Childhood Religious Indoctrination is Psychological Abuse

We are here today to consider the question of whether or not Religious Indoctrination constitutes Psychological Abuse. My opponent has graciously provided some definitions of psychological abuse that include various forms of emotional abuse as well. As he recommends, I will focus on his third definition, showing that among other things, religious indoctrination in children is/are instances of: "----- Terrorizing (committing life-threatening acts; making a child feel unsafe; setting unrealistic expectations with threat of loss, harm, or danger if they are not met; and threatening or perpetrating violence against a child or child's loved ones or objects)." "----- Exploiting or corrupting that encourages a child to develop inappropriate behaviors (modeling, permitting, or encouraging antisocial or developmentally inappropriate behavior; encouraging or coercing abandonment of developmentally appropriate autonomy; restricting or interfering with cognitive development)." "----- Isolating (confining, placing unreasonable limitations on freedom of movement or social interactions). " "----- Unreliable or inconsistent parenting (contradictory and ambivalent demands)." "---- Neglecting mental health, medical, and educational needs (ignoring, preventing, or failing to provide treatments or services for emotional, behavioral, physical, or educational needs or problems)." (Source: http://pediatrics.aappublications.org... #'s 2, 3, 6, 7, 8) I would further like to offer definitions of some terms (all from dictionary.reference.com): Indoctrinate - to instruct in a doctrine, principle, ideology etc., esp. to imbue with a specific partisan or biased belief or point of view. Ambivalent (ambivalence) - the coexistence within an individual of positive and negative feelings toward the same person, object, or action. I think all other terms are appropriately clear from their context. *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* I would also like to briefly address my opponent's opening arguments. The notion that the church would disclose information regarding psychological abuse is an unwarranted inference; in fact, a much more logical inference would be that they would in fact HIDE such information to prevent its coupling with the sexual abuse scandals. Second, primary socialization cannot be an excuse for religious indoctrination, as "mainstream society" contains many different religions, all with competing viewpoints on particular topics. Furthermore, since no one religion is prevalent among a majority (or perhaps even a plurality) of the populace, "normal social mores" can only be those mores that are common to all religions, making this assessment fairly useless, as indoctrination by its nature would require beliefs that are outside the "norm." On a final note, my opponent's speculation on the motives of Richard Dawkins are immaterial to this debate. Farming passages from a book not written about child socialization and then attempting to discredit them by a straw man insertion of a fallacious appeal to authority (as well as to conformity) does not advance his case whatsoever. The arguments for the abusive nature of religious indoctrination is quite clear to anyone who has seen "Jesus Camp" or "Prayers for Bobby." I shall rest my case until my opponent begins argumentation in earnest, or otherwise develop my arguments on the aforementioned points from his definition of psychological abuse in a later round. However, running short on space, I shall leave the resolution where it stands, AFFIRMED.