Why Does God Hate Children?
By Carl S ~
If you believe anything in the Old Testament, one of the evils of a non-Israelite religion was sacrificing children to a god. But the Israelites killed the children of their neighbors in their deity’s commands to commit genocide. (It's as if the Israelite's were telling those children that one way or another, they would be killed for a god.) If you believe the Old Testament claims, millions of infants and innocent children were drowned by the god of Israel, Islam, and Christianity, in a great flood which covered the earth.
If you believe anything in the New Testament, you might believe an infant was born to be a sacrificial victim to appease a god - a common demand of many other gods. Another belief pertains to a king, Herod, who orders the slaughter of thousands of children under the age of two, in his effort to destroy a “new-born king." Truly, their deaths were not prevented by the God of Israel, who got his son out of harm’s way, but not one of them. In a macabre way, their deaths were a "birthday gift" of sacrificed children for that god-man; and their deaths are celebrated by Catholics at Christmastime. It's what you might call traditional religious morality; sacrificing a child is the ultimate commitment, absolute proof of loyalty to gods. Even the Incas sacrificed their children.
From "Panati's Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things," by Charles Panati, comes this information, in re, "London Bridge”: " But the remainder of the twelve-stanza poem reflects an ancient superstition that man-made bridges, which unnaturally span rivers, incense the water gods. Among the earliest written records of this superstition are living people encased in the foundations of bridges as sacrifices. Children were the favored sacrificial victims. Their skeletons have been unearthed in the foundations of ancient bridges from Greece to Germany. And British folklore makes it clear that, to ensure good luck, the cornerstone of the first non-timber London Bridge, built between 1176 and 1209, was splattered with the blood of little children." Sure they were sacrificed to the water gods; but with the non-intervention of the God of monotheism. Throughout human history, this is that god's policy.
Let's move on from the bloody sacrifices of children to the unbloody abuses of children. (Meanwhile, let us not forget the tens of thousands of bloody vaginas and anuses since then, the result of being penetrated by pedophile clergy members. They were set up by this god, via, "let the children come to me.")
From the aforementioned Panati book: "Another favorite book enjoyed by children in the late 1500's was John Foxe's ‘Acts and Monuments,’ popularly titled, ‘The Book of Martyrs.’ Replete with text and illustrations of raging infernos consuming sinners, of saints in the agonizing throes of martyrdom, and sundry Christians being stoned, flogged and beheaded, the book was among the volumes most widely read in the late 16th century."
After 1662: "Regular books, written expressly for children, were called ‘heaven and hell’ tomes. They were dogmatic, moralistic, and intended to strike terror and shape behavior in the young. The predominant theme was that life on earth led irrevocably to an eternity in hell - except for the mercy of God."
What of child abuse in the 20th century? "Spare the rod and spoil the child," from the Old Testament, still reigned. In the summertime of my childhood, one could hear the cries of children beaten by their parents, and these went unreported because they were considered to be bad from birth and were parental property. Richard Dawkins, in his book, "The God Delusion," reports on Christian mental abuses, citing “Hell House" as a prime example.
A movie based on actual events, "The Magdalene Sisters," tells the story of decades-long mental, physical, and emotional abuses inflicted on children in Ireland. In that same country, pedophile abuse was covered up by the authorities, in deference to God's holy Church. In Africa, the Army of God conscripts children to become soldiers. During the Iran - Iraq War, children became martyrs for Islamic Iran, after being exploded in minefields.
Sacrificing a child is the ultimate commitment, absolute proof of loyalty to gods. If you believe in a monotheistic god, then you must know this god is telling children that Islam/Christianity/Judaism is the one true religion to die for. They are told the interpretations of "God" by their teachers are the only true ones. Children are being taught to kill for their god. Children die of neglect because their guardians pray to that god rather than take them to where their problems will be tended to.
Right now, you are probably saying, "Okay, you've made your point. What's that to me?" Well, if you notice, things don't change until someone is personally affected. To quote Melinda Gates: "You have to let your heart break. That is what moves you to action." The actress Liz Taylor came out in the fight against AIDS when she saw many of her colleagues dying from the disease, as did Michael Jay Fox in his fight against muscular dystrophy, when he was afflicted with that disease. Victims of rape, child abuse, spousal abuse, etc., have joined up to eliminate those traditions. So too, ought the victims of religious child abuse join together and be heard.
Getting personal, I ask: Are you or anyone you know, affected by religious child abuse? If children of one faith are taught that children of other faiths or of no faiths are inferior, to be ridiculed and/or shunned or despised because they are destined for eternal torment, then those "other" children are your own. If Christian children are home-schooled, a.k.a. indoctrinated to believe, among major things, that the Earth is ten thousand years old, that the great flood as deserved punishment actually happened, that humans are innately immoral by nature, how does that affect them when they must enter the reality of a billions of years old Earth, the absence of evidence for that flood, human natural-born goodness etc., etc.? They are poorly prepared to deal with the realities of life. (As Aldous Huxley said, "Facts do not cease to exist because they are denied.")
How does religious schooling affect their adult lives, and what effect do these beliefs have on your children and you, and their relationship with the rest of society when their indoctrination has become learned habitual gullibility? Will they not someday join their teachers in voting against the human rights you and your progeny are entitled to, based on their inherited ignorance and fears of divine punishments from any of the manifold interpretations of "God?"
Why is the monotheistic god so much like other gods in demanding the sacrifices of children in some form or another? Even as so many of us become more attuned to the needs of children, we must ask: Why does this god still hate children?
If you believe anything in the New Testament, you might believe an infant was born to be a sacrificial victim to appease a god - a common demand of many other gods. Another belief pertains to a king, Herod, who orders the slaughter of thousands of children under the age of two, in his effort to destroy a “new-born king." Truly, their deaths were not prevented by the God of Israel, who got his son out of harm’s way, but not one of them. In a macabre way, their deaths were a "birthday gift" of sacrificed children for that god-man; and their deaths are celebrated by Catholics at Christmastime. It's what you might call traditional religious morality; sacrificing a child is the ultimate commitment, absolute proof of loyalty to gods. Even the Incas sacrificed their children.
From "Panati's Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things," by Charles Panati, comes this information, in re, "London Bridge”: " But the remainder of the twelve-stanza poem reflects an ancient superstition that man-made bridges, which unnaturally span rivers, incense the water gods. Among the earliest written records of this superstition are living people encased in the foundations of bridges as sacrifices. Children were the favored sacrificial victims. Their skeletons have been unearthed in the foundations of ancient bridges from Greece to Germany. And British folklore makes it clear that, to ensure good luck, the cornerstone of the first non-timber London Bridge, built between 1176 and 1209, was splattered with the blood of little children." Sure they were sacrificed to the water gods; but with the non-intervention of the God of monotheism. Throughout human history, this is that god's policy.
Let's move on from the bloody sacrifices of children to the unbloody abuses of children. (Meanwhile, let us not forget the tens of thousands of bloody vaginas and anuses since then, the result of being penetrated by pedophile clergy members. They were set up by this god, via, "let the children come to me.")
From the aforementioned Panati book: "Another favorite book enjoyed by children in the late 1500's was John Foxe's ‘Acts and Monuments,’ popularly titled, ‘The Book of Martyrs.’ Replete with text and illustrations of raging infernos consuming sinners, of saints in the agonizing throes of martyrdom, and sundry Christians being stoned, flogged and beheaded, the book was among the volumes most widely read in the late 16th century."
After 1662: "Regular books, written expressly for children, were called ‘heaven and hell’ tomes. They were dogmatic, moralistic, and intended to strike terror and shape behavior in the young. The predominant theme was that life on earth led irrevocably to an eternity in hell - except for the mercy of God."
What of child abuse in the 20th century? "Spare the rod and spoil the child," from the Old Testament, still reigned. In the summertime of my childhood, one could hear the cries of children beaten by their parents, and these went unreported because they were considered to be bad from birth and were parental property. Richard Dawkins, in his book, "The God Delusion," reports on Christian mental abuses, citing “Hell House" as a prime example.
A movie based on actual events, "The Magdalene Sisters," tells the story of decades-long mental, physical, and emotional abuses inflicted on children in Ireland. In that same country, pedophile abuse was covered up by the authorities, in deference to God's holy Church. In Africa, the Army of God conscripts children to become soldiers. During the Iran - Iraq War, children became martyrs for Islamic Iran, after being exploded in minefields.
Sacrificing a child is the ultimate commitment, absolute proof of loyalty to gods. If you believe in a monotheistic god, then you must know this god is telling children that Islam/Christianity/Judaism is the one true religion to die for. They are told the interpretations of "God" by their teachers are the only true ones. Children are being taught to kill for their god. Children die of neglect because their guardians pray to that god rather than take them to where their problems will be tended to.
Right now, you are probably saying, "Okay, you've made your point. What's that to me?" Well, if you notice, things don't change until someone is personally affected. To quote Melinda Gates: "You have to let your heart break. That is what moves you to action." The actress Liz Taylor came out in the fight against AIDS when she saw many of her colleagues dying from the disease, as did Michael Jay Fox in his fight against muscular dystrophy, when he was afflicted with that disease. Victims of rape, child abuse, spousal abuse, etc., have joined up to eliminate those traditions. So too, ought the victims of religious child abuse join together and be heard.
Getting personal, I ask: Are you or anyone you know, affected by religious child abuse? If children of one faith are taught that children of other faiths or of no faiths are inferior, to be ridiculed and/or shunned or despised because they are destined for eternal torment, then those "other" children are your own. If Christian children are home-schooled, a.k.a. indoctrinated to believe, among major things, that the Earth is ten thousand years old, that the great flood as deserved punishment actually happened, that humans are innately immoral by nature, how does that affect them when they must enter the reality of a billions of years old Earth, the absence of evidence for that flood, human natural-born goodness etc., etc.? They are poorly prepared to deal with the realities of life. (As Aldous Huxley said, "Facts do not cease to exist because they are denied.")
How does religious schooling affect their adult lives, and what effect do these beliefs have on your children and you, and their relationship with the rest of society when their indoctrination has become learned habitual gullibility? Will they not someday join their teachers in voting against the human rights you and your progeny are entitled to, based on their inherited ignorance and fears of divine punishments from any of the manifold interpretations of "God?"
Why is the monotheistic god so much like other gods in demanding the sacrifices of children in some form or another? Even as so many of us become more attuned to the needs of children, we must ask: Why does this god still hate children?
Comments
Post a Comment