Gwynnie+R’s+2017+OpEd+Article

=Stop the Indoctrination of Dogma! = = = == ==

 I have always felt different from other people. When I walk into the room I am always a minority. So how is it that a Caucasian female living in Southern California can walk into a class and be a minority? It is not physical. It is not emotional. I do not have a mental illness that separates me from the rest. What minority do I represent?

Well here it is. I am not religious. In fact, I am an atheist. My mind body and soul and pure from the evil that is indoctrination.

Now the point to me writing about this topic is not to call religion out as the hoax that it is, but to educate people on how truly unfair it is to indoctrinate small children with its teachings.

When my brother was in the second grade, he rode the bus with a boy that came from a very Christian family. This young boy asked my brother if he believed in God. My brother then explained that his family was not religious. The other boy then proceeded to tell my brother that he was going to burn in Hell after he died because he was not a believer. Now how could you blame a kid for saying such a thing when he was probably taught this intimidating rhetoric by his parents?

This is why indoctrination is so detrimental to a child’s ability to think for themselves. When you teach them young that religion is the only thing that will save them from the burning pits of Hell, their only option is to become a believer. The same goes for morality. If you teach children that the only way to become a moral person is through the teachings of the Bible, they are forced to believe that morality is only obtainable through religion.

Indoctrination of children is one of the reasons why almost 75% of all American say they are of a religious affiliation (according to Pew Research 2015 consensus). When you brainwash a kid it leads to a vicious cycle that gets passed on throughout the generations. If you have grown up in a religious household, have attended church your whole life, and have been told that you should live your life based on the word of God, you are never able to to form your own opinion on religion.

In the United States, there has yet to be a president with no religious affiliation. With the majority of the country being religious, it is no wonder that most people would want a religious man in charge. But my problem is when the religious backgrounds of these presidents influence their policies that affect my life. With our current president Donald Trump, his administration is trying to shift government policy based on the teachings of Christianity. He threatens to shut down Planned Parenthood based on the Pro-Life movement, when only 3% of the organization is associated with abortions. He threatens to get rid of birth control and the Plan B pill. The president should not be able to make decisions about my nor any women’s reproductive health based on the teachings of the Bible. Additionally, the new board of education under the Trump administration is proposing that public and private schools should no longer teach evolution to the students. Religion is science without the evidence or facts. So why study science that has been proven when you can just have faith that God created us all? Don’t tell me that religion does not affect me, because it does. And when you teach children that the Bible is the full truth, they grow up to run the government based on its teachings.

The fact that a majority of young children are being force fed the dogma of religion really infuriates me. People are doing their children a disservice to teach them to turn off their brain at such a young age. It causes the younger generations to reiterate the rhetoric of the Bible without ever giving them the opportunity for them to find God on their own. My problem is not with religion itself. If you grow up and eventually want to believe an all powerful man in the sky is somehow looking after you, then fine. But don’t indoctrinate the children that may eventually create policies for our country based on the principles found in the Bible.

As mentioned before, I am in the minority. But I am proud to be. I was so fortunate to grow up with parents that allowed me to think for myself. They taught me to think about everything, to question everything. Religion does not allow children to think for themselves. The questions about religion that cannot be answered are covered up with the idea of just having faith. To allow children to be free of dogma while their minds are still developing, will give way to a future generation of thinking people. So do your kids, or your future kids a favor, allow them to think! If they come to find God themselves, than at least they did so on their own. I hear God is supposed to be a pretty forgiving man, so I think he will allow your kid into Heaven even if he did not believe for a few years in the beginning.

This was not meant to offend anyone’s religion. I just do not understand some aspects of religion that people just choose to ignore. For example:

If there are starving kids and human suffering all over the world, why do you think he is going to take the time to help you win your high school basketball game?

If God is so powerful why can’t he provide the cure for the diseases that kill our loved ones?

How is that an atheist that lives their whole life morally, helping the needy, spreading kindness, living selflessly, will somehow end up in hell, but the serial killer that eventually turned to God after brutally raping and killing innocent young girls will be saved?

How is it that a person that shoots up a gay bar, killing loved ones will end up in heaven for “doing the work of god” but I as an atheist will not?

How is it that you can believe in a God with no actual proof that he ever existed or does exist?

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">If you can answer any of these questions with a response other than “just have faith” or “God has a bigger plan than we can’t understand” then I would be able to humor the idea of becoming religious. But I would much rather live my life as a good human being then to just be a good human being so that my ass can be saved when I reach the gates of heaven. I would rather rot in the pits of hell than spend all of eternity in a place full of self-righteous people that spent their physical life trying to save themselves.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I get that religion isn’t all bad. The ideas in religion of kindness, tolerance and acceptance of all are all very important. For me though, I do not need to be religious to still try to live by these ideas. As long as the believers do not force me to believe, I am fine with other people practicing whatever they want. But I feel that I do not need to be a part of an exclusive dogma where the goal in the end is self-serving.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">So do yourself a favor, think before you accept any dogma. And do your kids a favor by allowing them to question things before they take on something as a way of thinking and a way of life.