CHILDREN ARE PSYCHOLOGICAL EGOISTS
Should we treat children as psychological egoists? If children are sometimes
altruistic, the fact remains is that they think of themselves most of the time
or nearly all of the time.
If children are psychological egoists then to tell them there is a God has the
following results:
# They will believe that they are more important than this great being. The
result is arrogance.
# They will believe that he should be the slave to their needs. The result is
arrogance and “I want it and I want it now! Stomp! Stomp!" They will soon expect
that of other people too.
# They will believe that God should favour them and their friends and ignore
everybody else.
# They will be resentful and angry when they feel God lets them down.
# Telling a child that if he doesn’t get the bike he prayed so hard for he will
get something better from God is just cruel. A spoilt child gets everything he
wants and ends up expecting instant gratification all the time. Are you not
trying to make your child feel spoiled by God?
# A child is a natural would-be magician. Her prayers are not what they seem to
be - they are really spells. The child is trying to manipulate creation.
# A child tends to blame the table if she hits her leg against it. This is
animism - the thought and perception that non-living things are really alive and
have responsibilities.
# Nobody has the right to get a child to behave by having that child fearing to
offend God by doing wrong. A child should not have to fear a being whose
existence cannot be proven.
# Love the sinner and hate the sin will make no sense to a child. And children
feel free to be as bad as they want to be. To tell a child to hate sin is simply
to tell the child to hate. When a child is scolded or disciplined, the child is
sullen and resentful. The child sulks. They more than anybody do not believe
that they are loved when that happens. They do not believe that the real target
of the reprimand or discipline is the sin. Love the sinner and hate the sin is
the foundation of God religion. Without it the whole thing collapses.
Children judge actions to be bad purely on the consequences of the action and
disregard whether harm was intended or not. This is a fact of psychology. Also,
they base their judgement on the relatively immediate impact. They think the
dentist is bad just because he pulls teeth. They think that if their favourite
toys are destroyed in a fire that this is worse than somebody taking one of
their toys and deliberately burning it. To tell them that God is in control and
watching all things is making them endure a being who they perceive as a bully.
It is child-abuse.
Children's simple way of thinking means that when the parent or school or
minister or priest tells them that God is their father, they will feel let down
when their prayers are not answered or when they cut their hands or suffer a bad
fall. Parents that allow this risk to their child are a disgrace. The child will
respond to it the same as she or he would if she or he was abused by a parent or
neglected. If the children are sexually abused they will wonder why God didn't
protect them from the abuser and blame themselves.
If children find their parents to be careless or neglectful or abusive, they may
take comfort in the parenthood of God instead. This can lead to a failure to
respond to the parents when the parents try to make things right. Where the
child is encouraged to see God as the only real parent and Father the child will
compare this idealised parent to his or her real parents. The parents will
inevitably go down in their estimation. The children end up feeling worse about
their parents and the relationship may be polluted forever. Perhaps one day it
will be completely ruined.
Children are encouraged to put their whole life in God's hands and to be
confident that he knows what is best for them. This is bizarre. Evil by
definition is that which is uncontrollable in itself - confining it is not
controlling it and God is said to confine it. So it follows that God might not
do what is best for an individual for it will destroy or damage his plan. There
is a bigger number of people to consider.
It is of extreme importance that children are treated correctly and with love.
Anything that risks damaging them should be discarded and that includes
religion. Religion has no reality check - it conditions people to fail to see
that if it is wrong that it is wrong. That is dangerous in itself.
Parents might say, "None of that religion and God stuff did me much harm." Not
much? What a good endorsement of religion! Also, they may have recovered from
the harm or buried it deep so that it is still there but they are less conscious
of it. You hear adults claiming that being beaten senseless by the Church in its
homes for children did them no harm. Do not believe that. They must think they
have reasons for saying nothing.