Pushing Christianity Onto Children is Emotional Child Abuse

Before I start, a key thing to note is that we don't have a perfectly clear definition of "emotional abuse". Are we talking about intentional abuse, or unintentional abuse? If it's the former, then many Christian parents will readily tell you that they are raising their Christian children with the best of intentions. Christianity itself does not say to intentionally emotionally abuse children. If you are arguing Christianity as a command to emotionally abuse children your resolution would be incorrect. --- Two of your points can be combatted right off the bat. 1 - "Before a Christian child can think for themselves, they have already been convinced, through indoctrination, that they are worthless and deserving of eternal torture." `2 - "...they must live believing this their entire lives." In response to 1, Christianity teaches people that they are not worthless. They are actually taught that they are created in God's image, and Christianity also teaches that God (the most important being ever) takes personal interest in letting a person have free will to see how they will pass the test of judgment. Christianity offers meaning to a person's life, by explaining where they came from, why they were put on earth, and where they will go where they die. I would argue that pure atheism-nihilism is the view that supplies no meaning to one's life in juxtaposition (the meaning instead comes from one"s own personal conclusions). A purely scientific and materialistic contemporary view of the world tells us that we are nothing more than atoms bound together in a pattern was basically an accident of evolution and entropy. Compared to getting meaning of life from a higher power, the meaning of life that comes from materialism/atheism/nihilism is very shallow (right now we aren't concerned with whether or not Heaven is real, the point is that the idea itself, no matter how outlandish, gives people meaning to their lives). Christianity does not try to shame kids by telling them they deserve Hell, it tries to deter them from ending up in Hell. In response to 2, being an exchristian atheist who as a child who did believe punishment in Hell was possible, I'm a living counterexample. I no longer believe I will be punished in Hell for not "accepting Jesus' sacrifice to pay for mankind's sins". I'm over it, and so are a lot of other people. --- Yes, it is a fact that children are taught that Hell is for the sinners and a sinner is he who forsaketh God. Children are not taught that they will be sent to Hell with 100% certainty though. They are taught that good people go to Heaven and bad people go to Hell. As long as the children know they can be good and thus get into Heaven for sure, Hell isn't a threat to them. All you need to do to be "good" is to accept and love God and Jesus' sacrifice. Again I would like to point out that Christianity is not shaming kids by sending their worthless souls to Hell, it's attempting to deter them from being sent there. Christians think Hell is real and they are doing what"s best for their children, in their minds. Are you saying that children have to compete with Jesus for parental affection? This seems unlikely because Jesus died 2000 years ago and at most the parents can talk about how much they love the historical character that they treat like an invisible, undetectable but real spirit. The parents can't do anything more than that. However since the children are real and right there in front of them, the parents can have bonding time / physical affection / etc. I don't see how the undetectable hypothetical spirit of a dead man prevents any of the things you listed. I also think it preposterous to assume Jesus is the "favourite child". --- Now that I've responded to your key points, here is the guts of my argument: Christianity isn't the source of spiritual and emotional abuse, it's the afterbirth of an enlightening spiritual paradigm. Christianity answers questions like "why am I here? For whom am I here?". The answers that people came up with 2000 years ago turned out to be wrong, but you have to start somewhere. If a child is not taught to use their introverted thinking, that's the real problem. If a child is not taught to question "is there a Heaven? Is there a Hell? Is God real? Was Jesus a Lich?", then that's the problem. If a child is not taught to question things they are told, and to seek verification of everything before they believe it, they end up believing myths and superstitions. Christianity is not the only source of myth and superstition (like Hellfire), so are Islam and Judaism. If you are pointing fingers, you should point some of them at the other religions that Christianity plagiarized too, and you should be claiming that all religions with a Hell are emotionally abusive to children.