a form of abuse where the perpetrator, who is responsible for caring for someone who is unable to care for themselves, fails to do so. It can be a result of carelessness, indifference, or unwillingness and ...
. Most of these cases involved religious parents relying on prayer to cure the child's disease, and withholding medical care.
Jehovah's Witnesses
Jehovah's Witnesses is a millenarian restorationist Christian denomination with nontrinitarian beliefs distinct from mainstream Christianity. The group reports a worldwide membership of approximately 8.7 million adherents involved in ...
object to blood transfusion primarily on religious grounds, they believe that blood is sacred and God said "abstain from blood" (Acts 15:28–29).
Religion as a by-product of children's attributes
Dawkins proposes that religion is a by-product arising from other features of the human species that are adaptive.
One such feature is the tendency of children to "believe, without question, whatever your grown-ups tell you" (Dawkins, 2006, p. 174).
Psychologist
Paul Bloom sees religion as a by-product of children's instinctive tendency toward a
dualistic view of the world, and a predisposition towards
creationism
Creationism is the religious belief that nature, and aspects such as the universe, Earth, life, and humans, originated with supernatural acts of divine creation. Gunn 2004, p. 9, "The ''Concise Oxford Dictionary'' says that creationism is 't ...
.
Deborah Kelemen has also written that children are naturally
teleologists, assigning a purpose to everything they come across.
See also
*
Children's rights
Children's rights are a subset of human rights with particular attention to the rights of special protection and care afforded to minors.
* ''
Daugherty v. Vanguard''
*
Emmanuel Schools Foundation
*
Freedom of religion
Freedom of religion or religious liberty is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or community, in public or private, to manifest religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship, and observance. It also includes the freedo ...
*
Homeschooling
Homeschooling or home schooling, also known as home education or elective home education (EHE), is the education of school-aged children at home or a variety of places other than a school. Usually conducted by a parent, tutor, or an onlin ...
*
Islam and children
*
Lost boys (Mormon fundamentalism)
"Lost boys" is a term used for young men who have been excommunicated or pressured to leave polygamous Mormon fundamentalist groups, such as the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS). Although sometimes officially accu ...
*
Preacher's kid
Preacher's kid is a term to refer to a child of a preacher, pastor, deacon, vicar, lay leader, priest, minister or other similar church leader. Although the phrase can be used in a purely descriptive way, it may also be used as a stereotype. I ...
*
Religion and abortion
Numerous religious traditions have taken a stance on abortion but few are absolute. These stances span a broad spectrum, based on numerous teachings, deities, or religious print, and some of those views are highlighted below.
Baháʼí Faith
Abo ...
*
Religious male circumcision
Religious circumcision generally occurs shortly after birth, during childhood, or around puberty as part of a rite of passage. Circumcision is most prevalent in the religions of Judaism and Islam. Circumcision for religious reasons is most promi ...
Notes
References
External links
Love Thy Neighbor: The Evolution of In-Group MoralityBy John Hartung ''Skeptic'', Vol. 3, No. 4, 1995. Includes the responses of Israeli children to the account of the Battle of Jericho in the
Book of Joshua
The Book of Joshua ( he, סֵפֶר יְהוֹשֻׁעַ ', Tiberian: ''Sēp̄er Yŏhōšūaʿ'') is the sixth book in the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament, and is the first book of the Deuteronomistic history, the story of Isra ...
.
{{Religion and topic