{"id":245,"date":"2017-02-03T00:02:50","date_gmt":"2017-02-03T00:02:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hippy.com\/hip\/uncategorized\/forcing-religion-on-children\/"},"modified":"2017-02-03T00:02:50","modified_gmt":"2017-02-03T00:02:50","slug":"forcing-religion-on-children","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hipplanet.com\/hip\/ask-the-old-hippie\/forcing-religion-on-children\/","title":{"rendered":"Forcing Religion on Children"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\tHi Old Hippy!
\nI would like to ask you what do you think about parents (and society, in
\ngeneral) forcing children or teenagers to submit to their religion?<\/span><\/p>\n

I was raised in a catholic country (Portugal) and attended a catholic
\nschool and I hated it! I don’t understand how people can be raised and
\nbasicly forced to have a certain religion if they aren’t even old enough to
\nknow what religion or spirituality is.<\/p>\n

I think everyone should have the
\nright to choose their own religion whenever they feel like it! I think
\nreligion (at least *some* religions) and spirituality contribute a lot to
\nour well-being and help us open your minds and deal with life better, but why do people on this planet constantly force others to share the same
\nreligion as them? I mean, I know it’s part of the country’s own culture,
\nbut is it really necessary? I wouldn’t mind living in a society where every
\nperson has a different religion and is equally treated and respected!<\/p>\n

I
\nthink
\nChildren are very easy to influence. I myself wasn’t, thank God!!! Can you
\nimagine, if I had been influenced easily by my parents and the community in
\ngeneral, I’d probably be a strict narrow-minded catholic asshole instead of
\nthe liberal open-minded person that I am! I will never force my kids to
\nhave a certain religion or follow a certain spiritual path, I think that’s
\ngross and totally unfair, I can’t believe there’s millions (or probably
\nbillions) of people that do that. What a weird planet!<\/p>\n

Anyways, what do you think about this? \ud83d\ude09 I would appreciate having your
\npoint of view on this.<\/p>\n

Thank you!<\/p>\n

Peace,
\nAntiloop<\/p>\n

Yeah it really sucks how religion is forced down our souls from the moment
\nwe’re born in some cases! And the things done to us in the name of religion
\n(circumcision for one, forced sex with priests is another)are crimes against children. And yet it continues.<\/span><\/p>\n

Freedom of religion. Yeah as an adult you can FREELY choose your religion,
\nbut as a child you have no choice (oh, but wait… didn’t you choose your
\nparents?). So you see there’s another way of looking at it that implies
\nthat you choose the circumstances of your life before you’re born, so that
\nyou can have these experiences and learn from them.<\/p>\n

So now you are a more enlightened person for having learned how religion is
\nabused and used as a form of mind control by society. Most people never
\nreach that point of awareness because they’re so wrapped up in the illusion
\nthat their organized religion has created.<\/p>\n

As a cultural meme, religion is used to communicate important information
\nthat has survival value to its members. It helps keep people together and
\ngives them a pretext for helping each other in times of need. It comes down
\nfrom our clan\/tribal roots, but religion really fucked up when it became
\ninstitutionalized. Too much power in the hands of a few.<\/p>\n

And now religion is being used as a pretext for rallying people for a new
\nWorld War. As has been done before. These people never learn their
\nlessons, and thus repeat them over and over, lifetime after lifetime.<\/p>\n

-The Old Hippy<\/p>\n

Posted by: skip
\nViews: 19176
\nTopic:15\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi Old Hippy! I would like to ask you what do you think about parents (and society, in general) forcing children or teenagers to submit to their religion? I was raised in a catholic country (Portugal) and attended a catholic school and I hated it! I don’t understand how people can be raised and basicly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ask-the-old-hippie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hipplanet.com\/hip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hipplanet.com\/hip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hipplanet.com\/hip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hipplanet.com\/hip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hipplanet.com\/hip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.hipplanet.com\/hip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hipplanet.com\/hip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hipplanet.com\/hip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hipplanet.com\/hip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}