Challenge those who want the religious
label applied to mere children for they are religious groomers
I have more authority to invalidate and end my religious label than anybody, including the pope, including Jesus, including my parent, has to put it on me. Religious labels are a breeding ground for fear. Fear maintains them. Why else do people go to such lengths to impose them? There is more going on there than worrying about what the neighbours will say. It is about boxing in "my own" and othering everybody else.
I have a special and particular right to abandon the label if it was stuck on me by a priest at the baptismal font.
Putting a religious label on the child is the least justifiable of all the labels you might put on a child. It is an attempt to unduly influence or force a religious label on the child for life. Nobody can ultimately control the religious identity of their children and nobody has the right to. A child is not public property and a label tries to get it treated as if it is.
The popes have occasionally refused to condemn violence
against religious minorities if they felt that to say nothing was best for those
carrying the Catholic label. Other leaders have done something similar so
they can look like global peacemakers but at the same time they are looking out
ultimately for their own people. That is an outrage if the "own people"
are only label carriers. What about the children that have to be allowed
to die for the sake of the label that others carry?
Labelling the child as say Catholic is used as an excuse for putting her or him
in a Catholic school even though putting people of all religions in a school
promotes integration and acceptance and tolerance.
Not all will agree with the child being labelled at all.
Not all will agree that the label put on the child is warranted. Christians hold
that if Mormons call their children Christian this is wrong for Mormonism is a
perversion of Christianity and is not Christian.
Labelling a child as an adherent of any religion is as nonsensical as labelling
the budgie a Catholic because its owners are Catholic.
Putting the child through the initiation ceremonies of baptism and confirmation
is often only making her go through the motions and encouraging her to be
dishonest when she can't make a free and rational decision to believe and
especially if she has made a decision that religion is just superstitious
nonsense. Only a believer who has thought it through and made a genuinely free
choice should be considered to be an adherent of the religion she or he joins.
Labels can create pressure on the child to stay in the religion and think of
himself as an adherent. Christians are dedicated to Christianity by baptism and
confirmation at their baptism. They are told they are obligated to stay
Christian forever. Some bullies say that once you are Christian, you should not
be taken seriously if you convert to something else for "Once Christian always
Christian".
If the child can be defined under one label why not another? Why not describe
the child of terrorist parents as affiliated with their terrorist group?
It is startling how people can say things like, "Religion is the biggest cause
of wars on the planet" and "The last thing we need is a new religion appearing!"
and then stick a religious label on their child.
Telling a young child there is a higher authority than their parents leaves them
open to manipulation by anyone who can convince them they know the will of that
authority. Given how contradictory and open to interpretation religious texts
are, this has historically proven simple to do even with adults.
Should We Label Children Based on the Religious Beliefs of their Parents?
Religion should not make it obligatory for its members to pass on the faith to
their children. It is none of the religion's business.
Even if parents have the right to encourage you to believe, it does not follow
that it is their business what you believe.
Labelling instead of letting the young be free to chose, leaves to them feeling
unconnected to their religion. They cannot take ownership of the religion or its
beliefs. Sometimes sectarians hate their own religion and take it out on other
ones.
Labelling a child say a Catholic, insults faiths that say all children are born
into their faith or religion until the parents turn them into something else. In
Islam, you don't convert but revert. The Muslims reason that we have an innate
faith in God and sense that there is a holy book and prophet even if we don't
know the details. We have enough to make us Muslim by birth even if our society
is wholly Christian. It does not matter if some Muslims don't know enough about
their faith to be offended. They are still being insulted.
Some say that it makes more sense to say that a baby is born into a religion
such as Islam than to say it can be put through a ceremony that puts it into the
religion. If the religion or label is natural then the ceremony contradicts
this. They say that neither position makes sense but a child becoming a
religious member by birth is not as foolish as saying the child needs to be
changed by a ceremony into a religious member.
Labels are often based on assumptions. Primarily, this is usually an assumption
of faith - a belief in the divine, whether the child has come to the decision
that they believe in God or not. These assumptions also carve the world up in
simplistic categories and ignore plural religious identities and the increasing
number of interfaith families whose members are adherents of diverse faiths and
none.
To talk about a Christian child or a Muslim child, is putting the religious
structure before faith. It is putting what you want the child to be thought as
before what the child wants to be. The child has not and cannot make an informed
choice. It will be harder for her or him . Such a label is at best meaningless
or at worst abusive. Adults impose belonging to the religion on the child.
