Indoctrination makes me sad.

I have a much young sister, who just turned eight. My parents are raising her Catholic, as is to be expected, complete with CCD. As she is so young, my parents have asked me not to say that I am atheist, or talk about what the means, as not only is she young (and immature for her age), she also has OCD tendencies that would make this a bit harder for her to bear, as she is high strung to the point that anything outside of her status quo highly upsets her. As they are her parents, as well as mine, I have been more than happy to respect their wishes. I do not really talk about my "faith" to others very often as it is, it's a private thing and so on.

However, my sister has recently been making this harder to do. Ever highly observant, she has realized that I never go to Church when I am in town. I sit at home, sometimes claiming that I am ill, sometimes just glossing it over and staying out of sight before they leave. My parents assist in these ruses by either collaborating that I am ill or that I need to stay home to do some important task or another.

While I do not like the idea of lying to a child, this instance I can somewhat excuse, as I do not think she could understand why I do not attend Church. I don't know if she could even understand the idea of "not believing in God." She is also impressionable, so there is also the point that my parents want her to be impressed in the direction of their beliefs, which is their right as her parents. My parents' brand of Catholicism is not horrible, even if it didn't satisfy me, so there are worse faiths for her to be indoctrinated into.

This whole long screed is to give some background into an incident that happened this past weekend.

We were eating out, having a decent dinner, when my sister turned to me, and said, "Sister, do you go to Church?"

I paused, unsure of exactly what to say. I knew that my sister was too young to understand my reasons, too young to separate religion, belief, and going to Church, and that it certainly wasn't the time and place to try to explain things to her. So, I said, "occasionally," which isn't as large a lie as just saying, "yes."

My sister then repeated a long speech, obviously something she had been told rather than something she had thought up herself, where she informed me that if I didn't go to Church, I hated God. Since I only went sometimes, it simply meant that I disliked God, or that it was okay but I should go more often (she wasn't too clear on this point, making it more obvious that she was repeating some nonsense someone else had taught her, as whenever she repeats herself and gets sentences confused, she's trying to reproduce someone else's thoughts).

As you might imagine, this was rather uncomfortable. My parents had this blank look on their faces, and I knew this wasn't their style, so it was almost obvious where she had picked this up. At her religious education class.

This hating God nonsense was a form of emotional blackmail her teachers presented my sister with. I was appalled. I understand where it came from, as it was an easy way to rationalize with children why they should go to Church, as children being raised as believers naturally channel some of that blind, sweet love they give to those they care for into God. They are taught to believe in and love God, and many of them likely do it wholeheartedly. My sister is very big on loving people she cares about (she says "I love you" to her family quite often, and writes it on every picture and card she gives as gifts), so she likely is more than happy to love God, too. As she loves God, she goes to Church.

While it's an easy way to guilt children into going to Church and sitting through it, it is still horrible beyond its face value. There are plenty of people who do not attend Church, and I doubt many of them do it because they hate God and want to spite him. But, beyond the obvious logical flaws and horrible squick factor of that statement, it also teaches children some harmful untruths about nonbelievers. Anyone who isn't Christian, who doesn't attend Church faithfully, who doesn't believe in God does it because they hate God, not because of any rational decision. That idea of willfully turning one's back on God, rather that just not believing, is born from this "hating God" crap. It undermines the decisions of people who choose a different path or just do not believe in God. By this logic, I hate God. I don't, obviously, because I believe He doesn't exist.

I had always wondered, somewhat, where these ideas used to discredit me, pity me, and dodge my points (poor baby, hating God, he loves you! Why do you hate him?) came from. I always thought it came from only fundies, who obviously exchanged notes and came to these silly conclusions. I was just sad to see it in the Catholic Church, being spread to children, especially when it was obviously something my parents didn't endorse.

I was too shocked at the time to say anything (and I knew it was useless to reason with her on this), but I really hope my parents have some sort of talk with her. I just don't want her faith to grow along those lines. I don't need a fundie little sister, thanks, especially as in a few years, my husband and I will end up being her legal guardians in the event of an accident involving the deaths of our parents.

It's just saddens me to see what some people do with the impressionable, naturally loving, minds of children.